Can I too ask an internet question please?

Despite living only approx 200m - 'as the crow flies' - from the exchange, our broadband drops in and out all the time and the router flashes more frequently than a belisha beacon. I'm with BT, but have spoken to neighbours who have different ISPs and they experience the same problem, it therefore follows that, since you need a BT line of some sort, (no matter who your ISP is), the problem must be with the BT exchange.

After innumerable calls to India, BT sent me a new router about 3 months ago, saying that was the cause of the trouble, but of course it's made no difference.

That's the background - now the question.

On Friday I received a call from BT offering me fibre optic broadband. Apparently with this all singing, all dancing technology, my download speed will increase to warp-factor something or other (although as my 'downloading' consists of a very occasional squint at iPlayer, speed isn't something I give any thought to). Furthermore, if I agree, a 'man' will come and plug in whatever needs to be plugged in and it won't cost me anything (apart from an extra £7.84 a month).

Now, the question is, there's no mention in all of this sales pitch of replacing my existing copper cable with a fibre optic one so ... have I missed something? Surely if they're going to provide fibre optic broadband, shouldn't they come and dig up the street at some point and run a fibre optic cable up my garden and into the house?? I just don't see they can provide fibre optics through the existing copper cable.

 

My thanks for explaining it all so clearly.

By chance, a BT 'man' was digging outside my house this morning so I went out and had a word. It appears he was there sorting out a problem with a neighbour's 'phone, but when I put to him, the same question as I put above, his reply was exactly the same as fat controller's, that our village has the FTTC. Apparently, the fibre optic goes to the cabinet and then kinda loops round the village using the copper cable.

When I mentioned the constant 'dropping out' his reply was "You're close to the exchange you shouldn't have any connection trouble." Well, maybe we 'shouldn't', but it doesn't alter the fact that we do (so much so that the computer shop in the village was getting up a 'petition' to send to BT complaining about their putrid service).

Anyway, rather like a car that can do 100 mph down the motorway but still has to slow down when it comes off that motorway into side streets, it means that here at least, unless or until they put 'proper' fibre optic cables to each house, we're still reliant on the copper ones for the most part.

Since download speeds and internet TV et.al are completely irrelevant to me, when the BT lady rings back I've decided shall decline her 'offer' of giving her organisation an extra £94.08 p.a. - I shall however, continue to keep a list of those dates and times when the signal drops out and at the end of each quarter will continue to send it to BT with the request that they reduce my bill by an amount appropriate to when their service is not available.

 

I had a similar problem to Fidgets Mum. My connection speed became abysmal and we are only two or three hundred metres from the exchange. After three or four calls to BT (India!!) a chap came out and replaced our router. Only to discover that the replacement didn't resolve the problem and that the problem was due line faults that had resulted in BT dropping our connection speed. He phoned BT and got our speed reset and presto it worked fine.
The new router failed after a few days so I replaced with an old one which worked fine but phoned BT to ask for and got a replacement that has worked fine since then.
We are currently running at a bit above 7Mbs which is just about right for all our requirements as we neither want or need streaming video.

I'd suggest that you insist on BT sending an engineer to do a comprehensive test on your system as it sounds like either you've a duff line or that intermittent line faults have resulted in BT lowering your connection speed.
Unless you really need blazing fast download speeds the extra cost of fibre optic probably isn't worth it.

You can test your connection speed using this site - free and quite non-tech!
http://www.speedtest.net/

If you are not getting anything like the speed BT advertises or promises for your location the results from the above test can strengthen your case.
I use the above site every month or so and save the results so can I see and record any significant changes in our connection speed.

 

Here too is another site to try if you get problems and rate it too

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/