Been nosing at 'super-fast broadband options', only to discover that the exchange in the Sydenham area hasn't yet been upgraded to this level. After running a search on this site, the topic had pop up a few years back, with BT confirming there would be upgrades between 2008-2012.
Just read some good news that BT have announced new high-speed upgrades to several London locations and Sydenham is one of them. No real time-line on the news release, but most likely (hopefully) by spring time.
As far as I am aware this is only fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) and will be available at the end of this month????
However Forest Hill are getting even faster broadband as they are getting fibre to the customers premises.
pip wrote:Just tapped my postcode in to the virgin website and it says from July onwards.
Virgin use their own cable so are independent of BT. My ISP which uses BT for the last mile returns this for my 020 8778 xxxx number:
Unfortunately, our Fibre Broadband services are not available in your area at this time.
The planned date for the introduction of these services is 31/03/2012.
Super-fast cable-to-premises is only patchily available in Forest Hill. I've got cable-to-cabinet superast and it's pretty good - you don't get drops in speed at peak times and tasks like streaming tv and movies is seamless.
Keep plugging your postcode into the BT website. One day, quite randomly and without warning, you will find your nearest cabinet has been upgraded and brought online and you will be able to get your superfast broadband, even while your neighbours can't.
I thought I'd check up with BT as to the roll out of their new Broadband service.
I'm in Champion Road and their site now lists the start date for my tel no for BT Infinity as 30 June 2012, a few months push back from the original end of March launch.
Still, they did have that good old marketing term of 'starting from', could be upgrading exchanges in sections.
BT Broadband may be letting you down (again). Just done a check with my ISP (which uses the same BT Openreach infrastructure). This is the result:
Results based on telephone number: 0208778xxxx
Broadband Services
Estimated Maximum Download Speed*: 12.5Mbps
Line enabled for "up to 20 Mbps": Yes
Fibre Broadband Services
Line enabled for Fibre Broadband: Yes
Estimated Maximum Download Speed*: 75.8Mbps
Estimated Maximum Upload Speed*: 20Mbps
The estimated broadband speed is spot on what I currently get which suggest the 75Mps is realistic. Question is, should I go for it? iPlayer works fine 'as is' and as there is no 'traffic shaping' by my ISP hence 12Mps is what I get 24/7.
The excellent BT engineer that was around my place nearly all morning said pretty much the same thing. Even watching iplayer etc online only requires around 3mb.
We store and send files online and even with our creaking 5mb copper based service it work fine, although for online backup I wish it was faster. Fairlawn Park gets upgraded on the 30th June apparently.
I'm sure channels will develop some sort of hi-definition that people will rush to buy so they they can watch TV with a microscope in slow motion that will make good use of 75mb, but for the sane I'm with Stuart and I'm sure 20mb will suffice.
I'm on the 40mb sort-of-superfast and it's plenty fast for me. I can watch iplayer like it's live tv - no buffering at all. Previously I had to download the programmes and then watch them.
rshdunlop wrote:I'm on the 40mb sort-of-superfast and it's plenty fast for me. I can watch iplayer like it's live tv - no buffering at all. Previously I had to download the programmes and then watch them.
Aha - but are with an ISP like BT or Virgin who 'traffic shape'?
A euphenism for restricting your thruput at busy periods. This means you only get a small fraction of the quoted/actual capacity which causes these problems. It can mean unnecessarily upgrading to get a thruput equivelent to the lower rate of an ISP who does not 'traffic shape' and having to pay extra. Its a good wheeze for these companies to squeeze extra cash out of you or economise on providing sufficient capacity upstream ...
And BT Broadband do have an appalling record of customer exploitation as I keep reminding their victims!
More benefit likely to come from the greater upload speeds - especially makes working at home, if you're creating content easier and less stressful. Also helps off-site, 'cloud' type backups, as well as running a web server (private or otherwise) from residential purposes.
Easier to support an HD web cam of your garden (or other cherished spot) available to you, wherever you might be.
Just some thoughts about increase to upload speeds.
Had my BT Infinity 2 connected this morning on 020-8778 1xxxx.
Engineers equipment shows 78MB download and 20MB upload.
(Was previous was getting 16MB download and 1MB upload on the up to 20MB)
Have 10 day settling down period, currently getting about 68MB download and 16MB upload.
I do not expect much better as I have quite a long distance copper cable run from the BT cabinet (corner of Lawrie Park Ave / Lawrie Park Gardens)
Well I am also on Infinity Option 2 but "ONLY" get 34 down and 9 up as my Green Fibre box is all the way at the other end of Kent House Lane (I am not connected to the Fairlawn Park or Start of Bell Green lane green box).
For me the upload speed was the most important, compared to Sky, Talktalk and Plusnet the BT package was more suited to my needs, I can''t until they bring in FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) like some lucky sods already have from the Forest Hill Exchange !
Just had a fresh nose on the BT broadband website and my Sydenham postcode has just had the BT Infinity availability date put back from 30-June, to 30-September from today funnily enough.
They seem far from super-fast on upgrading the exchanges!
Sydenham definitely has fibre-to-cabinet broadband now, because I was switched to BT Infinity an hour ago. Up and download are now about twenty times faster than before. Happy Bunny!
I upgraded to Plus Net fibre optic service on Monday and what a difference! Went from a 4 meg line to an average of 65-69 meg. I suspect there's not many users in the Lower Sydenham area at the moment, so the network speed is great.
Have had BT Infinity for about year now (SE23). Great speeds wired, but wifi slow and getting slower. Then connections to the router started to get flakey. Changed the BT router to an Apple Airport Extreme. Super fast wifi and rock solid connections to the many, many wiress devices we have. Range is excellent too - even manages to get past the steel beams in our extension. Moral of the story - upgrade your router to get the full benefit of your superfast broadband.
