Do I need Fibre?

[#1]

I have been offered a couple of reasonable deals from PN as my present contract comes to an end. One is Fibre the other is broadband as already held. I wonder if someone, more IT savvy than I, can give me an opinion as to whether I need fibre please. I don't play internet games or use the IT for work. My current connection is O.K. apart from catch up (Amazon Fire stick) in the sitting room. It can buffer to the extent that I give up. (Router is in another room). Are there any downsides to actually swapping? Can I assume it will be faster? Any views appreciated, although keep it simple please:-). Cheers.

[#2]

In my honest opinion you don't necessarily need fibre at the moment.

If you were to take a Youview TV pack then yes you would.

What is your current speed at the moment - http://speedtest.btwholesale.com/

As the router and 'stick' are not in the same room, then I'd be inclined to say you have a wifi range/interference issue. If you're not techy then you could use many of the guides available on the net (or ask here if you are really not sure. I don't know the ins and outs of plusnet issued routers except for the Hub One that is currently used for fibre connections so I'd not be of any great use when it came to making changes to earlier routers - many others on here will know)

[#3]

The only downside is cost. What you need to find out is whether the poor speed that you are getting at your Firestick is either a poor WiFi signal or a poor internet connection. If you have a laptop try a speed test next to the Firestick then another colose to the router and see what the difference is. Then put your phone number in to www.dslchecker.bt.com This will tell you what speed you should be getting on a wired connection and what the likely fibre speed would be.

Report back with these figures and I'm sure that more advice will be forthcoming.

[#4]

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav)

Near duplicate post caught by spam filter released then removed.

[#5]

Thanks for your replies folks - very helpful with my thinking on this one. I will try the tests which may clarify things. Regarding the Firestick someone with an IT wired intellect mentioned to me that it could be interference from other routers in the vicinity...Anyway it amuses me in the sense that in the 1950's and early 1960's my Dad used to wiggle the TV aerial about to get a picture - now I'm waving my Firestick about (so to speak.) to get a picture."Plus ca change" etc. 

[#6]

As long as you have a minimum of 4-5Mbps available (more is better of course) you are not likely to notice much difference going to fibre given your type of usage.

The main advantage of the higher bandwidths available with fibre is for homes with multiple simultaneous users, or those needing higher upload and/or download speeds for moving large amounts of data to or from the internet.

If your basic connection is OK you may find homeplugs a solution to your Wifi issue if you can't move your router or find a less congested channel - worked brilliantly for a friend of mine.

[#7]

If you are constantly buffering you clearly aren't getting 4-5Mbps. Have you done the www.dslchecker.bt.com and http://speedtest.btwholesale.com/ tests as previously suggested? If this is showing poor ADSL performance then we at least know that persisting with ADSL will get you nowhere.

If the problem is poor wireless reception then you need either a WiFi Extender or a WiFi Powerline Extender Kit but don't spend any money until you do the speed tests.

[#8]

Assuming that speed checks on your line prove ok (see the above post)

Then rather than 'waving the Firestick about', if you have a smartphone download a wifi analyser & see if all the other routers around you are using the same or adjacent wifi channels

Then change the channel on your router to be away from the crowd

if you cannot analyse it simple change the channel and see if it is any improvement, repeat until you do see an improvement or you run out of channels

If Amazon Video is your main use of the internet then you do not need fibre, unless you want to watch 3 or 4 things simultaneously

[#9]

Thanks for your help. Consulted my trusty Speedtest App. Much of the time the Mbps thingy is above 6:00, even away from the router. However, mid evening it can drop away dramatically. Presumably when the rest of the road fires their machines up? So that's not so bad really. Grafter - sadly," changing channel on my Router" is a bit "cor blimey"  for me, however I did mention it to someone, who knows better than I, who tells me the PN router I have, will not do that. He had the app on his phone. Onnyroadup, after to listening to you guys, I think I shall stay with my current Broadband and invest in an extension plug to shorten the distances around the house. Cheers!

[#10]

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@BertieBassett wrote:

Thanks for your help. Consulted my trusty Speedtest App. Much of the time the Mbps thingy is above 6:00, even away from the router. However, mid evening it can drop away dramatically. Presumably when the rest of the road fires their machines up?

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You shouldn't be seeing that if you're using a wired connection. I don't see a speed drop with my fibre connection and that's running at around 67Mb/s. Your poor old ADSL connection is such a paltry amount that the exchange should never have any problems giving you full speed.

But if the tests are using wifi then it's possible that it's your neighbours you are fighting.

In truth the only way to get an accurate assessment of your connection is to use a wired link. There's just too many variables and things that can go wrong with wifi.

[#11]

If you're going to get a powerline extender kit don't forget that the Firestick requires wireless, so standard extender plugs ain't no good. An example one wilth wireless is a TP Link TL-WPA4220 Kit.