Move from FTTC to G.FAST - downtime?
Discussion
Been with Plusnet (and their predecessors Madasafish) since my first dialup account, and have been very happy with them.
I can now get G.FAST from BT which will only be about £6 more each month. The faster speed is obviously tempting…
Our Plusnet contrast finishes on 21st December, so I’m a bit wary of changing in case that leaves us without broadband over Christmas. We would be moving to BT for landline as well but we barely use this. There also seems to be mixed reports of whether an engineer visit is required for G.FAST or not - some people seem to end up with a new master socket, some don’t.
Any experience of a similar switchover? Would I be better just falling out of contract for a month (thus more expensive) and switch in January?
I can now get G.FAST from BT which will only be about £6 more each month. The faster speed is obviously tempting…
Our Plusnet contrast finishes on 21st December, so I’m a bit wary of changing in case that leaves us without broadband over Christmas. We would be moving to BT for landline as well but we barely use this. There also seems to be mixed reports of whether an engineer visit is required for G.FAST or not - some people seem to end up with a new master socket, some don’t.
Any experience of a similar switchover? Would I be better just falling out of contract for a month (thus more expensive) and switch in January?
I was also with PN for several years and very happy with my 80/20 connection. However, I moved house and the best PN could offer me was adsl at dialup speed as the nearest cabinet to me had a waiting list for 80/20 fibre.
I called BT and they said they could offer me a g.fast connection as my only option so I reluctantly agreed. I sync at 160/26 and it's generally ok but does stumble now and again and drops the connection; something the Openreach engineer installer told me might happen, but it always reconnects ok so I live with it.
If PN could have offered me a similar FTTC service at the new house I would never have left, and certainly would never entertain another g.fast connection as it's simply not worth the extra cost per month imho.
I called BT and they said they could offer me a g.fast connection as my only option so I reluctantly agreed. I sync at 160/26 and it's generally ok but does stumble now and again and drops the connection; something the Openreach engineer installer told me might happen, but it always reconnects ok so I live with it.
If PN could have offered me a similar FTTC service at the new house I would never have left, and certainly would never entertain another g.fast connection as it's simply not worth the extra cost per month imho.
Thanks. Interesting that G.FAST is a bit glitchy.
I’m WFH still and my FTTC connection has been rock solid. I’ve had a single day downtime after an Openreach engineer knocked our connection ruin out at the cabinet. I could see him at the cab from my window , but he’d disappeared by the time I’d walked down. Fixed the next day so no big deal.
I get 75Mbps on average which is plenty so maybe I’ll stick with what I have
I’m WFH still and my FTTC connection has been rock solid. I’ve had a single day downtime after an Openreach engineer knocked our connection ruin out at the cabinet. I could see him at the cab from my window , but he’d disappeared by the time I’d walked down. Fixed the next day so no big deal.
I get 75Mbps on average which is plenty so maybe I’ll stick with what I have
I went from FTTC to Gfast last year. I was told that I may lose internet for a few hours.
Internet lost mid morning, shortly after an Openreach engineer arrived and plugged a new box into the phone master socket. Ethernet cable from that into my router (phone line from router removed).
A quick test of the line speed and the engineer left. Took about 30 minutes in total.
My FTTC connection was a bit glitchy and speeds varied a lot. Gfast connection is a lot more stable and about double the speed.
Internet lost mid morning, shortly after an Openreach engineer arrived and plugged a new box into the phone master socket. Ethernet cable from that into my router (phone line from router removed).
A quick test of the line speed and the engineer left. Took about 30 minutes in total.
My FTTC connection was a bit glitchy and speeds varied a lot. Gfast connection is a lot more stable and about double the speed.
595Heaven said:
Thanks. Interesting that G.FAST is a bit glitchy.
I’m WFH still and my FTTC connection has been rock solid. I’ve had a single day downtime after an Openreach engineer knocked our connection ruin out at the cabinet. I could see him at the cab from my window , but he’d disappeared by the time I’d walked down. Fixed the next day so no big deal.
I get 75Mbps on average which is plenty so maybe I’ll stick with what I have
Our Openreach installer was getting on a bit but certainly seemed to know what he was talking about; g.fast is great for short distances from the cabinet but not so good after about 300 metres if I remember correctly. I may try and get back onto the 80/20 fibre as soon as there's a space; we'll see what BT have to say, haha! If I were you I'd certainly stay put for now.I’m WFH still and my FTTC connection has been rock solid. I’ve had a single day downtime after an Openreach engineer knocked our connection ruin out at the cabinet. I could see him at the cab from my window , but he’d disappeared by the time I’d walked down. Fixed the next day so no big deal.
I get 75Mbps on average which is plenty so maybe I’ll stick with what I have
I'm going to be moving away from a G.Fast connection over to virgin media, but the G.Fast has been relatively decent over the last 18 months. It's billed as a 160/25 and generally ticks along at those - I've had speedtest reports up to the 170mbit range though.
I went from ADSLv2 to G.Fast, and the only real in-house works were to change the front panel of the master socket, I think the engineer was here for about 15/20 mins in total, that was including a line test (iirc theoretical max line speed was about 280mbit/sec).
Stability wise, the only time it went down was when an engineer was fiddling in the cabinet, but a call to Zen had that sorted out in a day or so. Other than that, it was pretty good, certainly was able to handle 2x wfh setups, streaming video and a bit of gaming.
I went from ADSLv2 to G.Fast, and the only real in-house works were to change the front panel of the master socket, I think the engineer was here for about 15/20 mins in total, that was including a line test (iirc theoretical max line speed was about 280mbit/sec).
Stability wise, the only time it went down was when an engineer was fiddling in the cabinet, but a call to Zen had that sorted out in a day or so. Other than that, it was pretty good, certainly was able to handle 2x wfh setups, streaming video and a bit of gaming.
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