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Notices, Help With Problems and Your Forum Ideas... => Computer Help => Topic started by: GWR-Kris on February 05, 2013, 11:26:36 AM

Title: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: GWR-Kris on February 05, 2013, 11:26:36 AM
First off this is about the Fibre Serive through normal phone line not Virgins fibre optic service.

I'm currently with Sky for everything, phone, line, BB and Sky. Im getting around 4-6mb BB service and recently BT sent a letter through about their fibre service. Which offered better speeds.

Has anyone upgraded to this new BT Fibre, Whats peoples opinions on it. Is it worth it. I would prefer to get it through SKY than BT, but BT has a better offer.
Title: Re: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: tim-pelican on February 05, 2013, 12:28:42 PM
The technology works, typically with a lot less of the "up to" problems than ADSL, in part because the copper runs are shorter and so less variable.  (Neither BT nor Virgin run fibre to your house).  The copper to my house gets about 6M on ADSL "up to 24M", whether BT or Sky; my FTTC lines both get around 40M down / 10M up, and I know plenty of people on the 80/20 service who are getting very close to that.

My ISP service is provided by my employer, so I can't comment on what BT Residential actually provide on top of the connectivity.

Except for Virgin, any ISP you buy fibre from (including BT Residential, the part of BT that sells to you) will be using BT Openreach to connect from your house to the exchange, so the technical capability should be the same.  You're doing the right thing by looking at the package, pricing, how good the service is, etc.

Is it worth it?  I'd say definitely yes.  The extra downstream is nice, but the extra upstream is a total game-changer, if you ever upload photos, videos, send emails with large attachements, work from home on a VPN, etc.
Title: Re: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: Karhedron on February 05, 2013, 01:21:25 PM
We got BT infinity installed just last week and I have to say I was very impressed with the service. The engineer came and connected up the new Hub and we were up and running very quickly. They also gave some handy devices that enable us to use ethernet through the plug socket. These are perfect if you have devices that are not wireless. Again these were very easy to use and we had the whole lot up and running in less than an hour.

I have not checked the download speed but it is fast enough to stream HD content directly to the TV with no buffering so I am quite happy.  :claphappy:
Title: Re: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: Tank on February 05, 2013, 02:12:05 PM
Another BT Infinity user here.  I had the normal BT Broadband but got less than a megabyte, or even less most of the time.  It also cut out every few minutes - so I couldn't so some things on the forum.  Once BT Infinity came out we ordered it and have never looked back.  We've never had less that 38mbps, and it's never disconnected.  Also the wifi is a lot more powerful than the other 'BT Hubs' that we had previously. 

Well worth every penny in my eyes. :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: Fratton on February 05, 2013, 05:34:17 PM
Having major connection issues at the moment  :( :scowl: and may be inquiring with BT about this myself  :drool:
Title: Re: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: Calnefoxile on February 05, 2013, 05:34:48 PM
Stop bragging you lot.  :drool: :drool:

I can't get Infinity because I'm directly connected to our local exchange as I live within 1/2 a mile (as the crow flies) of the exchange, and BT won't pay for the connection, apparantly I have to lobby my local MP to get the Council to pay for it.  :veryangry: :veryangry:

Ahh well will have to stick with ADSL for the time being.

Regards

Neal.
Title: Re: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: Fratton on February 05, 2013, 05:38:59 PM
BT infinity availible where i am from March 13th, hmmmmmm, the mrs might end me for that one but the trick is to make it her idea  :D
Title: Re: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: GlenP on February 05, 2013, 05:56:27 PM
I will be ordering mine in a week's time! Just waiting for the contract with BT to expire (I moved into a new-build 18 months ago and it was the only way to get free line installation) and I'll then hunt around for the best deal. PlusNet are favourites at the moment.

I get about 2.8Mb at the moment (on a 2Mb line - I must be the only person in the UK to get significantly better speeds than promised) so I reckon it's well worth upgrading.

Glen
Title: Re: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: GWR-Kris on February 06, 2013, 08:31:05 AM
So do you keep the exisitng copper line or will they replace it for a fresh one.

As im with Sky do I need to tell them if i move to BT or just place the order. Do I need the MAC code from Sky?
Title: Re: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: Chinahand on February 06, 2013, 10:01:47 AM
I've had BT Infinity for 4 months now and I can't speak too highly of it. So far I've had no down times (touch wood) and I'm getting a Download speed of 23.2 Mb and Upload speed of  2.41 Mb. Their Desktop Help programme is also very good for sorting out any problems you might get.
Title: Re: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: jonclox on February 12, 2013, 09:46:40 AM
Our BT exchange is one of two Hampshire rural exchanges that have 'won' connection to HS broadband link up by spring of this year.
Within the last 2 weeks a HS cabinet has been installed oposite us so I shall be watching this thread with interest as I want to get a descent connection speed ASAP ::)
Title: Re: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: GlenP on February 12, 2013, 06:01:56 PM
I placed the order today! Installation is a week Friday so fingers crosses.

I went with PlusNet in the end as the uplift for unlimited data was a lot less than with BT. I suspect my download volumes will be increasing significantly.

Glen
Title: Re: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: drchips42 on February 15, 2013, 11:13:05 AM
BT Fibre to the cabinet is only as good as the cables that come from your local phone exchange box. BT cant say if these lines will be good or bad .. hence they say you may get 10 Mb etc..  There are also issues with VPN over this system , it's not perfect but it's a cheap fill in for now. The ideal solution is to get Fibre direct to your house.
Title: Re: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: tim-pelican on February 15, 2013, 12:37:05 PM
Quote from: drchips42 on February 15, 2013, 11:13:05 AM
BT Fibre to the cabinet is only as good as the cables that come from your local phone exchange box.

Well, the cables from the *street cabinet*, not the exchange (hence the 'fibre to the cabinet').  These are typically much shorter than the copper all the way back to the exchange, so less to go wrong.  That's essentially all FTTC is - moving the DSLAM from the exchange to cabinet, which in turn lets you run VDSL instead of ADSL.

Quote
There are also issues with VPN over this system , it's not perfect but it's a cheap fill in for now.

Assuming you're talking about the 1492-byte MTU issue I'm seeing mentioned in several forums, it's a router and / or config issue, not a BT one.  The BT FTTC product is perfectly capable of carrying unfragmented 1500-byte IP packets in a 1508-byte PPPoE packet; if either your router or your ISP can't deal with mini-jumbo frames, then change the offender.

Quote
The ideal solution is to get Fibre direct to your house.

I hope you have deep pockets or a lot of patience :)  FTTP-on-demand is out there, but you're looking at north of £1500 install, and still thousands a year for the fibre loop, before your ISP starts charging you on top for bandwidth consumed.
Title: Re: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: drchips42 on February 16, 2013, 09:02:36 AM
"Assuming you're talking about the 1492-byte MTU issue I'm seeing mentioned in several forums, it's a router and / or config issue, not a BT one. 

Ahh a BT worker LOL, The router is normally BT's own .. so unless you train folk to use there own router  , then there always will be that " black " area  that has to be addressed.
Title: Re: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: tim-pelican on February 16, 2013, 11:26:32 AM
Quote from: drchips42 on February 16, 2013, 09:02:36 AM
Ahh a BT worker LOL, The router is normally BT's own .. so unless you train folk to use there own router  , then there always will be that " black " area  that has to be addressed.

Nope, but I *do* work in the industry, and might have caused confusion for people who aren't aware of how it all works by glossing over the fact that there are three different BT companies (and they *are* separate companies) involved.

BT Openreach are responsible for the infrastructure.  They provide the fibre to the cabinet, the VDSL DSLAM in the cabinet, the copper to the premise, and the VDSL modem attached to the copper, which presents an Ethernet port onwards.  They supply the guy who turns up to do the install, but they don't have any contractual relationship with end-users.

BT Retail (sorry, I wrote Residential earlier) sell Internet service over this infrastructure.  They buy, from BT Openreach, a service connected to the DSLAM.  They connect their router to the Ethernet port on the BT Openreach modem, and they pick up the corresponding PPP session in the exchange.  Other ISPs are allowed to buy the same service from BT Openreach in the same way and at the same price, as long as they pay to install equipment in the exchanges to pick up the PPP sessions and provide their own Internet connectivity from there on.

BT Wholesale also buy the connectivity service from BT Openreach, but rather than put their own routers behind the modem, they resell the circuit to other ISPs.  The difference is that BT Wholesale aggregate connections from the exchanges and backhaul them all to one or more interconnect points, so the ISP only has to have their own equipment in a few locations, rather than in every exchange where they want to provide service.  The ISP is free to attach whatever router they want to the customer side of the connection, or even to provide a "wires-only" service and let the customer use their own router.

Both the BT Openreach and BT Wholesale parts of the service support the mini-jumbo frames, full size IP packets, and have no issues whatsoever with VPNs.  It's down to the ISP, their equipment and their config riding on top of the connectivity service as to whether the end customer sees any problems or not.

I have no idea if BT Retail are supplying a router which can't handle mini-jumbos and hence has VPN problems (and potentially problems with other sites that don't handle path MTU discovery correctly).  Other ISPs are definitely supplying a router / config that doesn't have these issues, without the customer needing to do anything with their own router.  I have two running to my house right now.

None of the branding / marketing exercises help clarify this, especially since most residential customers don't know how BT was split up, and assume that the BT Retail product must somehow be better or the "real" product, when really they're just another customer of BT Openreach.

"FTTC" or (incorrectly) "fibre broadband" is the BT Openreach and / or Wholesale connectivity, can be sold by any ISP.
"Infinity" is BT Retail's Internet product built on top of BT Openreach's FTTC.

Virgin have their own infrastructure outside all of this, but aren't obliged to open it up in the same way Openreach are.

Sorry for the long post, hopefully it's of at least some interest or information.
Title: Re: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: Malc on February 16, 2013, 05:26:49 PM
Just a quick question Tim, why does VPN use require mini jumbo frames? I've out of touch with WAN, but the only time I've come across mini-jumbo is with Fibre Channel over ethernet (2500 bytes).
Title: Re: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: tim-pelican on February 16, 2013, 11:53:35 PM
It's the PPPoE overhead, Malc.  If something on your LAN sends a 1500-byte IP packet (1514-byte Ethernet frame), by the time the router's put PPPoE headers on it, it's a 1508-byte packet which translates to a 1522-byte Ethernet frame.  This won't go out of a "regular" Ethernet interface, so either gets fragmented, or returns a "too big" ICMP error so the sender can work out to send smaller packets.

In theory, path MTU discovery (PMTUD) sorts all this out and both ends agree on the largest packet size that works, but over-zealous firewall admins frequently break it.

It gets worse for VPN specifically, because there's *another* layer of encapsulation (IPSec, GRE, SSL shim, or whatever), the effective MTU gets even smaller, and there's another set of devices or programs which can fail to do PMTUD correctly.  A lot of the time, the VPN part will assume a 1500-byte MTU and account for its own overhead against that, but not deal very well with a 1492-byte MTU (8 bytes lost for PPPoE).

By making just the Ethernet segment from the router outwards (so no changes on the customer's LAN) deal with 1508-byte packets / 1522-byte Ethernet frames, the LAN side can ignore all of this and carry on running at 1500-bytes IP / 1514-bytes Ethernet.

Similar issue to FCoE, in that you've got something bigger than 1500 bytes that you *really* don't want to fragment...
Title: Re: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: Malc on February 17, 2013, 02:46:08 PM
Thanks for the info Tim, now I know. It doesn't affect me as I am a Virgin Cable user and I don't use VPN.

Regards
Malc
Title: Re: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: GlenP on February 22, 2013, 05:43:16 PM
My FTC connection went in this morning as promised. It was a relatively painless process! It turned out that I did have an internal master socket - fortunately it was the one in the "play room" where I wanted the router anyway.

It took about an hour and a half to get everything installed, connected and for PlusNet to activate.

Running Speedtest on the upstairs laptop (the one connected by Gb Ethernet to the router) shows the full 70Mb+ download speed and 15Mb or so up - a massive improvement on 2.5Mb down! Web pages tend to just appear now.

I've tried the VPN connection to work as well and no apparent problems there (I have an alternative connection via an SSL portal anyway if it had proved to be an issue).

Glen
Title: Re: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: buckle247 on February 22, 2013, 08:03:31 PM
Quote from: GWR-Kris on February 05, 2013, 11:26:36 AM
Has anyone upgraded to this new BT Fibre, Whats peoples opinions on it. Is it worth it. I would prefer to get it through SKY than BT, but BT has a better offer.

Depends what you use the connection for? Just web browsing and the odd video, 6mb is more than adequate.

If you have a couple of people in your house trying to browse, stream HD or game simultaneously then it would be well worth the upgrade. Or if you regularly download big files.

I am around 500m from my cab and get 38mb. Cables less than 350-400m tend to not lose much speed, after that it starts to drop off quicker.

As for FTTP, its available. BT charge £35 a month for it, for 160mb. Only a handful of exchanges offer it at the moment. Not sure what the initial install charge is.
Title: Re: Upgrading to BT's Fibre Service
Post by: GlenP on February 22, 2013, 08:10:49 PM
I will say I probably wouldn't have bothered if I was getting a decent speed before, however living at the end of a long bit of string from the exchange meant the signal was always iffy!

Glen