Tuesday 14 February 2012

Beware BT Infinity

As you are all probably aware BT Infinity is now available in  Perranuthnoe. This is just to let everyone know that all is not what it seems.

Although the 40mg speed offered by BT Infinity's fibre network is reaching the cabinet at the crossroads opposite the Dynasty as soon as it starts to travel through the village it is a completely different story. In the words of a BT engineer, the equipment in the village is out of the arc and not capable of the job.

The speed gradually decreases so much so that by the time it reaches us (The Old Chapel) it is only running at 12mb. The BT Infinity hub will not even connect at this speed as it is expecting at least 15mb.

Bt however still expect you to pay Infinity prices and are not offering any discounts.

If any of you have signed up for BT Infinity or any other service providers super fast broadband it would be great if you could let everyone know (via the comment box below) what speeds you are getting and whereabouts in the village you are so others can make an informed choice.

You can use this link to test your speed:
http://www.mybroadbandspeed.co.uk/

Thank you
Kay

27 comments:

  1. We were intending to sign up for BT Infinity so thank you for that feedback. If anyone in the village has a good connection speed We'd be keen to know. Kate & David Kirk.

    ReplyDelete
  2. 37 mbps here in Goldsithney

    ReplyDelete
  3. The problem lies with the optical connection terminating at the top of the hill, up to a mile from some houses. BT Infinity was only ever engineered to deliver the up to 40Mbit/s download speed where the DSLAM unit within the 'green box' was situated only a few hundred meters max from the intended customers - as the final distance is covered by non fibre-optic cables [which typically cause drain of a signal over distance].
    The solution would seem to lie in trying to get BT to reposition this unit within the village or put an optical cable extension to lessen the distance covered by conventional cable. Rather irritatingly, I can only see they would do this once they have a certain number of confirmed subscribers to [from their view] warrant the installation of equipment so that they can recover costs. A catch 22 I feel.
    However, I have found the BT Fusion system to be sufficient in bandwidth [~10Mbit/s realistic speed] to do most internet tasks, from email, browsing to even heavier use- streaming online videos!

    ReplyDelete
  4. hi, as a visitor to your village each year i know that compared to myself you are pretty remote, but i get 1/2 a meg max, and i live 1 mile from a major town centre!

    ReplyDelete
  5. After two pointless visits from so called BT engineers I have been informed that I cannot have BT infinity!! Yet they are still sending mail ouTts to all residents saying it is available!! I find BT a ridiculous company that has no interest in helping people improve there broadband capacity just in making money!! I spent over 2 hours on the phone to someone in India from BT that their engineer having failed to install infinity had left me with no broadband at all!! A very poor display at how a huge British company continually fails to deliver to the consumer!! I would advise all to steer well clear of BT!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Mark Taylor16/2/12 11:21 am

    Being in the IT field I have been watching this unfolding story over the last few months. There are 2 types of fibre connection:- To the local cabinet (as we have) or to the premises. "To the Premises" will give huge speeds but we don't have the fibre infrastructure in place. "To the Cabinet" relies on the copper phone line (or aluminium in some cases) to relay the last part to your house as mentioned in the previous post. In effect for broadband purposes this moves the Marazion exchange to the cabinet at the top crossroads. However, the drop off in speed experienced by some residents in our village and also the difference in speed between households AND the fact that Goldsithney is getting great speeds, points to the cabling around the village being in an appalling state. There are no spare useable lines, the pub and others including me have had huge problems with lines not working and broadband speeds are way below the levels that BT, Plusnet etc know we can get. I was calculated to get 32mb/s and actually get an erratic 17mb/s. The engineer who came out to rectify it was baffled as to why my speed was so low compared to the predicted speed. He did let slip that he spends a huge amount of time telling people that. It is my intention to gather data from as many people as I can to put the case to Openreach that the infrastructure in this village needs totally overhauling. It is completely unacceptable and indeed crazy that Kate and others cannot have this facility. The figures show it can easily be done but Openreach need to get their act together and stop wasting everyone's time. There is also a degree of mis-selling going on with the service providers. Plusnet guaranteed to connect me within 1mb of the predicted 32mb/s. The have only provided just over half that. I can be contacted on mark.taylor@oryx-it.com and would be interested in knowing the speed you get, your location and the provider/service you have subscribed to.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Dave Sharp, The Old Post Office
    18.5 download, 4.5 upload with BT Infinity (16/2/2012).
    Although when it was first installed I was getting 21/5 ???

    ReplyDelete
  8. Pippa Young18/2/12 3:49 pm

    I am interested to hear about the infinity speed disappointment. We would like to have infinity for business purposes but we are locked into a bonded DSL contract until July. I think we had the last available line in the village installed to achieve this... We had considered a leased line, but were told we would have to pay £6,000 to dig up the road to the cabinet to install it. I imagine the cost of upgrading the village to receive infinity is the stumbling block. Is the potential financial reward enough to make it worthwhile for BT?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Pippa Young19/2/12 9:06 pm

    Oops. That £6,000 was the cost of putting more lines in the village - not for digging up the road or for a leased line.... Sorry, need to check my facts...!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Michael Ball25/2/12 10:47 pm

    According to the test I seem to be getting download of 1.46MBs and upload of 72.8kBs - and this is with BT Infinity which was installed a couple of weeks ago here in Church Town - I guess that I have a problem !!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anthony Trescowe Common We are the very last tel. on the Germoe exch. and have had tremendous problems with both phone & broadband for years.Lightning strikes & storms being the main causes. We are not eligble for Infinity according to B.T. due to our distance from the ex. Speed is currently 2.4Mbps but the Eng. who came last week (following no Broadband yet again!) said it would be worth asking for our Profile to be re-assessed in 10 days...."when everything will have settled down following his work"....Hopefully we may get it increased from its current 2.5Mbps to perhaps a massive 3.0Mbps! N.B. As I understand it 8Mbps=1mBps i.e. 8bits=1Byte If my memory from the Spectrum is right!

      Delete
  11. Iain Vosper26/2/12 12:59 pm

    I was supposed to be having BT infinity installed last week but they cancelled the appointment (without telling me), because of 'a problem in the exchange'. Installation is now scheduled for next Friday. I live in Trebarvah so may be even worse off than Michael. I now get 2.5Mbps from Talk Talk and was assured when I ordered BT infinity I'd get 16.4Mbps. It'll be interesting to see if I can back out of the agreement when I ring them tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anthony Trescowe Common If anyone is totally desparate with no, or snailpace, Broadband or just desparate to avoid B.T. I met a couple in Peppercorn recently who were using Satellite Broadband and said it was not too expensive to install and offered to help me. They are Alan & Olivia, e-mail alan@greatbosullow.co.uk

    ReplyDelete
  13. Michael Ball26/2/12 10:02 pm

    Have retested and speed now running at 12+M download & 0.6 uploads - much better than yesterday, although I was using a different test provider - should they differ ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anthony Trescowe Common They should be roughly the same BUT I presume that as with ordinary Broadband it will vary due to various reasons including the extent of other people's usage at the time of the test. Differant test sites quote speeds in differant units so we need to remember that: 8Mbps=1MBps=8000Kbps=1000KBps

      Delete
  14. Mark Taylor29/2/12 9:54 am

    Just an update to what I am undertaking. I am slowly gathering specs regarding the fall off of speed as distance from the cabinet increases. I was mildy surprised to measure that cable length to The Old Chapel is a kilometre! That does have a significant effect and it seems that many of the Internet providers simply do not have accurate distances logged against post codes (hence the overselling of speeds). I am also obtaining data regarding upload speeds and the level they should be relative to downloads. I would also be grateful if people have friends in Goldsithney who are already on fibre connections, if they could tell me what speeds they are getting. Openreach have blankly refused to enter into any discussion with me regarding performance of their copper network in this area. I believe some of my actions have focussed Openreach's minds on the fact there is an issue in the village with speeds. The mere fact that David is further from the cabinet than Kay and he gets a service whereas Kay does not immediately rings alarm bells. Bear with me while I gather more facts and I will get to the bottom of this. I am sure we all acknowledge that for those of us with a successful fibre connection - the increase in speed has been wonderful, however I am determined to firstly stop this overselling, secondly get to the bottom of the fiasco that Kay has had to endure and thirdly address the slow upload speeds.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Mark Taylor29/2/12 10:01 am

    Michael regarding your question about upload and download speeds being different. Interestingly you are about the same as me ratio-wise. In theory we should be getting our upload at about an eigth the speed of our download. We are both around 1/20th which is not good enough.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Mark taylor (again sorry!)29/2/12 10:06 am

    The following link makes for interesting reading with reagrd to our issues:

    http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/apples-are-not-the-only-fruit-windows-are-for-gazing-out-of-not-at-10014376/btinfinity-upto-40mbps-what-speed-can-we-really-expect-10020753/

    ReplyDelete
  17. Hi All, We had infinity installed 25th January and have had engineers out at least once or twice a week since then. Open Reach guys seem to be very helpful but BT contract and telephone exchange in India are definitely not. Yesterday we achieved approx 15 download and 1.2 upload (today a variable 13.07-14.5 down and 0.6-1.05 up)and the engineer said that this was the best we are likely to achieve due to under and overground cable quality between the PILLAR at the pub and us (aside from what is lost between Perran x roads and the pillar!). I have a direct line into BT now that avoids the Indian call centre and am now approaching the whole situation from a Sales of Goods Act perspective. I have been on the complaints site and the Ofcom Ombudsman require you to formally complain and allow 8 weeks for the company to rectify the issue before they will take a case (start date for my complaint being lodged with them is April 8th). I think perhaps complaints registered in numbers might help our cause. The engineers are saying that there are no funds to replace the line BUT our contracts mean that they must provide the service or they are in breach of the sales of goods act - so whatever the cost of new cables - that is not our problem. Also I see on the paperwork you have 3 months to register your complaint so ensure you get it put in one time and get a reference for it! It is essential we fight for the upload as well as the download. I am off to make the next call and see what the response is!!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Hi again, Another trip to India (!!) and I am assured that the Open Reach team will be here in the next 48 hours to re-wire the required cables. So we shall see if this will get resolution. I have also submitted a formal complaint via the BT website and recorded my intended actions via the Ombudsman and breach of Sales of Goods Act if resolution isn't achieved on the telephone feedback system.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Mark Taylor29/2/12 7:28 pm

    Well done Rachel. You have clearly been far more direct than me and have now set a precedent. I am going to pursue the same line with Plusnet. I was sold the product at 23.5mbps and they were guaranteeing to be within 1 mbps of that. Clearly a shortfall with my 17mbps. As an Infinity customer you have a far more direct link to Openreach but I shall now put pressure on Plusnet and would encourage everyone else who was sold at a particular speed to demand it.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I work for Superfast Cornwall (www.superfastcornwall.org)the programme rolling out next generation broadband in Cornwall. The way we are deploying superfast broadband in Cornwall is to try to get the best possible speed to everyone we can but speeds will vary community by community. If you do have a problem with the service then the first thing to do is to contact your internet service provider but if that doesn't resolve the issue then do please email me and I'll be happy to look at any particular problems to see if we can help resolve them; it is helpful if you can include your name, address, telephone number, internet service provider and a quick description of the issue. Thanks - Matt
    Matt Silver, Superfast Cornwall matt@superfastcornwall.org

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Matt. We do have a big problem in the village so you may get a lot of emails!

      Delete
  21. Hi all, just a quick update to say I have not yet received any recent emails from the community in the Perranuthnoe area! If you are still having issues with your Internet Service Provider please contact me matt@superfastcornwall.org
    Thanks
    Matt Silver
    Superfast Cornwall

    ReplyDelete
  22. Thank you for your informative post concerning your experiences with BT Infinity in Perranuthnoe. Godolphin is on the same (Germoe) exchange as Perranuthnoe, however BT have ignored us and there appears to be no plans to give us superfast broadband. From your experiences it is probably a good job that a number of us are joining together to see if we can implement a non BT rural broadband initiiative....
    Thank you once again for sharing your experiences on this topic...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I will hopefully be moving to Godolphin Cross this Summer. I work in IT , predominantly from home. I was expecting Infinity to be available here but it seems this is not the case from this thread. Can anyone tell me what the plans are for Godolphin Cross please. Thanks.

      Delete