After a bit of a delay & a rearranged appointment, I got my FTTC installed today.
Because of the distance from the exchange I could only get 0.5Mb fixed rate speed for the first few years of my "broadband" experience.
A couple of years ago, I managed to get MaxDSL & until today my stats were up & down quite a lot, but with various routers & forcing SNR via DMT, were averaging:-
Estimated line speed:
1.0Mb (Accurate to within +/- 1Mbit) - Checked on 2011-06-02 19:25:40
I suppose these speeds were sort of O.K. (in comparison with dialup, & considering where I live).
Plusnet recetly gave me an estimated speed of 14.6 Mb for FTTC (although BT's own checker still says it isn't even planned to be rolled out in the next 6 months in my area).
I thought, nah, I won't get that sort of speed, I'm too far from the street cabinet.
After installation, The BT engineer told me I should expect a sync speed of around 34Mb, but he couldn't understand why downloads were still stuck at approx 1.0Mb, despite uploads having increased from 0.37Mb to somewhere near 2.0Mb.
I explained about Plusnet's manual process to reset my profile & that, after reading various forum posts, I might even have to ask them to give it a nudge in a couple of days or so. I don't think he believed me, saying that was the first time he had heard that one, as he had installed loads of BT Infinity FTTC & they always synced at high speed immediately. He did say he would check it out & would consider telling other non-BT customers though, if their FTTC didn't immediately provide high speeds.
After living with intermittent 1.0Mb speeds for years, I thought I would be really happy if I got anything reliable over 5Mb.
.
Around an hour or so after FTTC was installed, I received a text & email from Plusnet Support team's Michael Brazier:-
"Your order has now completed so you should be able to use your new FTTC service.
The speed of your new service will stabilise over the next 10 days, but if you are still experiencing speed issues after this time then please call us on 0845 140 0200 so we can investigate this for you."
Also, Plusnet's High Speed Broadband page of my connection settings now states:-
Current line speed:
37 Mb
BT's performace test gave me these results around 8:30 p.m.:-
Download speed achieved during the test was 27975 Kbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 22767-32525 Kbps .
Additional Information:
IP Profile for your line is 32525 Kbps
Upload speed achieved during the test was 1582 Kbps
Additional Information:
Upstream Rate IP profile on your line is 2000 Kbps
Throughout today & just a few minutes ago, (apart from one strange 7Mb download result), various other speed test & test file downloads have been providing results of around 30Mb - 32Mb download speed.
Needless to say, I won't be asking Plusnet to investigate anything (unless the speed drops dramatically in the 10 day stabilisation period).
FYI, yonks ago, I had routed 20metres of shielded twisted pair cable with RJ11 plugs at each end, under floors & through ceilings etc. as a plugged in extension from my filtered data/phone master socket (NTE5? - as provided by BT a while ago due to some phone line problems).
The engineer said this was O.K. & just hard wired my extension cable it into the master socket & replaced the face plate to be phone only & refitted the data & phone face plate at the other end, where my modem & router are situated.
This suited me as I didn't fancy lifting carpets & floor boards up again.
So, to answer all the queries I have seen regarding phone and/or ethernet cable extensions for FTTC, then yes, an existing phone extension cable will work, as long as it is good enough quality (I bought mine from Maplins) & the engineer hard wires it for you at installation date. They will move your existing master socket up to 30 metres away though (free of charge) if you need it, leaving the original as phone only.
All in all, apart from the slight delay in confirming the installation date, "I'm reet chuffed wi't speed" (as they might say in Yorkshire) & I am really happy with the way the engineer installed things (despite me having no biscuits to give him).
& thanks to Plusnet for resetting my line speed without me having to nudge it along.
P.S. The engineer confirmed that the BT FTTC modems are rubbish. He has replaced loads that failed due to overheating.
Mine has been on for about 13 hours. It is quite warm compared to the router, but I wouldn't describe it as hot.
P.P.S. If you want to know whether or not you can get FTTC, use Plusnet's availability checker. It is more accurate than BT's.
