Strange how some areas still don't have full fibre. We are in a village and have had full fibre for at least 20 years, yet parts of the nearest town only about 3 miles away still don't have it.
Ours was put in by a company called CableTel, who got taken over by NTL World, who were taken over by Virgin Media. We have 250mb but we could have at least 4 times that if we asked for it. No modifications would be needed at our end. No point though as there would probably be no advantage given our own ancient equipment. Our own computers are probably slower than our internet connection.
I haven't had a landline for 10 years. For the last few years we had one, our provider changed everyone to VOIP. We found we never used the landline and incoming calls were always marketing or scammers.
We have had full fibre since 2018. We aren't worried about not having a means to contact people. Power cuts happen every time we have a storm but we have power banks and full mobile coverage and we have Internet even when our router is down.
Why pay for mobile and a landline?
Quote: Originally posted by Colin21 on 30/1/2025
Strange how some areas still don't have full fibre. We are in a village and have had full fibre for at least 20 years, yet parts of the nearest town only about 3 miles away still don't have it.
Ours was put in by a company called CableTel, who got taken over by NTL World, who were taken over by Virgin Media. We have 250mb but we could have at least 4 times that if we asked for it. No modifications would be needed at our end. No point though as there would probably be no advantage given our own ancient equipment. Our own computers are probably slower than our internet connection.
Cabletel/NTL wasn't quite full fibre. It was fibre to cabinet, the final connection still being copper. We had it for about 25 years.
Then Cityfibre installed cable two years ago offering fibre to the premises and we moved to them as Virgin wanted silly money. I've just started reviewing Cityfibre ISP tariffs and the increase in providers and subsequent price drop in two years is dramatic, as has speed increase. For what I pay for 500meg I can now get 2gb and we can now get speeds up to 2.5gb.
Not only is my house "fibre to cabinet" and the cabinet being about half a mile away, 5G is also not available.
My house is in a cul de sac at the edge of town with only 8 properties.
One of the newer estates close to me has full fibre.
I guess it is not worth their while to connect 8 houses to full fibre network, hey ho!
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Quote: Originally posted by Colin21 on 30/1/2025
Strange how some areas still don't have full fibre. We are in a village and have had full fibre for at least 20 years, yet parts of the nearest town only about 3 miles away still don't have it.
Ours was put in by a company called CableTel, who got taken over by NTL World, who were taken over by Virgin Media. We have 250mb but we could have at least 4 times that if we asked for it. No modifications would be needed at our end. No point though as there would probably be no advantage given our own ancient equipment. Our own computers are probably slower than our internet connection.
Cabletel/NTL wasn't quite full fibre. It was fibre to cabinet, the final connection still being copper. We had it for about 25 years.
Then Cityfibre installed cable two years ago offering fibre to the premises and we moved to them as Virgin wanted silly money. I've just started reviewing Cityfibre ISP tariffs and the increase in providers and subsequent price drop in two years is dramatic, as has speed increase. For what I pay for 500meg I can now get 2gb and we can now get speeds up to 2.5gb.
I think CableTel may have put in different systems in different areas as ours definitely is full fibre to the house and the fibre connection box is on the outside wall. I watched them putting it in, and when I had a minor problem a few years ago I talked to the engineer who was working on the connection box. I don't think copper cabling can handle the kind of speeds we are able to have either. We still have our old copper cable connection to a socket on the wall in the hallway, unused for around 20 years, but I strongly suspect it is disconnected at the other end. That was put in by BT when the house was built in 1992.
I have been thinking of switching from Virgin as they are getting a bit expensive but I have 3 problems. Firstly I believe they actually own the cable to the house so no other company could use it. Secondly, we have a package which includes landline phone and TV, and third, nobody else offers anything like the broadband speeds we have in our area. I can't fault the Virgin service I must admit, as we have had very few issues since being with them, it's just the cost. We are paying for over 150 TV channels but probably only ever watch about 15 of them, all but one being available on freeview.
We are with talktalk and they ran cable to the house and it feeds into a little black box on the wall. When the 4 green lights are on it is working. City fibre fitted it.
Never had any bother really. Land line is mainly nuisance calls.
Talktalk sent us a email giving us 3 options.
Keep landlines
Get rid of landlines
And a other.
Thinking about going with getting rid of landlines.
Don'understand all this viop stuff.
Quote: Originally posted by Bridlington on 31/1/2025
We are with talktalk and they ran cable to the house and it feeds into a little black box on the wall. When the 4 green lights are on it is working. City fibre fitted it.
Never had any bother really. Land line is mainly nuisance calls.
Talktalk sent us a email giving us 3 options.
Keep landlines
Get rid of landlines
And a other.
Thinking about going with getting rid of landlines.
Don'understand all this viop stuff.
Nothing to understand with VOIP. All it means for the average person is that your landline phone plugs into your router instead of a separate socket on the wall. You will not notice anything different unless you have a power cut or your internet goes down. If either happens your landline won't work. Our internet has gone down perhaps two or three times briefly in the past 20 plus years and I don't remember the last time we had a power cut. It was years ago. However, if you really don't need your landline, get rid of it and save some money. For us we have too many people who always ring us on ours.
Quote: Originally posted by Bridlington on 31/1/2025
We are with talktalk and they ran cable to the house and it feeds into a little black box on the wall. When the 4 green lights are on it is working. City fibre fitted it.
Never had any bother really. Land line is mainly nuisance calls.
Talktalk sent us a email giving us 3 options.
Keep landlines
Get rid of landlines
And a other.
Thinking about going with getting rid of landlines.
Don'understand all this viop stuff.
Talktalk don't own or lay cables. You have Talktalk service over Cityfibre network. When your contract is up shop around. My contract is up soon and the current Cityfibre network deals are very competitive.
I'm not really sure who owns our cable. It was put in by a company that no longer exists but the service was eventually taken over by Virgin. No idea who to ask either.
We've had full fibre via BT for well over a year now, so looked up Cityfibre out of interest as our contract finishes later this year. When I put our postcode in I got a message saying "Thanks for your interest, we haven't planned your area at the moment".
I don't understand that, I know that this area has full fibre, so could it be that's because they haven't installed it? I've seen on Cityfibre's list that BT isn't one of the providers on there.
Quote: Originally posted by Colin21 on 01/2/2025
I'm not really sure who owns our cable. It was put in by a company that no longer exists but the service was eventually taken over by Virgin. No idea who to ask either.
From your previous post re Cabletel it will now be a Virgin cable, they took over Cabletel and NTL services.
Quote: Originally posted by Ina on 02/2/2025
We've had full fibre via BT for well over a year now, so looked up Cityfibre out of interest as our contract finishes later this year. When I put our postcode in I got a message saying "Thanks for your interest, we haven't planned your area at the moment".
I don't understand that, I know that this area has full fibre, so could it be that's because they haven't installed it? I've seen on Cityfibre's list that BT isn't one of the providers on there.
Your BT service will be over Openreach fibre network (which is the old BT network, but they had to split the business).
Cityfibre are a rival to Openreach and have laid a separate fibre network across large mainly urban areas of the country. BT may well be a internet service provider over Cityfibre network. Cityfibre however do have access to the old BT telegraph poles (now Openreach) and ducts for the final connection to properties.
Think of it like a railway. Openreach, Cityfibre provide their tracks, you can then choose which train you want to provide a service over those tracks.
There are other similar fibre companies such as BRSK that provide their own network of cables. They provided fibre to quite a rural village not far from me and they needed a 40% take up rate. As they were the only full fibre provider it was 80% of addresses within weeks.
Quote: Originally posted by Colin21 on 01/2/2025
I'm not really sure who owns our cable. It was put in by a company that no longer exists but the service was eventually taken over by Virgin. No idea who to ask either.
From your previous post re Cabletel it will now be a Virgin cable, they took over Cabletel and NTL services.
Yes that is as I suspected, which means that if I wanted to switch providers I would have to have another cable put in. Might not be worth the bother, particularly as I am quite happy with their broadband service. It's just the cost, mainly of the TV provision which is part of a package.
It's getting very expensive, especially as I will probably never use 90% of the channels.
Quote: Originally posted by daveyjp on 02/2/2025.
Your BT service will be over Openreach fibre network (which is the old BT network, but they had to split the business).
Cityfibre are a rival to Openreach and have laid a separate fibre network across large mainly urban areas of the country. BT may well be a internet service provider over Cityfibre network. Cityfibre however do have access to the old BT telegraph poles (now Openreach) and ducts for the final connection to properties.
Think of it like a railway. Openreach, Cityfibre provide their tracks, you can then choose which train you want to provide a service over those tracks.
There are other similar fibre companies such as BRSK that provide their own network of cables. They provided fibre to quite a rural village not far from me and they needed a 40% take up rate. As they were the only full fibre provider it was 80% of addresses within weeks.
Cityfibre are a rival to Openreach and have laid a separate fibre network across large mainly urban areas of the country
That's what I wondered when I got that message. Which then presumably means that for us Cityfibre won't be an option, as it was Openreach who laid the cables in the first place, not Cityfibre.
Thanks for explaining it
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Topic: Talktalk full fibre.
via mobile 30/1/2025 at 3:59pm
