Which full fibre broadband?
Discussion
Much to my surprise, full fibre has come to my area so I can upgrade from FTTC. I have a few options ranging from 100, 300, 500 & 900 mbps. I'm thinking 300 will be plenty for 4k streaming and 500/900 will be overkill for an average household. Any personal experience for what's enough?
Depends how many people are using it concurrently and what for
A full HD or 4k stream eats a lot, throw in online gaming and MS teams and 100mb won’t cut it
I have a 900mb line with BT that’s been flawless for a few years and is overkill but I’d rather have that than have it struggle plus the price difference from 500 to 900 isn’t much
A full HD or 4k stream eats a lot, throw in online gaming and MS teams and 100mb won’t cut it
I have a 900mb line with BT that’s been flawless for a few years and is overkill but I’d rather have that than have it struggle plus the price difference from 500 to 900 isn’t much
x5tuu said:
Depends how many people are using it concurrently and what for
A full HD or 4k stream eats a lot, throw in online gaming and MS teams and 100mb won’t cut it
I have a 900mb line with BT that’s been flawless for a few years and is overkill but I’d rather have that than have it struggle plus the price difference from 500 to 900 isn’t much
100mbs will easily do all that. A full HD or 4k stream eats a lot, throw in online gaming and MS teams and 100mb won’t cut it
I have a 900mb line with BT that’s been flawless for a few years and is overkill but I’d rather have that than have it struggle plus the price difference from 500 to 900 isn’t much
I went for BT's 900 as it includes a GamePass, which I was paying for already, and I could get with a BT customer offer, with effectively no nett increase over the 100 I had before.
But in truth, the 5Ghz wifi running on latest MacBook Air and latest BT HH can only manage about 500-600MBps, so I would say don't bother with the 900 unless a household of 11 that all stream 4K simultaneously.
It is nice to download new Xbox games in under an hour though
(it's hard-wired too).
(I do get 1.1 GBps with a wired network connection, so it is as fast as it should be)
But in truth, the 5Ghz wifi running on latest MacBook Air and latest BT HH can only manage about 500-600MBps, so I would say don't bother with the 900 unless a household of 11 that all stream 4K simultaneously.
It is nice to download new Xbox games in under an hour though
(it's hard-wired too).(I do get 1.1 GBps with a wired network connection, so it is as fast as it should be)
x5tuu said:
Depends how many people are using it concurrently and what for
A full HD or 4k stream eats a lot, throw in online gaming and MS teams and 100mb won’t cut it
I have a 900mb line with BT that’s been flawless for a few years and is overkill but I’d rather have that than have it struggle plus the price difference from 500 to 900 isn’t much
A 4K stream is ~25mb/s, teams is ~2-3mb/s tops, a game can vary but it’s much more about the latency than the need for bandwidth.A full HD or 4k stream eats a lot, throw in online gaming and MS teams and 100mb won’t cut it
I have a 900mb line with BT that’s been flawless for a few years and is overkill but I’d rather have that than have it struggle plus the price difference from 500 to 900 isn’t much
Unless it’s likely you need 3 4K streams, plus teams and gaming all at once then it’s highly likely 100mb/s should be sufficient, obviously you could start with that and ask your isp to upgrade you to a higher bandwidth should you find it limiting.
I've got BT fibre 150 to my property not via phone line as its a new build and generally have 3 kids all on ipads, streaming TV, I work from Home with teams open all day and never have an issue, my son games on his xbox too, there are 3 mobiles on it along with a printer.
Its more than enough for me
Its more than enough for me
I tried 1 gbps, 150mbps but settled on 500mbps. 150mbps was limiting when doing cloud backups, updating my devices (Apple love multi gigabyte updates), pushing software builds to the cloud etc as I’m working from home.
However, a lot depends on your networking equipment, both router and your devices. And your use case.
I have a 2x2 AX3000 Wifi 6 Router. The best wifi card I have is in my Macbook Pro which is 3x3 wifi 5. That connects at 866mbps.
Theoretically, with a 3x3 or 4x4 Wifi 5 or Wifi 6 router, the Macbook Pro could connect at 1300mbps.
Table below:
https://www.duckware.com/tech/wifi-in-the-us.html
Non of my other devices can connect at more than 1gbps.
I would set the maximum possible speed by gauging what my devices were capable of. Try that for a while. See if something new opens up because of that bandwidth (I got rid of local backups, why bother when a cloud backup is just as quick?) Then downgrade. See if you notice a difference. Experiment.
If my devices supported 4x4 wifi 6 or wifi 6e, I’d be using 1gbps without question. Like with cpu’s or ssd’s, faster is always better, although of course you have to balance price with your use case.
However, a lot depends on your networking equipment, both router and your devices. And your use case.
I have a 2x2 AX3000 Wifi 6 Router. The best wifi card I have is in my Macbook Pro which is 3x3 wifi 5. That connects at 866mbps.
Theoretically, with a 3x3 or 4x4 Wifi 5 or Wifi 6 router, the Macbook Pro could connect at 1300mbps.
Table below:
https://www.duckware.com/tech/wifi-in-the-us.html
Non of my other devices can connect at more than 1gbps.
I would set the maximum possible speed by gauging what my devices were capable of. Try that for a while. See if something new opens up because of that bandwidth (I got rid of local backups, why bother when a cloud backup is just as quick?) Then downgrade. See if you notice a difference. Experiment.
If my devices supported 4x4 wifi 6 or wifi 6e, I’d be using 1gbps without question. Like with cpu’s or ssd’s, faster is always better, although of course you have to balance price with your use case.
Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 6th March 23:10
Oh definitely get rid of the free router they give you and buy something with a bit more power. At the end of the day, it is basically a computer and higher spec ones perform better.
I got something that costs £80 and the speed and stability is in a different league to the ISP’s freebie.
I got something that costs £80 and the speed and stability is in a different league to the ISP’s freebie.
wyson said:
I tried 1 gbps, 150mbps but settled on 500mbps. 150mbps was limiting when doing cloud backups, updating my devices (Apple love multi gigabyte updates), pushing software builds to the cloud etc as I’m working from home.
With that level of upload traffic it sounds like you’d benefit from a symmetrical package rather than the asymmetrical packages most often offered in domestic settings.Captain_Morgan said:
With that level of upload traffic it sounds like you’d benefit from a symmetrical package rather than the asymmetrical packages most often offered in domestic settings.
Yes, I have symmetrical fttp. It’s a game changer. Like having the entire internet on your local network.I suppose if I had asymmetrical fttc I would go for whatever had the fastest upload speed. Fast upload speeds are really crucial in opening up all the services available on the web.
Alas, I’ve become the go to guy on my team to compile software and upload to servers because I have the fastest upload connection. Takes me 2 mins to do something that will take others half an hour with their internet connections chugging for the duration. All that software compilation (maxes out my 6 core Macbook Pro) can’t be good for my electricity bill.
Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 7th March 06:11
I recently got 200 down and 200 up with CommunityFibre in Fulham. Full fibre, the fibre was strung along the existing phone line outside on the street and enters my first floor flat through a hole drilled in the brickwork. Took them an hour or so to do.
Has been a revelation as I often need to upload 20-50GB+ worth of data as part of my job. If I didn’t need to do that, I probably wouldn’t bother with full fibre. The upload is the most important part to me. I can get up to 3gig down and up on the same line but that seems overkill to me.
Has been a revelation as I often need to upload 20-50GB+ worth of data as part of my job. If I didn’t need to do that, I probably wouldn’t bother with full fibre. The upload is the most important part to me. I can get up to 3gig down and up on the same line but that seems overkill to me.
okgo said:
They’ve dug up half of SW London recently for this - what does the actual feed into the house look like? I’m quite keen to get rid of the router in my hall which is placed purely as the master switch is there and I can’t really move it…
It's a fibre cable that comes in to a termination device. They should put it wherever you like really as its independant of the phone line but will depend on how the cable comes in to your house, if it is via a duct then it will likely be in a similar place. The fibre termination presents a standard Ethernet port though so easy to route that to another place for your router.
To answer the OP, if you don't need the upload speeds then I would stay at 100 Mb down initially and upgrade if you see any issues.
somouk said:
okgo said:
They’ve dug up half of SW London recently for this - what does the actual feed into the house look like? I’m quite keen to get rid of the router in my hall which is placed purely as the master switch is there and I can’t really move it…
It's a fibre cable that comes in to a termination device. They should put it wherever you like really as its independant of the phone line but will depend on how the cable comes in to your house, if it is via a duct then it will likely be in a similar place. The fibre termination presents a standard Ethernet port though so easy to route that to another place for your router.
To answer the OP, if you don't need the upload speeds then I would stay at 100 Mb down initially and upgrade if you see any issues.
When I had mine done I wanted the ONT tucked away in my rack so I installed draw lines for openreach to get the fibre to the desired location far easier than anywhere else. BT or whoever then gives you a hub (also needs power) but haven’t used that.
When first installed we had 300/30 via an alternative provider but recently upgraded to 900/100 with BT. The difference is noticeable and I routinely see peaks over 700. We are quite console and streaming heavy, with wired connections to all high bandwidth devices which helps exploit the capacity. Where the biggest difference has been reported is with PS Now where you really struggle to tell that games are not locally hosted.
Have been considering upgrading the wireless access points to WiFi6 but, tbh, the phones/iPads are the only things on there and with quite a few access points it is unusual that an AP has more than a handful of clients so I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s probably not really worthwhile.
Could we get by happily with 100? Sure. But if you think you might need faster and the cost isn’t significant the faster options are noticeably different.
okgo said:
They’ve dug up half of SW London recently for this - what does the actual feed into the house look like? I’m quite keen to get rid of the router in my hall which is placed purely as the master switch is there and I can’t really move it…
You'll get a splice box on the outside of the property, an ONT (modem) and a router so a similar setup to ADSL just with a fibre cable.To answer the OP, I have 350Mbps and it feels overkill for two people streaming etc. It's nice being able to pull down games/updates quickly though.
100Mbps is plenty fast enough for most.
Happy with Zen. There were a few issues with the Openreach install (all to do with the existing ducting to the house) but they were good about chasing and keeping me up to date. Absolutely solid since it's been in.
I think 100 is plenty for most people - the upload number is more important really. I went for the 300mbit service just because upload speed went from 18 to 47mbit.
I think 100 is plenty for most people - the upload number is more important really. I went for the 300mbit service just because upload speed went from 18 to 47mbit.
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