How Fast Is 2018 Broadband

The problem with reports like this is that they tell individuals absolutely nothing about their own experience or expectations.

Also in the UK case in particular, many people choose not be buy the higher speeds that are available and that depresses the headline figure. Virgin Media passes more than 50% of UK households with a 200 Mbps download service which in my experience does give between 100 and 200 Mbps download all the time.

best

David

Indeed David,  on the face of it it tells people nothing,  but to me it contains indicators & raises some questions (& involks a mini-rant).  

Re UK in particular:  If VM have up to 200Mb/s download & in my case I have BT's best with +/- 76Mb/s.  And yes, having the highest available is a customer choice,  but that has to make us all wonder what the poor sods at the other end of the service,  with no choice,  are putting up with.   And considering all the talk from HM.Gov & the ISP industry about "commitments" to providing superfast;    I find it shocking that UK is ranked at 35 (& this is 4 places lower than the same report last year).   Then dive deeper to just the European data,  which has the vast majority of all the fastest services in the report, we are ranked at only 28.  ....  err coincidentally how many countries are in the EU ???    

Mike But my point is that the published figures are the mean speeds that people have chosen to pay for and not the mean available, otherwise half of the country would have 200 Mbps from VM.

 But don't get me wrong. I think it is outrageous that some people have to make do with a couple of Mbps or less, even when they would be willing to pay for a decent speed.

As it happens the UK Government has just published its review of the UK telecoms infrastructure which has a lot about fibre in it. I wonder whether Richard will let me put the hyperlink here, since it's not to a commercial web site. If he moderates it away I expect a search engine could find it. I think it was published today or maybe yesterday.

best

David

https://assets.publishing.serv...structure_Review.pdf

The trouble is, the UK mean of 18.6 does not identify the many locations in the UK where people get very much less than that (and I assume the same is true of other countries). At the top of te table Singapore of course has the significant advantage of very high population density.

I'm in Suffolk on holiday right now and the internet in the place I am staying is back in the dark ages of 8mb at tops.  I've not had this slow at home in the uk for over a decade. . But it's nice to get away from it all and enjoy the peace, quiet, great food, beautiful landscape  and amazing UK summer.

You could change your forum name temporarily to SimonPeterArnold-in-Suffolk and we'd all look to you for obscure networking advice!

Enjoy anyway. A friend of mine who lives in Suffolk with his Naim systems tells me the weather is never warm in Suffolk, so you are experiencing something special!

best

David

David Hendon posted:

..................   But don't get me wrong. I think it is outrageous that some people have to make do with a couple of Mbps or less, even when they would be willing to pay for a decent speed.

As it happens the UK Government has just published its review of the UK telecoms infrastructure which has a lot about fibre in it. I wonder whether Richard will let me put the hyperlink here, since it's not to a commercial web site. If he moderates it away I expect a search engine could find it. I think it was published today or maybe yesterday.

https://assets.publishing.serv...structure_Review.pdf

Yes David,  I do realise your point that its what people choose to pay for, I'm not inferring otherwise.   An e.g. to that point is Singapore published mean is 60Mb/s,  but they have much higher services available,  it looks like the fastest is 10Gb/s,  OK a bit expensive,  but comparable to UK price ar the many 1Gb/s most priced around 45SGD/month ,  lowest looks like 39.99SGD (£22.30).  So not only is the Singapore mean higher than UK,  they get much faster services for a similar price.   

I have that 'assets' report.  I also read in general news today that the plan is to have 15m house equipped with fibre by 2025 & to make fibre mandatory in all new homes. Also fibre to the home all over the country by 2033.   Problem is will other countries follow suit & in reality we are just keeping up with the rest.  Where will Singapore be in 2033 ???

David Hendon posted:

You could change your forum name temporarily to SimonPeterArnold-in-Suffolk and we'd all look to you for obscure networking advice!

Enjoy anyway. A friend of mine who lives in Suffolk with his Naim systems tells me the weather is never warm in Suffolk, so you are experiencing something special!

best

David

Yes it did cross my mind . Had many a holiday here though  and it's always been warm in summer. Admittedly not as hot as this heatwave we are having.

I live in a sleepy part of the Cotswolds, and get 62Mbps currently. The verges and roads around us have been dug up endlessly this summer as fibre is being laid thick and fast, even to the smallest of hamlets.

This is being funded by an enterprise called Fastershire, covering Gloucestershire & Herefordshire, and according to the blurb on their website "Fastershire is a partnership between Gloucestershire County Council and Herefordshire Council to bring faster broadband to the two counties, with funding from central government’s Broadband Delivery UK matched by the local authorities. Fastershire project can only support faster broadband in areas where the commercial market is not investing, or is unlikely to invest in the future, and will continue to fail to deliver without the investment of public funds."

BT's reticence to invest in areas that don't see a commercial return is understandable - it's not a publicly owned utility, after all - so having investment of public funds to support the rollout of fast connectivity to rural areas is logical, and seems to be working - in this part of the UK, anyway.

Looking at the big picture, BT's CEO has admitted recently that BT/Openreach were too slow to push for the rollout of fibre to the Home (FTTH) connections. This I think accounts for the differences in speeds across the EU, as many parts of the EU went for FTTH relatively early - the technology has been around for decades, it's just very expensive to lay it to every home or business. Interestingly, the picture in Germany and France isn't too dissimilar to the UK - where a high proportion of connections are still ADSL/VDSL.

Well, after 20 years of 2-4 Mbps on a good day I have a nice steady 50 Mbps FTTP link in rural Sussex. I could have gone for 100 or 300 but am perfectly happy with what I have. Steady and stable and the NDS has been born again which is just as well as I can’t afford its successor!

A similar thing is happening here in North Somerset. At the moment I'm getting less than 8mbps from BT but that will soon change. A fibre link from Toronto to Brussels via London was laid a couple of years ago (it actually goes right past my house and the buggers made a mess of the approach to my drive). Some enterprising people in the Chew Valley near here have started a company called Truespeed which now has access to this cable and is busy connecting local villages. They've done a deal with Western Power to use the electricty poles for distribution as well as digging some trenches.

Nempnet Thrubwell now has faster broadband than Bristol - 200mbps with the possibility of 1000mbps! I'm scheduled for connection in October and very much looking forward to it. BT did try to connect me to their "Infinity" service but that was even slower at around 4mbps so I'm back on copper until Truespeed come to the rescue. As far as I know this is completely independent of any public funding - the Councils in the SW partnered up with BT who missed out more people than they helped leaving a gap in the market. Almost enough to make me believe in Capitalism... almost...

SimonPeterArnold posted:

I'm in Suffolk on holiday right now and the internet in the place I am staying is back in the dark ages of 8mb at tops.  I've not had this slow at home in the uk for over a decade. . But it's nice to get away from it all and enjoy the peace, quiet, great food, beautiful landscape  and amazing UK summer.

Well in Suffolk many of our more rural places are getting FTTP thanks to BDUK or what is now badged ‘Direct Fibre’, because FTTC has been mistakenly called fibre broadband and confused many. (Can’t wait for my 3.2Mbps upgrade later this summer). My issue with downloads speeds it says nothing about the service type people are using and in the UK we have one of the highest availabilities of Ultrafast broadband in Europe, but of course in Blighty many of us don’t want to pay for such services and will go for the cheapest on offer so we use cheaper slower broadband services with slower download speeds. 

There is a more useful ranking based on actual speed availability rather than average speed based on service type consumption range ... I’ll try and find it

One has to download the report from Akamai , but it is the adoption rate above 15/25Mbps which is interesting as it is lower than some higher average broadband speed countries which reflects to some extent that people are not choosing to buy faster services that are available or unaware that faster services are available.

interestingly on mobile broadband the price differential is data and not speed, and here we have one of the faststest average mobile  broadband speeds in the world.

Pev posted:

A similar thing is happening here in North Somerset. At the moment I'm getting less than 8mbps from BT but that will soon change. A fibre link from Toronto to Brussels via London was laid a couple of years ago (it actually goes right past my house and the buggers made a mess of the approach to my drive). Some enterprising people in the Chew Valley near here have started a company called Truespeed which now has access to this cable and is busy connecting local villages. They've done a deal with Western Power to use the electricty poles for distribution as well as digging some trenches.

Nempnet Thrubwell now has faster broadband than Bristol - 200mbps with the possibility of 1000mbps! I'm scheduled for connection in October and very much looking forward to it. BT did try to connect me to their "Infinity" service but that was even slower at around 4mbps so I'm back on copper until Truespeed come to the rescue. As far as I know this is completely independent of any public funding - the Councils in the SW partnered up with BT who missed out more people than they helped leaving a gap in the market. Almost enough to make me believe in Capitalism... almost...

 

You might want to check some of the details... typically broadband fibre setups use PONs, these are  passive optical networks with passive splitters where typically upto 64 connections share a single fibre and this is then connected via a backhaul into your ISP router. A long haul or even point to point fibre is something very different and you can’t usually be split it the same way. ISPs in the UK (and in many other countries) have also legal regulatory requirements for state law enforcement monitoring and intercept as well as filtering and blocking, and so your ISP will have the equipment in their core network within the UK, prior to the peering point where it joins the main internet. I suspect in your example your local company might be sharing some of the physical duct to physically lay the fibre(s) rather than anything else

BTW Superfast services from most ISPs  use your phone line  twisted pair copper (like your Ethernet wire) . To have true fibre you need to look for Fibre Ultrafast or similar which is FTTP, which is fibre to the premises. If you were getting 4Mbps on your Superfast then you would be out of range, and typically one can’t order Superfast now over that distance.

For BT access infrastructure you can plug your number into 

https://www.btwholesale.com/in...ws_furls_adslchecker

And see whether you have ADSL, VDSL and their expected sync rates as well whether there are any compromises on your home wiring (premise environment) or elsewhere that might affect performance.

Meaning the hogher rate services may be overpriced, at least as judged by the consumer. 

Maximum where I live is nominally 100Mbps, though in practice the max is 40, and not infrequently at peak times dropping below 10 - cost £35pm. Gbps rate is available in some places near me, but it is a business/corporate service, and at almost £150pm the cost is far more than the average consumer would consider.

Innocent Bystander posted:

Meaning the hogher rate services may be overpriced, at least as judged by the consumer. 

Possibly and that is with the UK with one of the most competitive markets and lower priced service offerings....  as always, just like with Naim, you pay for what you get.

Innocent Bystander posted:

Meaning the hogher rate services may be overpriced, at least as judged by the consumer. 

Maximum where I live is nominally 100Mbps, though in practice the max is 40, and not infrequently at peak times dropping below 10 - cost £35pm. Gbps rate is available in some places near me, but it is a business/corporate service, and at almost £150pm the cost is far more than the average consumer would consider.

Agreed IB,  prices are judged by consumer,   but the peeps I know are all wanting more for whatever they think they might be missing with web-TV .   

Simon I disagree on UK pricing,  looking around I believe UK might be paying more for the same (same for less) compared to some of other countries.   As I posted earlier,  Singapore is paying around £23-£25 for 1Gb/s (not sure of other fee's such as line charges).     I've e-mailed friends in Norway & Denmark this evening & they seems to be paying about the same or less than me for broadband+phone with +100Mb/s (I'm 76Mb/s)   

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

 

BTW Superfast services from most ISPs  use your phone line  twisted pair copper (like your Ethernet wire) . To have true fibre you need to look for Fibre Ultrafast or similar which is FTTP, which is fibre to the premises. If you were getting 4Mbps on your Superfast then you would be out of range, and typically one can’t order Superfast now over that distance.

 

Hi Simon

Indeed - we were part of BT's learning curve. They guaranteed us a minimum 11mbps and did everything to optimise our connection to no real effect, so they changed us back to copper and gave us a big discount for our trouble. The upside was a doubling of the ADSL speed due to their work on the line etc.

Re Truespeed - they give you a dedicated fibre line to your premises and thus zero contention. Their web site is a bit light on technical detail but it's worth a Google (a link would breach Forum rules). A nice touch is that if they connect your village, the local school and village hall get free broadband forever.

Gigabit speed where I live is $80 per month. Unlimited data.  But apparently anything over 100Mb/s really is not needed to stream hi-def video from Netflix, HBO, etc.  I seem to be doing fine at 75.

We have been told no way we will get an upgraded service or fibre. Maybe satellite is the only option?

I'll have to settle for our 2.5Mb/s. On a good day.

Bruce

Hi again,  more data for the nerdish  .......    

The same research cmpy as per the OP analysed over 3,300 packages from 196 countries looking at cost per month during 3rd QTR 2017. The costs are shown as US Dollar at whatever the FEX rate was at the time.

In Europe Italy has the lowest cost at US$28.84 a month, Germany second at US$34.02, Denmark US$35.86, France US$36.29, Isle of Man US$37.61, Aland Islands US$38.96, San Marino US$39.74 & in eighth place is UK at US$40.60, all the other EU's are higher but to KIS(S) you need to go look at the data yourself.

In North America Canada is US$54.92 compared to USA at US$66.17.

Oceania as a region is expensive Australia is US$60.37 & the most expensive is Papua New Guinea at US$596.92.

Sub-Saharan Africa performed the worst with most all 31 countries in the most expensive half of the results & all in the slowest. Tell me about it !!! I pay aprx US$55 at my property in South Africa & get less than 10% of the Mb/s rate I have in UK, did I mention dropouts??? Cheapest was Reunion at US$30.02 & Burkina Faso at at a staggering US$961.51 a month.

Globally Iran is the cheapest at US$5.70 a month. Other cheapest are in a group of former USSR countries, Russia is US$9.89, but they all have much slower line speeds.    This brings up the question of how much bang do you get for ya buck;  ranked as cost per month Iran is the cheapest in the world but goes to 119th position when measured as cost per Mb/s.    Compared to Singapore ranked 57 on cost per month goes to number 1 when ranked at cost per Mb/s.  

Another complication in assessing the real cost of broadband as local average income & cost of living vary enormously. Measuring cost per service & Mb/s against the variance in average income (any volunteers?) is dramatic.   In Burkina Faso broadband at $961.51 is more than double the average wage.    

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

We have been told no way we will get an upgraded service or fibre. Maybe satellite is the only option?

I'll have to settle for our 2.5Mb/s. On a good day.

Bruce

You lucky lucky bastard.  I get 1Mb/s, plus non-optional dropouts.  BBC iPlayer is pretty much a no-no.

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

We have been told no way we will get an upgraded service or fibre. Maybe satellite is the only option?

I'll have to settle for our 2.5Mb/s. On a good day.

Bruce

Hi Bruce, I see you're in sunny North Yorks, as am I, and I can only assume that you are "out in the sticks", as I am consistently able to achieve 36Mb here in Malton.

It's not true "to the premises" fibre, but, connects to a server in York, with the final part, from the cabinet in the street, in copper.

So, would another broadband provider not be able to offer you a similar service?

There's also been a couple of examples of folks in more rural areas getting together to provide their own services, usually via The Rural Broadband Partnership, whose website has much in the way of advice, (though I won't post a link here).

I'm lucky enough to be living in an area where BT are testing ultra-fast fibre broadband. As a consumer tester, I got a free BT YouView box and sports package - and I just have to give them periodic reports on my experience. Our average speed at the mo is 290Mb/s but it has measured as high as 338Mb/s on occasion.

Everything's a lot quicker, for sure, but I'm not sure if I would pay a huge premium for it. If we go down the 4K telly route and decide to stream movies and shows in 4K/UHD I'm sure that the faster speed would make a difference.

I’m currently paying BT £32 per month for 55Mb download 9.5Mb upload speeds. My contract with them is almost up but with rock steady speeds at the top end of what’s expected I’ll be signing up for another 18 months I think, although probably at the higher 80Mb download 19Mb upload speeds for near £40 per month. Ideally though I’d like them to reduce my bill by removing the landline phone facility as we never use it!