Norfolk - welcome to the new Broadband age

[Baitrunner]

After many months of our broadband slowing down to a crawl and trying different wireless routers to no avail I was getting pretty pee'd off with BT.

 

For years we had been getting about 6Mb which has been slowing down to recent speeds of sub 1Mb - it seemed like the good old days of dial up modems had returned!! In fact (and I know there are a few techy types on here who will relate to this) I even saw it slow down every time we had heavy rain!

 

When SWMBO told me were getting BT Infinity I was not expecting much of an improvement living in a village location with old cabling.

 

The new router and change-over happened this week and I have to say - bloody hell!!! A couple of tests and we are getting just under 30Mb download and 14Mb upload!!  

 

In fact logging on to this wonderful site it is as if the server is in my lounge.

 

I know a lot of people knock BT (even my wife and she works for them), but they are the only providers out here (other than those that use their infrastructure) and this stuff isn't cheap to deploy, but so far I am a very happy bunny.  

[JawsOrca]

The day they get a mobile phone signal... I'm leaving...

[Baitrunner]

Ah now that is another issue entirely. He says with no mobile signal.

I have to stand on one leg with a pencil up my nose to get a signal here. Amazingly I get 3G on most of the southern broads when we are on the boat.

[BroadScot]

Hi Mark,

 

I changed to the new BT Hub 5 in February with trepidation, now I can say, so far, that my fears were totally unfounded. I am delighted with this new router and the fibre optic speed! Whhheeeeeeee!!!!

 

 

Iain

[Baitrunner]

Iain, you sound like a car insurance robot?

 

Must have used a lot of fibre to get up in them there hills though  

[BroadScot]

I am one of the luckier ones Mark, our exchange is but a short distance away. Troon in general is very flat, apart from the railway bridge hills.                                                  

Activity has already began here for next July,(2016) where the town is transformed into a world stage. BT lads are upgrading all the gubbings ready for the Press Tents at The Open Golf, thanks to us having the Open Golf Championship, our Phone Systems are always up to date at the local exchange.

 

As for car insurance, that is in the hands of Motability. Trouble free motoring I call it!

 

 

Iain

[Wonderwall]

One of the most soul destroying pastimes is having to phone BT, which is bizarre really!!!!

[DaveRolaves]

We have been on BT broadband for several years with no real problems. We went over in infinity about 8 months ago and have a superb service which is ultra fast.  Dave R

[Labrador]

What gets me is,as a BT customer since forever, if I upgrade to infinity I have to pay £23 per month on a 36 month contract. If I am a new customer to BT I can get a special offer online for £12.50 a month for 12 months. I phoned them and asked why I can't have this offer for upgrading. Because you can't, was the basic reply. So much for loyalty!

[BroadScot]

Virgin have bought out our local Broadband supplier, and we are being inundated with leaflets, mail and salesmen at the door. The salesman was given short shift though   

 

He was told where to go!  It wasn't Virgin Broadband!!!

 

 

Iain

[Baitrunner]

Strange that none of them want to keep customers!!

I always thought the rule of business was its cheaper to keep a customer than have to get new ones.

I personally think they are all as bad as each other.

Although much better in the old days when you could call a mate at the bt exchange and get things sorted.

The joys of off-shoring!!

[ChrisB]

Went on Infinity on the 13th May. Get the speed OK, in the 30's. But I really signed up because I was told it would be "Super Reliable".

It is not, drops out just as much as before and is dreadful in the early hours. At present not impressed. Speed is not the most important aspect for us, reliability is.

[BryanW]

We've been on BT Infinity for a few years now and get a pretty consistent 37 Mbps down and 9 Mbps up.  Originally we had the separate modem with the Hub 3 but then upgraded to a Hub 5 which had problems after an automatic firmware update (this was quite common) with the wi-fi dropping out when more than about three devices were connected.  Finally solved the problem by buying an Apple AirPort Extreme and using the original modem, now we have as many as 8 devices (it is specified up to 50) on wi-fi with no problems.