Lack of blogging today results from having a new Internet connection installed, at last.
We’re now connected to the Internet thru a BT Infinity Home Hub. This connection to internet isn’t at the loss of cables though. There’s the modem with three cables, the Home Hub with two cables, the telephone with two cables, urrrrgggghhh, the cable trauma is awful for a tidy minimalist like me.
Cables apart, the speed is amazing. Using the speedtest.net speed checker, here’s what we have. Connected by ethernet cable to the Home Hub, a staggering 37 megabits per second. Connecting wirelessly the speed is a lot less and dependant on distance from the Hub, but still almost 20 mbps.
Was the process painless? No, it wasn’t. It’s a bit like going to the dentist, who finds new things at each visit. Also the fear of going to the dentist is similar to the fear of loss of an internet connection to the outside world.
Oh, and the final painful experience, looks like I’ll have to upgrade both computers, which I’ve sort of put off for a while now, but now know I can’t any longer.
Infinity is based on a technology called FTTC or Fibre to the Cabinet. Basically there is a new shiny green BT Cabinet with heat vents somewhere close to you in the Briars, probably very near considering the speed you are getting. a 10Gbps fibre is fed from an exchange maybe Bagshot, or maybe even from a bigger exchange to each cabinet. Then it’s bad old copper to your home which is connected to a DSLAM in the cabinet. The theoretical max of this is 40 Mbps.
In my opinion it’s a stop between ADSL and FTTH (Fibre to the home) which the holy grail of all broadband right now. On the other hand it seems to work quite well.
Interestingly though I have reports from the McDonald end of Ambleside aren’t able to get it right, but it be fixed fairly quickly.
What was your speed before?
By: David Taylor on January 21, 2011
at 7:25 pm
David,
Interesting. Our speed before was around 2 Mbps. We haven’t yet stopped this service, maybe will in a week or so, when I’ve learn to trust BT Infinity I’ll cancel the other BT line and braodband service. Our Infinity installation wasn’t trouble free, and still isn’t – but, I’m beguiled by the speed. Getting just short of 20 Mbps on wirelss laptop away from the BT Home Hub.
By: timdodds on January 22, 2011
at 1:42 pm
Hows it going after 2 weeks Tim?
Ordered mine (40 Gig limit) – delivery on the 8th …. and an effective saving of £6 on my old unlimited Total BB. Only downside of the ‘packaging’ is that I lose my ‘Evening & Weekend’ call package, it downgrades to Weekends only …
I do think BT’s advertising of the Package combinations (some show 1st 3 months heavily discounted) on their Infinity subsite is dodgy, you have to really delve to find out that they are for NEW customers only.
Can you stop the engineer installing McAffee etc ?
Cheers, Laird
By: LD on February 2, 2011
at 10:08 am
bump
By: LD on February 7, 2011
at 10:57 am
38 Meg download, 1.69 upload – that’ll do nicely !
Less than an hour from initial call from the Engineer to completed – including the fact he went to Vicarge road to reconfigure, instaed of the Cabinet on the roundabout @ MacDonald Road….
See what you mean by the cable clutter – must get a far shorter ethernet cable …..
By: LD on February 8, 2011
at 10:37 am
Hi,
New to this site – it’s a revelation.
We are in Ambleside about 3/4 down towards macdonald road and are getting really terrible broadband speeds ( < 1mb) We have the BT Total Braodband Option 3 (which seems expensive to me) I called BT and they were less than helpful. I think that I really need soemone to check the whole connectivity. Do BT do this ??
Any advice appreciated.
By: KH on March 1, 2011
at 11:25 am
KH, I suggest you run speed test using – http://speedtest.net/ – and then call BT again with the evidence that you’re not getting what you’re paying for. If you’re using WiFi, then access by WiFi may be the cause, suggest you try an ethernet cble between computer and BT router.
I think there’s a potential business in solving broadband connection issues – independent of BT. Someone who knows the technology in real detail – that would keep BT on their toes.
By: timdodds on March 1, 2011
at 11:45 am