Broadband speed gets slower every year

[#1]

Hello guys,

I have been a customer from Plusnet in the past and I was very impressed with the service. Unfortunately I changed to Vadafone 2 years ago. My problem is the guaranteed minimum speed. I do live in a rural area with 2 miles of copper to the exchange. When I moved into the property 5 yrs ago I had download speeds of aprox 6Mbit/sec. Now The guaranteed minimum speed (when I want to move to other provides like Plusnet) is just under 2Mbit/sec. My Telephone line itself is crackle free. How can that happen? Is it just because the old copper is getting slower every year or is it a topic of the exchange itself?

Cheers,

Oli

[#2]

@Telegraphhill What speed are you getting at the moment? It seems the 'guaranteed' is intentionally lowered - especially on ADSL - on a regular basis to save BT from embarrassment and work, but it should not change much from your current speed if you are merely changing ISPs.

[#3]

Hi John,

I do have 2.1Mbit/sec down from 6Mbit/sec 2 years ago. I see the point to lower the exceptions on speed because on BT call outs. Especially on that kind of long line copper line from the exchange. But that fact makes it useless to keep the line and switch totally on Tethering with a mobile provider or Airband.

[#4]

I had over two miles of copper from my local exchange (until I switched to FTTC earlier this year) and got a connection speed of c.8.5Mb/s with a slightly dodgy line - can you post the results from BT Broadband - obscuring your phone number?

[#5]

@Telegraphhill 

Have you considered whether you can get an upgrade through the universal service scheme? See. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/broadband-uso-need-to-kno...
Alternatively if you have good mobile reception  then get a MiFi unit and go mobile. If you shop around you can get up to unlimited data download for not much more than using a landline based service.

[#6]

Here are the results:

[#7]

I struggle to find a MiFi provider providing or routing VOIP as we are using it for one voip Number.

Cheers,

Oli

[#8]

@Telegraphhill Looking at that table, I'm surprised you get anything. What do your neighbours use?

[#9]

@Telegraphhill Looking at that table, I'm surprised you get anything. What do your neighbours use?

I guess they sent Bits out via sheep 🙂 Sorry, I do not know. We are quite on our own here.

BTW The right to have fast broadband was replied by BT with 4G Home Broadband for a price I could nearly have a skylink connection 🙂

Thanks for all the comments, a great Team here!

[#10]

Sorry about that. I can't think of a way round this, but maybe @Baldrick1 has more idea - he is more knowledgable on the subject.