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Broadband advice
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Hello everyone, we are having to change our broadband provider but we have always had it as part of a TV deal. We have no idea what speed we need, mainly use it for browsing and will be streaming a lot by using a TV stick.
So, has any fellow fabsters got advice on what speed we need to be looking at so I can narrow down our search? |
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"I'm no techie on this but the best speed you can get is usually best. And you get that with cable. If it's in your area."
We won't be able to have cable, that's why we need to shop around, there are so many out there and we don't really want to pay for more than we need. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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If cable isnt available in your area then ultimately the speeds available are entirely dependent on the quality of the copper between your home and the local exchange. That copper is always provided by BT Openreach even if you take your Broadband from TalkTalk/Sky/O2 etc although they do have their own equipment in the exchanges.
In other words it doesnt matter who you go with what you pay for is the support/customer service if something goes wrong.
Generally rule of thumb (although not a cast iron guarantee) is the more expensive providers tend to have better support than the cheaper ones.
Pop your phone number & postcode in at Samknows
Select BT DSL from the summary section and then paste the results here
eg for mine I get the following (feel free to take out your own exchange name if you have any concerns)
You are connected to the Daubhill telephone exchange.
ADSL is available in your area
Your exchange is also enabled for ADSL Max services
Your exchange is also enabled for ADSL2+ services
According to BT Wholesale, houses at your postcode should be able to support
up to 2Mbps via ADSL
6.5Mbps or greater ADSL connection via ADSL Max
13Mbps or greater via ADSL2+
Standard ADSL RAG results
You can receive 2Mbps ADSL
You can receive 1Mbps ADSL
You can receive 512kbps ADSL
You can receive 256kbps ADSL
You are approximately 745 metres from the exchange. Note that this is the straight line distance - the actual cable length will be longe
https://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker |
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"I'm no techie on this but the best speed you can get is usually best. And you get that with cable. If it's in your area.
We won't be able to have cable, that's why we need to shop around, there are so many out there and we don't really want to pay for more than we need."
Find a friendly Openreach engineer and ask them what the average speed is in your street, or ask your neighbours.
DO NOT believe anything the different communications providers tell you about internet speeds, they will all tell you what they think you want to hear.
They all (yes, all 537!) use the same network over most of the UK, the only exceptions to this are small areas where companies like Virgin have put in their own cables.
Before we got fibre, we had about 6 Meg, and I could watch films on the comp streaming, no buffering etc.
If you live in a large town or city, chances are you will have access to fibre, we went up to 40 meg, and no-one needs more than that, unless you run a business from home or are constantly uploading pics and video clips.
 |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"
DO NOT believe anything the different communications providers tell you about internet speeds, they will all tell you what they think you want to hear.
"
Exactly why I suggested Samknows. They are independent and get the details dorectly from OpenReach.
Seeing the results I can give a realistic expectation of throughput (speeds quoted are synch speeds not throughput, Typically throughput should be 75-90% of synch speed depending on time f day, providers netwrk etc. You will never get 100% for a whole raft of technical reasons which I won't bore anyone with  |
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"I'm hovering between 17mb and 38mb, it's all a foreign language to us and we haven't really streamed much before so haven't got a clue."
dont forget that is UP TO 17mb and 38mb it could be well below that, our bt says up to 12mb but we usually get 5-6mb |
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"
DO NOT believe anything the different communications providers tell you about internet speeds, they will all tell you what they think you want to hear.
Exactly why I suggested Samknows. They are independent and get the details dorectly from OpenReach.
Seeing the results I can give a realistic expectation of throughput (speeds quoted are synch speeds not throughput, Typically throughput should be 75-90% of synch speed depending on time f day, providers netwrk etc. You will never get 100% for a whole raft of technical reasons which I won't bore anyone with "
I've just tried it on Samknows, speeds quoted are slower than what we were getting, so its nice to see a site which actually under-estimates BB speeds lol! |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"I'm hovering between 17mb and 38mb, it's all a foreign language to us and we haven't really streamed much before so haven't got a clue.
+++++++++++
dont forget that is UP TO 17mb and 38mb it could be well below that, our bt says up to 12mb but we usually get 5-6mb "
Correct and again another reason to use Samknows. They are independent and will give a much more realistic synch speed especially if you use your currrent phone number and postcode as it interrogates the Openreach Databases and doesn't give you any sales spiel
The line distance is also a very good indicator |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"
I've just tried it on Samknows, speeds quoted are slower than what we were getting, so its nice to see a site which actually under-estimates BB speeds lol!"
+++
Yup
My results give 13mb on ADSL2+, on my BT line I synch at 15 and typically get throughput in the 12-13mb region.
My other line is on FTTC synched up at 80mb and I get anywhere between 60 & 74mb throughput depending on time of day etc |
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By *edMan
over a year ago
cambridgeshire |
And you'll get a much poorer performance over WiFi than if you run an Ethernet cable...
Upstairs ony Virgin (ooeer missus) it's 100Mb on Ethernet cable and 20 to 30 Mb on WiFi. House does have brick walls though which cuts lumps off of WiFi
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"I'm hovering between 17mb and 38mb, it's all a foreign language to us and we haven't really streamed much before so haven't got a clue."
Unless you have only just had BB installed, then you should have a better idea of speeds than "between 17 and 38 meg" lol.
Openreach recommend waiting 30 days from installation before settling on a stable BB speed.
Try using one of the standard speed test on the internet, should give you both and upload and download speed.
It does sound like you are probably already on fibre at those speeds. |
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"
I've just tried it on Samknows, speeds quoted are slower than what we were getting, so its nice to see a site which actually under-estimates BB speeds lol!
+++
Yup
My results give 13mb on ADSL2+, on my BT line I synch at 15 and typically get throughput in the 12-13mb region.
My other line is on FTTC synched up at 80mb and I get anywhere between 60 & 74mb throughput depending on time of day etc"
Yeah, its showing as "up to" 2 meg on non-fibre... we used to get 6 meg. |
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I recently got a free upgrade to BT Infinity - that's fibre to the cabinet but still copper to the house.
Using several different speed tests, I get a consistent 70-85 mbps - HD movies download in minutes
So whilst copper is the bottleneck, they're obviously able to squeeze more and more out of it as time goes on. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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Can't really see what difference it makes researching the stats. When you apply they'll tell you what you can expect to get.
We're in the sticks and were told to expect 2-3mb.
We use TalkTalk at the mo which costs less than £9 a month and we mostly get speeds at about 5mbps. They twiddled with our settings a couple of times and considering how crap the options are here we're as happy as can be.
Amazon fire works fine even with that rubbish speed. |
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Ok dam knows has brought this up:
up to 2Mbps via ADSL
7.5Mbps or greater ADSL connection via ADSL Max
17Mbps or greater via ADSL2+
Standard ADSL RAG results
You can receive 2Mbps ADSL
You can receive 1Mbps ADSL
You can receive 512kbps ADSL
You can receive 256kbps ADSL
|
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"Can't really see what difference it makes researching the stats. When you apply they'll tell you what you can expect to get.
We're in the sticks and were told to expect 2-3mb.
We use TalkTalk at the mo which costs less than £9 a month and we mostly get speeds at about 5mbps. They twiddled with our settings a couple of times and considering how crap the options are here we're as happy as can be.
Amazon fire works fine even with that rubbish speed."
That's all I really need to know, what up to speed we would require to stream programmes |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"Sam knows says its 837 metres"
+++++++++
Realistically (unless you have really shit copper or it takes a really odd route) I would expect a synch speed of 10-11mb with throughput in the region of 7.5-9mb (thats on standard DSL) based on that line length.
If FTTC (aka Infinity from BT, Superfast Fibre from Talktalk/Sky etc) is available at your specific address I would expect you to get around 78mb synch with throughput between 60-70mb |
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To be honest here it really doesn't matter what speed they tell you is attainable, if they and most do are packet shaping in their core network, it really doesn't matter what speed you are supposed to get it will only be as fast as they want you to have, so their networks don't collapse in a heap. We are on virgin and supposed to get 200mb. Fastest I have ever seen it at is 160mb and the lowest is 70mb downstream. Upstream is shocking at about 2-4mb. Cable is faster and cheaper for what you get. But if you cannot get it definitely use the same knows site. And see if your area has fttc. There is also and this will sound really weird a possibility of being too close to the exchange! We had this where we lived once, and because we were too close we couldn't have BT fttc, as the premise was direct wi_ed to the exchange, due to some ofcom regs this stopped us getting fttc through bt but sky was ok |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"Any speed unless your gaming,why pay for more than you need"
+++++++++
Why buy a car that can exceed the speed limit
(ooops sorry was that a separate thread?)
Having been helpful normal service is now resumed |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"Any speed unless your gaming,why pay for more than you need
That is what I don't want to do, I've started looking at up to 17mb or up to 38mb but just wanted a little guidance "
++++
for general streaming to one device then 4mb is usually more than adequate |
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By *educedWoman
over a year ago
Birmingham |
I could no longer afford to pay for Virgin (unemployed) and so I've signed up to fuel broadband.
It came with a free stick and whilst it's not super dooper in terms of speed etc, Ive not had an issue in terms of streaming etc.
17 per month. Free broadband. Just pay for line rental for a year.
Does what it's says on the tin.
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"Sam knows says its 837 metres
+++++++++
Realistically (unless you have really shit copper or it takes a really odd route) I would expect a synch speed of 10-11mb with throughput in the region of 7.5-9mb (thats on standard DSL) based on that line length.
If FTTC (aka Infinity from BT, Superfast Fibre from Talktalk/Sky etc) is available at your specific address I would expect you to get around 78mb synch with throughput between 60-70mb"
Thank you, so what up to speed should I be looking at? |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"Sam knows says its 837 metres
+++++++++
Realistically (unless you have really shit copper or it takes a really odd route) I would expect a synch speed of 10-11mb with throughput in the region of 7.5-9mb (thats on standard DSL) based on that line length.
If FTTC (aka Infinity from BT, Superfast Fibre from Talktalk/Sky etc) is available at your specific address I would expect you to get around 78mb synch with throughput between 60-70mb
++++++
Thank you, so what up to speed should I be looking at?"
++++
Based on what you say you are going to be using it for one of the up to 17mb packages would be the most suitable.
As above, if you're only streaming to one device 4mb is about the minimum you need but the "up to " packages will synch at the best available speed based on length & quality of copper |
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"Sam knows says its 837 metres
+++++++++
Realistically (unless you have really shit copper or it takes a really odd route) I would expect a synch speed of 10-11mb with throughput in the region of 7.5-9mb (thats on standard DSL) based on that line length.
If FTTC (aka Infinity from BT, Superfast Fibre from Talktalk/Sky etc) is available at your specific address I would expect you to get around 78mb synch with throughput between 60-70mb
++++++
Thank you, so what up to speed should I be looking at?
++++
Based on what you say you are going to be using it for one of the up to 17mb packages would be the most suitable.
As above, if you're only streaming to one device 4mb is about the minimum you need but the "up to " packages will synch at the best available speed based on length & quality of copper"
Thank you, we may be streaming two two devices and obviously perving on fab at the same time, is 17mb still sounding sufficient? |
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One other thing to look for is you are going with a package that has a lower speed is these sometimes have a download cap on them, especially if your thinking about streaming, avoid these as you will soon eat up your allowance. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"One other thing to look for is you are going with a package that has a lower speed is these sometimes have a download cap on them, especially if your thinking about streaming, avoid these as you will soon eat up your allowance."
+++
Well commented, that bit had slipped my mind. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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TalkTalks offering is unlimited data usage on an 18 month contract and just noticed they have a Free BB offer on for 18 months so only £17.70 per month ie the line rental charge
Also looks like you may be able to get a £75 shopping voucher
https://sales.talktalk.co.uk/product/broadband/v-simplybb?portalId=TBnP
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As a posters has said, check the download cap and any penalties. If it's the same company, you could start with 17mbps, it will probably be adequate, but if not, you should be able to upgrade to 38mbps without penalty. |
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"TalkTalks offering is unlimited data usage on an 18 month contract and just noticed they have a Free BB offer on for 18 months so only £17.70 per month ie the line rental charge
Also looks like you may be able to get a £75 shopping voucher
https://sales.talktalk.co.uk/product/broadband/v-simplybb?portalId=TBnP
"
Thank you all so much, you have been very, very helpful. Sorry but if I sounded a bit dim but Internet is not where my skills lie  |
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If you're clearer on the potential provider, look to see if the cashback sites are offering good cashback amounts. They usually have some good deals for taking the likes of BT, Talktalk etc. You'd buy the same product but link to company off the cashback site when purchasing.
Quidco and TopCashback are the 2 main ones. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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I am moving house this week and sky will cut the connection in few days time in this place and reconnect it in the other in a weeks time.
I find it strange that I wont have a connection for a week, as I still will live in this place this week. I have to use a dongle in the mean time, have any other have the same thing when moving house, to not have a connection for a week? |
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By *horltzMan
over a year ago
heysham |
The speed all depends on what you are connected too , eg cable , fibre optics etc , don't necessarily believe the hype about speed , do a speed test on your PC or lap top , and shop around I got a great deal through my mobile phone contract |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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I go for a yearly contract on the cheapest one around and always search for it through "topcash" as you get good cash back which brings the monthly cost down to around £10 - £12. And I always manage to get enough streaming speed from that. But make sure you change every year as they rise the cost after the first year...and you also get cash back again |
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