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[Alex Atkin UK]

Yeah Vodafone is the cheapest I've seen.  If I weren't on social tariff on Three, I'd have been mighty tempted to get it as a backup.  Although I do prefer the idea of not having the backup on the same fibre (though no idea if Three still follow the same route so may be as likely to hit backhoe issues).

[XGS_Is_On]

The best most can do other than mobile masts which may well use CityFibre or VMO2 ducts is CityFibre + Openreach/PIA altnet.

I would be, however if I get another CSP on the front of the house Mrs T will begin seriously investigating ways to get my life insurance to pay out.

[Alex Atkin UK]

The masts are in an interesting position as I know the Vodafone/O2 mast has its own ducting heading off towards the exchange.  It could go the majority of the way back to the exchange without mixing with my fibre bundle as its the opposite side of the road that at some point my bundle must cross to get to the exchange, but that probably doesn't happen until much closer to the exchange as its a reasonably straight run of ducting down that main road for miles.

The Three masts are slightly different, the nearest one only appeared after VM fibred the area and its unclear if VM come up the street the same way as FTTP does, or goes down the main road.  Given its the opposite side of the road to Voda, its likely the former.  Plus I didn't see VM laying their own fibre, just ducts to connect OR to their cabinets, so its possible they are just leasing OR back to the exchange anyway?

I did try to figure out the route the E side bundle takes back to the exchange once, but its complicated as its all ducted and seems to run through the local park.  I'd probably have to figure out what the estate looked like in the 60s to get an idea if that is actually how they did it.  Plus of course the fibre might take a different route as those ducts are more likely to have failed and be water logged now.

I'd love to see an actual map of the fibre routes, but I'd imagine that's quite sensitive information.

[snadge]

@ ADSLMAX - that's brilliant for them, to be 100% honest, I just wanted to be right off the “BT Bandwagon” – it felt like I was on a 'Government run' ISP!

Anyway,

I'm off to Aquiss FTTP900 on the 8/11/23 for £41 a month (first 12 months), £55 after that with no yearly CPI increase, I've got my new router to set up, I got the TP-Link Archer 73 on offer with £75 off!, I opted for that over the 72, as it was the same price with the offer, and has a Broadcom 43684 SoC, a 1.5Ghz Tri-Core CPU with 6×6 MU-MIMO long external antennas with OFDMA and Beam forming.

Compared to the BT SH2 which is a 250Mhz dual-core SoC, with basic 3×3 internal antennas, it should be great in comparison – also the SH2 has only 4 x 5Ghz channels to choose from which is very poor.

I've noticed a lot of latency lag (LAN) at tea time with BT too, always tea-time.

I can't wait to move, Martin has been great, though (IMO) the lack of a dedicated forum is a big 'hurt' to his business, a 'dedicated' forum is where Aquiss users could help each other and help take the load off him, as he seems to be doing it all by himself. Yeah, you can go to any forum and ask, but not everyone knows even what a forum is! Or, where to ask? Which one?

All ISPs tend to have their own dedicated “community” – heck even if it didn't have paid staff, at least noob's could 'puddle together' in a place they are familiar with (by being told about it when signing up), and experienced forum users can help resolve, all without Martin getting involved. This is something that have concerned other Aquiss customers, it doesn't worry me as I know where to ask, but “Joe Bloggs” wouldn't have a clue.

I think it would also help attract more customers.

[adslmax]

@snadge

Good for you, I don't blame you at all. I know Martin from Aquiss, he seem nice guy and great smaller isp business. Let us know how it goes. Good luck and you got the good excellent router TP-Link Archer 73 - good choice! 

[snadge]

Thanks ADLSMAX - I'm impressed with the Archer73 so far, 'MAC changes' I spotted, and loads more for me to investigate yet, I got the router the other day, but I just opened it today, and have spent this morning setting it up, at first I set it up for Aquiss, but then thought, nah…these should work on my BT too – so a quick 'start page' search, and 2 minutes later I got it up and running on my BT until the switchover, in which I just have to change the login data, at worst reset router and re-do it.

Still not the channel choices like I had on Zyxell (full spectrum range), still got the basic 4 to choose from on the 5Ghz (all used), which has pee'd me off a bit, because 5Ghz is choked here and the 'radar' ones don't seem to work with my TV, which (for “£2000” has a crapy 100Mbit LAN) – no good for me, I need 200+ and USB-to-ETH gadgets don't work for me.

anyway it works good so far, I can't wait to be switched.

[meritez]

Which Archer73, v1 or v2?

[snadge]

dont know? why would it matter??

I just read loads of articles that said it was a good router - brand new just a few weeks ago = still sealed, so likely v2, but cant say for sure

go on depress me... whats worse about one to the other

[adslmax]

you can find the label under the router if it was v1 or v2. I think v2 are better latest hardware.

[snadge]

It's an AR73 v2, I wonder what the differences are? — I chose this over the AR72, cos I've always found Broadcom (over 72's Intel) to give the best connectivity and throughput, and it had 3 cores instead of two, and once being £175 (now £99) I thought it would be a great router – but seems the Wi-Fi woes I'm now having are either due to my TV's compatibility, or, the router is too close, or…. More likely, the whole neighbourhood has signed up to FTTP and will have router set at default to use max Wi-Fi bandwidth, they should have a tutorial; about it all during set up, for those who don't know why their Wi-Fi is cutting out, and what they can do to keep it within their own walls - for the most part - like power strength, shrinking channels to make room for neighbours and such.

I have not enabled MU-MIMO (doesn't work on 5Ghz only, needs both 5 and 2.4) – I can get JUST over 200Mbps on the TV on 5Ghz “AC mixed” on "40/80" only – I can't have the full 20/40/80/180 MU-MIMO 'whack'— I even tried lowering its power too 'medium' to see if that helps as its just 4 inches (ca. 10 cm) from the back of the TV, in the higher mode my mobile would MAX out at 350 (it's ceiling) but the Netflix speed-tester says FAILED! Opposite mode, I'm happy enough, just a bit angry that they can't advertise something as 54000Mbps when in true reality it can not get anywhere near that speed – those figures are without overheads. and as if the antenna were almost touching each other, and are compatible (setup) devices that allow them to put these numbers (il)legally on the box.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Still not the channel choices like I had on Zyxell (full spectrum range), still got the basic 4 to choose from on the 5Ghz (all used), which has pee'd me off a bit, because 5Ghz is choked here and the 'radar' ones don't seem to work with my TV, which (for “£2000” has a crapy 100Mbit LAN) – no good for me, I need 200+ and USB-to-ETH gadgets don't work for me.

TVs have 100Mbit LAN as their video decoders are designed for streaming services so do not support more than this.  What's your use case exactly for needing a link faster than their video decoders support?

I have not enabled MU-MIMO (doesn't work on 5Ghz only, needs both 5 and 2.4

MU-MIMO is to be able to service more than one client at the same time on the same radio.  The different radios have zero interaction with each other.

[snadge]

Hi Alex,

          I have some ultra-high bitrate 4K video (master compression only), that can go over that 95Mbps limit for a little, which causes it to pause for a short while, every 10–20 seconds - as on video 'over DLNA', it doesn't seem to buffer much, if at all?, almost as if it's streaming directly, rather than buffering during the “quieter parts”, I know because I've tested the LAN with a 65Mbps and 75Mbps “averaged” 4K video, and it kept pausing on big camera action. But on Wi-Fi when it works, it's perfect.

Now for Wi-Fi, the Netflix App on my TV has a good speed test, I can manage to get 265Mbps over it on the TV's Wi-Fi, now, and before - (I am now starting to think that speed may be the limit of the TV, as my mobile hits 350 maxed out!) But every week or two, sometimes days in-between (on the BT Smart Hub 2 anyway) it completely drops in speed to 8-15Mbps or so on the TV (even Netflix or Disney suddenly goes from 4k to SD), or, the connection drops off completely, until I change the SSID and the Password, TV only for connection drops, I have never tested the mobiles speed when this happened, I will eventually if it happens again on this TP-Link AR73, but, my mobile has never needed reconnecting with a new SSID and Password, so the TV obviously has 'some' Wi-Fi issues!

I thought it was because neighbours were overpowering the signal over my TV, the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands (available to me) are all choked, using an app that shows you them all being used on my mobile phone (even the radar ones are!), and now after using two routers, it's obvious the TV Wi-Fi is also poor with issues allowing neighbours or something else to affect it, but when it works, it's faster than LAN.

I also wondered if the router being “too-close” to (right behind) the TV, might have been an issue?, EMI/RFI interference from all the TV's electrics etc??

Anyway, news… I've switched to Aquiss today and all is well with the connectivity and the AR73, speed is 900/110, ping is up 3ms to 13ms, but that is nothing. It's up and running and see how we go?.

Switching was flawless and setting up was so easy my mother could do it haha - even BT messed up and had my 'leave date' as 30/10/23 instead of 8/11/23 (End of Contract date = leaving nothing to pay) and Martin sorted it out instantly!. I'm very happy to be back on my own router, a smaller, "less-known"  ISP (making it unique, more reliable - a real “techies ISP” as I've done before with re-sellers) and not using a supplied 'crappy' unit! on the biggest known ISP in the UK (no offence intended to those who do, which I doubt is many on here he-he)

cheers.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I have some ultra-high bitrate 4K video (master compression only), that can go over that 95Mbps limit for a little

Like I said, TVs use hardware decoders designed primarily for streaming services so if you are using something that high a bitrate its out-of-spec with what the TV was designed to handle.  You're lucky its playing at all.

I'm curious, what specific TV is it?

[snadge]

Hi Alex,

          It's the LG B8 OLED from 2018 bought in 2019 new, reduced from £2000 to £1200 on the advice of users on AV-forums (to wait).

The codecs on the TV and the CPU to decode them are fine, I know, because when I was on Plusnet VDSL using my ZyXELL router on 5Ghz (or using USB stick to test), I never had one issue with the biggest file I have, mind the router was on the other side of the room here, where the copper NTE is, now the new PON NTE is behind my TV (again making me think is it because It's TOO CLOSE to the TV? - I might try to reduce the power output as it optional).

So, it's actually just Wi-Fi - to - TV connectivity that has costant Tx/Rx speed 'connection rate' changes and dropouts (seen on the real time monitor feature, even dropped to '0' and 'off' whilst watching it!), so it seems like other peoples channels are "noising mine out", or, as I say It's too close, and if It's that, I will have to try to move it, but I can't get it far from the TV.

Now, it's been one day of full use of the AR73 on Aquiss, last night (a few times - not normal in one night when it was on BT's hub?) and this morning I've had TV connectivity issues again, not 100% sure on this, but the TV doesn't seem to like it when OFDMA or MU-MIMO is on (but will try it a few times on different channels, only tried it once - needs time for full testing), so, I've had more issues with the Wi-Fi on this new router, I think I need to get it positioned correctly, and the channels rechecked, and manually assigning a channel, instead of using AUTO in the hope it does a better job than sticking to one! - hopefully i can find one that isnt used or weak and use that,

So I have an array of tests to perform, which i will do over the next few weeks getting 'settled in'.

The Internet is perfectly fine from Aquiss.

 EDIT: Im loving the features im finding in the router, it has Line Bonding, VPN, MAC changes, tons of security features, and loads of other stuff I've yet to try (and find) - only issue is the colours, you cant see some of the buttons, the GUI colour is bad and text is hard to read, otherwise its brilliant!

cheers

[gt94sss2]

I also wondered if the router being “too-close” to (right behind) the TV, might have been an issue?, EMI/RFI interference from all the TV's electrics etc??

That is well known to cause WiFi issues