Is it worth Getting Fibre broardband for streaming?

[MBBlat]

I'm currently with Sky for standard broardband, phone & TV, but I'm going to drop the TV as I find about 75% of my TV watching is Iplayer, 20% Amazon prime

There is fiber to the road, although I think the co-ax to my house was cut when my neighbour installed his new drive. So who to go with - Vigin, BT sky or other?

[Crafty_]

Virgin might get you a headline speed figure (up to 200Mb) but from what I read they do suffer contention (slow down) in some areas.

Anything else will be via the Openreach network, regardless of ISP so in theory it'll make little difference. Note that there are two possibilities - FTTC (Fibre to Cabinet) and FTTP (Fibre to premises).
FTTP faster (but slower than virgin), but may not be available, depends on your exchange and the cabinet in your street.
FTTC is slower (40Mb or so max) but has wider availability.

[maniac886]

Crafty_ said:

Virgin might get you a headline speed figure (up to 200Mb) but from what I read they do suffer contention (slow down) in some areas.

Anything else will be via the Openreach network, regardless of ISP so in theory it'll make little difference. Note that there are two possibilities - FTTC (Fibre to Cabinet) and FTTP (Fibre to premises).
FTTP faster (but slower than virgin), but may not be available, depends on your exchange and the cabinet in your street.
FTTC is slower (40Mb or so max) but has wider availability.

FTTC can go up to 80Meg depending on how far away you are from the cab.

[Sheets Tabuer]

I used to get the best broadband I could, I had fibre via cable in the 90s and would always go for the fastest I could.

No I'm on sky broadband, it's 12 mbits and perfectly fine for streaming, netflix, playing games and everything else.

[davepoth]

Virgin are good for contention in my area but I understand it can vary.

[AC43]

I had Virgin in my last two places and it always gave me the headline 150 Mb/s or very close.

Now in a place with BT. Copper to the box in the street, copper to my house.

I now get 3.5 Mb/s and it's like being in the 80's.

I'd go back to Virgin in a flash.

[HOGEPH]

I get 7mbps if I'm lucky, and this is perfectly adequate for listening to amazon music, or watching amazon films/bbc iplayer

[IanH755]

I live in the Kent countryside getting about 2Mb (250kb real) over BT phone lines while my Dad has a 200Mb (25Mb real) Fibre connection with Virgin at his house in Stoke yet we both pay a similar price for the service. I'd swap in an instant if Fibre was available to me! Even my 4G phone gets 40Mb at work (Maidstone) so dropping back to 2Mb almost feels like going back to dial up at the end of the day

[AC43]

HOGEPH said:

I get 7mbps if I'm lucky, and this is perfectly adequate for listening to amazon music, or watching amazon films/bbc iplayer

My problem starts when Kid 1 starts streaming iPlayer to the TV and Kid 2 starts streaming Youtube to his phone over the network.

If I then fire up Spotify it starts stuttering and buffering.

I've had to take out a separate 4G OYCE data contract to ensure I can always hear my music.

[AC43]

JFDI.

Tonight I had to abandon listening to music as it was buffering so badly on BT "broad" band AND on Three.

Presumably because pissed off BT customers are now deluging Three.

Can't believe I'm paying TWICE for this st.

[MockingJay]

We have virgin and get 200mb+ most of the time, however speeds can drop occasionally- I've had 4mb on Speedtest before.

[justinio]

We have Sky Fibre and the absolute fastest we get is 15 megawotsits down and 1 up. The ridiculous thing is, if I use 4G on my iphone I get 40 down and 20 up. How can electrickery in the air be faster than a physical wire? Some kind of withcraft maybe.

[SuperchargedVR6]

I've been on BT Infinity (FTTC) for nearly 4 years now, and whilst it's expensive (new customers get reasonable deals, but existings - screwed over as always) it's always been exceptionally reliable with no slow downs at all.

I get slightly over the prescribed speed at 85-87mbs and I don't begrudge paying extra for reliability.

For Netflix 4K, absolutely you'll need it. For general streaming 1080p HD, to be honest it's not essential at all. Much quicker to buffer into your device's memory, but I find my girlfriend's 8mb Sky connection is just as good once rolling.

[tankplanker]

Don't forget that if your home network is crap then your internet performance is also going to be crap. I would always test with a cable plugged directly into the router not over WiFi if you are having problems. Most home WiFi setups are frankly rubbish for heavy simulatious use by multiple users

BT offers up to 330mb FTTP if you live in one of the trial areas and they have spare capacity in your exchange. Otherwise there are a few providers offering up to 1Gb FTTP if you are somewhere they cover.

We get a shade under 80Mb via Openreach's FTTC service, it is plenty for 4 heavy users, even with the main TV now streaming 4K via Amazon and Netflix.

[SuperchargedVR6]

I still use Ethernet for that reason. Wifi is just for the phones.

I hate how slow and expensive this country is. My friend in HK has had 1000mb to his door for 2 years now, and he only pays a tenner a month for it.

[dvshannow]

Get the fastest broadband and hardwire as much as possible