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Discussion topic: Fibre is worse than Phone line

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This message was authored by: thelycan001

Fibre is worse than Phone line

Switched to fibre about a month ago, and, measuring the speed its better (went from 50mbps to about 90) but the connection has more drops than before. Internal WIFI setup hasn't changed whatsoever and router and boosters operating as normal. Its the external fibre connection to the openreach network.

 

From what I understand sky rents a 600Mbps line from BT (meant for 1 residence) and splits it between 5-6 houses using their own gear. Theoretically guaranteeing 100 mbps each, but again, that doesn't account for the bottleneck caused by each line waiting in turn to use the single connection.

 

I'm not sure if thats true, and, I'm not the bill payer so not sure whats actually being paid or what's guaranteed; but from a user perspective (playing online games and streaming) the service is noticeably worse than the copper lines.

 

I've seen multiple other posts on here describing how people went from copper to fibre and ended up with worse overall connection, usually shot down by a friendly 'Superuser, not a Sky employee' telling them to reset their router, because the original poster used terms like 'WIFI drops out' instead of proper jargon.

 

I guess I'll know it's true if sky removes this post.

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This message was authored by: thelycan001

Re: Fibre is worse than Phone line

Just performed a stability test, like average connection over time, as speed tests alone aren't reliable for measuring constant usage.

 

These are abysmal results. I've had the test running for over 30 minutes and it was sitting at avg 400ms ping for a while and finally settled to around 150ms ping.

 

But it's getting frequent spikes to 400-600 milliseconds ping. Any reaction dependant online gaming is off the table. And the occasional 4-7 second connection drop drastically affects video calls, livestreams and less intensive gaming. 

 

Opera Snapshot_2025-08-24_000124_packetstats.com.png(The result after 30 minutes)

I also did a short WIFI test, with good results but I knew that would be the case as nothing has changed.  Average was 32 ms with 0% packet loss.
Sky has put a bottleneck on its customers connections, I guess expecting people to upgrade.

 

(Actually did a bog standard google speed test also, and it said I have 20mbps at 6ms ping, Yay!) 

image_2025-08-23_232811283.png

 

image_2025-08-23_235217760.png

This message was authored by: Chrisee

Re: Fibre is worse than Phone line

Posted by a Superuser, not a Sky employee. Find out more

@thelycan001 your understanding of how full fibre works is incorrect and reads like some conspiracy theory the truth is far more boaring

 

Sky buys connectivity from Openreach which while owned by BT operates as an independent company. Openreach runs a single fibre feed with a download capacity of 2.48Gb/s from the exchange to a distribution point serving up to 30 customers (technically there are 32 connections but Openreach will only sell 30 on each DP) in a local area.

 

ISPs like Sky or EE can order a service for one of their customers whose home is fed from that distribution point with varying maximum speeds. Sky buys connections up to 900Mb/s clearly if every one of the 30 customers bought a 900Mb/s connection and all used the maximum amount at once it wont work but in practice most users only use a small % of the capacity they buy expept when running speed tests and downloading large files. If you want to know more read up about GPON like this link https://www.gpon.com/how-gpon-works

 

Full fibre is statistically far more reliable than the partial fibre but only affects the connection to the hub and will not necessarily increase speeds to your devices if the limitation is the speed of the WiFi network in your home. You can prove this yourself by running a test on a device connected by an Ethernet cable to the hub. There are rarely issues with misconfiguration of fibre connections and as mentioned above the connection is shared which can cause contention at busy times. Slow WiFi is a separate issue which is mainly affected by the layout of your home and how it is built and is the most common issue the forum sees.

 

Sky like all ISPs are regulated by Ofcom but if there was any truth in your accusations the sites that independently monitor speeds like Ookla, Thinkbroand.com Uswitch etc would becshouting it from the roof toos.

=========================================================
65inch Sky Glass, 3 Sky Streaming Pucks, Sky Ultrafast + and Sky SR213(white Wifi Max hub) main Wifi from 3 TP-Link Deco M4 units in access point mode
This message was authored by: JimM1

Re: Fibre is worse than Phone line

@thelycan001 The offical information about fibre as OR posted below. And sky will not remove the post!

1. FTTP is a contended service, up to 32 users can be sharing the 2.5Gb backhaul, so you can never expect the full speed all the time, you may get 900mb when there are fewer people using it. I expect that you are sharing the backhaul with many users. If everyone was using it fully, you may only get 78mbs. Its called statistical multiplexing, which relies on the fact that all users are not utilising their connection fully, all of the time.

BT quote up to 900mb, so you are likely to get much less than that during peak times.

Speed tests pass very little data, so normally give a much higher speed.

 

2. The max OR connect to a splitter is 30 ( 32 is the splitter maximum but policy is 30 ) not every CBT port provided is likely to have a customer using it , so unless on a ‘new site’ that has no alternatives to OR FTTP the actual number on a splitter is likely to be way less , OR currently have about a 30% take up, so maybe 10 users per splitter , plus the majority don’t take 900Mb but slower profiles , and the chances of those ‘on line ‘ at any one time all and doing something intensive, rather than browsing / Netflix that may be consuming less than 30-100Mb , is slim , that’s why there is a 700Mb minimum speed guarantee on 900Mb …..the 2.4Gb will be plenty ,you would have to be incredibly unlucky to have any consistent congestion.

If you suspect PON congestion, try at a time when there won’t be much activity, late evening or early morning .


Although you have tried somethings to ‘ isolate’ the problem , the most obvious thing to do ( that you haven’t apparently tried ) is use the BT router , without doing that , you haven’t really proved anything , your third party router may great , but even great routers can be mis configured or faulty

 

 

This message was authored by: JimM1

Re: Fibre is worse than Phone line

@thelycan001 When i look at your testing and the result's you are putting up, If it was me would start by getting all your wireless wi-fi connections off, you have one off two issues, wi-fi stability on a rouge device or a network sharing issue with something butting it's way in and hanging the service up. So just on device ideally the PC and the ping test to ping bbc.co.uk -n 600 will run a 10 minute test at the end post the last 4 lines and look through the 600 results for the high's if you see any. Result like below i stopped the test ctrl C to do so!

 

Ping statistics for 2a04:4e42::81:
Packets: Sent = 5, Received = 5, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 15ms, Maximum = 16ms, Average = 15ms

 

Result off running on my Desktop Ethernet connected and ALL my wireless wi-fi on but i have 100% working and KNOW how they all behave.

Ping statistics for 2a04:4e42:200::81:
Packets: Sent = 600, Received = 600, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 13ms, Maximum = 20ms, Average = 14ms

This message was authored by: 2muchTV

Re: Fibre is worse than Phone line

I find this an interesting and enlightening discussion,  thanks for the info and links  @JimM1 @Chrisee 

But the statement that FTTP is worse than FTTC has not been the case in my situation as they have both been very consistent and reliable with speed and ping.

However, this discussion does have me question, what are consumers paying for with the various ISPs?

At one end of the scale @thelycan001 could join the ISP Andrews & Arnold who charge significantly more than Sky using the same OR infrastructure. Would the speeds and ping be different with Andrews & Arnold? I suspect so, but tbh I don't know. What would definitely be different is the customer service provision.

On the other end of the scale from Anderws & Arnold, residential customers could use Onestream or Fibrely et al for their FTTP provision. Would the speeds and ping be different? I don't know.

I  have been using Aquiss (£55 per month) for the past 3 years. I know that I could find cheaper, but I am loathe to leave them because I have not had a service failure. Speeds are consistently fast eg a test taken 2030 on a Saturday night delivered speeds of 896 down/ 95 up  and a ping of 4ms.

Would I get similar from Sky, BT, TalkTalk et al? I honestly don't know 🤔

One piece of advice to @thelycan001 would be to change ISP (when you can) to see if the service improves... an ISP like IDnet does a 1 month contract, which while expensive, does not tie you in to a 12 month or longer contract and 30 days is long enough to determine if it is what you are after. After which you can tie yourself into a longer cheaper contract.

All the best.

Sky Stream
1000/115 FTTP (Aquiss) to Zyxel DX3301
3 x Asus XT9s + 2 x RT-AC58U V3 for WiFi (AP mode)
65" Samsung S92C OLED TV
C430 Samsung soundbar with subwoofer
6 other streaming TVs
43+ network connected devices
This message was authored by: JimM1

Re: Fibre is worse than Phone line

@2muchTV Very much like you and the Equipment used makes a huge difference, running 2 Xt8's and 2 RP-AX58 all in AI Mesh, one AX wired backhaul the others wireless, WIFE furniture move around so cable does not reach and flipped to wireless backhaul, until she decides move off furniture or i crawl under floor and recable!

 

Ping for me just don't worry about as Kaspersky is packet checking all the time, speed is just as good as the OR backbone and the server's other end so who cares nothing can be done about that!

This message was authored by: Sayek

Re: Fibre is worse than Phone line

600Mbs split between 5-6 customers 😳

 

I am aware 3 other neighbours taken FTTP from the same overhead pole we share.

 

Next time I meet these neighbours on the street, may just ask them what internet speed they signed up. I want to make sure I get the 500Mbs slice of cake 1st 🤗

This message was authored by: JimM1

Re: Fibre is worse than Phone line

@Sayek You need to go take a look on the CBT on your pole, most are fitted to cover the homes as a potential and common are 4/8/12 connection point, but you have zero idea where the other for 32 are! Time slice of the data!

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This message was authored by: thelycan001

Re: Fibre is worse than Phone line

Hi all, thanks for the replies. 

 

Router provided is by sky itself, and WiFi network consists of sky Q and sky booster boxes. 

 

That's why I also ran a local WiFi test. No it's not the best but it averages around 32 milliseconds ping with >1% packet loss. Very acceptable actually. The WiFi within the house hasn't changed since switching to fibre. It comes into the house next to the old phone line, so the router is in the same spot. The WiFi is still as good now as it was on copper.

 

Also tests were run at midnight yesterday, don't think those count as peak hours. 

 

I'm happy to run more tests, I can't move my pc but I might be able to connect a laptop direct to the router and just ping test out to another server just to prove that the WiFi is still good and the stability issues are external. 

 

No, I'm not sure about local fibre infrastructure. I've never ever seen 900mbps or close to it. I'll research this as well and see if I can break into the box and maybe take some photos.

 

My advice came from BT reps who came to the door to ask if we had bad connection, and told us that sky splits a rented fibre line that bt recommends for one residence. Not sure how truthful they are. They claimed they were getting many connection complaints from sky, who were getting complaints from the customers, but openreach was never having any stability issues in the area, sky customers and EE customers were making complaints. 

 

But I can make a report to Ofcom? That's interesting too.

 

In the meantime any other tests I can perfom to isolate and find the bottleneck? 

This message was authored by: TimmyBGood

Re: Fibre is worse than Phone line

Posted by a Superuser, not a Sky employee. Find out more

@thelycan001 wrote:

 

Router provided is by sky itself, and WiFi network consists of sky Q and sky booster boxes.

 

Note that the 'Q mesh' is now a decade old, and known to do bad things to local networking, particularly on ethernet.

 

My advice came from BT reps who came to the door to ask if we had bad connection, and told us that sky splits a rented fibre line that bt recommends for one residence. Not sure how truthful they are. They claimed they were getting many connection complaints from sky, who were getting complaints from the customers, but openreach was never having any stability issues in the area, sky customers and EE customers were making complaints. 

 

As both Openreach and EE are BT Group companies, one might suspect they were getting their sales script a little muddled...

Doorstep teams are usually paid-by-the-signup chancers pushing the brand change from BT to EE.

 

https://ee.co.uk/help/profile/manage/ee-door-to-door

 

But I can make a report to Ofcom? That's interesting too.

 

Of course Ofcom doesn't have to take any notice other than acknowledging a concern, and typically don't intervene in technical issues.


 

* * * * * * *

Sky Glass 55" (on ethernet) & two Stream Pucks (one ethernet / one WiFi)
BT Halo 3+ Ultrafast FTTP (500Mbs), BT Smart Hub 2
This message was authored by: TimmyBGood

Re: Fibre is worse than Phone line

Posted by a Superuser, not a Sky employee. Find out more

@thelycan001 wrote:

 

No, I'm not sure about local fibre infrastructure. I've never ever seen 900mbps or close to it. I'll research this as well and see if I can break into the box and maybe take some photos.

 


There's absolutely no justification for carrying out that illegal act and I'd very strongly advise against it.

* * * * * * *

Sky Glass 55" (on ethernet) & two Stream Pucks (one ethernet / one WiFi)
BT Halo 3+ Ultrafast FTTP (500Mbs), BT Smart Hub 2
This message was authored by: JimM1

Re: Fibre is worse than Phone line

@thelycan001 Hopefully you have stayed SR203 / SE210 combination on the sky Q mesh network, and if you do latch to one off the other wireless nodes the speed is always going to be the first fall off, it's the nature off the VERY old network! Newer is NOT always better!

 

Cannot see you say what FF service that you have purchased from sky!

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