WiFi help/ county broadband.

[Lons]

CB have a mixed reputation here, they came and did a pretty hard sell and sign up early incentives but were well over 12 months late delivering anything. People with straightforward connections seem happy enough but there have been lots of problems. They said they would use (and have licence for) existing BT/Openreach conduits and poles but often didn't. I found a guy looking at the sky in my garden, asked and he said they would be putting a pole on the track behind the houseand running a cable above to access the houses behind. I asked him why, as they had dug up the track and put cables in 3 montsh before. He grunted and went off, left hand/right hand. A nearby neighbour can home from a week away to find a pole in the middle of his lawn, after much fuss they took it away and did the job underground as promised. Another neighbour had an install, hole in front of house, old copper cable was through side. CB will only put in 3m of their cable inside the house, so he is now runnning his modem on the floor in the hall using an extension lead unitl he sorts it properly. It probably depends on who turns up on the day and how grumpy or helpful they are - looks to me like they use subcontractors a fair bit. We know people still waiting for promised connections, trees in way and suchlike. I think an underlying problem is that the people who sell (and are doubtless incentivised) have a quick look and say yes we can connect you, when the trench diggers, pole hangers and actual install engineers come (not all at once) they find difficulties and it seems never talk to each other. The house attached to the local pub signed up, domestic not business, but now long after the 'sell' they want c £3k connection fee for some reason. So probably an equal balance of happy and unhappy but reputation is clouded. Once its settled down hopefully their reputation will improve.

A different story here so far Richard. The supplier are a local company and using their own staff and equipment, they are late but have kept everyone informed and up to date and are all available and approachable, no grumpy encounters. They have hit problems e.g. expected ducting for existing BT cable doesn't exist in some cases.
The installations were sold on the basis of a grant for each household from the government and they don't receive that until each of us has confirmed in writing that everything is up and running as it should. No additional installation costs are payable and the broadband cost is fixed for 3 years at £25 pm, as I will be running it early alongside BT for a few months ( I don't need to) they offered it at £5 pm until my BT contract ends, In my case it should be live in the next month.
I'm supposed to get 35mb from BT which is all the equipment is capable of delivering but they guarantee 25mb and guess what it's never more than that and often less, I complain and they bump it up for a few days but gets a bit annoying. I'll get 100mb via fibre and if the prices go up too much after 3 years I'll switch.

 

[Lons]

I'm a bit vague about technicalities but as I understand it my monthly bill from Zen includes about £14.50 for the BT line and phone number and about £10 for unlimited fibre Broadband. "Fibre" broadband is delivered by a line by definition. It's glass fibre up to a box just down the road and copper from there to the village. Further away from the box the slower the speed.

That's what I have from BT but it's not full fibre Jacob, it's only as fast as the copper section and substation can provide. The full fibre supply is fibre all the way into your property so speeds are far superior. I currently get around 25mb and will get 100mb with fibre but even that isn't especially fast by modern standards

£14.50 landline charge is cheap, BT is around £20 and if you use your landline a lot then it's right for you, we don't so have no reason to pay for something we don't use.

 

[Jacob]

That's what I have from BT but it's not full fibre Jacob, it's only as fast as the copper section and substation can provide. The full fibre supply is fibre all the way into your property so speeds are far superior. I currently get around 25mb and will get 100mb with fibre but even that isn't especially fast by modern standards

£14.50 landline charge is cheap, BT is around £20 and if you use your landline a lot then it's right for you, we don't so have no reason to pay for something we don't use.

mines 35 and 8 mbs and has always been very steady.
We find it handy to have the landline as well as mobiles, so that people are ringing the house and not just the person. My daughter in the middle of Sheffield needs a landline as her mobile reception in her house is really bad.
There are so many options I just go by what Which recommend - which is Zen - not cheapest but best value according to survey.

 

[seanf]

I'm a bit vague about technicalities

I think many people are, as it is not overly clear. What you seem to be describing is FTTC which is fibre run to your local street cabinet that then uses the old copper connection (what people call a landline) to your house. This has a maximum speed of 80Mbps. New build housing estates and certain areas have or are being upgraded to FTTP, which is a fibre line run all the way to the house and offers speeds of up to 900Mbps

If you are, for example, a BT customer with FFTP you don’t have a traditional landline telephone service, as you are moved to their new VOIP service called Digital Voice. For this you either connect your old landline phone into the back of the BT Hub internet router or you use their Digital Voice phones, there is no active box on the wall to plug a phone in. The downside of this service is that it goes down in a power cut with people expected to use their mobile instead - not great in areas of poor signal. Come 2025 BT will end its traditional landline phone service for all customers regardless of internet connection type and only offer Digital Voice

Sean

 

[Jacob]

I think many people are, as it is not overly clear. What you seem to be describing is FTTC which is fibre run to your local street cabinet that then uses the old copper connection (what people call a landline) to your house. This has a maximum speed of 80Mbps. New build housing estates and certain areas have or are being upgraded to FTTP, which is a fibre line run all the way to the house and offers speeds of up to 900Mbps

If you are, for example, a BT customer with FFTP you don’t have a traditional landline telephone service, as you are moved to their new VOIP service called Digital Voice. For this you either connect your old landline phone into the back of the BT Hub internet router or you use their Digital Voice phones, there is no active box on the wall to plug a phone in. The downside of this service is that it goes down in a power cut with people expected to use their mobile instead - not great in areas of poor signal. Come 2025 BT will end its traditional landline phone service for all customers regardless of internet connection type and only offer Digital Voice

Sean

Me Zen not BT and phone connects to their Fritzbox router via a cable.
It does support VOIP apparently but the ordinary phone handsets we have will do until we have to change

 

[Lons]

Me Zen not BT and phone connects to their Fritzbox router via a cable.
It does support VOIP apparently but the ordinary phone handsets we have will do until we have to change

Yes, you're paying a landline fee for the phone service, I can see why you want that but increasingly people don't which is why BT announce they are dumping landlines. Like a large percentage of users I' paying for a landline I don't use purely because I can't get the broadband without it or at least without jumping through hoops. Full fibre is the answer as far as I'm concerned.

 

[ian33a]

We've had a land line for as long as I can remember. In recent years it's been there as some of our aged or technophobic relatives prefer it over mobile.

When we decided to move and did so a couple of months ago BT had a line going into our new house but the estimated download speed was just17 Mb/s. Hardly earth shattering. I didn't see the point of paying £20 a month (or whatever) to maintain a landline and have snails transferring the internet data down to us.

We looked at various options and went with 4G broadband simply because there was nothing else any faster. We decided to have an external antenna and an internal 4G modem and then incorporate our existing mesh network. The telco wanted, initially £399 for the installation. This was offered at a discount to new users subsequently for £299.

I was about to sign up when I noticed that the Government was offering a grant for rural communities and Devon, Cornwall and Somerset were offering a way to sign up. Our chosen provider was in the scheme so we took the grant and got an installation free of charge.

It had a few teething problems but the provider was very helpful. We get a rock steady (well, fairly steady) 42 Mb/s throughout the house. Slow by FTTP standards but a lot better than BT were offering. It's a tad under £30 a month for unlimited data.

So many people are seduced by high broadband speeds and people like Virgin Media use this very effectively in their marketing. For many us, giga bit data speed, even 100Mb/s or more, is way more than we need.

 

[Jacob]

....... I didn't see the point of paying £20 a month (or whatever) to maintain a landline and have snails transferring the internet data down to us.

....

For me - because a landline is the connection to fibre broadband. "FTTC" broadband apparently, with the C being about 200 yards away. Apparently the further away the slower the speed and people at the top of the village don't get what we get.

 

[Richard_C]

A different story here so far Richard. The supplier are a local company and using their own staff and equipment, they are late but have kept everyone informed and up to date and are all available and approachable, no grumpy encounters. They have hit problems e.g. expected ducting for existing BT cable doesn't exist in some cases.
The installations were sold on the basis of a grant for each household from the government and they don't receive that until each of us has confirmed in writing that everything is up and running as it should. No additional installation costs are payable and the broadband cost is fixed for 3 years at £25 pm,

Sounds very good, much less that CB quoted here and fixed for 3 years, when they started the install in our village they were growing quickly, maybe they have done some learning since then along the way.

You should be fine. Plug your ethertnet cable into the box they give you and plug almost any sort of wireless router into the other end. If you have an old enough laptop which still has an ethernet port you can probably plug it straight in and configure it to 'share this connection' so other devices and work as long as the laptop is on.

One small thing for you, and anyone who goes 'all fibre' and abandons the expensive copper wire is what happens in a power cut. If you have a good mobile signal and a mobile, there are no issues. We are in the small minority that have a rubbish and erratic signal. Old copper wire technology supplied (if I remember right 50v DC) low current over the phone line so old fashioned plug in phones still work in a power cut - exchanges had their own battery and generator back up. We can manage without social contact for a long time, but what if you need to summon fire or ambulance? When the copper network is switched off, as it will be, and its all VOIP you have no working phone for emergencies in a power cut unless you have decent mobile signal.

We have only called an ambulance once in my 70 years and that was a year ago when my wife appeared to be having a heart attack - she spent 10 days in Papworth. It was scary, without phone it would have been even scarier. Had we been VOIP only and in a power cut - relatively frequent here - do I stay with her, or run up the hill phone in hand until I see a bar of signal. So when copper does go, I will invest in a small backup power supply for the router - we will be entirely dependent on that for any kind of contact.

Thats not a criticism of the new technology, it's just 'how it is' . Those that plan assume universal mobile phone access. Voip dies when the power goes off.

 

[Lons]

Thanks for that Richard, a backup power supply for the router is a good idea. We have a reasonable mobile signal in some parts of the house and an O2 booster for most parts of the rest which would also be useless in a power cut but can always get a mobile signal in the drive. Our provider told me they will be supplying us with a router and an extender if I need one which I will if coverage is similar to BT.
I have a spare unused BT modem/router, I'll do some searching to see if it can be unlocked in case it's of use.

Most people will be in that boat when BT scrap the landline in a few years.

 

[Nicey1]

I could well be wrong but I don't think you can get a landline without paying line rental and for example the BT cost for that is £240 pa or £20 discount for annual payment,
I looked at the number of times it's used both ingoing and outgoing and it's very rare these days as we both have an iphone with unlimited minutes. My broadband cost is low but if you add on BT line rental, and a basic call package the cost is more than I will pay for broadband that will be 4 times the speed. A no brainer in my case and I'd have done it even if I still had my business as most calls were via mobile in any case.

Not suitable for everyone I'd agree but the days of people not wanting to ring a mobile number because it was expensive are long gone and BT have said they will be dumping landline in the near future which will cause some issues for those without a mobile or in poor signal areas.

Anyone want to buy a set of 4 cordless 'phones?

EDIT
Just had a quick look and it seems you can't get a landline in the true sense with full fibre, what you can get is VOIP which is an internet call service so if your internet goes down so does that,

I got fibre installed, my son found a company called vonage, with them you can keep your number and go full VOIP then use you mobile for emergency only. They have an impressive set up that started for business only, and it was easy to get, but you must make clear you want to keep you number, they will give you temp number until BT gives up and transfers you land line number. Keep your cordless phones as they work with vonage set up.

 

[ajs]

I got fibre installed, my son found a company called vonage, with them you can keep your number and go full VOIP then use you mobile for emergency only. They have an impressive set up that started for business only, and it was easy to get, but you must make clear you want to keep you number, they will give you temp number until BT gives up and transfers you land line number. Keep your cordless phones as they work with vonage set up.

Can you take a reverse charge call on it? That was one of my reservations last time I thought about dropping the landline. That and simply knowing the numbers - I know my own landline number, my parents and so on off the top of my head. Mobile numbers? Not a clue, they're all in my phone. Not a lot of use if it's lost/damaged/out of charge, which coincidentally is precisely when you may need a phone box but have no change. No, you can't reverse the charge to a mobile.

 

[DRC]

I have BT Smarthub2 in the house, and a garden office some 30-odd meters away. Too far for WiFi.

So I run a 30m cat5e cable from my Smarthub2 to the garden office where it plugs into one of BTs black WiFi extender discs. Having a cable allows me to have WiFi in the office.

Now, I'm thinking of signing upto CountyBroadband which offer full fibre and much higher speeds. They don't specify what router they provide, but I know they don't have WiFi extender discs, like I currently have. And from what I've read, the black BT WiFi discs won't work with anything other than a BT Smarthub2.

I'm not very technically minded with technology/routers etc. Can anyone tell me how i could make this work?

Do I have to buy my own 3rd party WiFi discs? Will they still work using a cable?

And moreover, does anyone have any personal experience with CountyBroadband and their routers etc?


I have IP CCTV and the garden office as mentioned above (which is my priority), so while I'd like faster speeds, I'm wary of doing anything that I'll regret.

Thanks.

Hi I hope you don't mind me suggesting, have you looked at other manufacturers of Mesh Discs that will work with most routers inc. BT?

 

[Dibs-h]

At the risk of repeating some of what folk have said:

CB (and most other providers) will most likely provide you a "termination point\device" which will allow you to plug in a ethernet cable. The "device" - worth asking what that will be, as it may well be a cheap\basic router or it could just be a modem.

Router - will allow you to plug in usually up to 4 wired devices and can run WiFi.

Modem - no WiFi and can plug one wired device in directly. In this case, you'll need to buy a router (buy one that is called a cable modem - i.e. has 4 usable ethernet ports and 1 called a WAN ethernet port, to connect to the modem).

I'd suggest buying a cheap router just for everything but WiFi and turn it's WiFi off.

WiFi - buy an Ubiquiti AC Lite disc (80-100 quid).

You can set this up with just an app on your phone and the range\speed is impressive. This things require an ethernet connection to them (and are POE - Power over ethernet). They come with a POE adapter - so plug that in the main, ethernet cable from the router into it and another short cable from it to the back of the Ubiquiti disc. You could even "cheat" getting the ethernet to it by using a pair of Powerline plugs.

You can have multiple discs in use e.g. on upstairs, one downstairs, one in the workshop etc.

HIH

Dibs

 

[Nicey1]

Can you take a reverse charge call on it? That was one of my reservations last time I thought about dropping the landline. That and simply knowing the numbers - I know my own landline number, my parents and so on off the top of my head. Mobile numbers? Not a clue, they're all in my phone. Not a lot of use if it's lost/damaged/out of charge, which coincidentally is precisely when you may need a phone box but have no change. No, you can't reverse the charge to a mobile.

If you have all the numbers on your home phone you have them stored already, just plug into the system vonage send and your good to go in my case for £10 a month plus a bit for calling mobiles. Don’t know about reverse charging, just ask them.

 

[TobyT]

At the risk of repeating some of what folk have said:

CB (and most other providers) will most likely provide you a "termination point\device" which will allow you to plug in a ethernet cable. The "device" - worth asking what that will be, as it may well be a cheap\basic router or it could just be a modem.

Router - will allow you to plug in usually up to 4 wired devices and can run WiFi.

Modem - no WiFi and can plug one wired device in directly. In this case, you'll need to buy a router (buy one that is called a cable modem - i.e. has 4 usable ethernet ports and 1 called a WAN ethernet port, to connect to the modem).

I'd suggest buying a cheap router just for everything but WiFi and turn it's WiFi off.

WiFi - buy an Ubiquiti AC Lite disc (80-100 quid).

You can set this up with just an app on your phone and the range\speed is impressive. This things require an ethernet connection to them (and are POE - Power over ethernet). They come with a POE adapter - so plug that in the main, ethernet cable from the router into it and another short cable from it to the back of the Ubiquiti disc. You could even "cheat" getting the ethernet to it by using a pair of Powerline plugs.

You can have multiple discs in use e.g. on upstairs, one downstairs, one in the workshop etc.

HIH

Dibs

To add to the tsunami of info.

I also run Ubiquiti kit, an LR (Long Range) and a Lite. While technically there is some difference between the two, I'm not noticing it. They also do a pro version which can handle more connections. I installed mine a few years ago and they have generally worked well with some minor quibbles, most likely due to connecting one through a powerline connector. I haven't checked up on their latest kit, there were some grumbles that later firmware was pushing people to a more cloud connected service (i.e. you manage the APs through Ubiquiti cloud rather than local software). For local use I set them up and only occasionally play with the settings so management software location and usability is not a prime concern.

Ubiquiti, and BT discs, are mesh enabled. This means that your device(s) can travel around and connect to the strongest signal without manual intervention. You can setup a home system just using old routers with Wifi APs. If you don't have the need for more than wifi point, then the benefit of mesh is lost. If you have Wifi in one point, and then a connection a distance away (and 30m is probably this), the two networks probably won't interfere; if you are unlikely to want to actively roam between the two then again a couple of normal Wifi APs will do.

I use powerline adapters but I am not a big fan. I keep meaning to bridge my 15m with a proper LAN cable. They may not work across separate ring circuits (mine do) and supposedly are noisy on the amateur radio bands. I just find them a little flaky and not the fastest, perhaps because I am running them in a non-optimal arrangement.