[Archived] BT fined 42 million pounds

[Biddy]

I know I could Google search but I'm lazy so trust you all ? but what is the upload speed of the Fibre Max (76Mbps) package. Does it match the 20Mbps of the BT equivalent?

Also, has anyone tried 4k streaming on Netflix on Sky? Is it ok, especially at peak times. That is the only thing that's repulsed me about Virgin. On BT I could get the BT 4K sport channel and happily stream 4k on Netflix and Amazon when I wanted to watch it, ie 6pm-11pm after work. With Virgin last night Netflix buffered continuously with a blocky 480p resolution!

[Glenn]

I watch 4K stuff off amazon (not paid the upgrade fee on Netflix for it yet) without a problem. Only time I've noticed an issue was when I was trying to stream a 4K video file to my laptop at the same time, but hey, I think that's reasonable.

BTW You the phone line-rental you pay for with broadband isn't really for your unused phone, it's for the lump of copper between your house and the green box that BT owns (aka local loop), which is as essential for broadband as it is phone. I don't understand why they never updated the terminology

[Glenn]

BTW at the weekend, I'll do some speed tests with various downloads/streams running so get you some numbers, but I know my service is capped by the quality of the local loop, which in my case isn't great (but more than enough for 4K streaming)

[Biddy]

Just now, Glenn said:

I watch 4K stuff off amazon (not paid the upgrade fee on Netflix for it yet) without a problem. Only time I've noticed an issue was when I was trying to stream a 4K video file to my laptop at the same time, but hey, I think that's reasonable.

BTW You the phone line-rental you pay for with broadband isn't really for your unused phone, it's for the lump of copper between your house and the green box that BT owns (aka local loop), which is as essential for broadband as it is phone. I don't understand why they never updated the terminology

However, Virgin have a lump of copper to the house and the green box but I can have broadband without phone with them. There is no need for line rental. Well, line rental maybe, but phone service, no.

[Glenn]

Don't cable companies still dig up your garden to put fibre right into your house (negating the need for the local loop)? They did last time I had cable (admittedly about 10 years ago) 

[Biddy]

Just now, Glenn said:

Don't cable companies still dig up your garden to put fibre right into your house (negating the need for the local loop)? They did last time I had cable (admittedly about 10 years ago) 

They dig up your garden (if it's not already been done) to run copper from the cabinet to a box on the outside of your wall, just like BT. Virgin is FTTC just like BT it's just the network technology that's different.

And still, even if they had to do the work of digging up my garden to run the same type of cable as BT already have in place, i could just pay for broadband without phone for about £5pm cheaper than both together.

[Glenn]

I didn't realise that, I thought it was fibre all the way to router  

[Paul]

Living in a small village BT was our only option for many. I think other options are available now but I haven't really looked in to those. I'm reluctant to change as my gut feeling is if we have two suppliers and something goes wrong we will almost certainly be stuck in the middle of a whose responsibility row. I have a neighbour four doors down our terrace who is with Talk Talk and says it's utterly useless but very cheap!!! You get what you pay for. Same lines, same everything.

Our web access from dial up days to now has been BT. When we have encountered problems these have been resolved quickly and without cost to us.

We have Infinity 1, BT TV, BT Sport which is always free. My one gripe is line rental as we never  make calls. I think a fair way to approach this would be to have a waiver option for line rental with significantly increased call charges when one did make a call .

The only major issue I've had came shortly after getting BT TV years ago. It was unusable. After some head scratching it occurred to me as the incoming box was marked GPO - no joke - it could be an equipment issue. I called for help, the young woman I spoke to had no idea what GPO was but organised an engineer. He had a wry smile on his face when he saw the box, ripped out and replaced everything, including extensions, and set us up completely. No charges.

Our speed is 47/Mbps and up load of 2.9. We've had much lower speeds in the past without issues. I've never really understood, that is comprehended technically, why there is this seemingly constant need for higher speeds. Everything we have ever tried to watch is fine though HD films require a short initial download. I can't say I've ever found this life threatening!!

In all seriousness what are people doing with all this "speed" that I'm missing out on? Without being critical it always seems to me as nothing other than "mine's bigger than your's."

[Glenn]

1 hour ago, Paul said:

In all seriousness what are people doing with all this "speed" that I'm missing out on? Without being critical it always seems to me as nothing other than "mine's bigger than your's."

4k/HDR streaming is the main bandwidth chomper for most of us (at least those of us that aren't trying to build a secure offsite backup of The Pirate Bay), which from memory takes a steady 25mpbs not to buffer

[Biddy]

15 minutes ago, Glenn said:

4k/HDR streaming is the main bandwidth chomper for most of us (at least those of us that aren't trying to build a secure offsite backup of The Pirate Bay), which from memory takes a steady 25mpbs not to buffer

Yep, Netflix demands 25mbps and I think the BT UHD channel required 35mbps!! Obviously with one person streaming UHD it doesn't leave much spare capacity for others in the house so extra bandwidth is needed.

When on BT, I was getting around 58Mbps which was absolutely fine for everything. So yes, I believe Virgin are all about the numbers and have forgotten about the quality.

[Paul]

16 minutes ago, Glenn said:

4k/HDR streaming is the main bandwidth chomper for most of us (at least those of us that aren't trying to build a secure offsite backup of The Pirate Bay), which from memory takes a steady 25mpbs not to buffer

Hmmmm. You've nearly lost me completely with that Glenn!

I do know what 4K and HDR are! Do people really back up TV - presumably this is what Pirate Bay is? Excuse my ignorance. 

I guess my different view is our viewing is primarily BBC, either iPlayer or live, occasional Netflix or Amazon films and tennis on Eurosport. Whereas you're discussing streamed programming I'm totally unaware of?

[Glenn]

Sorry. I was partly overly technical and partly being sarcastic about pirates

TV is normally available in various resolutions, The higher the resolution, the more data is needed to be sent, so the more bandwidth is needed.

4K (which is the lower of the two ultra HD resolutions) TVs and monitors are now becoming affordable and providers are starting to put some content out in 4K (Netflix, amazon and sky Q now all offer some content in 4K). It's a serious step up from HD.

List of resolutions / names / amount of data -> 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_resolutions

My comment about 'downloading pirate bay' is the other thing really fast connections are needed for us people who like to collect large numbers of high quality films from dodgy sources and never get around to watching them.

 

[Baz]

12 hours ago, Paul said:

Living in a small village BT was our only option for many. I think other options are available now but I haven't really looked in to those. I'm reluctant to change as my gut feeling is if we have two suppliers and something goes wrong we will almost certainly be stuck in the middle of a whose responsibility row. I have a neighbour four doors down our terrace who is with Talk Talk and says it's utterly useless but very cheap!!! You get what you pay for. Same lines, same everything.

Our web access from dial up days to now has been BT. When we have encountered problems these have been resolved quickly and without cost to us.

We have Infinity 1, BT TV, BT Sport which is always free. My one gripe is line rental as we never  make calls. I think a fair way to approach this would be to have a waiver option for line rental with significantly increased call charges when one did make a call .

The only major issue I've had came shortly after getting BT TV years ago. It was unusable. After some head scratching it occurred to me as the incoming box was marked GPO - no joke - it could be an equipment issue. I called for help, the young woman I spoke to had no idea what GPO was but organised an engineer. He had a wry smile on his face when he saw the box, ripped out and replaced everything, including extensions, and set us up completely. No charges.

Our speed is 47/Mbps and up load of 2.9. We've had much lower speeds in the past without issues. I've never really understood, that is comprehended technically, why there is this seemingly constant need for higher speeds. Everything we have ever tried to watch is fine though HD films require a short initial download. I can't say I've ever found this life threatening!!

In all seriousness what are people doing with all this "speed" that I'm missing out on? Without being critical it always seems to me as nothing other than "mine's bigger than your's."

I can understand the if it's not broke don't fix it thing, but really unless you are moving to a new product (BT infinity is FTTC) then any other provider bar Virgin (who have their own network) will supply you the exact same thing and quite probably cheaper, it's whether you use the BT add-ons like BT sport. If you do and you are out of contract, go on a broadband comparison site, find the best offer, then ring BT and get them to match it. If your not bothered about BT sport, see what other add-ons are available- sometimes it's 6 months free, £100 voucher etc.

If you don't, you are effectively that person who never changes energy supplier, and ends up paying way over the odds. BT are currently offering new customers £125  reward card (a prepaid credit card with 125 money on there) or £25/month.

Line rental is the price to keep your line in service on the network, nothing to do with calls.

I have FTTM because I have awful adsl and no free fttc connections in the area. It's 10mbps up or down, pretty much uncontended for £20/month and no line rental.Enough to stream HD, not enough for UHD.

[Biddy]

Just to add, I believe BT sports will no longer to be free after July. I think it's £3.50pm month with a broadband subscription.