Broadband switchover

[dilwyn]

Wonder if anyone has experience of switching over from the copper broadband to FTTC fibre broadband, and how seamless it's likely to be? Same provider (EE/BT).

All I've been told so far is that I'll get a new router delivered beforehand and engineers are not likely to need access to the house.

Supposed to happen on 12th, so if I disappear for a day or two ...

[Ruptor]

When Virgin cable was put in they used a coax cable but offer fibre on it. Talk Talk offer fast fibre that uses the normal telephone line and all they were going to do was flick a switch since they already upgraded my router. I was getting 11 Mbs on basic TalkTalk that went up to 20+ Mbs with the new modem and that can be switch to 40 Mbs. It looks like a con to me with the faster speeds coming from better router technology. A true optical connection in to your house could give Gigabit+ performance that would be quicker than your computer Ethernet connection. There wouldn't be a range or minimum speed if it was truly optical since the line distance would come in to the frame. I guess they are allowed to get away with the advertising because the line does enter fibre optics somewhere near your house. I am lucky because the exchange is at the end of my road about 200 yards away hence 20+ Mbs. Hope your switch goes smoothly.
I just found this link that explains FTTC is fibre to the box and existing wires to the house
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/guides/f ... band-guide

[Andrew]

I don't know how it works in UK, but here upgrading from copper wire to fiber optics took 30 minutes - but they required access into the house.
They came and installed the fiber optics cable. Then they removed the old copper cable. (so internet off). Installed the new router in my office and configured it. Then had to wait about 15 minutes until the new settings were visible on their network. And Internet on. Gigabit speed.
And the best thing is that internet service is dirt cheap here.

[dilwyn]

I'm only able to get FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet out in the street) here, so there will be no fibre optics into the house, that will still be copper. To be honest, I don't exactly need gigabit speeds, as downloads are already a good enough speed for me on copper broadband. But the improvement in upload speeds (so that it doesn't take hours to upload 1MB to my website for example) will be very welcome.

I've been told to expect unpredictable speeds for a few days until it settles down. They say guaranteed minimum of 28mbs, maximum 38mbps. Hopefully not too bad as the exchange is only 200-300m down the road.

What puzzled me is that the FTTC broadband including landline and a calls package is a little bit cheaper than the old copper package and even at the end of the contract it only goes up by inflation (well, CPI index)+3.9% which still leaves it cheaper - I'm yet to find out what the snags are . Looks like customers who are loyal and don't change regularly get a really bad deal if they stay with existing companies at the end of their contracts.

[XorA]

Wonder if anyone has experience of switching over from the copper broadband to FTTC fibre broadband, and how seamless it's likely to be? Same provider (EE/BT).

All I've been told so far is that I'll get a new router delivered beforehand and engineers are not likely to need access to the house.

Supposed to happen on 12th, so if I disappear for a day or two ...

In most cases it is literally old router loses connection, turn off, plug in new, connection comes back, sorted!

[dilwyn]

Wonder if anyone has experience of switching over from the copper broadband to FTTC fibre broadband, and how seamless it's likely to be? Same provider (EE/BT).

All I've been told so far is that I'll get a new router delivered beforehand and engineers are not likely to need access to the house.

Supposed to happen on 12th, so if I disappear for a day or two ...

In most cases it is literally old router loses connection, turn off, plug in new, connection comes back, sorted!

OK,thanks. I'll blame you if it doesn't go that smoothly

[dilwyn]

Back online after one day without broadband during switchover. Openreach called me this morning and admitted one of their staff had made a connection error which had now been rectified.

[NormanDunbar]

Fair play to OpenReach for admitting a mistake. That doesn't happen often as it's usually a "computer error".

Hope it all works.


Cheers,
Norm.

[dilwyn]

Fair play to OpenReach for admitting a mistake. That doesn't happen often as it's usually a "computer error".
Hope it all works.
Cheers,
Norm.

Yes, thanks Norman, seems to be going well so far. Can't forget the new password now - had to retype it into so many devices! Should have taken my son's suggestion of changing the SSID and password perhaps, but since they're printed on the router (not to mention my own tech ham-fistedness) maybe it was best not to. My HP wireless printer won't connect via the WPS button so I'll have to go back to basics and connect a lead to the PC to set up a new wifi connection via there.

[NormanDunbar]

Don't mention bl00dy HP printers !

I've got an Office Jet Pro 8718 "all in one" for the business. Been working fine for ages and no problems with replacement cartridges not supplied by HP.

After an update to the firmware, I find that it won't let me print because my cartridges are faulty and should be replaced. Turns out that back in July, they did a "fix" to reject any non-HP cartridges. There was nothing in the docs when I bought the printer that I had to use HP ink, so I don't -- their prices are a complete ripoff. And, the printer wasn't that cheap to start with -- in case anyone wants to chime in with the old "but you get the printer really cheap so that they can (over) charge for the inks".

It's my printer and I'll decide how I use it and what inks I'll use, not HP.

So, after buying a set of HP cartridges to get me printing, I eventually found a firmware update on the support pages of a different ink supplier -- https://www.swiftink.com/how-to-resolve ... em-message if anyone has similar problems with other HP printers -- but it needs Windows. It doesn't work under Wine. I luckily had a Windows 7 VM lying about unused for years, and that worked fine. Luckily the printer is on the network and not USB attached.

So "up yours" HP, I am back printing again!

Oops! I'm ranting again, must stop.


Cheers,
Norm.