How long for FTTP to 'settle'?

[Anonymous]

I'm without doubt premature on this but I had Ultra Fast 1 fitted and activated on Tuesday. This is through a brand new FTTP cable replacing the old copper pair so new CSP outside and new ONT inside and a new 203 router and cables.

The speed to a wired desktop PC running Win 10 and using Speedtest through browser and via the Windows App is all over the place running from 70 odd Mbps to the full 150 odd Mbps. Skys https://www.sky.com/servicechecker/broadband/checks website shows 145Mbps to the hub regardless of what Speedtest says and never varies so I'm not sure of what use that is.

Am I just far too quick to judge or should FFP settle to it's fastest possible speed fairly quickly? It's been a few years since I've moved supplier but I seem to recall the older system settling rapidly?

I've included screen shots of the speeds I'm getting today (this is with nothing else loading the system at all).

[TimmyBGood]

@Anonymous

FTTP shouldn't require any time to 'settle': that's a concept mistakenly carried over from the 'training period' of FTTC.

[Anonymous]

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@TimmyBGood wrote:

@Anonymous

FTTP shouldn't require any time to 'settle': that's a concept mistakenly carried over from the 'training period' of FTTC.

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Yeah, that's what I thought but was hoping I was wrong.

I should have added that FTTP is new to the area and only went live a month or so ago. I'm going to have to contact them although I suspect they're going to quote the 145Mbps to the router that their website claims and is obviously nonsense.

Their T&C's seem to indicate that you can only cancel in the cooling off period and not move to a different supplier which would leave me without BB for awhile I suspect.

[Anonymous]

While I'm waiting for the lines to open a quick question about the router status page, it shows 'Modem Status - Connected' but 'DownStream Connection Speed - 0' & 'UpStream Connection Speed - 0'

Is that normal for FTTP or should that be populated by something other than '0'? 

[TimmyBGood]

@Anonymous 

Unfortunately that's as expected: ISP routers do not give a useful figure when behind an ONT.  My BT Smart Hub 2 reports 1000/1000 Mbs (the native speed of the ethernet port) for my 500Mbs fibre.

[Eeeps]

It's the ONT that provides the modem function and that has a fixed connection rate of 2.488Gb/s downstream and 1.244Gb/s upstream.

It's either conected (and synced) or not.

[Anonymous]

As expected "It's Openreach trying to find a stable speed and there's nothing we can do". I'll give them the remaining 10 days then but I've got more than a sneaky feeling that it will make no difference.

Strangely I phoned them twice as the first time it gave me a link which just turned out to be the same service checker website and both times it told me I had an internal fault. Sky stated that it's a generic message that's incorrect. If so why don't they change the message?

She's passed me on to the BB technical team but she reckons they'll just bounce it back as still within the 14 days 'line testing' period which she was adamant still applies even to FTTP.

She also claimed that Openreach themselves will check every day and will get in touch directly if they log a problem. I'm even more skeptical about that.

At least I found out the cooling off period is 30 days and not the 14 days I thought.

[Anonymous]

Cheers, I guess that's why I can't find any reference to a sych speed in there?

[Kenny+Rankin]

FTTP does not need a training period. Are you measuring speed over Wi-Fi ? If so that is the likely reason for the varying speed, the SR203 is not great at broadcasting Wi-Fi around the property. What speed do you get when connected to the router via LAN ?

[Anonymous]

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@Kenny+Rankin wrote:

FTTP does not need a training period. Are you measuring speed over Wi-Fi ? If so that is the likely reason for the varying speed, the SR203 is not great at broadcasting Wi-Fi around the property. What speed do you get when connected to the router via LAN ?

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All of those speeds are over an ethernet cable, desktop PC, Windows 10 through Brave (shields down) or the Speedtest App from the Windows store. 

I've been trying different web based speedtest sites and I'm confused now.

Fast com gives 150Mbps every time except once when it was 80Mbps or so, Google Fiber is almost the same but has now started to show slower speeds of 100+Mbps, Testmy net seems to constantly show 150+Mbps, SpeedSmart net is 100+Mbps, Broadbandsearch net is 90+ dot net and Speedofme is useless as it never gets above 49Mbps.

Sky's own servicechecker website of course doesn't actually tell you anything useful.

[StuXxxxx]

Ok, I’m going to hurl a rather large cat into the pigeons here.

Eeeps says GPON is 2.49 Gb/s.  True, but what everyone seems to be overlooking is that it is shared media.  Potentially a single fibre is split 32 times before it reaches you.  Admittedly It’s an extremely big if, but if that 2.49 is split 32 two times because everyone on the fibre is downloading simultaneously your share could drop to 78 Mb/s.  Suspiciously close to the Ops worse case figures.

[Anonymous]

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@StuXxxxx wrote:

Ok, I’m going to hurl a rather large cat into the pigeons here.

Eeeps says GPON is 2.49 Gb/s.  True, but what everyone seems to be overlooking is that it is shared media.  Potentially a single fibre is split 32 times before it reaches you.  Admittedly It’s an extremely big if, but if that 2.49 is split 32 two times because everyone on the fibre is downloading simultaneously your share could drop to 78 Mb/s.  Suspiciously close to the Ops worse case figures.

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I get what you're saying (despite not knowing what an eeeps or GPON is 😞 ) but I've just done 2 speedtest net tests of 90Mbps & 96Mbps with a fast. com speed test of 150Mbps sandwiched in between so I have no idea what to believe anymore.

[StuXxxxx]

Eeeps was one of the earlier posters.  GPON is Gigabit Passive Optical Network. 

Infrastructure providers are already busily upgrading to XGS-PON i.e. 10 Gb/s, which suggests they are already having congestion issues.  The figure will vary depending on how many users are downloading at that instant.  96Mb/s sounds like 26 users.  Just a thought.  One of the more experienced guys may shoot it to bits but I'd be interested to see other peoples views..

[Anonymous]

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@StuXxxxx wrote:

Eeeps was one of the earlier posters.  GPON is Gigabit Passive Optical Network. 

Infrastructure providers are already busily upgrading to XGS-PON i.e. 10 Gb/s, which suggests they are already having congestion issues.  The figure will vary depending on how many users are downloading at that instant.  96Mb/s sounds like 26 users.  Just a thought.  One of the more experienced guys may shoot it to bits but I'd be interested to see other peoples views..

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I've no idea how often the BTwholesale checker site is updated but it has changed since I last looked, as FTTP has only been active here for a month or so (or at least that was the first time I was aware of it, I actually got a BT flyer just yesterday as I registered my interest a long while back). The Openreach engineers have been up and down the pole like yoyo's for a while now.

"Our records show the following FTTP network service information for these premises:- Single Dwelling Unit Residential OH Feed with no anticipated issues.

ONT exists with active service. No spare ports are available. A new ONT may be ordered."

I don't get the "No spare ports are available. A new ONT may be ordered" bit? Does that mean they're already at capacity or not?

On a slightly separate note is Speedtest net still accurate as Fast com seems to indicate full 150Mbps pretty much constantly?

[StuXxxxx]

As I should have mentioned before, GPON is the system FTTP is currently based on.

I’m not an expert here but from what I understand:  “Single Dwelling Unit Residential” is a normal residential house, (as opposed to an MDU – Multiple Dwelling Unit, e.g. a block of flats.  Lots more potential problems with installing in these).  OH is overhead.  As you said, it comes via poles.

ONT is Optical Termination Unit, the optical equivalent of a modem.  Now, “no spare ports” is interesting.  Are you sure this bit doesn’t say OLT?  The other end of the fibre from the ONT is the OLT – Optical Line Terminal.  This serves multiple lines and there is a limit to how many ports it has.  “No spare ports” does suggest to me it is at maximum capacity.

No idea about Speedtest but I still use it.