When I first moved into my house (in the summer of 15), I set up my intertubes connection with Talktalk (because BT were being incompetent) and was getting a download rate of 3.2MB/s. Not exactly something to brag about, but it was simpler times, when the internet was in black and white and delivered by the postman. After about two years, the speed dropped to...wait for it...0.8MB/s. I called up and asked about it, but was given the run around. This was also happening about the same time I changed jobs and was only spending every other weekend at home, so I had more important things to worry about. After a while, I changed to Royal Mail for a year (heh, the postie really did end up delivering my internet) as it was half price for a year, but it was no faster. I then switched back to Talktalk after the promotion was up and still the speed remained the same. Oh well, I remember getting internet for the first time ever when I was a young'un, downloading 3MB files over the course of a day with that incredible 4.8KB/s modem. I accepted it for what it was, but it's now getting a bit unmanageable. I haven't been able to watch Amazon or Netflix at the higher settings; additionally, I have to check Steam or the like isn't updating something prior to watching. Some websites (Bricklink springs to mind) actually time out frequently as the connection is so damn slow. Now that we're under lockdown and working from home, things are exacerbated when my laptop (both personal and work) decide to download several things at once. Not to mention the 'hilarious' upload speed I have. I thought about switching over to mobile only, but I get terrible reception where I live and the speed is about the same, with the added bonus of randomly cutting in and out. So, does anyone have any thoughts on how I can solve this? I imagine an expensive street work request to lay new cables is about the only option.
I'd raise a stink with the current providers, give them a couple of weeks with regular calls, and then raise the same stink with Ofcom instead if they don't do ****. The end result might be a lot of shoulder shrugging, but it might work. It does, obviously, depend a bit on what the infrastructure where you are is like. Sounds like it might be a small village type situation, or a city centre situation. I don't imagine there's much to be done for either.. Are there any other alternatives? Off the top of my head I'm thinking cable, or microwave internet (A couple of customers had it (one at home), and it was orders of magnitude better than what they could achieve with any cable). But that last one might be expensive.
Definitely get Ofcom involved. Since mid-March, there is now a USO* requiring a minimum 10MB/s down 1MB/s up from ISPs. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-tel...vice-for-consumers/broadband-uso-need-to-know * Universal Service Obligation
I do live in a 'sort of' village environment, but even so, it's still technically in Stoke. I might look into what you've suggested That's handy to know. Even that would make things much more tolerable as I'm basically averaging 6Mbit/s.
Are people nearby getting similarly awful service? If hitting Openreach with the Ofcom stick doesn't work - and if you can get enough signed up - laying fibre to the area (or laying a single fibre link and setting up a community WISP) may be an option with far better results than going to a consumer-facing ISP, albeit one that pretty much then becomes your job for a few months to set up.
My parents' first ISP Good point - I did ask my neighbours a while ago about this, but they never got back to me as they're not into using it for anything beyond 'normal, non gamer' stuff. I do run into them quite often when I do my gardening, so I'll ask again.
I had the same issue here at my mother's years ago. I started out on 02, it was gash. I changed to Tiscali, it was gash. Changed to Zen, it was gash (and £50 a month, not including line rental). Turns out that no matter who I went with it would be gash, because of the old BT lines. It was all the same, basically. The fact is the old lines were massively overloaded, but BT did not want to bother paying to fix it. There were no LLU at the time so I just had to put up with it until I moved out. Years later Talktalk put in a LLU. It was OK I guess. Better than before. Then a couple of years ago they put in fibre, so she's on that now. It sounds to me like no matter who you go with they will be renting lines with BT (the same cack one you are on now).
Have you tried all asssorted mobile providers, get a selection of pay and go sims you might find it will work for you, a friend of mine did this via three as he could get 50Mb over the air and 3Mb on fixed line until they finally upgraded his exchange.
This is exactly correct. Probably the biggest misconception in the country right now in this area is blaming a particular provider for the quality of a connection. People say things like "oh we had Talktalk but it was so slow and unreliable, so we switched to Virgin and it's been fine ever since!" Usually what's happened is their nearest exchange or cabinet had some overhauls and upgrades around the time they switched. We're all beholden to Openreach. Every other provider just rents their hardware and is at their mercy - I know some providers have their own kit in some cabinets, but it's still only a part of the pipeline and it still makes almost no difference compared to the normal factors of distance from the cabinet, distance from the exchange, quality and type of connections between each of those. When you complain or report a fault, your provider just phones Openreach and asks them to sort it. That's the full extent of their involvement. There's no such thing as your provider sending their people out to check on things, they just ask Openreach to send their people. And the quality of the connection is almost always down to the Openreach hardware. Occasionally it can be due to wiring issues or old hardware, extensions, faulty sockets etc. in your property, but most of the time it's just the phone lines, the cabinets, or the sheer distance between them. And with those things, only Openreach can help. And you can't call Openreach. You can just keep pestering your ISP so they'll pester Openreach. It's a ridiculous situation.
There's a little nuance on top of that: Openreach manage the last mile (the cable between a socket in the nearest exchange and the demark socket in your house) physical link, and providers can just resell Openreach's network product from that exchange plug up to the handoff to their (the ISP's) network, though many will take that last mile link and plug their own headend gear into it - for better or for worse. Any problems with that last link fall right down on Openreach to fix, and problems upstream (exchange side) or downstream (the box with das blinkenlights on your shelf) are not. However, all the sorts of QoL nonsense than can turn a service from usable to crap (random latency spikes, traffic shaping, deep packet inspection, metering and throttling, contention, etc) are on the ISPs. There's also the proactiveness with which your ISP will chase up Openreach to handle last mile issues, and how well they work with Openreach (e.g. put in a ticket for "this link dun not work good" and then twiddle their thumbs, vs. a big pile of filtered and analysed log data and pre-navigating the support flowchart). There's also Virgin Media who operate their own coax network (and sell it as 'fibre' because they're lying bastards), numerous startup providers who run a fibre link to large apartment buildings so they can service a few hundred customers while digging up the street only once (the expensive bit), and rural ISPs who generally seem to be doing a good job of laying fibre close to at cost without too many corners cut.
Aight edzeiba you need to stop knowing so much about everything, because you're making me look bad, kay?
Thankfully Zen were quite forthcoming. They told me it was quite simply because BT had over sold the lines and they were being destroyed by over use. The exchange box was two miles away, and BT would not pay for the LLU. I think talktalk did in the end.
I would gladly do this, if it wasn't for the crap reception we all get in my neck of the woods. Occasionally I do switch one laptop to my mobile if I need to get something done ASAP and Windows is downloading something, but it can cut out halfway through. I'll just drop it. Yup. I wish I'd been more vocal when my connection speed mysteriously dropped in the first place.
Virgin & Openreach both campaigned to allow them to use the phrase "fibre internet" in the majority of the circuit was fibre. So any circuit where it's fibre to the green box (so FTTC or DOCSIS) can call itself fibre even though it's copper to the house. I'd also argue that FTTP is also technically cheating as it uses PON rather than traditional fibre (like with a "leased line" circuit)
Living near Stoke definitely puts that into my list of suggestions! Used to go to Bute street a lot for work. Boy did Stoke make me sad.
