FTTC Expansion?

[#1]

I can confirm that I'm now getting speeds greater than 20Mb/sec. My record so far has been 30Mb/sec but I guess that will be beaten once the network peak dies down for the evening (my speed tests have ranged from 12 to 30 Mb/sec over the last 10 mins)   

[#2]

Not so great for me - I've reconnected but not rebooted the modem or router.
BT speedtester results show a max achievable speed of 43329 Kbps but the best effort download speed is only 23104 Kbps
Can you let me know what speed my PN profile has been raised to? As you mentioned previously the PN IP profile is still reported as 20000 Kbps. Would a reboot of the router and modem tomorrow morning help? mybroadbandspeed is showing similar results 24696 Kbps being the fastest so far.

[#3]

I seem to get very varied speeds at the moment - the max I've had is about 33Mb/s however it normally averages out at about 25-28Mb/s. As I said previously, my max achievable speed according to the BT speedtester is 41044kb/s, though I wonder how accurate this actually is on high speed lines like this? I think Dave said that the profile is now the same as the FTTP profile - set at 100Mb/s.

[#4]

I think it's probably contention, I ran a few real-world download tests from a server I have over the last hour and got the following results:

30046, 29807, 26544, 12796, 21205, 20216, 26628, 25974, 25811, 25688, 24503, 29726, 30829, 30949, 12620, 18830, 19064
So it seems to be dependent on the moment that you run the download. These tests are downloading a 10MB file of random bytes from the same server.

[#5]

OK - I've turned everything off and back on again.  The portal still says 20000 connection, and it doesn't seem to have made any difference to the speed via wifi or home plug.
I'll give it a try with a laptop and connection directly into the router tomorrow.
John

[#6]

If the portal says 20000 then your profile has changed - it used to say 21000.
Dave mentioned in an earlier post that the profile will be 20000 in the portal even though it will be 40Mb/sec (or maybe even higher).

[#7]

Thanks Pault.  I had noticed that, so wasn't surprised at what the portal said.  Just confirming it really.  As I've found before, anything other than a direct connection, comes with its own limitations.
John

[#8]

My speeds are great according to the speedtesters, 34,927 on BT and 37.3Mb/s on Speedtest.net
However I tend to find the speedtesters can give an artificial result compared to real world downloads.  I'll download something in the morning before I go to work when the network is quiet and see what I get.

James

[#9]

I did a bit of downloading before I left for work this morning.
By downloading multiple things simultaneously I managed to get about 36.5Mb/s according to my download monitor   
The speed is great and is a world away from the unreliable 3,500 I used to get on ADSL.  The speed increase reminds me when I moved from dial-up to ADSL.
@dave - as a matter of interest is the line rate on Plusnet's systems banded between 21,000 and 40,000 in the same way as with lower speeds? 

James

[#10]

Thanks guys, all looking really good. As John says I think at this speed we're finding bottlenecks in different places now, which when things get bigger can lead to a whole load more support issues but that's for another day.
The profile is currently set as 100Mbps, in prep for FTTP in just over a week, at the moment there aren't any interim profiles between the old 21Mbps profile and the new 100Mbps profile, there will be when we finish this off but I'm not sure what the steps are yet. Will check it out.

[#11]

Hi,
FTTC is due to go live on my exchange Bangor (NIBA) in Sept. In preparation I’ve been looking at the BT Infinity website re the installation requirements.
It states that I need two power sockets next to my master phone socket for the vDSL router?
Can anyone confirm this is indeed a valid requirement?  My problem is that my master phone socket is outside my house in a utility cupboard with no power points. 
I can get power sockets installed there if this is a definite requirement or I’m wondering is it better to have the master socket shifted inside the house but I assume that’s a BT charge of £128 for “Shifts of residential exchange lines”?

Any guidance appreciated.
Thanks
Jon

[#12]

@jon35
You just need 2 sockets where the VDSL2 modem and router will be located.  This does not need to be at the master socket.
If required BT will fit a data extension cable from the master socket to another part of your house (within reason).  You then plug everything into the data extension.

James
[Edit: http://www.leyingitout.co.uk/2010/04/my-superfast-fttc-broadband-installation-story/ has a few pictures of an install which you may find interesting]

[#13]

You need a power socket for the VDSL modem and another power socket for the router.
The faceplate on your existing master socket is replaced with one with two sockets on it - one for your telephone and the other for the VDSL modem. So you don't use your existing extension wiring like you do with ADSL.
I understand that the engineer will install a "data extension" cable for you during the install if required but I don't know whether this is meant for between the modem and master socket or between the modem and router (I expect it's the latter).
Could you put in a cat5e cable yourself between the master socket and the place that you want the VDSL modem to go? You could then connect the new cat5e cable in your cupboard to the master socket and the VDSL modem at the other end. I don't know whether the install engineer would be happy with that (it would work though).
The other way, as you say is to get the master socket moved.
[EDIT] I think the "data extension" can be used for the master socket to VSDL modem (as JEB says) so that will solve your problem.

[#14]

Hi
I ran a speed test this morning:  the results are here
Pretty good.  Still rock solid as far as I can tell.  A wired network connection to the router is obviously the way forward 
John

[#15]

Hi Dave
I have been having a few problems recently. Speeds dropped to between 4-8Mb/s last week, so i had to reset the BT box, which returned my connection to 20Mb/s. Then later that week the connection dropped completely and the only way to restore it was to again reset the BT box again.
Now today after the speed test increase i performed some more tests, the first one was great at 33Mb/s, but all subsequent test have been a bit all over the place between 20-33Mb/s, sometimes dropping to 14Mb/s.
Do you have any advice?