I posted a few weeks ago about me getting fiber broadband. Well its finally arrived after I called up to get an earlier appointment.

In was quoted 79.9Mbps and that’s exactly what I got on the sync speed. Speed tests give me 75Mbps down and 17Mbps up which is fantastic! The upload speed has already come in incredibly useful for sending files to friends quickly and uploading photos to my websites.

I’ve seen 9MB/s download on files from Microsoft and 2.1MB/s uploading via FTP. I’m certainly not going to complain at all for the extra £4 it’s costing me. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has FTTC available in their area. So far I’ve seen no throttling either which is brilliant. BT have a superior network to handle fiber so its not surprising.

I’m in the process of utilising it more and hopefully I will have a few servers on it soon. I’ll also be using it to download the 7.5TB backup of my site (yes, TB not GB!). I just need to get my 2nd server set up with the backup drives.

For many the fiber broadband revolution started many years ago. Those people that got virgin media for example were given quick speeds from an early age. Those of us stuck on ADSL however weren’t so fortunate. The line length was always a factor and prevented most people getting a fast connection. You would have to be no more than 500m away from the exchange to get anything over 15Mbps. Now that fiber is here that’s a thing of the past.

The new fiber cabs are no more than 200m away from most properties. And because it uses VDSL technology instead of ADSL you also get a bump in speed from that as well. It’s currently capable of 300Mbps with trials of higher in progress. Its something we should have got many years ago.

Anyway the point of this blog is that its finally arrived for me! I’ve been checking weekly for almost 2 years waiting to see the long awaited ‘available now’ message and this week it finally happened.

I initially signed up online and was given a date of early January. I was surprised by this as other people got theirs much faster. I decided I’d be OK with it as I understood they were quite busy. But after speaking to a friend who ordered at the same time as me he got his for next week! I asked how and its because he had phoned up and not done it online. I decided to try my luck phone up to see if I could get an earlier date. Thankfully they could! I was expecting a 2 week wait but they said they could do it next Monday! Brilliant!

I was expecting 65Mbps based on BT’s estimates which isn’t too shabby at all. But when I signed up the email I got said 79.9Mbps. I thought it might have been an error but checking their estimate page again it had been changed! So with any luck I’ll get the maximum that the up to 80Mbps package offers (the fastest package you can buy right now).

I’m just waiting for the BT home hub to come in the post in the next few days and then I’m all set. The engineer is scheduled for Monday to get it swapped and all working. Wish me luck! I’ll probably make another post with my speed test results soon enough!