FTTP slower than copper
Author
Discussion

s91

Original Poster:

137 posts

95 months

Saturday 23rd November 2024
quotequote all
Anyone else "upgraded" to FTTP and found it to actually be worse? Limited knowledge on the subject but I guess it is bandwidth related? I am on one of the slower FTTP packages but it is still claimed to be significantly faster than the previous copper one, yet I notice no increase in speed at all, it is noticeably worse with regular stuttering on youtube etc which was previously fine.
Just read they plan to retire the copper network which explains why fibre was offered cheaper.

markiii

4,059 posts

210 months

Saturday 23rd November 2024
quotequote all
have you speed tested it it?

I suspect its contention rather than bandwidth

the last of teh copper people to move will have very low contention,

Sy1441

1,282 posts

176 months

Saturday 23rd November 2024
quotequote all
markiii said:
have you speed tested it it?

I suspect its contention rather than bandwidth

the last of teh copper people to move will have very low contention,
If you're on a faster package it's either this, throttling by your provider or a fault at your property with your equipment.

Ynox

1,745 posts

195 months

Saturday 23rd November 2024
quotequote all
Same ISP?

There's no reason why fibre should be slower than copper. Copper will max out at 70 odd Mbit, I'm currently on a FTTP product which is 900Mbit.

What does a speed test (e.g. fast.com) show? Remember these speeds are to your router, not necessarily your device - e.g. I'm on 900Mbit here but fast.com shows 140mbit as my wifi signal isn't great.

s91

Original Poster:

137 posts

95 months

Saturday 23rd November 2024
quotequote all
Same ISP, same router, same device, speed test does actually show the claimed numbers.
There's no perceivable difference in reality although I wasn't expecting much as it's the fastest copper vs cheapest FTTP package.

richhead

2,657 posts

27 months

Sunday 24th November 2024
quotequote all
Its interesting, ive just done a speed test, as im at my g/f house, new build on full fiber, download 60, up 7. shes on a sky 60mb deal.
At my place old copper and a 30mb talk talk deal, i get 30 down and about 15 up, but it always seems , if not faster more responsive somehow.
Maybe i have less devices hogging the bandwith.
And her tv sometimes freezes on netflix etc, but mine never does, her tv is wired to the router, mine uses wifi. so im not sure what difference the speed really makes.

119

12,987 posts

52 months

Sunday 24th November 2024
quotequote all
Sy1441 said:
markiii said:
have you speed tested it it?

I suspect its contention rather than bandwidth

the last of teh copper people to move will have very low contention,
If you're on a faster package it's either this, throttling by your provider or a fault at your property with your equipment.
Sometimes it will be down to ISP configuration issues or routing, and even though they promise the world, contention issues absolutely still exist on FTTP.

Yes, you probably are testing fine with speedtests but that isn't the whole story, and then trying to get the first line of support to understand the issue is another wall.

Who is the ISP OP?

Smurfsarepeopletoo

944 posts

73 months

Sunday 24th November 2024
quotequote all
Are you sure you have upgraded to FTTP and not FTTC, have BT been and fitted new equipment at your property, such as a new cable, new grey box on the outside, and a little white box on the inside that needs power. Or does your router still plug into a phone socket?

.:ian:.

2,568 posts

219 months

Sunday 24th November 2024
quotequote all
s91 said:
Same ISP, same router, same device, speed test does actually show the claimed numbers.
There's no perceivable difference in reality although I wasn't expecting much as it's the fastest copper vs cheapest FTTP package.
If speedtest is correct, then its working as expected.
If you cannot perceive a difference then you are probably just browsing the web, rather than downloading gbs of Linux isos. laugh

Web pages are generally dozens or hundreds of small files, the overhead of downloading each of these files cannot be overcome by having faster download speeds.

100mbit is overkill for 90% of casual users.

bitchstewie

59,484 posts

226 months

Sunday 24th November 2024
quotequote all
What's the ISP?

What does something like fast.com show?

Often people do have a habit of trying to pay the least possible for broadband because it's "just a commodity" and then wonder why they don't get 500mbps 24/7/365.

Jeremy-75qq8

1,431 posts

108 months

Sunday 24th November 2024
quotequote all
The odds of the same router is low.

You will have a new white box inside. If you don't you don't have full fibre

duckson

1,282 posts

198 months

Sunday 24th November 2024
quotequote all
Jeremy-75qq8 said:
The odds of the same router is low.

You will have a new white box inside. If you don't you don't have full fibre
It's entirely possible it's the same router on FTTP vs FTTC.

Going from whatever the FTTC was at say 50-70mbps to a low end FTTP package (145mbps maybe, they even do a 70-odd package so couldbe that!) will not be very noticeable in general browsing.

s91

Original Poster:

137 posts

95 months

Sunday 24th November 2024
quotequote all
It's definitely the same router, and definitely FTTP. New cable from distribution box on top of the pole, new box on outside of house and powered box inside. Previous setup was FTTC, with a very short run of copper as the cabinet is very close.

I think making this a speed issue was the wrong way to word it, it's more so this occasionally pause in streaming videos, it used to be seamless, but now sometimes isn't. I wasn't really expecting to notice any difference in speed, but I certainly wasn't expecting this annoying problem either. Sometimes it stops loading and I have to manually skip the video forward to get it going again, like it's given up on loading the video all together.

kambites

69,842 posts

237 months

Sunday 24th November 2024
quotequote all
Sy1441 said:
If you're on a faster package it's either this, throttling by your provider or a fault at your property with your equipment.
Or packet loss. When we first had FTTP installed, we had about 20% packet loss which made the connection pretty much unusable. Not sure exactly what/where the problem was, the ISP couldn't find anything specific wrong but the problem just... vanished.

Ynox

1,745 posts

195 months

Sunday 24th November 2024
quotequote all
kambites said:
Or packet loss. When we first had FTTP installed, we had about 20% packet loss which made the connection pretty much unusable. Not sure exactly what/where the problem was, the ISP couldn't find anything specific wrong but the problem just... vanished.
Oof. That sounds like a nightmare to try to figure out.

AlexC1981

5,375 posts

233 months

Sunday 24th November 2024
quotequote all
richhead said:
Its interesting, ive just done a speed test, as im at my g/f house, new build on full fiber, download 60, up 7. shes on a sky 60mb deal.
At my place old copper and a 30mb talk talk deal, i get 30 down and about 15 up, but it always seems , if not faster more responsive somehow.
Maybe i have less devices hogging the bandwith.
And her tv sometimes freezes on netflix etc, but mine never does, her tv is wired to the router, mine uses wifi. so im not sure what difference the speed really makes.
That could be an old or crappy version of the Netflix app on her telly. Or her telly isn't capable of running the app very well.

119

12,987 posts

52 months

Sunday 24th November 2024
quotequote all
s91 said:
It's definitely the same router, and definitely FTTP. New cable from distribution box on top of the pole, new box on outside of house and powered box inside. Previous setup was FTTC, with a very short run of copper as the cabinet is very close.

I think making this a speed issue was the wrong way to word it, it's more so this occasionally pause in streaming videos, it used to be seamless, but now sometimes isn't. I wasn't really expecting to notice any difference in speed, but I certainly wasn't expecting this annoying problem either. Sometimes it stops loading and I have to manually skip the video forward to get it going again, like it's given up on loading the video all together.
Who is your ISP?

snuffy

11,525 posts

300 months

Sunday 24th November 2024
quotequote all
Jeremy-75qq8 said:
The odds of the same router is low.

You will have a new white box inside. If you don't you don't have full fibre
Why would that be?

richhead

2,657 posts

27 months

Sunday 24th November 2024
quotequote all
AlexC1981 said:
richhead said:
Its interesting, ive just done a speed test, as im at my g/f house, new build on full fiber, download 60, up 7. shes on a sky 60mb deal.
At my place old copper and a 30mb talk talk deal, i get 30 down and about 15 up, but it always seems , if not faster more responsive somehow.
Maybe i have less devices hogging the bandwith.
And her tv sometimes freezes on netflix etc, but mine never does, her tv is wired to the router, mine uses wifi. so im not sure what difference the speed really makes.
That could be an old or crappy version of the Netflix app on her telly. Or her telly isn't capable of running the app very well.
could well be, but doesnt explain why my laptop is better on my "slower" internet.

119

12,987 posts

52 months

Sunday 24th November 2024
quotequote all
As I mentioned before, it will more than likely be poor routing by the ISP, alongside their DNS servers being maxed out.

just because it’s fibre to the home, doesn’t mean it will always be better, regardless of what they tell you!