Secret Truth Behind the UK's Broadband Services!

[@techflow]

Let us know in the comments your loaded and unloaded ping's along with the provider and make the comments section useful for people deciding who to go for

[@YosefElgart]

its pain in ass now internet providers slow than the tecnology i wish you got 5/10G fiber to properly test new wifi 7 routers (that this not enabled MLO)

[@daviddrcray3802]

That's always been the case. The question is, are devices and services actually ready for mutigig. Most can just about handle 1gig. Wifi 6 can theoretically do multigig

[@jordanswabey]

So ive just did a speed test with wifi man, my speed is 35 down and 6 up my ping is 15. i pay £50 each ,onth for 50mb , i dont get anywere near the 50mb speed,

[@brysigameplay]

i can download a 10gb 4k video in 30 seconds

[@grahammacdougall2165]

The increase in "loaded" ping times is due to bufferbloat. You should use a router that supports FQ-CoDel or Cake. Setting the up/down speeds just below the max of your circuit will drastically improve loaded pings.

[@xMeta4x]

A few comments. FTTP is *not* a fibre direct from the exchange to your property. Openreach use GPON (Up to 1Gb/s), and there will be optical splitters, and ultimately multiple properties use the same "feed" fibre. Altnets (Cityfibre etc) generally don't use the same technology as Openreach. They seem to have looked to the future and are installing XGS-PON, which is up to 10Gb/s. Most of them also offer a symmetric connection, whereas Openreach's upload is restricted to between 10-20% of the full upload speed. As for DOCSIS, it is not just a coax cable. It is a hybrid coax/fibre solution, in the same way as FTTC is a hybrid twisted pair/fibre solution. Perhaps you were trying to keep it "simple", but some if this was just plain wrong.

[@DJgregBrown]

100% I on F&W networks FTTP via Hey, broadband as ISP and I also have openreach FTTP it is a true fibre line used but speed in capped at the local exchanges and it share by the whole street. Alt-nets are the only true Fibre FTTP. 900+ up and down, low ping times as well. and Price is so much lower than openreach Gigafibre ISP's. Cityfibre I hear are a little better but I am outside their caption area, but they do up to 2.5GB to home. Thankyou for the virgin info as I been trying to explain Virgin fibre cable is a due cable to my mum that think virgin had fibre 25 years ago as see always had high speed internet. She only has copper and Virgin line so is stuck getting price hit or has to downgrade to copper speed which as she works from home suck for her currently but she only has 3 years left till retirement.

[@sausagesuprise1942]

Looking for this comment after first 2 minutes of video, to find someone who knows what they are talking about. This youtuber chatting shit. I use an alt-net provider and they offer 3gbps. I know others can do up to 10gbps. Also loads of alt nets have differences in the cabling used and it's not the same as openreach. I have used virgin and have used their gig 1 service and I can wholeheartedly say it's the most unreliable crap on the market. Speeds fluctuate so much and it's reliability is just bad. I think FTTC even though a technically inferior technology is much more reliable as I found broadband to me more stable and not disconnected for so long.

[@DigisDen]

@@sausagesuprise1942 It was seriously painful to watch this shit being shovelled and less knowledgeable people digesting it and believing it. Dude hasn't the first clue about networking.

[@HarryL2020]

It seems Openreach now offer 1.8Gbps

[@d-zone]

He doesn't even know how to pronounce ethernet, not sure I trust his tech knowledge 🤣

[@gh8447]

0:57 Currently, the fastest provider in the UK though full fibre is _not_ EE. You Fibre's plans range from 150Mbps to 8Gbps - a full _five times_ faster than EE. Who would need 8Gbps in a residential setting is beyond me, but it's there if you want it.

[@HarryHoups]

Very limited rollout via you fiber though... I've been on their waitlist for 2 years with no sign of any installation

[@jamesrbrindle]

I’d take a 2gig symmetric connection in a hearbeat. I’ll have to move house to get it, they’ll never roll it out where I live. It took 3 years extra when infinity FTTC came out. I use Virgin and can get 1gig but they have no plans for FTTP here in next 5 years.

[@fwzmhmd]

Actually the fastest residential Fibre is from 'B4RN' which they provide a whopping 10Gbps 1. B4RN 10Gb for £150 p/m 2. YouFibre 8Gb for £99.99 p/m 3. Community Fibre* 3Gb for £49 p/m (which I have at home) 4. Yayzi Broadband 2.3Gb for £50 p/m Other providers max speeds are 2Gb ranging from £55 p/m to £129.99 p/m Then comes EE 1.6Gb for £69.99 p/m which is a rip off imo. *If you live in London, then you may able to sign up to Community Fibre which is reliable and affodable **Prices correct as of 27 April 2024

[@gh8447]

@@fwzmhmd Ain't that nuts?! Most people don't even have 10Gb networking in their house (I do, but that's not the point)! 😄 You Fibre originally offered 10Gbs, but they dropped it to 8Gbs for some reason. Incidentally, I wasn't claiming YF was the fastest (I couldn't be arsed doing the research to find out); I was just refuting his claim that EE was the fastest available.

[@francisuk1989]

@@fwzmhmd You have forgot Hyperoptic, ASK4 both provide 1Gb. Sadly by default both Hyperoptic and Community Fibre gives you a CGNAT type for IP addressing, Thats ok for browsing and netflix/youtube but sucks port forwarding or Gaming!

[@hegedusuk]

Upload speed is more important than you think. While you're downloading, acknowledgement packets need to be sent back (uploaded), and if the upload bandwidth is saturated already then it'll affect download. Several newer FTTP providers do 1000 Mbps upload with the 1000 download

[@u1f98a]

Barely. You only need 54 bytes per 1400 bytes (-ish, thats a pretty bad-case number), so if you're saturating a 1GBit down connection, according to my maths only ~90kbps upload is going to be used, and that's assuming you're not using TCP windows, which means you dont have to send an ACK for every packet, you can limit it to say, 1 ACK every 4 packets.

[@leexgx]

​@@u1f98avirgin connection here shared upload does matter (at one point I had 40% packet loss between 3pm-8pm and half of our street went back to openreach provider adsl 1-2mb as we didn't have vdsl yet) after 9 months luckily they upgraded to docsis 3.0 witch only fixed the problem because it had more bandwidth on the upstream had the FTTP virgin nodes installed recantly on each street corner (them very thin green cabs) so be upgrading to FTTPn virgin soon

[@NorthCamZ]

Finally got gigaclear in the area. 900 up and 900 down, not bad for £29 a month

[@davidw8110]

One thing to watch out for with those 1GB for 30 quid fibre plans is that many of them run CGNAT. This means that you share the same IP address as the other houses on your street. This can prevent some VOIP software and home security cameras from working. It can also prevent you from self hosting a gaming server. Most of them will let you turn off CGNAT and have your own IP, but for an additional monthly cost.

[@HA05GER]

It does happen but not all I'm with county broadband and I had issue with online gaming so asked that question specifically and was told I have my own IP.

[@justinclark7883]

just happened to us since moving to Gigaclear... argued for Fixed IP (zero cost) and all good now for cctv / plex etc...

[@DeejayJeanP]

Thank you for mentioning this! Never thought this would've been a thing but going to look into this now.

[@StealthyDrake12]

*Gb

[@ozzo1997]

I recently learnt this the hard way when trying to setup my ddns on my new befibre broadband - CGNAT meant all ports were closed and had to pay an extra £4 per month for dedicated IP, now paying £32/month for 900 symmetrical FTTP

[@patrickschottert3550]

In The Netherlands there are multiple ISPs (Delta/Odido(Old T-Mobile-Tele2)) that can give you 8 Gbps, which is INSANE

[@techflow]

That is unreal!!!

[@patrickschottert3550]

​@@techflow For just 85 Euro's. (Odido).

[@Peregrine101]

To extend this. The fiber situation in the Netherlands is a bit spotty because our biggest telco KPN kind of stopped developing their own fiber network when government stepped in and demanded they opened up their network to other ISPs (like they have to do on the POTS network). Now the old POTS network is on its last legs and they started again to roll out fiber extensively. Meanwhile other ISPs started to roll out fiber in some places. Delta and Odido have partially their own network working on ftth basis. Odido therefore is active both on their own network as well on the KPN fiber network. Delta is not. They started as a cable TV service in the province of Zeeland. They first modernized their own cable network in Zeeland and then went on to start expanding outside of Zeeland. Their biggest competitor VodafoneZiggo has had fiber up to the street cabinets for years.

[@TheDaern]

And in the UK too! I will be able to get 8Gbps within the next couple of months....

[@TheSmallRabbit]

@@techflow And mostly unusable I guess unless you have a 10Gbps network card and the Internet service you want to connect too can support it. I would say 100% of services on the internet cannot.

[@ParagramCOD]

FTTP has just been installed to my house a month ago and I got the BT 900 Package, zero complaints and its insanely more stable compared to my previous FTTC! However since I'm a new customer they installed a 2.5gb ONT, Openreach are soon to offer 1.8gbps download, BT, EE etc... are dropping them at any moment.

[@benjaminfphillips]

EE already offer the 1.8 atm.

[@ParagramCOD]

@@benjaminfphillips I know, but already in a contract with BT... hoping they offer 1.8 soon

[@TheSmallRabbit]

Ask yourself what device you will be using on the 1.8Gbps or even the 900Mbps service? Most like 99% of devices cannot operate at 900Mbps over Wifi. Try it I bet you realistically see 250Mbps or 500Mbps max. Unless your wired with a 10Gbps network card you cannot send or receive more than 1Gbps. Wifi as I state above even wifi 6 is a lot worse. Don't waste your money on anything over 300Mbps unless you have a real need too and this would mean 10 or so high capacity users all at the same time on your network. Remember most devices are mostly idle regards internet data anyway. Over a 24 hour period your network most likely runs at less than 20% of its capacity. Marketing and sales hype anything over 300Mbps for most.

[@ParagramCOD]

@@TheSmallRabbit I've got a high end PC with ethernet, trust me I use the speeds , a lot of big downloads and yes it uses the full 900+

[@benjaminfphillips]

@@TheSmallRabbit Not everyone exclusively uses wireless, or they have their own equipment at home. Even fairly basic motherboards these days can come with 2.5gbit ethernet.

[@Tomellingham]

Nice video, Alex. Other thing for people to remember is speed is measured differently to size - so a 1Gbps connection will download (in a perfect world) a 1GB file in 8 seconds - speed is measured in bits and storage is measured in bytes...8 bits in a byte etc. etc. I think you've covered this before. Also - there are some default settings in Windows that throttle downloads. Worth doing an overview on them. Makes a huge difference.

[@zeberto1986]

5:20 just because fibre doesnt suffer as much EM interference as a copper cable doesnt reduce the mumber of problems. Fibre optic cable is notoriously fragile and can crack easily. Kinks in the cable and dust in the connectors are also potential problems. The number of packet loss issues Ive seen fixed by a field engineer cleaning the ends of the fibre is insane.

[@danielscotcher]

I have been using Three 5G for a couple of years now. Used to have to reboot but it’s been fine recently. Get around 400 down and 60 up but for £20 a month that’s just fine with me

[@oootassss]

I get 1gb up and one down for £29. YouFiber

[@MPsNewswatch]

Thanks for such a plain English explanation of the basics of Broadband. You've got a follow.

[@techflow]

Not a problem! Glad you liked the video 🙏🏻 welcome aboard! 🙌🏻

[@blisteringbooks2428]

We have BT, it sucks. The two weeks to connect was 6 months, only I think there is only one fibre optic strand for the whole town. It says it is fast, but at times it spools or cuts out, it can't cope with peak times. The strand eventually came from a pole as the fibre optic cable which disrupted all the traffic for weeks is Gigaclear or something.

[@brunoxing9060]

Just a sidenote: the latency under load is also dependent from the QoS management of both the CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) and the backhaul of the provider. For example, here in Portugal we have 2 major ISPs, NOS and MEO, which both use FTTH, although NOS still uses DOCSIS (it is migrating to FTTH tho). With some tests, where NOS uses DOCSIS (HFC) and MEO uses FTTH, under no load, the MEO FTTH connection wins, because it can provide much faster latencies than NOS HFC. However, when you insert some load in the network, for example, a speedtest, the NOS HFC performs better than MEO FTTH, although NOS uses DOCSIS. Why? Because NOS made a good job to apply a good QoS for it's network than MEO. The NOS routers and the network itself (on the last mile, and inside the backbone) were configured to prioritize traffic for UDP, VOIP and other real-time traffic in case of a pretty loaded network. MEO, on the other side, does not has those configs for that, causing a worse experience under loaded networks. Im not saying that DOCSIS is better than FTHH, none of that; what Im saying is that the technology itself helps to deliver a good speed and latency to a customer, and also the equipment and the config that is being used by the ISP enters the equation.

[@sturdyblock]

Low Ping / latency is foremost. Don't be fooled by faster is better. Run a couple of services via Virgin DOCSIS and watch the ping times soar. The Virgin 'business' service is simply a lie. Run the exact same services via BT FTTP and the ping times are night and day. Swapping out the BT router can further improve latency. Avoid Virgin at ALL cost if you can. Their customer service is a joke, bordering on pathetic.

[@itIsI988]

Yeah avoid Virgin unless you have no other choice. The service is decent (when it works) if you use your own equipment but they're currently charging us £95 a month for 500 meg (boosted with Volt so we're actually paying for 350 meg) and an international landline which barely ever gets used. Absolute joke of a company and just take advantage of people who value their sanity enough to avoid speaking to their woeful customer service.

[@mickeyt5424]

​​@@itIsI988I've just gone on the virgin Website right now without Volt it's £35 a month for 18m with 500mbps..why are you lying? If you're an existing o2 contract customer you take the £35 and once setup you get the speed boost so 1gig for the same £35.. Again why lie?!?

[@andrewg2536]

Last time I had Virgin was being charged for phone calls I didn't make, no phone connected, never again

[@ultra1obscene]

@@itIsI988 i have 2gb up/down virgin for £80 a month..

[@LewisM1984]

At the moment my options are Virgin who I have had for over 2 years on a high speed package or I can go with someone like EE via part fibre would this just be a viable option than trying to stick with Virgin as trying to negotiate a better deal with them is an awful experience and I’m not getting anywhere and against my will they just closed off my service. Not sure where to go from here now. Fairly convinced that I actually don’t need anywhere near those speed probably anyway. We use streaming services for tele, my son plays VR and tablet and I online game a few hours a night. I can only get around 35/40mbps with EE/BT/Sky etc on part fibre options atm would this actually be ok or not? Some expert advice would be really appreciated. Thank you

[@LeonsVlogsx]

You can actually get 100-300mbps via GFAST DSL Line (copper) if you're within a certain radius of the cabinets.

[@solidus1983]

You have to be hugging the G-Fast pod to get even close to the 300mbps speeds via DSL. You also got to account for the line, you might not even have copper but aluminium or worse still a mix of the two.

[@deang5622]

Certain distance, not radius. It's the cable length that matters, not the radius from the cabinet.

[@mitchleigh2369]

Gfast is crap tbh

[@ultra1obscene]

not all cabs are gfast enabled, they stopped rolling that out a long time ago. it was only rolled out so they could get the averages up to box tick. pretty useless service

[@crnppscls]

It’s worth noting that looking up your isp’s peering should be something you do, if you want low ping. Like if you’re in the north of uk or Scotland, the last thing you would want is your traffic to be routed through London. If you chose Brawband as your isp for example, your pings would be in single digits because they route through Edinburgh. It can be a minefield though because even if your isp might use a data centre in Manchester, there’s no guarantee that your traffic will go through there if it’s congested. They might even bounce it from there to london.

[@imark7777777]

In the US a lot of companies will give you a nice download speed but a very minimal upload speed. I wish symmetrical was the standard. this has the effect of sure you might have 25 down but you have 1 up and that gets saturated which causes information not to get out to bring you a download like videos, streaming or gaming. Next the whole thing feel even slower than it is. Or in some cases unusable depending on time of day and user load on the network and on your network. I've had a few sites where there's just too many buses trying to go down a one-way street.

[@dh2032]

yep, robing Peter to pay Paul!, there selling, something that not really there, the faster on paper down load,, nocked down by the lack, full up stream link,

[@93jsaw]

IIRC this is to due available ports on a connection line. If the ports were split 50/50 the download speed would suffer significantly and the ISPs assume customers would prefer higher download speeds so the split is closer to 95/5.

[@johndoe-cv4we]

While watching your from around at 10min, couldn't help but notice that your consumer unit (fuse box) seems to have some regulation issues being different branded mcb(Volex in a Hager enclosure) and a white flex entering the closure possible without a gland or flame retardant entry method. would recommend to get your CU upgraded to a metal flame proof box with surge protection and RCBOs for peace of mind

[@sarahjrandomnumbers]

Also, isn't the CU too low to the ground? Thought it had to be higher for disabled people.

[@JEMODZ]

I checked my address and every house on my road can have full fiber apart from mine... even though the cables to connect the other houses all run past my house to the box which is literally meters from my house lol... stuck on the unreliable trashy phone line speeds

[@93jsaw]

I feel you. BT did the whole estate apart from my bank of 4 terraced, citing they were constructed different from the others even though they are all identical 1950s builds. My neighbours connection pot is literally 5m away from my front. I gave up in the end, my ISP said it was down to openreach, and openreach don't have customer service they just tell you to speak to your ISP!!!

[@JEMODZ]

@@93jsaw yup openreach suck...

[@topmandog1]

2:31 dont you mean fttp vs docsis, cause fttc is what virgin use for docsis

[@Seansmit23]

Depends on the area. Here in Peterborough the network is old as shit and VM's network here is RF for a lot of the runs. My line for example, I know its route. It goes upto a cab at the top of the street where all the lines from this street combine into a few bigger coax links that go off for a about 1.4 miles back to the VM office. Sure from there its a fibre link. RFoG is a thing in places as well but I'm fairly sure Peterborough has not got any of that new fangled tech here yet.

[@thebigguy18]

Why there is differences in speed depending on the website is because of how these providers or the CDN's interconnect into the ISP's network. They could already have the connection saturated or even be a slower interconnect than the other. You should have done a trace route to dropbox/google drive to see the differences in how/where it connects into the CDN.

[@TheSmallRabbit]

Even traceroute only uses ICMP not IP/TCP/QUIC so a better test would be a HTTP/s GET test. This is what we use to test availability on our firewalls as a working ICMP does not mean a working IP connection. ICMP is not IP. (HTTP) is IP

[@andrewdunn9307]

Virgin now offers 2 Gbps in some areas but at £85 a month for a household, I won't be taking that.

[@gorebrush]

And £140 a month once you are out of the initial contract.

[@itIsI988]

@@gorebrush Still a bargain lol they're currently billing us £95 a month for 500 Mbps with a landline.

[@Seansmit23]

VM are bonkers. I can get 2.3 Gig down and 1 Gig up here in Peterborough for £50 I am leaving VM as soon as my contract is up at the start of August.

[@TheSmallRabbit]

Before paying more than you need check what your devices can communicate with your router at over WIFI 6. The answer is less than 500Mbps mostly ! Test it and see.😀 So unless you are going to wire in your device to a 1Gbps or 10Gbps network card anything over 500Mbps is a waste of money.

[@keylokush]

have you ever heard of delay in fifa when online but plays fine when offline same thing happens in all other online games its as iff packets of data arent being sent properly or something but its been bothering me for years my isp always says everything is fine on their end but ther is an input delay that ruins competeive gaming completely if anyone can help PLEASE!!

[@PeterBowles316]

Docsis ADSL, and fttc will all have a contended connection. During COVID lockdown it was crazy on a docsis connection, at 4pm all the kids in the street would start watching Netflix and my connection performance plummeted

[@Emtbtoday]

Ours doesn't come in through phone lines the either net connects to the openreach hub on wall and that's it no phone lines involved

[@UgniusKačenauskas]

Would be interesting to see these tests on more external home devices, such as CCTV. A lot of homes now use home security like Ring, Blink and a few other high end options which seem to eat up a lot of internet and mess with ping. I used to be with BT and once I installed CCTV around my home, I connected a monitor to constantly run connected to the CCTV. This completely ruined my internet around the house, causing speed issues and ping issues. Once I upgraded to Virgin, the problems went away and since then, I have never experienced any issues. So I do strongly think it's based on a lot of device factors around your home.

[@ciancorry8797]

I have just gotten the half gig package with EE, and open reach have just installed the direct fibre, however my speeds are staying at 40mb download and 50mb upload. I'm using a powerline (TP link Av1000) to connect my desktop to the internet. Does anybody know what the issue might be? It's not the tplink as its been fine in other proterties, and my bedroom is directly above the room in which the router is situated. Thanks in advance

[@eyetreeheart]

Try running a wired connection from the hub to the device as extender might not be getting the best speeds coming into it to share it with other devices afterwards. Also on a side note some older devices might not support higher speeds if you happen to be using like a phone from 2018 for example, and last but not least check if the cable is a CAT5e or higher as they support speeds over 100Mbps.

[@OneTrueLegend]

i have 1gbps community fibre here in london. i ran a cmd ping and got 2ms ping unloaded and when i do a speed test i get 48ms ping.

[@IdkG7]

Try changing your DNS to Cloudflare or Quad9

[@OneTrueLegend]

@@IdkG7 i’m already using cloudflare as a dns

[@karlclark8625]

What happens if you can't get fibre broad at all? Currently, I have what's called an Exchange online connection, and as such only have 3 Mbps on a good day. With the demand for faster speeds, will I still be able to use the Internet at all in the near future.

[@tdrg_]

There is a provider here in Romania that can do 10 gig for €10/month. The catch is that it’s not available almost anywhere so far. I think they use fibre, and with my 1 Gbps plan gets 1ms ping!

[@francisuk1989]

When i stayed in a Airbnb in Romania for a couple of days, They used RCS & RDS for internet and was getting close to 1Gbit. :P

[@IdkG7]

Of course it’s fibre if it’s 10 gig

[@TheSmallRabbit]

What would you connect to the 10Gbps service? Hopefully not a phone over wifi as you will only get 250mbps-500mbps :-) Unless your wired into the router at 10Gbps you are wasting your money plus the internet service you connect too will most likely be a lot less than even 1Gbps ! In real-world situations, you'll likely experience slower speeds due to factors like: Interference from other Wi-Fi networks or devices Distance from the router

[@robson9000]

FYI Virgin offer a 2gig service in there FTTP areas. They are moving away from docsis and all new areas are FTTP

[@allansheldrake4832]

Virgin does not offer FTTP

[@robson9000]

Yes they do, it’s FTTP in my area

[@Emtbtoday]

No chance we weren't even getting freeview through the smart tv on full fiber 500 producing 60mbps at all time's! Why i chance to EE but problem is persistent at a higher speed on gigabyte package and wifi6 now getting 360mbps on gigabyte gaming package! Im needing your help as EE cant help me here if you can? It's very stressful.

[@cycleranger]

Lucky person. I only have 40mb download and the real killer 5mb upload. With no other options. This makes remote working painful. Took me 6 hrs to upload 5GB the other day to work.

[@christopherbayne576]

Hello, we switched to BT full fibre but I complained that we weren't getting the speeds advertised, until I removed the supplied BT Router and plugged my ASUS router in and discarded the BT Router. Have you seen this before, and doyou know if BT purposely throttle back their routers. Any thoughts?

[@francisuk1989]

Had the same issue but on FTTC, They admitted and said the capacity is full at peak times and because of that, they offered half the price of £15 but decided to leave and went to ghost gamer broadband for there FTTC who use TalkTalk business wholesale for there stuff and never had any issues, also comes with a static IP so bonus! - Also they supply you with a tp link archer vr400 router and also not locked to any ISP.

[@tipsy1973]

So nexifibre installed cables via the pole for virgin to a box on the side of my house then a box on the wall outside with a fibre cable into the house. This is where I am confused as this will be a full fibre part of the network that has just been installed that must connect to Virgin's old network.

[@EpicXProtocol]

Nope it is all fibre. The fibre to pole will from XGS PON OLT somewhere in your area which is all fibre. Will be capable of 10Gig in the future.

[@cornwall_in_Squares]

Great video, I have Starling which gives me a unloaded ping sub 30ms, 400mbps down and 80-120 up which beats the FTTC connection here by miles, we do have the option of fibre to the house now, however the experience is not good with many users reporting reliability issues and high contention. I have not yet tried 5G that is a great suggestion.

[@TheTechteam2012]

What you haven’t mentioned is the recent Starlink update for European customers - the dishy’s are now pointing West (previously most pointed North). They’re now taking advantage of unused satellites across the Atlantic before they reach the continent. This had massively reduced ping times. I went from receiving around 40-50ms to an average of 20ms, with download around 200mbps, and upload of 25mbps.

[@phoenixmotorsport647]

One thing you forgot was contention ratio. It plays a major part and means that performance can vary WILDLY depending on the time of day. As an example I am currently running 500/500 fiber and I am running 8 servers as well as my pc with 7 open internet connection. My line is is running @ 520/510 with a rock solid ping of 4ms. Contention ration matters

[@SparkyMTB]

We live in the UK countryside & can’t get any kind of fibre optic etc so our only option is a 4G Router which gives us about 50-80mb download speed. As an avid gamer it’s just about the minimum speeds I can handle for gaming before things become unplayable.

[@peteradshead2383]

I'm on a 60mb connection ( talk talk ) and my days use is under 10GB which not so long ago 300GB each month would classed as over T&Cs . I can't see a point of going ant higher .

[@petecoventry6858]

I have both a 1,6Gbps EE connection over newly installed FTTP and I have a Dedicated Virgin Media Leased line. So I download and upload a LOT on the Virgin line and use the EE line for normal household usage.

[@timballam3675]

At 10:05 you show the XBox having a download speed of 1017Mbps, the Ethernet connection is only 1000Mbps.....

[@the_bootstrap_paradox]

Great video, thanks. I like many others watching, do not have the luxury of FTTP, Openreach and every other 3rd party seems to have no interest in providing a service to us. I was down in very remote parts of Wales last week and was frustrated to see even there, they have fttp - these are remote single houses in the middle of nowhere! Tiny villages throughout France also have full fibre (and 5G) provided. It begs the question why are we so far behind??? Who have you got to pay or whose cage can you rattle to get Full fibre installed?

[@szabolcsvarga8395]

There is a bit a problem with the full fibre here, namely Cityfibre which is the provider where I live. Cityfibre only got a 1 star from me, because there was no option for zero. They did the work and installments but made a very big mistake. The cable from the cabinet to the house is ran underground, and exactly where all the heavy vechiles turn around just next to the pavement - sinking their tyres into the ground. I'm not conviced entirely if the cables can withstand it nor those werve layed down at that part properly protected. Whether due to this or not, there has never been signal to me and after arranging a few appointments with the Cityfibre and never having anyone bothering to pay a visit - having to use up holidays for nothing. So I stayed with Virgin so to have a connection at least. As much as would want to change, I shall avoid cityfibre.

[@d3dpixl]

hi mate, more than likely a "kink" in the 7mm ducting they use underground, to clarify this would not be as easy as cityfibre coming to resolve, it would need the agreed contractor to come and inspect it / fault find which ducting is yours and then raise a permit with a local authority, this can take a while mate so keep on at them and try to be patient. would be worth finding out if they direct buried your ducting or if they put a 4 inch (96mm) ducting in the ground. if 96mm it's easier to pull a new fibre to your property. if it's direct buried, they have to locate and dig down on that spot which can be worse if it is in the road, (harder permit and traffic lights etc)

[@szabolcsvarga8395]

@@d3dpixl It's not just mine but the other 7 apartments as well - this is an 8 studio flat block. I'm also just a tenant here with a chance of moving out in the future so at the end I couldn't be bothered with the CiyFibre's incompetence.

[@d3dpixl]

@@szabolcsvarga8395 I get that mate, my issue is it's not "future proof" If you have a MDU or multi dwelling unit it could be that that is causing the problem but it sounds like the 7mm straw that leads to the cabinet is or has been damaged in the process of laying, they will have to fix it as city fibre believe it or not do care about their customers. It's just not as simple as blowing a new fibre if it gets stuck

[@szabolcsvarga8395]

@@d3dpixl Care they now? They missed every single appointments we arranged I had to take holiday off work for to be at home. Their engineers never came nor the company ever bothered as much as sending a text or email. Not even a single "Sorry" That's how to loose a costumer's trust, not earning it.

[@DavidGraham-tc2yj]

Virigin do also provide a fttp service however they are currently rolling out in different areas

[@kevinu.k.7042]

I hope you do cover using Sim card routers more fully sometime. I use one and have a 5G connection. I get 450Mbs down and a lag of around 30ms. I never have to reboot to regain the signal, it is very reliable, but, as you say, it is a little variable. I don't know if it is because I shelled out for a good LG router. An unlimited data sim costs me £15.00 per month. Contention might be an issue for some folk. Around tea time mine drops to 150Mbs for an hour or so. Still way more than I need. Superb video. Thanks

[@_MikeNL_]

Great video Alex! 👌

[@DrunkDelilahBrewery]

Meg and Gig in this context is Bits - lots of folk talk about storage and file sizes in Bytes - there is of course a difference of 8. You need to be a tad clearer in your videos mate.

[@BlissfulMusicStudio]

I have 1Gbps here in London from Hyperoptic for over 3 years now.

[@Liam-sq7zn]

Hyperoptic the best

[@RicardoMusch]

Same, very very happy and if you ask they will give you a new deal when your contract runs out. I'm now on 750MB/s symmetrical up/down for not much at all.

[@stevosteve]

Superb informative video, supported be excellent comments and feedback from viewers.

[@rayjennings3637]

As clear as mud. My EE Full Fibre connection is currently (17:50 Wednesday 8th May) giving me a Ping of 9ms, a download speed of 513Mb/s and an upload speed of 72Mb/s, If I game on-line it's only with Microsoft Flight Simulator and my connection is more than adequate.

[@Rleatfitness]

Internet infrastructure in this country is massively behind there’s only 1 provider in my area that will do gigabit internet but it’s pricey and ties you into a 2 year contract. So I’m stuck with getting 50-60mbps on a wired connection or 30-40 on wireless.

[@I-LIKE-GREEN]

Idk when this was made but virgin media to my house runs fiber optic all the way and only converts to coax from inside my house to the router

[@gamingvenom3379]

i have fiber to the house but am still only getting 30mbps?

[@Mister-Gee-9999]

I have 1Gbs symmetric and it makes using AWS / cloud services from home a practical proposition to use high virtual CPU count servers for a few seconds to perform tasks and download the file file to my home server. That would take many hours to days to process locally and at high energy usage.

[@WillSatchwell]

I have 2Gbit Down /1Gbit up with a ping on 7ms on Yayzi with the CityFibre Network in Coventry. With an upgrade to XGS-PON in my area soon it will go to 2.3Gbit symetrical. Not bad for £50 a month!

[@murlock666]

Yeah that's a sweet connection, Can't help but be a liitle green eyed :P I'm gagging to get an upload higher than 100Mbit.

[@eat.a.dick.google]

There's more potential for XGS-PON and CityFibre is already looking at 50G-PON.

[@TheSmallRabbit]

My new full fibre from BeFibre has a ping of 3ms. However almost all my devices cannot use the 900Mbps service as they can only communicate around 500Mbps max over even wifi 6. What device are you using to even see more than 1Gbps as it must have a 10Gbps network card and be wired/cable direct to the router. All your wifi devices will I guess be similar to mine at 500Mbps ? Any connection over 500Mbps IMO is a waste unless you are servicing a block of flats :-) Each wired into your router.

[@eat.a.dick.google]

@@TheSmallRabbit You don't have to have a 10 Gbps network card. There are also 2.5 and 5 Gbps network adapters. Wifi 6 is capable of a peak of around 800 Mbps with a 2x2 client. Wifi 6E is capable of over 1.6 Gbps. Wifi 7 is capable of well over 3 Gbps. Also having a higher speed connection isn't just about one device at a higher rate of speed. Think concurrency with multiple devices downloading at the same time. It's not a waste for people know what they're doing.

[@eat.a.dick.google]

@@TheSmallRabbit Wifi is capable of faster speeds than that. Wifi 6 peaks around 800 Mbps. Wifi 6E at over 1.5 Gbps. You don't have to have 10 Gbps NIC, 2.5 and 5 Gbps also exist. Quite cheap. Faster speeds are definitely not a waste. Just because you don't use something does not mean others do not.

[@kerbain]

How far are you from your local exchange? I can't help feel you've missed so many variables....

[@marcb8934]

When I had 900 mbps with Bt it only showed 600 on the 5ghz band on many devices Websites would buffer for two seconds then whole thing up at once Downloads would start very slow then creep up into the download was 20mbps on a single download I wasn’t happy with it and dropped back to 74mbps Now websites are smooth and no buffering at all And downloads smoother So something bad between exchange and the fibre ONT or router

[@AkaAshen]

These speeds in the tests are delightful, im still stuck on fttc due to where I live 😅. I do have a question, do I stick to trusty fttc with plusnet or do I go 5g for the higher speeds?

[@Lone_GamerUK]

Alex thanks for another great video. I’m on Virgin but with so many increases in it bill (top pack for BB and Tv at the time) I’m over paying by nearly 100. I’ve had open reach out FTTP in road & pole not far from property. So was checking sky and BT packs - I need to check with sky if they can use the fttp usually they use the open reach infrastructure. However my property has got working normal phone lines - it had virgin before I moved here and got a new continuation of Virgin as cable to property. But I a little unsure as I have pc in a bedroom/office connected via pan to router and a virgin tv box in living room. I’m a little unsure if going for sky if I get the lines out to property (as would have to be redone/drilled) and also be able to have router in one room and tv in other (sky tend to use a one in all box for fttp now I think but not sure). Most calls to centre staff clearly don’t know much about infrastructure services and even getting up speeds was a battle from some. I’m fairly sure I want to dump Virgin and go fttp with sky on 2 year deal but unsure on the efforts to property needed even though new fttp is on pole right outside.

[@officalflash5534]

My neighbor has gigabit across the road and the max I can get is 30mbps, can u help me get faster broadband that doesn't effect ping so satellite and 5G isn't an option

[@gorebrush]

My only real gripe at this video is the conflation of superfast and ultrafast. I hate the terms to begin with, but superfast is ONLY talking about FTTC speeds of 80Mbps. Ultrafast refers to 100Mbps or more.

[@brooni]

what about virgin xgs pon being able to provide 2Gb symetrical to customers?

[@kismethasanaj8586]

This is available in my area but I pay £20 for 2 diverse 1Gb connections. Soooo I think I’m good enough as is.

[@ultra1obscene]

dont confuse him, its taken him 10 years to get this far without understanding the basics

[@brooni]

@@ultra1obsceneand he still can’t do a clean rj45 connection…

[@ultra1obscene]

@@brooni not surprising, i have never once seen him correctly explain what ping is 🤣

[@ray-zs9df]

I swear i got virgin 370 down and 40 up its supposed to be fiber but it doesn't feel like it is even playing apex the delay in shots is very very noticeable

[@harveydosangh2375]

Did you forget to mention Vodafone? We get up to 900mb up and 700down. It is a little his n miss on the WiFi but I think the router just needs relocating

[@kevindarkstar]

7:21 that's always the case with virgin, the hugely cap your upload speed no matter which package you get

[@jordanswabey]

so Alex, so how can i get my internet speed to be faster/better ping for gaming while i have adsl?

[@UnluckyDomino]

UK needs altnets to have wider coverage of the country, like CityFibre, Community Fibre, Hyper Optic etc. Openreach are using PONs that dont do symmetrical speeds

[@guywhoknows]

But do you know why? Virgin had the first fast connection, so many server farms have their connection, so that why some servers are faster if they are local. Virgin have a 50:1 ratio. (Could be 100:1) So where you go to their box on the street there are 50/100 other people sending the data. But that's also controlled by some hardware (switching) so older hardware is slower and also a bit limited in terms of performance and that important ping time. Then we have gateways....

[@Valehass]

Still using my Hub 2 from Virgin and is still rock solid on reliability. I know people who upgraded and had issues so in no rush to change. The basic package is 125Mb which is fast enough for my needs.

[@smabacon]

Very well explained. I get FTTP in my UK Newbuild but through the OFNL infrastructure that seems to come with most newbuilds these days. Great solid fibre speeds but much more expensive than the big brands. Currently paying £43p/m for 200/200.

[@nathanbrown492]

We're a large household of 6/7, and we used

[@techflow]

Correct.

[@CodyTheBeerBear]

We live on a tenfoot, so cannot get fibre. I'm currently with talktalk and get around 80 meg. I would like to go higher, but we're very limited.

[@THEBENSTUBBS]

Sadly only get around 45Mbps download speeds. Living in an apartment where they’ll probably not change over to FTTP. So I’m looking at getting a 5G router, connecting to my UniFi system and use it as a load balancer, so while gaming, only the Xbox uses the broadband link and everything else uses the 5G router. But when I want to download a game, switch over to the 5G router to download. Anyone else done anything similar? Looking for a good 5G router too

[@konradmaslowski]

Hi. Did you have standard EE router or some better one? Can you tell me specification of your PC, LAN card, ssd drive? How much RAM? LAN cables that you use to get those test resoults ? Thanks

[@Seansmit23]

CPU speed is going to play a much bigger role in download speed in most cases. For example, Steam downloads are compressed and get decompressed as you download the file. If your CPU cant decompress the file fast enough then your download is going to slow down also. I have seen computers on 1gig connections with a HDD and not an SSD still download a file at the full 110Mb/s. amount of RAM is also not going to affect much. As long as your ethernet adapter is a 1Gbps capable one, just about all are these days and have been for well over a decade, you will be just fine. And as for cables, again, Most cables sold today are Cat 5e or 6/6e and can handle 10Gpbs over short runs and 2.5Gbps over longer runs just fine. But if your downloading a Linux ISO for example the CPU speed is less of a limit as the file is compresses yes but its not decompressed as it is downloaded. Same goes for any other file really.

[@Adamgreen735]

Soon as I seen you mention 16ms respectable ping on the FTTC I knew what was coming, I got FTTP at my gaff in North Yorkshire 900mbps down 120mbps up about a year ago and I used to get about 20 ping in most if not all games on the old FTTC 80 down 20 up connection, but since getting the full fibre FTTP my ping has risen to about 28 to 32ms, and there was me hoping for a single figure ping when I upgraded to FTTP, the 900 down speed is nice don't get me wrong, but yeah I did not expect the ping to go up by 10 to 15ms more on FTTP.

[@dru0pa]

Also, get quality routers, APs or Switches. If you use a cheap route the quality of your link is degraded when you start to push the limit of line. If you have a route that supports QoS that helps to smooth out new connections as it will prioritise protocols that need more bandwidth ( streaming, gaming, online meetings) and those that need less bandwidth ( downloads, web browsing). There will be a little on the side for a new connection to start up. This means that the new connection will not impact any other user experience (buffering on a stream, lag in a game or meeting). This was the best discussion on the topic. my IPS pushed me to 100MB on my FTTH connection (was on a 75MB) as they dropped the speed I was on so I have requested to be on a low package 50MB as this will do perfectly for my needs. As I have quality routers, APs, and switches. And fewer issues with them.

[@wisteela]

Excellent guide. Subscribed. I'm on EE 300 FTTP in the East Midlands, and it's fantastic. More than fast enough for me.

[@gerrard-nft3293]

Is it better than virgin? My contracts up and im thinking to renew the current virgin 500mb thanks

[@georgegdavidson4314]

What kind of latency do you get? Getting EE 500 installed soon

[@Boxersteavee]

I just want a good provider that gives me a static IP, rDNS, symmetric speeds (with upload over 100mbps), and good customer service. I plan on switching to zen when my virgin contract ends near the end of August.

[@flyhalf2]

So, does full fibre (FTTP) suffer from contention issues like FTTC does?

[@d3dpixl]

no, it is a direct line from Fibre Node to you, so you use no one else's connection

[@airchunk9870]

New virgin media installs get a fibre line compared to a coax cable and those properties can get upto 2 gigabit upload and download

[@vennox-music]

You fibre do 10gb up and down if you ask them. 8gb to the consumer. I'm on 950mb up and down. EE not the fastest the limitation is it's mainly North East but they are growing and moving further south. My ping is 2

[@davidrumbelow]

Downside of Fibre, some people have found they get a high smoking Fibre optic cable so it's being stolen in the country I live in. I have Fibre less 5g it comes to my modern straight from the tower. Was getting 180 mps

[@matejkotnik9675]

Hey Alex, any advice on USG and busy Fiber line with 4G backup., How i combine both for uninterupded internet. Failover is lazy and it drops internet for too long, load balancing at 50%50% introduces higher ping on 4G but never drops internet, but 90% 10% is slow to failover it drops in between but ping is like fiber. How i set it to never notice fiber droping out as they service the gear so often.😅 I get 340/100 @15-50ms fiber and 4G+ 100/30 @50-100ms, loaded ping is high number. I have seperate ssid on all APs from vlan of 4G but it is last resort😅

[@Jacques.krause]

In my country the 5G services either have crazy FUP usage thresholds and those thst don't have that, they shape traffic like crazy to the point of not being able to download purchased music from Bandcamp at more than 1Mbps... Just horrible.

[@MorDreadful]

Some of the other factors are Load balancing on servers etc. Along with location, physicasl network infrastructure in countries etc. and so forth. I have City Fibre, we c an get 1Gbps download AND Upload, yes, 1Gbps UPLOAD. Why? because when I have time I will be uploading all sorts, programing, accessing my own servers etc for projects, data analysis may be and so on. So yeah, MANY factors can show lower speeds and doesn'tr mean it's YOUR connection, just the way equipment may be set up. may be load blanacing needs to be set up so one person doesn't hog all the bandwidth so to speak. What about who you are connecting to? what's their setup? how many connections do they take in or can take in, and so on. As mentioned, many households do NOT need 1Gbps and 8 0 is fast enough even for gaming where gaming doesn't actually send that much data at all. If you upload lots of media fopr instance to stream to others? may be or yes. Comp science person running projects at home? may be or yes. General viewing of online content and gaming? reconsider those top speeds for lower ones as you do NOT need them. M

[@shadeofentropy]

The whole thing about your loaded ping being higher than your unloaded ping is due to bufferbloat. This is down to your router and has nothing to do with your provider or connection speed. If your connection is fully saturated then any packets are sent and received on a first come, first served basis. In other words, any time sensitive UDP packets in your conference call or online game are stuck at the back of the queue - the buffer - and have to wait until all the other packets in front of it have been dealt with first. High end routers have a function called smart queue management which can be enabled for a small bandwidth hit, but the tradeoff is you get no bufferbloat and your ping does not increase no matter how loaded down the network becomes. This is because your router is smart enough to know which packets are time sensitive, and sends them out straight away regardless of where they are in the queue.

[@Danielwalters6]

You should explain peering and why different ISPs perform differently for different services.

[@TheSmallRabbit]

Take a look at the LINX exchange and how their latency varies throughout the day. This is one of the biggest LON Internet nodes many use.

[@CarlTSpeak]

​@@TheSmallRabbitLINX don't have any latency to speak or. The graphs are a combination of measured and estimated usage. Latency across the LINX LANs is microseconds.

[@ultra1obscene]

he clearly doesnt understand peering, he doesnt understand why pings in London are better than East mids in this video

[@CarlTSpeak]

@@TheSmallRabbit What latency variance on LINX? Measured between where and where? I am aware of utilisation on the LANs but have never seen publicly facing latency across them? Shouldn't budge.

[@JamieCrookes]

Yayzi's offering at 2.5gbps is the current fastest. Runs on cityfibre, been around for 3-4 months. Also, to compare cityfibre to openreach, i.e. the way it works is a bit oversimplified. They have cabling infrastructre in common. They work a little differently from each other, which is why the service offering between cityfibre and openreach is completely different.

[@ThomasJones02]

Really informative and accurate video thanks Alex!

[@93jsaw]

Using an ethernet LAN connection to your router makes a huge difference. I've networked each room in my house and my ping to EU gaming servers never gets above 15-20ms and that is using a copper BT line. Rarely see any one else get better than that. We also keep game updates capped so they don't munch all of our 50mb connection speed and slow the other devices down.

[@Returntotheworld]

Had to go with a 4G router here as the copper cable to my house is awful and can't get more than 18-20 Mbps on a good day. 4G is great and get 50-80 BUT at rush hour it can tank to under 10 and sometimes doesn't recover and I have to restart the router. Would not recommend if you get half decent FTTC speeds. FTTP is being laid in my area and I cannot wait to finally have a decent internet connection.

[@Sonic-Boom]

Great video! Very helpful.

[@daneoish]

Just curious were you using the same router access all testing ? Would also be interested to know how the ISPs are implementing queues.

[@Maverick12371]

Hi Alex, can you do a video going deeper into 4g and 5g broadband. I am going down this route with an external 5g antenna.

[@francisuk1989]

Avoid 4G/5G as speeds can very depending on the load in the area. Expect pings around 20-80ms. if you need to go down this route then get a pay and go sim card with a 4 or 5g router and give this ago before getting into a 24m contract with say 3 or EE etc.

[@Maverick12371]

@@francisuk1989 Yeah I already got the equipment and router. I will be getting a 5g sim from Smarty for £20/mo (uses 3 network). Reason I am going this route is because I'll get max 36mbps from BT for nearly double the price. Ping is not an issue for me as I don't do gaming much. Solid 4g in the rural area and there is a 5g mast 3 miles away, so I will be attempting to pick up on the 5g mast with an external antenna mounted on the roof. I have picked a very weak 5g signal from the roof with my phone so hopefully antenna will amplify it. Otherwise I should be able to get a comfortable 60mbps+ on 4g.

[@andreasadamidis6963]

Great and informative video! You might as well talk about “bufferbloat” in another video. Cheers

[@cm98765432100]

Yea codel limiters / qos can make a big difference. My isp router supports this but was disabled by default. My loaded ping is now much better.

[@subsonicbass]

2Gig symmetric fiber just north of Seattle for around $80 a month, super reliable now that they moved my ONT into the house. My external ONT would get overheated and drop frequently in the summer under direct sunlight!

[@MrMat43211]

What about lilia connect they are symmetrical fttp

[@jonathanpalmer155]

I've come to the exact conclusion that 50/60 mbs is the sweetspot speed. As Virgin upgraded my service - and charged me more per month - once above 60 mbs the downloads didn't seen to improve that much, but it was costme more without any obvious benefits. What would be better is a symmetrical download/upload speed for sending large images or files.After that you are at the mercy of the server to which you are trying to connect and download.

[@BruceRichwineJr]

What’s surprising is that your fiber speeds aren’t symmetrical. I expected those upload speeds to be much better than they were.