uk BT promises epic 330Mbps broadband starting in 2013

[Crisp]

Broadband: it's never as fast as you want it to be, is it? But there's good news for Brits living in areas where BT's Infinity broadband service is available -- even faster broadband is coming next year if you demand a speed boost.

The BT Infinity service currently offers broadband speeds of up to 40Mbps, because fibre is only laid to the street cabinet. From there your data is stuck in the slow lane by being forced to crawl along on ageing copper lines.

Getting the fastest broadband speeds in Blighty means having fibre-optic line laid right into your living room, at least until they work out a way to plug it straight into your brain. But for some reason, BT has been a tad reluctant to dig up the front gardens and driveways of everyone in the UK (hint: it's expensive) -- with only a few lucky areas getting the full-fibre treatment.

Starting in spring 2013, however, BT will offer up to 330Mbps broadband on demand -- digging up your driveway if you ask very nicely, provided you live in a BT Infinity area. If you live atop a Scottish mountain you're probably out of luck, but BT reckons it will have pushed fibre close to two-thirds of houses in the UK by the end of 2014.

With a commercial launch some way off, BT hasn't decided whether digging up your front lawn will be included in a more expensive monthly contract or an added extra. It's fair to say it won't be free though.

330Mbps will also be offered by ISPs who use BT's broadband network -- so if your ISP is not BT you'll need to check whether they're signed up to the ultra-fast broadband plan. And if not, find a new ISP, stat.

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[TheRealDave]

What's the point if there's appauling bandwidth restrictions?

[Crisp]

What's the point if there's appauling bandwidth restrictions?

Well I know that Sky are starting their fiber optic broadband package in April which uses BT's equipment. I love Sky because it truly is "unlimited" when they say it is. Will also benefit from when BT upgrade their current Infinity service to 80Mbps as I'm sure Sky wont be left behind.

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

While it's great you're getting 300Mbps and all, where is my promised 5Mbps? BT can push these fancy numbers all they want, but at least give the rest of us some kind of decent broadband speed, instead of just upping the people inside the cities :/

[Reacon]

Meanwhile, in the country where most of the internet is centralized...

[Detection]

I have BT Infinity 40meg and BT don't restrict the connection in any way, depending on the price, by 2013 these speeds I get now will have lost their wow factor, I might be tempted

[Vice]

I hope so. Competition is always good. I'm on Virgin Medias 100Mb (soon to be 120Mb come April) but VM is not discussing their 200Mb or faster speeds so I hope this news pushes them to deliver.

[Xoligy]

Everyone i know hates BT internet, broadband and tv packages Sky on the other hand they like. As for Virgin which is who im with they just throttle my speed if i go over my limits which i sometimes do, do because i am a heavy user but im happy with my 30mb line for now (60mb october-june my area). Maybe seeing this will make them boost thre speeds more depending on what BT's pricing is and what not.

[trag3dy]

They should bring their interenets to the US. :s

[Stonkwell Bogtrotter]

It's all just willy waving that's all. Unless they make it truly unlimited, and I mean, UNLIMITED and not Unlimited with restrictions, like most ISPs. Unlimited should mean unlimited.

Sadly Ofcom, who have no balls, have allowed the meaning of the word "unlimited" to be changed by ISP's and mobile phone operators and have done nothing about it.

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

It's all just willy waving that's all. Unless they make it truly unlimited, and I mean, UNLIMITED and not Unlimited with restrictions, like most ISPs. Unlimited should mean unlimited.

Sadly Ofcom, who have no balls, have allowed the meaning of the word "unlimited" to be changed by ISP's and mobile phone operators and have done nothing about it.

It all fairness to OFCOM, that seems to have changed now. I haven't seen an advert for a while that claimed "Unlimited internet" except for the new 3 and T-Mobile plans that actually are unlimited AFAIK. I agree with what you're saying though. Until they actually implement some decent bandwidth allowances and roll it out to more than just one place* , including all the places 5 minutes out of the cities, it's just hyperbole to make BT looks like they can even remotely compete with Virgin Media.

* A tactic that Virgin media usually uses with their "new speeds" is that one area gets it about 2 months before everyone else, and then advertises it like it's the norm.

[Jimmy0]

I am all for faster broadband, however it needs to be truly unlimited and unrestricted if so. I also feel they need to focus more on getting fibre to all areas of the country, rather than just push high speeds to certain big cities.

[iKenndac]

While it's great you're getting 300Mbps and all, where is my promised 5Mbps?

There's only so much you can do with crappy copper phone lines. Looks like they're finally biting the bullet and putting fibre everywhere so they can have fast, consistent speeds.

All I can say is: welcome! I live in Sweden and have 100Mbit broadband. I can get 300Mbit, but it seemed a bit... decadent, especially since even at 100Mbit I hit bottlenecks at the other end every often. It's so awesome :-D

[stevember]

Everyone i know hates BT internet, broadband and tv packages Sky on the other hand they like. As for Virgin which is who im with they just throttle my speed if i go over my limits which i sometimes do, do because i am a heavy user but im happy with my 30mb line for now (60mb october-june my area). Maybe seeing this will make them boost thre speeds more depending on what BT's pricing is and what not.

I moved to sky unlimited about 4 years ago from BT, never had a problem with BT but sky was cheaper.

Sky has been brilliant for a long time until October last year when speed started really slowing down and I started to have more outages.

In January I went to BT affinity, absolutely love it. They do restrict some p2p sharing after 6 PM and at weekends yes encryption/random ports help. Other times I get a good 2.5 MB/s utorrent which enables me to only run it when needed and not for long.

When it is being throttled get the files from newsgroups that is still up to speed.

[Mando]

Everyone i know hates BT internet, broadband and tv packages Sky on the other hand they like. As for Virgin which is who im with they just throttle my speed if i go over my limits which i sometimes do, do because i am a heavy user but im happy with my 30mb line for now (60mb october-june my area). Maybe seeing this will make them boost thre speeds more depending on what BT's pricing is and what not.

Err you do realise that Skys broadband is repackaged "BT" PSTN based yes? at best Sky get to put their cheap tat DSLAMS into bt exchanges, most of the time they just lease BTs DSLAMS in the exchanges (esp if exchange isnt LLU). The best part of sky is if youve signed over your phone line to sky, just wait till you have a fault, then get ready to play ISP/Telco ping pong, sky= its a bt fault, call BT, BT= its a sky fault phone Sky....(rinse and repeat) This equates to the pipelines and gateway to the internet is the same....traffic shaping and other limitations is done at your ISP level.

Sky is decent and cheap I give you that, but other factors should also be observed, your not allowed to use your own router, they dont officially support p2p or LTP VPN traffic (its a domestic service, VPN is business use) their help desk are a joke (yes more than BTs)

[what]

We should get this first. We're the last area of the country to be upgraded to 40Mbps (BT Infinity) which we're still waiting for. Doesn't make sense to lay outdated cabling and then replace it in a couple of years, right?

Of course, this won't happen at all.

[kurupy]

I hope so. Competition is always good. I'm on Virgin Medias 100Mb (soon to be 120Mb come April) but VM is not discussing their 200Mb or faster speeds so I hope this news pushes them to deliver.

Us Virgin Media 100mb users get a discount starting in April of about ?7, we get bumped upto 120mb in the summer, had a letter from them a few days ago

[L1520]

I had nothing but problems when I lived @ my folks' house and they were on BT (in the country side about 4 miles from the exchange in a non cable area) where they got 0.9MB. BT were cack & their customer services were awful. I had a newer BT supplied line for myself that was 4.5MB with o2 that I was happy with.

Now I own my own house, we are with Virgin on the 30MB package & speeds are more consistent and the throttling seems to have reduced in recent months. I will see what it is like when we get upgraded to 60MB service. I very much doubt that I will ever go back to BT regardless of these headline speeds they claim to offer.

[Vice]

Us Virgin Media 100mb users get a discount starting in April of about ?7, we get bumped upto 120mb in the summer, had a letter from them a few days ago

Yeah I know. :)

We also get 12Mb upload. 2Mb extra.. - On BT Infinity currently you can get 100Mb down / 15Mb up. I'd kill for more upload.

[Crisp]

Yeah I know. :)

We also get 12Mb upload. 2Mb extra.. - On BT Infinity currently you can get 100Mb down / 15Mb up. I'd kill for more upload.

I thought Infinity was 40 down 10 up, which is being upgraded to 80 down 20 up sometime this year?

[Vice]

I thought Infinity was 40 down 10 up, which is being upgraded to 80 down 20 up sometime this year?

BT already offer 100Mb down 15Mb up. I don't know anything about this 80Mb Down / 20Mb Up stuff. Doesn't say anything about it on their site currently.

They also offer 40Mb down / 10Mb up right now. But again I don't know anything about this 80Mb stuff.

[Jub]

There's only so much you can do with crappy copper phone lines. Looks like they're finally biting the bullet and putting fibre everywhere so they can have fast, consistent speeds.

All I can say is: welcome! I live in Sweden and have 100Mbit broadband. I can get 300Mbit, but it seemed a bit... decadent, especially since even at 100Mbit I hit bottlenecks at the other end every often. It's so awesome :-D

With the difference that in Sweden we've had full duplex, unlimited 100-1000 (both ways) Mbit for about ten years or more, whereas here in London/UK they still struggle to deliver half duplex 10 Mbit (one way) through their fibre-then-copper network. Internet connections in the UK have been outdated for a very long time and still are, especially with all limitations. Swedish 4G is faster than British fibre.

Also, I live in a new apartment block in central London and there's no fibre connection to this place... :s

[Dan~]

uh-huh

[Detection]

I thought Infinity was 40 down 10 up, which is being upgraded to 80 down 20 up sometime this year?

Yea thats what the engineer told me when he installed mine

[+Byt Subscriber¹]

Finally someone challenging Virgin Media! Virgin will have to increase their speeds now ;)