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#clojure-uk
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2021-04-28
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harryvederci05:04:46

Gooooood morning!

3
Aron06:04:33

today is big day, the priest of openreach should visit our home and bless it with a socket, i might have cabled internet by the evening, i took a day off to properly prepare

dharrigan06:04:41

I hope you've done some magic incantations!

😄 3
Aron06:04:31

been doing them for more than two weeks now

dharrigan06:04:54

I have FTTP and it's outstanding.

dharrigan06:04:00

like night/day

mccraigmccraig06:04:34

@ashnur we got fttp a couple of weeks ago... so good - my internal (powerline) network is now the bottleneck!

Aron06:04:41

yeah, don't think i will have more than 50mbps

Aron06:04:31

been doing them for more than two weeks now

djm06:04:17

Just make sure you don't miss the visit, or it'll be weeks before they'll agree to come again, unless you're particularly persuasive/persistent

dharrigan06:04:13

I never opened up the bt hub router from the box also. I feed the ethernet cable into a small form factor PC and run opnsense as my firewall/router.

dharrigan06:04:17

works wonderfully

dharrigan06:04:10

I do like talking network/home server setup 🙂

Aron07:04:45

yeah, if you have Ethernet cable, here Virgin advertised 500 but they are not even calling back after I asked for it

Aron07:04:13

their promotion says i can have it, but when u go to order... actually not available

dharrigan07:04:44

I would ring them. When I phoned up to leave them (to go to BT) they magically was able to offer me 512Mbit

dharrigan07:04:52

too late virgin, too late...

dharrigan07:04:09

but, as you're going with BT now, perhaps better 🙂

dharrigan07:04:14

Are you having FTTP?

djm07:04:55

I think I turned down FTTP, because I didn't like the look of the people who rang the door one day, claiming to be "working on behalf of BT" facepalm

djm07:04:29

Alternatively, we could be the only house in the neighbourhood not being spied on by the KGB now

dharrigan07:04:18

You can always order it online from BT 🙂

djm07:04:32

For free?

djm08:04:09

Could be better, but I'm not sure I need any faster than this

dharrigan07:04:13

It's always a bit slower in the mornings, evenings. During the day it nears 1Gbit

djm07:04:30

I'm looking at the BT offers page, and it says "Your current package: Fibre 1", and one of the deals I could get is: "Fibre 1, £5 extra a month" 🎉

mccraigmccraig07:04:50

the best i can get from FTTP atm is 150Mbps 😢 ... which i presume is an ISP package limitation rather than anything to do with the hardware. otoh 150Mbps is rather better than the 3Mbps i was getting from ADSL a few weeks ago 😀

dharrigan07:04:41

Are you with A&A?

mccraigmccraig08:04:20

@U11EL3P9U nope, but A&A availability checker says "Superfast" FTTP (Fibre to the premises) at 80Mb/s (or 160Mb/s)

dharrigan08:04:32

Yeah. I love A&A, I used to be with them. I would jump at a chance to go back to them, if only they supported the same speed I get with BT.

mccraigmccraig08:04:35

after a couple of spectacularly bad customer service experiences i while back i made a vow to never buy anything from BT retail ever again 🙂 but... 900Mb is quite attractive

mccraigmccraig08:04:26

although my internal powerline network is topping out at 80Mb atm, and wifi is total rubbish through all these victorian double-skin brick walls, so i think i've got other things to worry about before my fibre bandwidth

dharrigan08:04:42

1Gbit 🙂

dharrigan08:04:01

I live in a mid-terraced victorian house too

dharrigan08:04:34

I have a powerline from upstairs (where my line comes in) to downstairs, then I hooked up a Unifi AP to that downstairs. I have two unifi APs in my house providing a mesh 🙂

mccraigmccraig08:04:00

my powerlines are nominally 600Mb ... but practically i seem to get about 80Mb

mccraigmccraig08:04:10

i'm not sure i want to know what that says about the state of the wiring in my house 😬

dharrigan08:04:26

Currently not active (i.e., downstairs is pretty quiet, as I'm upstairs and not using any devices downstairs)

mccraigmccraig09:04:49

oh, ok - so you are seeing a similar ~5x difference btw the nominal speed and the measured speed - so my ring mains might not be made of :cheese_wedge: after all!

dharrigan09:04:56

Well, didn't measure it

dharrigan09:04:19

I'll have to push packets down the wire, to see what speed I get

dharrigan09:04:38

That 207mbit is passive, it's currently processing 207Mbit/s

dharrigan09:04:02

let me see what I get when I stream a HD video...

Luis Thiam-Nye08:04:39

Good Morningâ„¢

Aron08:04:14

yay, i have "Fibre Essential", guaranteed 29Mbps

Aron08:04:43

I could upgrade for Fibre Halo 3+, for 50gbp/month, exactly the same speed

dharrigan08:04:56

you know you want to 🙂

Aron08:04:06

not even by chance

danm11:04:51

It sounds a bit like some folk are conflating FTTC with FTTP. Especially awkward because a lot of ISPs just refer to both as 'Fibre'

Aron11:04:57

i don't have options to pick from, either 29Mbps or nothing, don't know what acronym that is

Aron11:04:31

i had bt before, when we moved, i moved my contract, assuming it will be easier this way

danm11:04:50

You can order FTTC nearly anywhere. BT have mostly already run the fibre to the local green cab, but the link from that cab to your house is over the old copper (or, if you're really unlucky like my parents, aluminium) infra. But because it's a much shorter line you can still get good speeds. I'm on FTTC here and getting 78 down / 18 up. FTTP actually requires them to run a new fibre line from that cab into your house, and is definitely not something you can order in most places, although some areas have been upgraded if the demand is high enough. New builds gets it as standard these days, although as I found out with the one we're aiming to buy not always from BT. So I get FTTP but I have to go with some dodgy supplier owned by the builders. No link to BTs infra at all so can't even go with an old style ADSL line 😞

Aron11:04:00

but i do asked for virgin if they would be so nice and dig a trench just for me with their mythical 500Mbps

Aron11:04:29

what is fttc that i nearly can order? 🙂

danm11:04:48

29Mbps sounds like you're green cab isn't even enabled for FTTC and the best that can offer you is VDSL2+ (copper back to the exchange)

Aron11:04:18

imho this is not fiber, despite their marketing, it's just adsl over copper

Aron11:04:25

so no F to anywhere

Aron11:04:38

and no, i can't order it, and no i don't live anywhere really remote

danm11:04:49

Where is your new place? Mostly the locations that aren't FTTC enabled yet (or have green cabs far enough away it's still crap) are quite rural but not rural enough that the govt have given BT grants to enable them

Aron11:04:00

rochester

danm11:04:31

(Used to work for a local ISP before transitioning to dev(ops), so have a fair bit of knowledge about that stuff but it is also ~10 years out of date 😉)

Aron11:04:55

🙂 I did lot of networking too, but not for ISP, so less knowledge, but some

Aron11:04:51

especially the second image is particularly disgusting to me, i had better internet in 2003 in a really remote place in romania i had actual FTTH in an even more remote place in 2015. For fifth of the price.

djm11:04:14

I have FTTC. Some people wanted to put in the cable for FTTP (for free), but presumably that wouldn't actually have benefited me without paying extra

mccraigmccraig11:04:32

we got FTTP for free - openreach had recently strung cable to the local telegraph poles, and then sky are currently waiving installation fees for pole->house for some promotional reason

danm11:04:31

'Normal available' numbers make it sound like that is FTTC. Most packages are either "up to 40 down/ 10 up" or "up to 80 down / 20 up", though I believe some can go even faster on that infra now. The min guaranteed and low normal available upload make me think your 'last leg' is probably a big crap. Maybe quite a distance to the green cab, or on ally like my folks

danm11:04:37

When was the house built? IIRC some places either got ally if built around WW2, or had the copper stuff ripped out and replaced then, back when we needed copper for wiring etc for 'the war effort', and it's never been swapped back because :man-shrugging::skin-tone-2:

Aron11:04:10

what is C in fttc

Aron11:04:24

because looking at this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_x#Definitions the whole group of acronyms is more confusing than helpful

Aron11:04:53

cabinet is a small box... could be on the other side of the planet, not helpful 🙂

Aron11:04:28

there is copper, ethernet or optical cabling, everything else seems pointless to talk about, no?

dharrigan11:04:35

You can plug your details into here: https://availability.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search and find out all juicy details

dharrigan11:04:29

says a lot! you have fttp in some areas, and fttc and .....

danm11:04:54

The green cab at the end of the street/nearby that splits out bundled cables/fibre lines into wires that will actually terminate at each house. More or less. There might be a junction point on the telephone pole near your house too or similar

Aron11:04:15

i see, thank you for clarifying

dharrigan11:04:19

My local green cabinet, number 17 to it's friends, is quite a distance from my house

dharrigan11:04:36

when I first moved in, I got terrible vdsl+ speeds

Aron11:04:52

one thing is sure, i only have copper, doesn't really matter what is there in the cabinet...

dharrigan11:04:57

switched to virgin, then as soon as bt rolled out fttp to my locality, switched to that.

danm11:04:41

If you have regular VDSL, there will be 100 pair or more copper bundled cables from the exchange to that cabinet, then smaller bundles out to streets and your house. With the DSLAM in the exchange (used to be). With FTTC they run optical fibre to those cabinets from the exchange, put the DSLAM in the green cabinet, then run copper (or aluminium, if you're unlucky) pairs to your house. With FTTP they run optical cable into your house and you need something that'll turn it into ethernet (ISP/BT provided) so you can plug more regular kit into it.

mccraigmccraig11:04:42

@ashnur in my old house my pure copper dsl was ~1.5Mbps - it went up to 50Mbps once we got FTTC

dharrigan11:04:35

I also like to keep an eye on from time to time

dharrigan11:04:40

keep up to date on developments

dharrigan11:04:57

(and to see forum posts if network is having issues)

danm11:04:57

My new ISP after we move aren't even able to give me a global IP at the moment 😞 CGNAT... I might have to buy an L2TP tunnel from A&A until the direct ISP sort their shit out...

Aron11:04:55

@mccraigmccraig I see, well, I guess I am happy I don't have 1.5Mbps then 🙂

Aron11:04:18

first time i had anything worse than UTP cabling directly when I moved away from romania in 2008

Aron11:04:27

i think it was 30Mbps

Aron11:04:37

and after the regular several hundred Mbps it was extremely slow. Now the same thing. I think I will get a 4G contract as soon as I can, that's much faster, even here, from EE

Aron11:04:58

bit of a joke that wireless is faster, who knows how is that possible

mccraigmccraig11:04:01

ancient buried copper is expensive to upgrade

danm11:04:38

Pretty much

danm11:04:44

Wireless bandwidth is frequently faster, but beyond a certain point (which I'm already easily at) the things I care about more are latency and jitter, which wired is still vastly superior at

Aron11:04:17

yeah, and requires more energy I think