Fibre Broadband speeds

A Newbie question. With speeds available of up to 38Mbs or 76Mbs at
different prices how do the companies control the customers download
speeds. When BT offer a guaranteed minimum of 40Mbs to a customer that
must be for a 76Mbs customer so what would the 38mbs user get?
Bill

 

: A Newbie question. With speeds available of up to 38Mbs or 76Mbs at
: different prices how do the companies control the customers download
: speeds. When BT offer a guaranteed minimum of 40Mbs to a customer that
: must be for a 76Mbs customer so what would the 38mbs user get?

As you say there are two MAXIMUM speeds available - 38 and 76Mbs -
these were sometime called 40 and 80 Mbs in the early days but ISPs
seem to have settled down to using the "honest" speeds.

Note these are MAXIMUM speeds and your distance from the Green "FTTC box"
- which will be very near the junction box your house is connected to -
cuts these epeeds down. I am several 100 metres from my box - my
maximum speed is about 37 Mbs and it would be pointless for me to buy
anything but a 38Mbps service!

Openreach control the segment back to the exchange - no matter who the
ISP is - and I would guess it is their equipment which limits the
speed if someone who COULD get 78Mbs buys a "38 service"

 

So you can only get 37 Mbs but would your ISP tell you that if you
placed an order for 76Mbs?
Doing a line test with ZEN it says that I could get 45.3.
With BT it says a guaranteed minimum of 35 Mbs or could get 45-66.
Bill.

 

: So you can only get 37 Mbs but would your ISP tell you that if you
: placed an order for 76Mbs?
: Doing a line test with ZEN it says that I could get 45.3.
: With BT it says a guaranteed minimum of 35 Mbs or could get 45-66.
: Bill.

The reality is not going to vary between providers! I think they all
MUST quote the Openreach speed projections but I do not know if they
are forced to refuse a 76Mbps order for line for which it is clear
that it will not go much higher than 35-40!

For mine it was very clear that 38Mbps was the only sensible one to
order!

 

So paying extra will only get you about 30% more.
Bill.

 

As a non-professional, it might be worth adding here my neighbour's
experience, which has been echoed by others. She reports that her
usage, which is similar to mine, i.e. surfing, e-mail, occasional
BBC download, etc, does not show any significant improvement, whereas
her kids, using online gaming and video streaming, report considerably
better results.
Just a thought to chew on.

I have always found Zen a very good and responsive company.

 

There are a few variants, but mostly the line sync is controlled by BT -
at up to 80/20Mbps, 40/10Mbps or 40/2Mbps, with the maximum down profile
as 78 or 38. I know Plusnet is different, in that they provisioned
80/20Mbps connections and set their profile to 40 for a 40/20 connection
(I get a throughput of 37Mbps and sync at 79.997Mbps), though they now
use 80/20 and 40/2 and generally do not provide 80/20 if the BT database
indicates a maximum down less than 40Mbps.

--
PeeGee

"Nothing should be able to load itself onto a computer without the
knowledge or consent of the computer user. Software should also be able
to be removed from a computer easily."
Peter Cullen, Microsoft Chief Privacy Strategist (Computing 18 Aug 05)

 

With at least one ISP you must order the 76Mbps downstream product in
order to get upstream above 2Mbps, most ISPs provide 20Mbps upstream
with the 38Mbps downstream product.

 

A girl at ZEN said that with the 76Mbps service I would get around 43.5
Mbps and would get a guarenteed minimum of 20Mbps with the 38 Mbps
service and should get the max of 38 Mbps so not worth the extra payment.
Bill.

 

Are upload speeds important to you? regardless of connection speed, the
38 service gives you 9.5, the 76 gives you 19. Depends what you are
doing with it.

 

Upload are not too important. It only gave an estimate of 11.9 for 76.
Bill.

 

Correction, 9.5 for 38 and 19 for 76 Mbps
Bill.

 

On first day with ZEN fibre I am getting 37.4 Mbps download and 9.4 upload.
Bill.