Speedtest

[Enzedder]

Haven't done this for a while - it's good to see how we measure up.

Quite happy with my home speed at the moment

Download Mbps
290.41
Upload Mbps
97.77

[Sandstorm]

Download: 49
Upload: 12

Nothing to shout about; however fibre is going in on our street today, so may look at the pricing options soon.

[LoveOfTheGame]

Down: 87.37
Up: 94.10

Works for me.

[boere wors]

Haven't done this for a while - it's good to see how we measure up.

Quite happy with my home speed at the moment

Download Mbps
290.41
Upload Mbps
97.77

Quite happy?! A tenth of that should be sufficient for normal use including HD streaming

[mat the expat]

Download: 49
Upload: 12

Nothing to shout about; however fibre is going in on our street today, so may look at the pricing options soon.

Just moved from a fibre to the premises place to fibre to the node.... it's nominally fast but dropout central

Luckily, fibre has just been laid and am waiting for the vendor to announce it's ready

[Gumboot]

DL 321.38
UL 109.42

[Jethro]

Haven't done this for a while - it's good to see how we measure up.

Quite happy with my home speed at the moment

Download Mbps
290.41
Upload Mbps
97.77

Quite happy?! A tenth of that should be sufficient for normal use including HD streaming

It barely covers his sheep porn requirements

[Kiwias]

Download 150
Upload 187

With this comment on the result

Your Internet connection is very fast.

Your Internet connection should be able to handle multiple devices streaming HD videos, video conferencing and gaming at the same time.

Tried another site and got
Download 378
Upload 65.5

[Torquemada 1420]

500 up and down.

[Raggs]

500 up and down.

DL 504
UL 420

[Stranger]

70
42

but I am in the middle of nowhere so Ok for me

[ScarfaceClaw]

610 down
80 up

[tabascoboy]

Download = 74.8
Upload = 18.7

Fibre to the Cabinet only, could upgrade to full fibre but not bothered as this serves my needs

[bok_viking]

I have both a fibre connection and 5G router

The Fibre is
DL 91.2
UL 90.9

5G
DL 123.4
UL 20.2

The cost have come down a lot in the area, so will most likely upgrade to a 200/200 or 500/500 line later this year. The 200/200 line now cost as much as a 50/50 line 2 years ago.

[Biffer]

155 down
29 up

I do not have broadband.

[Biffer]

I have both a fibre connection and 5G router

The Fibre is
DL 91.2
UL 90.9

5G
DL 123.4
UL 20.2

The cost have come down a lot in the area, so will most likely upgrade to a 200/200 or 500/500 line later this year. The 200/200 line now cost as much as a 50/50 line 2 years ago.

Why? If you get that speed on 5g, dump the broadband and get a 5g hub.

[JM2K6]

I have both a fibre connection and 5G router

The Fibre is
DL 91.2
UL 90.9

5G
DL 123.4
UL 20.2

The cost have come down a lot in the area, so will most likely upgrade to a 200/200 or 500/500 line later this year. The 200/200 line now cost as much as a 50/50 line 2 years ago.

Why? If you get that speed on 5g, dump the broadband and get a 5g hub.

5g is less consistent and the latency & packet loss will be way worse

[Biffer]

I have both a fibre connection and 5G router

The Fibre is
DL 91.2
UL 90.9

5G
DL 123.4
UL 20.2

The cost have come down a lot in the area, so will most likely upgrade to a 200/200 or 500/500 line later this year. The 200/200 line now cost as much as a 50/50 line 2 years ago.

Why? If you get that speed on 5g, dump the broadband and get a 5g hub.

5g is less consistent and the latency & packet loss will be way worse

I only use 5g now. Did away with broadband last year. I stream tv, do videocons for work, all the normal stuff. No issues whatsoever. I’m not a gamer, I think that’s the only place where you’d notice the latency.

[Dinsdale Piranha]

276/26. Cable.

It's mostly been reliable over the years. The problem is that it's Virginmedia who, as well as being eye wateringly expensive have customer service that's about the worst I've ever encountered. No 5G in the area. We don't even have proper 4G (in the centre of Surbiton)

[bok_viking]

I have both a fibre connection and 5G router

The Fibre is
DL 91.2
UL 90.9

5G
DL 123.4
UL 20.2

The cost have come down a lot in the area, so will most likely upgrade to a 200/200 or 500/500 line later this year. The 200/200 line now cost as much as a 50/50 line 2 years ago.

Why? If you get that speed on 5g, dump the broadband and get a 5g hub.

Because of the Upload, though I get consistent fast speeds on download over 5G, the upload speeds are very unstable where I live. Sometimes I can get 20-50 and other times it goes as low as 2. If it was stable it would have been a no-brainer. I have my office at home and often have to upload large files to servers or doing remote access and the upload inconsistency can cause lots of issues unfortunately. I have been using the 5G router as a backup for times when we experienced lots of loadshedding, during those times the fibre service often would go down after 1 to 2 hours of no electricity while the 5G service kept working.
Luckily no loadshedding for several months, but I keep the %G service just in case and it does not cost an arm and leg to keep.

[Biffer]

Fair enough, I have to acknowledge I've got a good 5g signal. But that's the way the world is going to go. This whole effort to put fibre to the door of every house could be replaced by massively investing in 5g infrastructure. I remember working in It twenty years ago and guys putting cat 5/6 cabling in their house, convinced that it was the future and would increase their house value. Then along came WiFi and it's now all just pointless unused wiring. This relentless effort to put cable to every door in Edinburgh reminds me of that. Next generation of mobile data will render cabled Internet pointless for nearly everyone.

[JM2K6]

Fair enough, I have to acknowledge I've got a good 5g signal. But that's the way the world is going to go. This whole effort to put fibre to the door of every house could be replaced by massively investing in 5g infrastructure. I remember working in It twenty years ago and guys putting cat 5/6 cabling in their house, convinced that it was the future and would increase their house value. Then along came WiFi and it's now all just pointless unused wiring. This relentless effort to put cable to every door in Edinburgh reminds me of that. Next generation of mobile data will render cabled Internet pointless for nearly everyone.

It won't. Mobile operators like to talk about the maximum speeds of 5G but for home users there are a huge number of drawbacks and ways in which the mobile operators have to cut corners. It's not feasible that 5G will replace fibre for consumer broadband. The problem isn't the top speed or even the latency, it's about the hardware - the masts and the radios - and the engineering required to make fixed wireless a genuine option for large groups of people.

5G replacing fibre is a nightmare future for some providers, tbh.

WiFi is also not a valid replacement for cat 5/6, depending on what you care about. It's extremely easy for WiFi to turn to shit in an average house, and to provide excellent coverage that also is capable of providing you the speeds you're paying for requires paying through the nose for expensive hardware like mesh networks. WiFi has inherent flaws that make it an extremely tough sell as a replacement for cables if you actually need low latency/loss and high throughput for multiple devices.

[Biffer]

Fair enough, I have to acknowledge I've got a good 5g signal. But that's the way the world is going to go. This whole effort to put fibre to the door of every house could be replaced by massively investing in 5g infrastructure. I remember working in It twenty years ago and guys putting cat 5/6 cabling in their house, convinced that it was the future and would increase their house value. Then along came WiFi and it's now all just pointless unused wiring. This relentless effort to put cable to every door in Edinburgh reminds me of that. Next generation of mobile data will render cabled Internet pointless for nearly everyone.

It won't. Mobile operators like to talk about the maximum speeds of 5G but for home users there are a huge number of drawbacks and ways in which the mobile operators have to cut corners. It's not feasible that 5G will replace fibre for consumer broadband. The problem isn't the top speed or even the latency, it's about the hardware - the masts and the radios - and the engineering required to make fixed wireless a genuine option for large groups of people.

5G replacing fibre is a nightmare future for some providers, tbh.

WiFi is also not a valid replacement for cat 5/6, depending on what you care about. It's extremely easy for WiFi to turn to shit in an average house, and to provide excellent coverage that also is capable of providing you the speeds you're paying for requires paying through the nose for expensive hardware like mesh networks. WiFi has inherent flaws that make it an extremely tough sell as a replacement for cables if you actually need low latency/loss and high throughput for multiple devices.

And yet how many households do you know of that don't use WiFi?

[S/Lt_Phillips]

Another issue with relying on 4G or 5G is it can be affected by atmospheric conditions. A friend of mine lives in he highlands, copper telephone to the exchange is several miles and of course no cable, so he tried using the 4G tower he could see at the end of the glen. However, whenever it rained heavily he would lose the signal - not great as he works from home and would be constantly dropping out of Teams meetings. Now he uses satellite (though he feels dirty paying Elon for it).

[JM2K6]

Fair enough, I have to acknowledge I've got a good 5g signal. But that's the way the world is going to go. This whole effort to put fibre to the door of every house could be replaced by massively investing in 5g infrastructure. I remember working in It twenty years ago and guys putting cat 5/6 cabling in their house, convinced that it was the future and would increase their house value. Then along came WiFi and it's now all just pointless unused wiring. This relentless effort to put cable to every door in Edinburgh reminds me of that. Next generation of mobile data will render cabled Internet pointless for nearly everyone.

It won't. Mobile operators like to talk about the maximum speeds of 5G but for home users there are a huge number of drawbacks and ways in which the mobile operators have to cut corners. It's not feasible that 5G will replace fibre for consumer broadband. The problem isn't the top speed or even the latency, it's about the hardware - the masts and the radios - and the engineering required to make fixed wireless a genuine option for large groups of people.

5G replacing fibre is a nightmare future for some providers, tbh.

WiFi is also not a valid replacement for cat 5/6, depending on what you care about. It's extremely easy for WiFi to turn to shit in an average house, and to provide excellent coverage that also is capable of providing you the speeds you're paying for requires paying through the nose for expensive hardware like mesh networks. WiFi has inherent flaws that make it an extremely tough sell as a replacement for cables if you actually need low latency/loss and high throughput for multiple devices.

And yet how many households do you know of that don't use WiFi?

That's not the point, though. WiFi is still inferior to actual cabling even if you throw a big chunk of money to get worse performance. There are many devices that do not easily support wired connections, and many devices that are used just for lightweight browsing. WiFi works for a lot of use cases. But for others, cabling is still important. No-one is going to regret having cabled up their house if they have any need for a decent connection. Even if it's just to use the cabling for better wireless repeaters & APs. When I finally buy a house, I'll be cabling it, because WiFi's shitty parts are not something I'll want to have to deal with for my
desktop devices.

Besides, 5G replacing fibre isn't the same scenario. 5G is great if you can't get fibre, or if there's a significant cost differential. But the benefits you get from having wifi at home are not replicated here. The mobile nature of 5G does not matter - your house is not going to move. All you're getting is an extremely variable connection that suffers badly from contention and congestion, has much bigger problems with interference, and is less reliable than fibre, but potentially has a higher theoretical maximum throughput than whatever wired connection you can currently get at your house. Given the choice between, say, a 500Mbps fibre connection and a 5G connection, and if the costs are not particularly different, then you'd be foolish to go with 5G.

People are using it for cost and availability reasons, and that's great. It's like Starlink - for some people it's the best they can get. And there's no question 5G can pump out some absurd numbers when the stars align - our studies saw >1.5Gbps in NZ, and more than that in other countries. But if you are at all interested in having a reliable connection, 5G is not the way forward. It's far better to have a reliable fibre connection where you're still getting fantastic speeds in both directions, repeatably, with very low latency, zero packet loss, and very little variation, than it is to play the 5G lottery.

[JM2K6]

Another issue with relying on 4G or 5G is it can be affected by atmospheric conditions. A friend of mine lives in he highlands, copper telephone to the exchange is several miles and of course no cable, so he tried using the 4G tower he could see at the end of the glen. However, whenever it rained heavily he would lose the signal - not great as he works from home and would be constantly dropping out of Teams meetings. Now he uses satellite (though he feels dirty paying Elon for it).

We did a study on fixed wireless in Canada and part of the interest was in matching performance to the weather. I had some very funny anecdotes from wireless operators talking about the difficulties in providing service during an ice storm...

[Biffer]

It won't. Mobile operators like to talk about the maximum speeds of 5G but for home users there are a huge number of drawbacks and ways in which the mobile operators have to cut corners. It's not feasible that 5G will replace fibre for consumer broadband. The problem isn't the top speed or even the latency, it's about the hardware - the masts and the radios - and the engineering required to make fixed wireless a genuine option for large groups of people.

5G replacing fibre is a nightmare future for some providers, tbh.

WiFi is also not a valid replacement for cat 5/6, depending on what you care about. It's extremely easy for WiFi to turn to shit in an average house, and to provide excellent coverage that also is capable of providing you the speeds you're paying for requires paying through the nose for expensive hardware like mesh networks. WiFi has inherent flaws that make it an extremely tough sell as a replacement for cables if you actually need low latency/loss and high throughput for multiple devices.

And yet how many households do you know of that don't use WiFi?

That's not the point, though. WiFi is still inferior to actual cabling even if you throw a big chunk of money to get worse performance. There are many devices that do not easily support wired connections, and many devices that are used just for lightweight browsing. WiFi works for a lot of use cases. But for others, cabling is still important. No-one is going to regret having cabled up their house if they have any need for a decent connection. Even if it's just to use the cabling for better wireless repeaters & APs. When I finally buy a house, I'll be cabling it, because WiFi's shitty parts are not something I'll want to have to deal with for my
desktop devices.

Besides, 5G replacing fibre isn't the same scenario. 5G is great if you can't get fibre, or if there's a significant cost differential. But the benefits you get from having wifi at home are not replicated here. The mobile nature of 5G does not matter - your house is not going to move. All you're getting is an extremely variable connection that suffers badly from contention and congestion, has much bigger problems with interference, and is less reliable than fibre, but potentially has a higher theoretical maximum throughput than whatever wired connection you can currently get at your house. Given the choice between, say, a 500Mbps fibre connection and a 5G connection, and if the costs are not particularly different, then you'd be foolish to go with 5G.

People are using it for cost and availability reasons, and that's great. It's like Starlink - for some people it's the best they can get. And there's no question 5G can pump out some absurd numbers when the stars align - our studies saw >1.5Gbps in NZ, and more than that in other countries. But if you are at all interested in having a reliable connection, 5G is not the way forward. It's far better to have a reliable fibre connection where you're still getting fantastic speeds in both directions, repeatably, with very low latency, zero packet loss, and very little variation, than it is to play the 5G lottery.

VHS was always inferior to Betamax too.

[JM2K6]

And yet how many households do you know of that don't use WiFi?

That's not the point, though. WiFi is still inferior to actual cabling even if you throw a big chunk of money to get worse performance. There are many devices that do not easily support wired connections, and many devices that are used just for lightweight browsing. WiFi works for a lot of use cases. But for others, cabling is still important. No-one is going to regret having cabled up their house if they have any need for a decent connection. Even if it's just to use the cabling for better wireless repeaters & APs. When I finally buy a house, I'll be cabling it, because WiFi's shitty parts are not something I'll want to have to deal with for my
desktop devices.

Besides, 5G replacing fibre isn't the same scenario. 5G is great if you can't get fibre, or if there's a significant cost differential. But the benefits you get from having wifi at home are not replicated here. The mobile nature of 5G does not matter - your house is not going to move. All you're getting is an extremely variable connection that suffers badly from contention and congestion, has much bigger problems with interference, and is less reliable than fibre, but potentially has a higher theoretical maximum throughput than whatever wired connection you can currently get at your house. Given the choice between, say, a 500Mbps fibre connection and a 5G connection, and if the costs are not particularly different, then you'd be foolish to go with 5G.

People are using it for cost and availability reasons, and that's great. It's like Starlink - for some people it's the best they can get. And there's no question 5G can pump out some absurd numbers when the stars align - our studies saw >1.5Gbps in NZ, and more than that in other countries. But if you are at all interested in having a reliable connection, 5G is not the way forward. It's far better to have a reliable fibre connection where you're still getting fantastic speeds in both directions, repeatably, with very low latency, zero packet loss, and very little variation, than it is to play the 5G lottery.

VHS was always inferior to Betamax too.

I don't know what to tell you apart from the fact that those in the industry don't agree with you. Operators aren't expecting or wanting 5G to take over fibre for consumer broadband. It is a solution for a specific problem, nothing more, and it comes with a high burden for the operators themselves.

[mat the expat]

That's not the point, though. WiFi is still inferior to actual cabling even if you throw a big chunk of money to get worse performance. There are many devices that do not easily support wired connections, and many devices that are used just for lightweight browsing. WiFi works for a lot of use cases. But for others, cabling is still important. No-one is going to regret having cabled up their house if they have any need for a decent connection. Even if it's just to use the cabling for better wireless repeaters & APs. When I finally buy a house, I'll be cabling it, because WiFi's shitty parts are not something I'll want to have to deal with for my
desktop devices.

Besides, 5G replacing fibre isn't the same scenario. 5G is great if you can't get fibre, or if there's a significant cost differential. But the benefits you get from having wifi at home are not replicated here. The mobile nature of 5G does not matter - your house is not going to move. All you're getting is an extremely variable connection that suffers badly from contention and congestion, has much bigger problems with interference, and is less reliable than fibre, but potentially has a higher theoretical maximum throughput than whatever wired connection you can currently get at your house. Given the choice between, say, a 500Mbps fibre connection and a 5G connection, and if the costs are not particularly different, then you'd be foolish to go with 5G.

People are using it for cost and availability reasons, and that's great. It's like Starlink - for some people it's the best they can get. And there's no question 5G can pump out some absurd numbers when the stars align - our studies saw >1.5Gbps in NZ, and more than that in other countries. But if you are at all interested in having a reliable connection, 5G is not the way forward. It's far better to have a reliable fibre connection where you're still getting fantastic speeds in both directions, repeatably, with very low latency, zero packet loss, and very little variation, than it is to play the 5G lottery.

VHS was always inferior to Betamax too.

I don't know what to tell you apart from the fact that those in the industry don't agree with you. Operators aren't expecting or wanting 5G to take over fibre for consumer broadband. It is a solution for a specific problem, nothing more, and it comes with a high burden for the operators themselves.

Yep,

It's Niche for specific tasks - we often install them as backup links for small sites if the fibre options are poor

[Woddy]

Down: 37 mbps
Up: 3.84 mbps

Speedtest describes that as “fast” but all your comparisons above would suggest otherwise v strongly. So would practical experience. We are on a BT subspur in the Surrey Hills, which they do not give a damn about. Main problem is that with thick internal walls, some main rooms in the house get nothing, even with boosters being used.

Any immediate obvious changes we are missing?

[JM2K6]

Down: 37 mbps
Up: 3.84 mbps

Speedtest describes that as “fast” but all your comparisons above would suggest otherwise v strongly. So would practical experience. We are on a BT subspur in the Surrey Hills, which they do not give a damn about. Main problem is that with thick internal walls, some main rooms in the house get nothing, even with boosters being used.

Any immediate obvious changes we are missing?

Are you actually paying for a 40Mbps package? Agreed re: fast, most countries are moving beyond that being considered high speed, eg the FCC recently changed their definition of broadband to be 100x20, up from 25x3.

For WiFi in problematic homes, you may find power line adapters offer a solution, particularly if there is a certain area that gets poor signal.

[Tichtheid]

Down: 37 mbps
Up: 3.84 mbps

Speedtest describes that as “fast” but all your comparisons above would suggest otherwise v strongly. So would practical experience. We are on a BT subspur in the Surrey Hills, which they do not give a damn about. Main problem is that with thick internal walls, some main rooms in the house get nothing, even with boosters being used.

Any immediate obvious changes we are missing?

Are you actually paying for a 40Mbps package? Agreed re: fast, most countries are moving beyond that being considered high speed, eg the FCC recently changed their definition of broadband to be 100x20, up from 25x3.

For WiFi in problematic homes, you may find power line adapters offer a solution, particularly if there is a certain area that gets poor signal.

I bought a relatively cheap mesh system, it was an older version of the Netgear Orbi set up. I had some problems with it until I reconfigured and now I'm not using the Orbi as the main wi-fi but as a secondary network that is plugged into the VM router - if I knew what I was talking about I'd be able to explain it better, I was walked through it on the Netgear forum, I had to do some configuring on the laptop to set this up.

I'm moving to another house soon, hopefully, and that has really bad wi-fi, so my plan is to run cables to every room when I get the house rewired and have the Orbi satellites providing wi-fi in each room from the sockets. I think that's how it works anyway, I have some reading to do on it.

edit, for the record, according to the Ookla test, I get almost 270 and 25 on a package for 250 and 20.

[JM2K6]

Yeah, mesh networks are really handy, but it can get pricy pretty quickly!

[Dinsdale Piranha]

Down: 37 mbps
Up: 3.84 mbps

Speedtest describes that as “fast” but all your comparisons above would suggest otherwise v strongly. So would practical experience. We are on a BT subspur in the Surrey Hills, which they do not give a damn about. Main problem is that with thick internal walls, some main rooms in the house get nothing, even with boosters being used.

Any immediate obvious changes we are missing?

Jammy has commented on the internal networking. On your external connection, BT would rather have their fingernails pulled out than fix or upgrade new connections to remote properties. "Remote" often meaning anywhere not on a street of houses in town.

At my parents previous house in a village near Farnham the best they ever saw was ~2Mbps down. The connection was unavailable about 40% of the time and never when it rained. Openreach really didn't care at all. They eventually installed a 4G system that got them to the heady heights of 8Mb/s.

I loathe Virginmedia with a passion but the cable service has at least been fast and reliable for the 20 years I've had it.

[JM2K6]

Down: 37 mbps
Up: 3.84 mbps

Speedtest describes that as “fast” but all your comparisons above would suggest otherwise v strongly. So would practical experience. We are on a BT subspur in the Surrey Hills, which they do not give a damn about. Main problem is that with thick internal walls, some main rooms in the house get nothing, even with boosters being used.

Any immediate obvious changes we are missing?

Jammy has commented on the internal networking. On your external connection, BT would rather have their fingernails pulled out than fix or upgrade new connections to remote properties. "Remote" often meaning anywhere not on a street of houses in town.

At my parents previous house in a village near Farnham the best they ever saw was ~2Mbps down. The connection was unavailable about 40% of the time and never when it rained. Openreach really didn't care at all. They eventually installed a 4G system that got them to the heady heights of 8Mb/s.

I loathe Virginmedia with a passion but the cable service has at least been fast and reliable for the 20 years I've had it.

With Virgin you're completely at the mercy of what exchange you're connected to. Some are dreadfully oversubscribed. When they're good they're great.

BT I have a lot of sympathy for. They're the only ISP obligated to try and provide a service, and the deliberate splitting of them and Openreach has not helped at all. There are many more remote places with no real infrastructure and a ton of copper cabling where BT are the only game in town, but I think that's still a better effort than all the ISPs who just don't give a shit and don't even bother. BT make for an easy target.

Big fan of the smaller regional/local ISPs going hell for leather providing cheap 1Gbps+ services though!

[Dinsdale Piranha]

Down: 37 mbps
Up: 3.84 mbps

Speedtest describes that as “fast” but all your comparisons above would suggest otherwise v strongly. So would practical experience. We are on a BT subspur in the Surrey Hills, which they do not give a damn about. Main problem is that with thick internal walls, some main rooms in the house get nothing, even with boosters being used.

Any immediate obvious changes we are missing?

Jammy has commented on the internal networking. On your external connection, BT would rather have their fingernails pulled out than fix or upgrade new connections to remote properties. "Remote" often meaning anywhere not on a street of houses in town.

At my parents previous house in a village near Farnham the best they ever saw was ~2Mbps down. The connection was unavailable about 40% of the time and never when it rained. Openreach really didn't care at all. They eventually installed a 4G system that got them to the heady heights of 8Mb/s.

I loathe Virginmedia with a passion but the cable service has at least been fast and reliable for the 20 years I've had it.

With Virgin you're completely at the mercy of what exchange you're connected to. Some are dreadfully oversubscribed. When they're good they're great.

BT I have a lot of sympathy for. They're the only ISP obligated to try and provide a service, and the deliberate splitting of them and Openreach has not helped at all. There are many more remote places with no real infrastructure and a ton of copper cabling where BT are the only game in town, but I think that's still a better effort than all the ISPs who just don't give a shit and don't even bother. BT make for an easy target.

Big fan of the smaller regional/local ISPs going hell for leather providing cheap 1Gbps+ services though!

The concern here is whether they survive.

A friend locally in on Community Fibre 1Gb symmetric . He was recommended them by me and, interestingly his Openreach/BT engineer who said that their service was excellent but they would go bankrupt and be bought by BT. They have recently halted their infrastructure expansion programme and are only connecting up properties to existing cabinets which might be the above coming true.

[JM2K6]

Jammy has commented on the internal networking. On your external connection, BT would rather have their fingernails pulled out than fix or upgrade new connections to remote properties. "Remote" often meaning anywhere not on a street of houses in town.

At my parents previous house in a village near Farnham the best they ever saw was ~2Mbps down. The connection was unavailable about 40% of the time and never when it rained. Openreach really didn't care at all. They eventually installed a 4G system that got them to the heady heights of 8Mb/s.

I loathe Virginmedia with a passion but the cable service has at least been fast and reliable for the 20 years I've had it.

With Virgin you're completely at the mercy of what exchange you're connected to. Some are dreadfully oversubscribed. When they're good they're great.

BT I have a lot of sympathy for. They're the only ISP obligated to try and provide a service, and the deliberate splitting of them and Openreach has not helped at all. There are many more remote places with no real infrastructure and a ton of copper cabling where BT are the only game in town, but I think that's still a better effort than all the ISPs who just don't give a shit and don't even bother. BT make for an easy target.

Big fan of the smaller regional/local ISPs going hell for leather providing cheap 1Gbps+ services though!

The concern here is whether they survive.

A friend locally in on Community Fibre 1Gb symmetric . He was recommended them by me and, interestingly his Openreach/BT engineer who said that their service was excellent but they would go bankrupt and be bought by BT. They have recently halted their infrastructure expansion programme and are only connecting up properties to existing cabinets which might be the above coming true.

They're actually a client of ours, though I don't have any insight into their current financial status. They did have a ton of funding behind them fairly recently. Would be a shame if they disappeared. Not sure whether BT would be the right fit for them.

Hyperoptic are pretty handy, too.

[Insane_Homer]

886/94 Mbps Virgin Media cable. Paying for 1 Gbps

Very expensive. In 2 months I can dump then and get the 1 Gbps symmetrical service from Community Fibre for a £500+ a year cheaper!

[Enzedder]

886/94 Mbps Virgin Media cable. Paying for 1 Gbps

Very expensive. In 2 months I can dump then and get the 1 Gbps symmetrical service from Community Fibre for a £500+ a year cheaper!

Blimmin heck - I pay less than the equivalent of that for the whole thing.

[Dinsdale Piranha]

886/94 Mbps Virgin Media cable. Paying for 1 Gbps

Very expensive. In 2 months I can dump then and get the 1 Gbps symmetrical service from Community Fibre for a £500+ a year cheaper!

Blimmin heck - I pay less than the equivalent of that for the whole thing.

Community fibre is £312 a year for 1Gb. It just shows how expensive Virginmedia are.