I live in a rural area but about a year ago we had "high speed internet" made available, and very good it is too. However, initially BT didn't point out that it was, in their view, not quite high enough speed to get 4k TV. From what I've read you need about 30mb/s for 4k tv, although BT tend to say 50mb/s depending who you connect to when enquiring - but again I've read that this is only because BT are worried that in a family where there are lots of TV's, online games etc the higher speed (bandwidth?) is necessary. Bt's view is that my speed is 'just below the 50mb/s threshold" although all the speed checkers I've tried give 55+ - so after a lot of discussion (another story) I had 4k TV enabled.
So I have (on the face of it) 55mb/s speed, a nice new 4k samsung tv, a modern HDMI cable an ethernet connection to the tv plugged directly into the back of the BT Home hub and an account showing that I have 4k tv on BT's website. Nobody else in the house using tv, games etc (although there are things like the hifi, phone, etc connected but not used at the relevant time) - and guess what - it doesn't work due to "a broadband problem".
To be fir to BT the Hd broadcasts are very good anyway, and I did this at my risk knowing they didn't recommend it - but I'm curious.
Do any of you clever people have an explanation?
Posted on: 16 September 2017 by Simon-in-Suffolk
Hi, if your infrastructure is able to support a download speed of at least 44Mbps, then you can or should have UHD TV service if you order it.... the service itself uses 38Mbps, and is fenced off from your connection speed when used, i.e. If you had 44Mbps then your internet access would drop to 6Mbps when streaming a UHD TV channel. However the UHD service can use capacity/speed available on your access over and above your broadband service speed... so I expect you would typically see less severe fencing. (I.e. Impact to other internet users using that connection)
So I would ask BT why you can't have it enabled again, especially as their support web pages quote the 44Mbps... perhaps there might be an issue such as your exchange feeding the cabinet has not been enabled for multicast yet... but I am clutching at straws there... and regular BTTV works using multicast already.
Having said all that the HD codecs and bandwidth BT use for HD are very good so provide good content for 4K TVs... but you might as well get the full service if you can...
Posted on: 30 September 2017 by john s
As a follow up, I can now receive 4K UHD, although not because BT needed to do anything. Recently I installed a Cisco Switch having seen all the posts about the benefits this has on sound quality when streaming. Straight away the speed of general internet usage improved slightly, and 4K tv started working without problems. Previously I was using two consumer grade switches so I guess the Cisco has just taken things up a couple of notches. Haven't had a chance to have a good listen to music streaming but it seems likely there will be improvements on that front as well.
