Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => FTTP Rollout => Topic started by: dee.jay on September 21, 2023, 02:41:00 PM
-
So I had a letter through today that VMO2 are building their fibre network in my street soon. VMO2 typically don’t have the most amazing reputation but am keen to know if anyone is on their FTTP network and can share their experiences?
Thanks!
EDIT: - Going to keep a timeline here:-
21/09/23 - Notification of works to be completed by Avonline on behalf of Virgin Media over the next month
17/10/23 - Work begins digging trench in the pavements, all houses marked up with their respective connection points...
-
I've been on VM FTTP since April 2018, only other option is a rather slow VDSL line, or 4G although 5G might be available now.
Reliability and performance has generally been excellent.
I have had connection issues twice, and they were a complete mare to get fixed, had to resort to the forum on both occasions, telephone support were useless. Using modern mode completely throws then, they simply don't understand it. They are also obsessed with WiFi, and can't comprehend that a customer may know more than that do. So customer service/support is terrible on the phone.
Price rises are also relentless, I used to have give 30 days notice to get a decent deal, although on the odd occasion it was actually straight forward.
Now they've written the annual price rise into the contract there is no getting out of it and renegotiating, I think it's RPI plus 4% every April. So now will need to renegotiate at the end of the contract.
My IP address is very sticky, although it's different between modem mode and router mode.
If I had FTTP via OR available then I would not be with Virgin, but day to day performance of the connection is very good, and we don't get any slow downs, not even in peak times.
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/1d6fcf2a6171c36e1ae1f255513a45d3adad717a
-
Looks like it's their XGSPON network and will get a Hub5X. Sounds great, pity there is no modem mode "yet" but I can live with that.
Now, what do I do for a backup? Considering moving AAISP to whatever the cheapest FTTC I can find is and have L2TP over the top for ingress access to the network.
That or move Starlink to the mobile variant and pause the connection and enable in an emergency? So many choices... Should look at 4G backup for home perhaps. If VM build, I should imagine it will precipitate OR and others to build to my house too - I'd be more interested in going 2 x FTTP and load balancing like I do now. It'll still be cheaper than Starlink/FTTC combo :)
-
What, no modem mode on the hub 5???
Unfortunately VM rolling out on our estate didn't encourage OR or any others to rollout. OR did surrounding areas but our estate was too hard for them.
-
Hub5x is different to the hub5. It’s brand new for FTTP.
Modem mode coming but not quite ready.
-
Civils works are in the next street - with "apologies from Virgin Media" - so definitely on the way. :fingers:
-
Not necessarily a word of warning on Nexfibre installs (I assume it is as you mention XGS-PON), more to set expectations - it might be quite some time before you can order.
They did the ground works in my area about a year ago - and only now are the first streets able to order.
-
Hub5x is different to the hub5. It’s brand new for FTTP.
Modem mode coming but not quite ready.
That explains why when I Googled, a hub 5 had modem mode, thanks.
PS IIRC it took ages for us to be able to order - delays elsewhere.
-
It's just as well I have Starlink for now :)
Seeing more and more OR notices on mastdatabase too. Stuff certainly seems to be happening.
-
Spotted a huge pile of traffic management barriers down my actual street, so expecting the dig to commence soon. Now I've got a date of when it's been announced will be interesting to see how long it is before I can order it.
-
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2023/11/virgin-media-o2-linked-nexfibre-publish-uk-full-fibre-rollout-plan.html
-
Good shout.
Indeed my town is listed as "build completed in next three months" - they are building all around my area so guessing it wont be long.
-
Checked a few postcodes around where I live from the active cabinet towards my house and practically all of them come up as available. Who knows what happens in the big VM build/provisioning machine but I suspect I am days away from being able to place an order
-
Checked a few postcodes around where I live from the active cabinet towards my house and practically all of them come up as available. Who knows what happens in the big VM build/provisioning machine but I suspect I am days away from being able to place an order
:fingers:
-
Heh, all of those postcodes I identified, they are all ready because they are on poles. Clearly there must be some other piece of digging work or something outstanding because my street (the next one up the road) is still not available yet. But cabinets and such are in my street so it's not like they've built it just to leave it out, will just take a bit longer. It is what it is.
-
Still waiting... lol
Lots of roadwork notices everywhere in our village though, they clearly haven't finished everything yet
-
Still not available.
Openreach now claim to be less than 6 months away, when only 4 days ago they told me October 2025… I don’t really mind when, but wish they’d make their mind up :)
Think I might wait for OR in that case…
-
It seems often VMO and OR are close together, given VMO use OR ducting for the most part.
Here it seemed VMO waited for OR to clear all the ducts then right before OR were due to install they swooped in fitting their cabinets and short ducts to the OR chambers. It actually delayed my pole as they were originally going to duct it, but it seems the contractor used VMO ducting by mistake (same subcontractor?) which OR can't touch - so it ended up being a new pole to cross the road. So there's a short run of incomplete ducting to nowhere.
-
Other way round here, VMO2 first to duct the street and put toby’s outside all the houses.
-
So the passive cabinet at the top of the street (built by VM) had black electrical tape around it for ages. Mysteriously that tape is now gone… so think someone’s been to look at it
-
Other way round here, VMO2 first to duct the street and put toby’s outside all the houses.
Yeah it was kinda different here as its mostly pole fed, except the maisonettes across the road which perhaps VMO would need to apply for a wayleave whereas OR may already have one? OR did those well before my side of the road and VMO installing the cabinets. Its no doubt documented somewhere on the forum given how impatient I was.
-
So the passive cabinet at the top of the street (built by VM) had black electrical tape around it for ages. Mysteriously that tape is now gone… so think someone’s been to look at it
Pics or never happend. :P
-
And today they announce 2Gbps, and symmetrical upgrades on all packages, very nice.
-
Only if you're on pure fibre, which is very few people.
I have fibre to the house, then a bit of coax, which means I can't even get symmetrical uploads, I'd happily pay £6 extra a month for that.
-
Nearly one million homes already, mine will be as I am in a nexfibre area
-
Lucky you.
About 1/25 of homes passed then. Hopefully they give the option to customers served by hybrid fibre/coax, should be simple enough in most cases to replace the coax with fibre.
-
Well am I that lucky, really?
I'd have far preferred Openreach, but after a 6 figure FTTPoD quote and the fibre first checker being absolutely useless, OR unable to give me any date at all, but last week telling me 6 weeks :D Who knows?
-
Luckier than me ;) I've been told by Blacksheep there's no plans for us to get FTTP as our estate is DIG, whilst all around our estate has FTTP available, basically OR won't spend the money all the time there is easier pickings and I wouldn't be surprised if we never get it, they could just leave the FTTC cabinet in situ for broadband along the ally lines. At least we do have VM, but I'd also prefer a OR choice.
-
Luckier than me ;) I've been told by Blacksheep there's no plans for us to get FTTP as our estate is DIG, whilst all around our estate has FTTP available, basically OR won't spend the money all the time there is easier pickings and I wouldn't be surprised if we never get it, they could just leave the FTTC cabinet in situ for broadband along the ally lines. At least we do have VM, but I'd also prefer a OR choice.
Same for me, DIG copper yet OR claim 6 months they are doing it. Given under the stop sell they don't even have to do 100% of a town, the cynic in me says leaving my street would be really easy because there aren't many streets that aren't DIG... The vast majority of my area is fed by poles anyway. But then, I suppose the other side of that is that the FTTC cabinet would only be there for one street and why would OR want to support it for one street? I'd not thought of it that way round.
However, symmetric packages are not going to be an option even with OR, so maybe that announcement from VM means that'd actually be the best product.
-
Our whole estate is DIG, and I think is covered by one cabinet IIRC.
Symmetric packages could well persuade me to stay with Virgin as well, but I wonder how long before we can have them.
In case you are not aware, if you have an 02 contract you can get a free speed bump to the next tier withe VM.
-
O2 has terrible coverage for me, so I doubt I'll be going there.
-
When I looked a week or so ago you could get a SIM for £6, could be a cheap speed upgrade, no one says you have to use it ;)
-
When I looked a week or so ago you could get a SIM for £6, could be a cheap speed upgrade, no one says you have to use it ;)
OK, you make a compelling argument :D
-
Rang up asking about 2Gbit got told the 14th is when it’s live and they offered to call me back on the 14th so I can order it.
Do phone sales offer better deals than online I don’t know how bothered I can be ordering over the phone.
Mainly due to me being in Portugal on the 14th…
With 1Gb being £45 and 2Gb being £84 I can’t see them doubling the speed for O2 customers.
It mentions being able to get a unlimited sim for £6 on the press release.
-
You could probably BS a sales agent on the phone and say you could get a better offer somewhere else... Where you can't do that online.
-
Here OR is just flat dead, they seem to be barely responding to FTTP competition and officially have no plans. Although I have been given an opinion they likely doing works based on roadworks checker and they just for whatever reason not wanting to announce its planned. I have not witnessed any OR works though other than cabinet stuff.
VM as far as I am aware have not started FTTP works either, although of course VM will at some point.
The new symmetric VM FTTP stuff I think is not on all of their FTTP footprint, just the nextfibre areas.
-
With 1Gb being £45 and 2Gb being £84 I can’t see them doubling the speed for O2 customers..
Unfortunately they have limited it, highest boost is to 1Gb.
https://www.virginmedia.com/virgin-media-o2
Broadband speed boost
A broadband speed boost to the next available level of Virgin Media fibre broadband (up to a max of 1Gbps).
-
Wait, has this made the standard price of gig1 cheaper, even in cable areas? That would be a bigger boon than gig2 itself I think.
-
I’m going for 2Gbps symmetric either way :)
-
Gig2 ordered install on the 17th.
No good volt deal on it either just doubles data as far as I can see.
-
Gig2 ordered install on the 17th.
No good volt deal on it either just doubles data as far as I can see.
Excellent!
-
Also updated to show Gig2 availability here just down the road. Nice to see them finally taking advantage of the XGS network.
Fortunately for me Zzoomm also deployed at the same time and VMO2 just aren't price competitive with them (although until the home network is suitably updated - hopefully this year, I'm sticking with 1Gb).
-
Excellent!
The outdoor stuff from pole to house needs to be done before I can book an install apparently so a delay.
Attached what order shows for speed ranges.
-
That minimum guarantee is curious, surely they don't only have 10 customers per PON? I guess they are counting on the odds of having more than one or two high-end users on the same PON?
Even then, its not like VMO have the best reputation for keeping up with backhaul capacity, though granted that's likely mostly down to the mixed legacy network and hopefully this switch to a entirely modern system will solve that.
-
I think the maximum is even more curious. Is it actually a 2.5Gbps product being sold as 2000? But that can't be - we've seen triallists showing us 2000mbps speedtests.
-
That minimum guarantee is curious, surely they don't only have 10 customers per PON?
No difference to BT offering a 700Mb minimum on a product their supplier guarantees 110Mb/s on a GPON 30 way split.
It's never going to be possible if everyone utilises it all at once, but that's never the case.
-
No difference to BT offering a 700Mb minimum on a product their supplier guarantees 110Mb/s on a GPON 30 way split.
It's never going to be possible if everyone utilises it all at once, but that's never the case.
Its a far higher potential contention ratio on XGS-PON though, given we know OR is only up to 30 customers per 2.5Gbit and not all OR ISPs have a minimum guarantee. I'd expect VMO to be considerable more customers per PON and be more aggressive to get people onto it, off their legacy offerings.
I suppose it is nonsense really given AFAIK the only thing that allows is leaving your contract early, which doesn't solve anything if the alternatives are with the same underlying network.
-
Well it is nexfibre who are building the network, we don't know or can't simply assume they will be overcontended, but a good point...
-
This is actually now cheaper than gig1 lol, VM informed me if I dont renew gig1 is nearly £90. :)
-
That's one of the things that really puts me off VMO, constantly having to haggle a new contract as their "special offer" prices are what every other ISP would consider a normal, sane, price.
-
Alex, that really frustrates me as well, their prices are expensive, unless you go through the whole, haggle, cancel, retentions thing. Just been through it, as I don't have any other option.
-
How much! £84... . I pay you fibre £49 Inc fixed ip. I get 1900/1850 no trouble and occasionally a bit more..
-
My brothers paying £25 a month for 1Gbps symmetrical with Community fibre, even 3Gbps symmetrical is only £49 a month. Only catch is its CGNAT, although it appears the 3Gbps isn't.
-
How much! £84... . I pay you fibre £49 Inc fixed ip. I get 1900/1850 no trouble and occasionally a bit more..
Lucky you! YouFibre will not build my street, so they could be £1/mo for all the use it is to me.
-
The renew price I was offered as a sort of automated retentions deal was £36 but also having to keep the O2 sim going on top of that so a £7 increase, however I will be ordering CF this week, probably today. So I get a number of weeks comparing the 2 services side by side.
VM solved all my packet loss issues I was having whilst downloading, and I want to be sure those issues dont come back on FTTP PPPoE.
VM's non committal pricing has probably screwed themselves, if they let me keep going on my current price on a rolling contract then I probably keep them alongside FTTP. These kind of policies are nonsensical. I might give human retentions one chance to do something sensible, although I expect it will be out of their hands.
-
You've got a huge bargaining chip, as you have CF available, retentions should come up with a much better price, but don't forget to factor in the April price rise.
-
Yep, the problem is I dont want to be tied in.
-
External work done they are side by side the wires even run parallel.
(https://i.ibb.co/CWnKzqv/IMG-2375.jpg)
-
External work done they are side by side the wires even run parallel.
(https://i.ibb.co/CWnKzqv/IMG-2375.jpg)
What does the internal install look like? I presume the fibre goes direct to the hub from the CSP, no internal demarcation "point" as such?
-
Getting like 2100 up and download
(https://www.speedtest.net/result/d/ca963b0a-7086-4f82-95c9-846592501098.png)
Has this on wall and just a single cable going from it to the HH5.
(https://i.ibb.co/RQ1VkfF/IMG-2431.jpg)
-
Very nice, I'd happily pay the £6 for symmetric speeds, but alas its not available to me.
-
Well - Openreach contractors are now down my street, chambers are open and rods are being used.
Think this may now be a race for VM and OR to enable my street at this point! Promising signs indeed, finally.
-
BT Wholesale checker now reports WBC FTTPoD speeds of 1000/220.
I think this means OR FTTP will be available to order pretty soon.
-
Well I didn't think it'd be the very next day!
Openreach checker now has the magic words: -
FTTP is available and a new ONT may be ordered.
-
Very nice, no such news here.
-
AAISP FTTP ordered, install on 22nd
-
Bah, Openreach came yesterday to attempt the fibre pull... blockage. Oh well, civils team time!
-
Bah, Openreach came yesterday to attempt the fibre pull... blockage. Oh well, civils team time!
I did prompt you in readiness for this scenario via PM, in January mate ;)
There are two scenarios (please all, this is in general terms - may differ in some circumstances) ...
1) The estate is a full 'Direct in ground' (DiG) cabled area - known as 'Full DiG'.
In this case, the project will be moved out, as the costs are very high.
2) The estate is a partial 'Direct in ground' cabled area - known as 'Partial DiG'.
In this case, the main feed cables are fed via joint-boxes and ducts along the pavement etc. This allows the FTTP infrastructure to be laid down and connected from HE to the CBT. But, it will still be DiG from the pavement box to the cutomers premises.
When a customer places an order, then the Openreach Service Delivery teams will jump to action and have the necessary remedial civils work completed.
This makes sense as (for example), not all the 100 customers on the estate will require FTTP .... so it's acted upon orders placed.
-
Oh yeah, my neighbour ordered FTTP the same time as me and they were able to pull the cable through. I think the issue at my house is to do with work I had done years ago, maybe cement has gotten somewhere or done something.
We are definitely at least a partial build, as all the fibres and CBT's were installed only last month with ordering going live last week.
-
I did prompt you in readiness for this scenario via PM, in January mate ;)
There are two scenarios (please all, this is in general terms - may differ in some circumstances) ...
1) The estate is a full 'Direct in ground' (DiG) cabled area - known as 'Full DiG'.
In this case, the project will be moved out, as the costs are very high.
I assume this wouldn't be the case in dee.jay's specific scenario where FTTP is already RFS and ordered?
With splitters and CBT's in place already I would hope that worst case scenario would be the possibility of ECC's being applied to an individuals install.
-
I assume this wouldn't be the case in dee.jay's specific scenario where FTTP is already RFS and ordered?
With splitters and CBT's in place already I would hope that worst case scenario would be the possibility of ECC's being applied to an individuals install.
Openreach Engineer chap even said "no charge"
-
I assume this wouldn't be the case in dee.jay's specific scenario where FTTP is already RFS and ordered?
With splitters and CBT's in place already I would hope that worst case scenario would be the possibility of ECC's being applied to an individuals install.
It absolutely would be the case on all 'Partial DiG' estates. The CBT will be left in the joint-box and cabled and spliced through back to the HE, as mentioned.
Once an order is placed by the EU, the stage 1 process takes place and the remainder of the civils work takes place from the joint-box to the customers premises at obviously, no cost to themselves.
When dee-jay reached out in January, the network records showed his particular road as being partial DiG, and as I always mention, this is an indication only and not set in stone.
-
Quick question if I may. I note when it was first showing up as available, it was "KCI2 Assure", then changed to 1 Stage. I assume 1 Stage is the better one to have.
-
Quick question if I may. I note when it was first showing up as available, it was "KCI2 Assure", then changed to 1 Stage. I assume 1 Stage is the better one to have.
This is more j0hn's domain I would humbly suggest, as he is on 'that side of the fence'. But as an educated guess, I would absolutely say 'Stage 1' is the better of the two ..... simply because a job wouldn't progress through to 'Stage 1', without an active order in play.
j0hn's systems/terminology may well be different to mine ..... but it's very simple in my eyes ..... the infrastructure from HE to CBT is fully in place and has gone to CRFS (Customer Ready For Service).
Once the EU places an order, the OR systems will either recognise straightaway that the order requires moving to 'Stage 1', due to the 'Survey Network Notes' that are recorded against each premises (a prime example being a partial DiG estate).
Or, it will go direct to an installation date if the SNN marker states 'Fluid duct' etc etc.
However, as is such, the installation engineers may well find an issue on the day, that then requires it moving to 'Stage 1'.
Either way, relax and let it run its course. You'll soon have FTTP :) :) :)
-
Thank you, as ever.
As we build all our own network, there is still much I don’t know about the big OR machine as whilst we do supply some connections over GEA, I’m not part of that lifecycle from the OR side, though am very involved in connecting those to the network and making sure the L3 service operates.
Also, curious to know exactly what j0hn does. Have suspected he’s in the industry as he’s clearly very deeply knowledgable, but never figured out where :)
-
Yeah, it can be fun watching people post tidbits, like they a regular user, but must be in the industry somewhere to know that information as its behind OR ISP portal or other NDA areas, I always appreciate when people dont mind declaring who they work for or affiliations etc.
-
So some more developments. AA portal showing mid June as install date now, waiting on civils. This is normal practice. However, today, civils team arrived and managed to pull through fibre without any digging required. Even heard one of them saying “I thought this was a direct bury area”. But never mind, they were able to attach fibre to the end of my copper cables, pull those all out and out popped the fibre, now taped up in a coil outside my door, they said they’d be back to complete today/tomorrow.
-
Good news then. :)
My AAISP FTTP should be online hopefully during May, if lucky even April.
-
Civil guy claimed they could finish whole job (including internals) so could be imminent!
-
Well, that's it.
AAISP FTTP is now live.
-
What? No Speed Test? :p
-
Waiting for speed test (include single threaded please if you can).
-
Well I didn't think to grab the URL result for my best result, and turns out I need to rework my internal LAN a bit :D a machine with a single 1Gbps NIC on a stick means you only get 500Mbps and I'd forgotten that, so moving router to a new box.
To follow, but it's in and working and 950Mbps, and I'm done, the end. :D
-
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/1713361838623149855
(https://www.thinkbroadband.com/_assets/speedtest/button/1713361838623149855-mini.png) (https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html?test=1713361838623149855)
-
thank you.
-
thank you.
As you expected?
-
I guess yeah, single threaded on TBB can be a little sporadic, Over 700 I consider a reasonable result. Multi threaded of course looks solid which I definitely expected.
When my CF install is done, whenever that may be I will share the speedtest from that as well, alongside a late VM test as a comparison.
-
Agreed, I see a lot of people on TBB forum blaming Zen for poor single-thread tests but its clearly TBB itself. From the right server I can hit Gigabit single threaded, I don't think I ever once have on the TBB speed test.
-
I've had to wait until after work hours to do a full router swap, so hopefully get that done in the next few hours, managed to point my work laptop at it but v6 is still going over Starlink which I didn't want to touch :D
-
So some more developments. AA portal showing mid June as install date now, waiting on civils. This is normal practice. However, today, civils team arrived and managed to pull through fibre without any digging required. Even heard one of them saying “I thought this was a direct bury area”. But never mind, they were able to attach fibre to the end of my copper cables, pull those all out and out popped the fibre, now taped up in a coil outside my door, they said they’d be back to complete today/tomorrow.
There ya go pal - the prints do allude that the lead-in's are DiG, but not in your particular case. The engineer would (I would hope), have looked at those before attending site, and upon seeing it as actually ducted, grown a wide grin on his kipper. ;D ;D ;D
Real world scenarios always chuck curve-balls. Your estate may well be DiG lead-in's, but (for example) a previous occupant may have experienced issues with their circuit and some time in the past the lads have replaced the DiG aspect with a ducted route to your house ?? All guess work.
However, good to see you've finally got what you've been seeking, for quite a while. I'm on BRSK 1Gig symmetrical and it's fantastic.
-
My install date is this mon 22 for FTTP. :)
Text says might be 3 hours work. O_o
-
Awesome! Are you going with AAISP full time?
-
Thats the plan.
-
This forum is getting quieter and quieter as more of us gets FTTP.
-
The freeing up of copper as people move to FTTP could also be helping those that remain on FTTC.
I regained a large amount of crosstalk speed when my neighbour moved from FTTC to FTTP. My Max speed is back up to 96839 and mostly managing to mask my daily SHINE burst that has caused me so many problems when the DLM kicks in.
My neighbours moved to FTTP because of the daily errors, but with not being technical werent interested in monitoring of line stats and dumping useless ISP modems to replace with one of the BCM based modes. They were using isp modems that just werent able to cope with the SHINE bursts and caused them a fair amount of down time that followed them between ISPs. Typical user who wasnt interested in understanding what they could do, and who thought it was an ISP fault why their "wi-fi" wasnt working. :(
-
FTTC was for some of us a game changer, I certainly appreciated it, previously on Openreach I was on the end of a 50db loop loss line with huge noise ingress on the E side. If you take into account the line would need a high SNRM and interleaving to be remotely stable (without SRA), then FTTC was effectively a 20x to the sync speed whilst been massively more stable at the same time.
I think though as always with UK infrastructure FTTC came too late which shortened its life, then OR made the decision to utilise G.FAST from cabinets only instead of something like vectored bonded 30mhz to replace unbonded unvectored 17mhz, which I think killed copper's use on future products.
Of course once I experienced gig1 on VM, VDSL now feels ancient. Although a service that could hit 300mbit with vectoring and bonding, would have made it competitive against budget DOCSIS and FTTP options. FTTC however if you only into streaming and web browsing type activities, no bulk downloads/uploads, is still very capable, its not like ADSL which has become obsolete for mainstream type usage now.
At least though as you said those who stay behind in FTTP areas, will get an improved FTTC service, probably more akin to the very early FTTC days. Sadly I never experienced what G.INP is like, it never reached my line at all lol.
A final thought as well, if it meant I could live in a nice area, I would actually tolerate going back to FTTC in exchange of that, the town I want to live in is a FTTC area with no FTTP plans, and if the chance comes up I will move there, although I wouldnt move to somewhere which only has ADSL.
-
FTTC was for some of us a game changer, I certainly appreciated it, previously on Openreach I was on the end of a 50db loop loss line with huge noise ingress on the E side. If you take into account the line would need a high SNRM and interleaving to be remotely stable (without SRA), then FTTC was effectively a 20x to the sync speed whilst been massively more stable at the same time.
It certainly was notable, I went from trying to squeeze 3dB SNRm out of an (at least partly) aluminium e-side over ADSL, to 60/20 then ultimately 99/35, until Digital Region went out of business.
I was kinda annoyed having to then move to OR 80/20, knowing it was an artificial profile lock. Of course over time crosstalk would have taken that down anyway, which is likely why they chose those values (as the attainable was a lot lower too, which I assume is the band plan being more conservative to reduce crosstalk with ADSL customers).
It was actually kind of alarming earlier this week to be reminded what things used to be like, as YouTube kept buffering for some unknown reason. Its nice to normally not have to think about what I'm doing, just fire off that download, its not going to cause a noticeable impact to performance.
-
I think I've been lucky to get the speeds I have. I remember when I first moved to where I live now with my now wife, she had ADSLMax BT Broadband that synced at 8Mbps, but did not go above 3Mbps. BT were adamant this was "just how fast it went". Naturally unhappy with this response, I moved us to Sky where ADSL2+ was available and we got the full 16Mbps that Sky did at the time. I noticed the green cabinet being dropped in early 2012, and am pretty sure I was probably one of the first people on it. 40/2 and it was a really nice boost from 16. Similarly, first to jump on Sky Fibre Unlimited Pro (I think it was called) in July that year and got moved to an 80/20 profile where I think I started out at 73/20. Now that was great, and by that point we'd had decent 802.11n routers so WiFi worked pretty well everywhere and that was that.
However, as has always been the case, I think the use cases for internet access have changed as the internet has evolved over the past 20 years. Having seen dialup->1Mbps ADSL - now that was simply mindblowing because of the "always on" ability and not having to worry about the phone bill. It's like we take these massive leaps from access speed in front of what the internet is capable of.
I think this time, moving from FTTC to FTTP however, we're entering an entirely new paradigm in access technology. Companies are selling "1Gbps services" but the reality is that Wi-Fi is now ubiquitous amongst the general population, and we get annoyed if we don't get the speed promised. Well, for 99.999% of cases with FTTP, the speed delivered to the router is exactly as promised.
1Gbps means you are probably quicker than things on the internet, I often see single threaded direct downloads in Windows only really go at 100-300Mbps. On the flip side this does mean I am no longer saturating my connection with a single download. Now, not so bad in my house as it's just two of us, and my wife isn't also downloading all the time, she's a fairly light user of the internet, so no big deal, but I'd imagine in busy households, the extra bandwidth will let everyone share with less complaint.
Get's even more interesting when you've got 10Gbps connectivity and Wi-Fi7 - Have tested both in the lab (and 25Gbps, but that's for another day) and whilst we had 3.9Gbps out of a OnePlus 11 phone, some trickery was needed to get there.
I run a steam cache at home for when I was using FTTC and Starlink as I tend to game on a few different machines - above 3Gbps and you are CPU limited - even on a 12 core Ryzen 9!
-
I still need to tinker with things, disabled US shaping that was in place for VM and ran this quickly.
CityFibre were crazed out I am using pfSense and paranoid it wasnt working, they sat out outside for a while whilst I was sorting out my PPP with AAISP so went outside to tell them everything cool.
TBB same as dee.jay around 700 single and line rate multi.
-
Very nice, one day I might have other options.
-
Getting 900+ single threaded with twitch leecher, so from reputable sources thats perfect.
-
Very nice! Well done.
Today ironically was supposed to be my install too :D
-
For the curious I think my ONT is a Calix GP1000g.
-
Mine's a Nokia. I could tell by the serial number alone.... /sad
-
I logged into my Virgin account last night to turn off marketing as they are phoning almost daily, and noticed an offer for 1 Gig for about £3.70 more than I'm currently paying, couldn't resist so order placed.
-
I logged into my Virgin account last night to turn off marketing as they are phoning almost daily, and noticed an offer for 1 Gig for about £3.70 more than I'm currently paying, couldn't resist so order placed.
Very nice!
-
I logged into my Virgin account last night to turn off marketing as they are phoning almost daily, and noticed an offer for 1 Gig for about £3.70 more than I'm currently paying, couldn't resist so order placed.
Excellent, at least in your case you getting good offers. :)
That pfSense unit you got should handle it easily, VM use IPoE which is nice and lightweight.
-
So now I'm thinking about toying with OpenWRT now :D
-
So now I'm thinking about toying with OpenWRT now :D
Use it for my switches/AP devices. I like it since they they made the GUI official on it.
-
I replaced my router with a Beelink EQ12, added 32GB RAM and thrown proxmox on it, it has 2 x 2.5Gbps NIC's so LACP'ed it to my core mikrotik and seems to be running great to be fair. Installed opnsense it and moved my routing over to it.
-
Excellent, at least in your case you getting good offers. :)
That pfSense unit you got should handle it easily, VM use IPoE which is nice and lightweight.
That's what I thought, and it has 2.5Gbps ports, so I should get maximum speed, although I've just realised I'd need to connect it to my 10Gb switch, currently its on the 1Gb switch.
-
Well I finally got my upgrade to 1 Gig, not sure if they made a mistake with the offer, as I heard no more after the initial email. After a week I posted on the VM forums, and someone actioned my order.
As of this evening:
(https://www.speedtest.net/result/16231739078.png)
-
Gotta love that over-provisioning.
-
Well I finally got my upgrade to 1 Gig, not sure if they made a mistake with the offer, as I heard no more after the initial email. After a week I posted on the VM forums, and someone actioned my order.
As of this evening:
(https://www.speedtest.net/result/16231739078.png)
Guessing you was already on a hub5 then?
-
No, I was on Hub 3.
-
How did you get over gigabit throughout then? O_o
-
They sent me a Hub 5, plugged it in to 2.5Gb ports on my PfSense box, then to my 10Gb switch ;)
I was on a Hub 3 and am now on a Hub 5.
-
Gotcha, nice bonus you on the best hub now then. :)
-
Great result, well done!
-
Why do people need 1gbps download speed? I have 150mbps and I consider it adequate.
Genuine question, by the way.
-
In my case I had 350 mainly to get a decent upload speed, which was 35, I was paying £34 a month.
The April price rise came round, and it was going to increase my monthly charge to £37 a month.
I then accepted an upgrade offer to the 500 package, which increased my monthly cost to £36.24, and no price rise until April 2025, so slightly cheaper and much faster, and with a 50 Mbps upload.
I then logged in to remove marketing permissions, and noticed an upgrade offer for 1 Gig for £40, an increase of £3.74, well for that small amount it would be rude not to, and I also get a nice increase in my upload to 100 Mbps.
Do I really need 1 Gig, no not really, it just a nice to have, and nice to have a better upload speed.
My brother has 1 Gig symmetrical, much cheaper as well, but he uses a VPN between his house and his partners, so the faster speeds really do help.
There's many other reasons, downloading software quicker, uploading to cloud back up etc, it really depends what you use you connection for.
-
Why do people need 1gbps download speed? I have 150mbps and I consider it adequate.
Genuine question, by the way.
Sure I've explained it before but will summarise.
I suffer from fatigue, so when I'm feeling alert enough to game, I want to game NOW. But I often find the game I want to play has an update, and some of those updates are frustratingly large. So being able to download that update quicker means I'm more likely to still feel up to playing the game when its done.
-
Why do people need 1gbps download speed? I have 150mbps and I consider it adequate.
Genuine question, by the way.
For me combination of having so much bandwidth I dont need to traffic shape, this was a bit of a nightmare on VDSL.
Also downloading 100gig games (plus their large patches), as well as things like long several hour twitch streams is far much quicker now, I am a bit impatient on things like that.
Now I finally have access to LAN type speeds for uploads I also plan to start utilising cloud heavily for data backups.
-
Hi Chrysalis, yes I agree limiting and then shaping on pfsense and the like is a total nightmare.
Not needing to shape is ideal, but when using the circuit at full blast a little helping hand is nice.
I have started using CAKE on my ubuntu server router box for inbound and outbound traffic. You don't need to configure anything these days, just use the defaults.
Even the default for bandwidth rate is now 'unlimited' so no need to calculate 80/90% or fiddle with that setting either.
I apply this via /etc/ppp/ip-up
ip link set ppp0 mtu 1500 txqueuelen 1000 state up
ip link add name ifb4ppp0 type ifb
tc qdisc add dev ppp0 handle ffff: ingress
tc qdisc add dev ifb4ppp0 root cake
ip link set ifb4ppp0 up state up
tc filter add dev ppp0 parent ffff: matchall action mirred egress redirect dev ifb4ppp0
tc qdisc replace dev ppp0 root cake
Info: https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/noble/en/man8/tc-cake.8.html
-
I only have traffic shaping on upstream, a helping hand to keep latency down during uploads.
Downloads is more related to how well the ISP end is keeping traffic below the line profile.
-
Hi Chrysalis, yes I agree limiting and then shaping on pfsense and the like is a total nightmare.
Not needing to shape is ideal, but when using the circuit at full blast a little helping hand is nice.
I have started using CAKE on my ubuntu server router box for inbound and outbound traffic. You don't need to configure anything these days, just use the defaults.
Even the default for bandwidth rate is now 'unlimited' so no need to calculate 80/90% or fiddle with that setting either.
I apply this via /etc/ppp/ip-up
ip link set ppp0 mtu 1500 txqueuelen 1000 state up
ip link add name ifb4ppp0 type ifb
tc qdisc add dev ppp0 handle ffff: ingress
tc qdisc add dev ifb4ppp0 root cake
ip link set ifb4ppp0 up state up
tc filter add dev ppp0 parent ffff: matchall action mirred egress redirect dev ifb4ppp0
tc qdisc replace dev ppp0 root cake
Info: https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/noble/en/man8/tc-cake.8.html
Yeah I also have the opinion its easier on Linux systems, hopefully some find your post useful, and I will make a note of it.
-
I’ve never done a “pure” Linux router.
Might try one for grins
Good tip here
-
Why do people need 1gbps download speed? I have 150mbps and I consider it adequate.
Genuine question, by the way.
I don't need it, I just like it :)
-
Why do people need 1gbps download speed? I have 150mbps and I consider it adequate.
Genuine question, by the way.
Good for you, enjoy your 150.
I’ll enjoy my 1000, cheers.
-
I would really 'enjoy' symmetrical 8 Gbps like Mr. XGS :D
-
I would really 'enjoy' symmetrical 8 Gbps like Mr. XGS :D
Yeah me too 😂
-
I would really 'enjoy' symmetrical 8 Gbps like Mr. XGS :D
I wouldn't enjoy the price though.
-
I wouldn't enjoy the price though.
Given how much 1Gbps, 10TB AAISP is… I’d give 8Gbps YF a go.