Just ordered BT Infinity, let's see how it goes update round 2

[Doug phillips]

I thought that may be of interest to some of you, so I will update it as I go.

 

Yesterday after trying the BT website for nearly a year, I managed to start the order 😬.

I used to be with O2, and got moved over to Sky a few months ago. I have yet to get my MAC code yet from Sky, I shall try to get that ball rolling on Thursday. When placing the order it asks you for you Sky viewing card number (for the free BT sports), I entered this and completed the order.

 

Well in less that 1 hour I had BT sport on my Sky box , the wife is happy as she can now watch the motor bike racing .

Then I Tweeted about the above, saying I wondered what go wrong with the switch over . To my surprise I was tweeted back by BT customer care, thanking me for switching and to contact them if I had any problems .

So we are off, with an install date of 24/07/14.

 

I will update this as I go

 

Edited by - Doug Phillips on 14 Jul 2014 18:53:23

[MADMALC]

I went to Infinity a month ago. Everything happened exactly as they said it would. Kit delivered on date and engineer on time.

Hopefully yours will be the same.

[Pete Underhill]

I'd be interested to hear how your iPlayer performs through Infinity. Ours uses the domestic ring main as a LAN and iPlayer etc. is drawn through from the broadband which enters the house upstairs.

Sometimes it will work fine, then, at what I'd presume are busier times, we'll get 10 seconds of playback and 30 seconds of spooling. It can make for difficult viewing.

 

Edited by - Pete Underhill on 25 Jun 2014 16:37:53

[Doug phillips]

Pete, I have two separate networks in my house both of them share the router (soon to be BT). All hard wired, the switch for the network downstairs is optimised for video streaming. So not the same as yours, but when it is up and running I will test it and report back

[Harry Flatters]

'Bout time too Doug!

 

Pete - I have Infinity and get about 69mbit download speed. My router is also upstairs and until recently I used HomePlugs to get the LAN downstairs and had absolutely no problem using iPlayer on my Sky box. Full speed, no buffering .

[Myles]

Downloading Sky Catch Up services is one reason I'd consider the upgrade. I don't understand why most iPlayers will happily start playing after a bit of buffering - but the Sky Catch Up version seems to insist on downloading (virtually?) the whole lot before it becomes 'available' to view in the planner.

 

...which seems to take a stupid amount of time.

 

We switched from Sky (legacy O2) to BT normal bb at Christmas. Be prepared for some very-tedious persuasion to stay when you call for your mac code. My partner ended up telling them that this (the scripted pleading) was one of the reasons we wanted to move...

[TobyCoulson]

I've been on it for over a year. Very good and the engineer even turned up early. Probably a first for Openreach!

[Guest]

I have recently done similar. (despite not wanting BT Sport...its not my thing)...however BE internet (02 subsidiary) had been taken over by Sky, who I REALLY had no interest in.

 

Transferring to a landline and BT Infinity 2 I got the few month discount, and a £100 Sainsbury voucher (yes, it did arrive!).

 

Getting the Mac code was a royal PITA.

 

Despite them asking "why are you leaving" (None of your business)..."The mac code may take 2 weeks to generate'..." (NO...it's on your screen as you speak to me.... (shut him up!)...just give me the mac code...YES I WILL HOLD. ITS ON YOUR SCREEN !!!! )... scum of the earth hard ball slimey gits.

 

BT service great, Do make sure you comply with the wiring guidelines if you need a new position for the router. Also, be aware that the BT Infinity includes wifi spots when on the move... BUT the corollary is that your own router becomes a hot spot for BT...(secure, supposedly), but you can sign out of that if you don't need or want that feature, however it is set on as a default.

 

Speed. Great. Upload speed is great. As I do a lot of online work I do notice a difference.

BBC Iplayer on my Sony TV via wifi isnt working. No biggy.

 

Edited by - Stridey on 25 Jun 2014 18:05:36

 

Edited by - Stridey on 25 Jun 2014 18:06:38

[Anton]

We have one desktop (old) three laptops and a games PC operating on Virgin's fastest fibre-optic system, using the mains wiring as a LAN, also Virgin TV and phone as part of the package.

 

When our son's laptop/games PC combo are operating on their own, playing the same game, the speed is adequate, but if our old desktop is in use as well on the internet (not playing the game - it couldn't) everything slows down as, according to Virgin, the bandwidth/speed is shared equally between the three machines. This seems logical to me.

 

But BT have told us that we won't see this effect if we use them - even if all five are in use at the same time they will all operate at BT's top speed and will therefore all be faster than with Virgin.

 

I'm no IT expert - is this correct? And in that case, why does Virgin slow down with more PCs using it where BT won't?

 

I don't want to just drop Virgin as they've always given us good service, but our sons want to improve their games performance.

[Roger Ford]

Quoting Anton: 

I'm no IT expert - is this correct?

No. The bandwidth will be shared.

 

If you're on Virgin's fastest 152Mbit connection, you shouldn't be seeing any problems connecting to it from multiple devices. That's 10x faster than most people see from ADSL - there's tons of bandwidth to go round. More likely your old PC is somehow slowing your internal network down.

 

How are they connected? Wirelessly or via cables? Are you just using Virgin's Superhub or do you have another router in the mix somewhere?

[Roger Ford]

My son's playing some online game downstairs, and chatting to his mates on a voice over IP connection, my VPN phone is connected to work, and I'm still seeing over 160Mbps on my PC:

 

http://www.speedtest.net/result/3585720396.png

[KarlH]

I hope you have a better experience with the installation than I had after waiting years to get it - took over 3 weeks before I had something that worked.

 

The amount of grief I got from the kids about not being able to play Fifa online or watch Sky Go was unreal

 

That said, since it was properly fixed its been great, no problem with iPlayer, online gaming etc!

[Scoops]

I keep checking the open reach site and it keeps telling me coming soon. All the cabinets have been upgraded and the works long since finished.

 

Can't be long now .

 

Interested on how you get on.

[Doug phillips]

As I have no faith in BT to get it right, I will update my first post every day. So if I miss a day, you know I have no internet

[Hodsonpe]

I was with Sky but I switched to BT infinity 2 years ago. The switch over happened over the Christmas holiday and I thought that was tempting fate but it was perfect. The service since has been excellent with no drop in performance.

 

As a bonus if can now stream MotoGP from my iPad to my Apple TV. It's great to have Julian Ryder back, like the halcyon days of MotoGP on Eurosport although no Toby Moody as yet

 

Paul.

[Red SLR]

Quoting Anton: 

We have one desktop (old) three laptops and a games PC operating on Virgin's fastest fibre-optic system, using the mains wiring as a LAN, also Virgin TV and phone as part of the package.

 

When our son's laptop/games PC combo are operating on their own, playing the same game, the speed is adequate, but if our old desktop is in use as well on the internet (not playing the game - it couldn't) everything slows down as, according to Virgin, the bandwidth/speed is shared equally between the three machines. This seems logical to me.

 

But BT have told us that we won't see this effect if we use them - even if all five are in use at the same time they will all operate at BT's top speed and will therefore all be faster than with Virgin.

 

I'm no IT expert - is this correct? And in that case, why does Virgin slow down with more PCs using it where BT won't?

 

I don't want to just drop Virgin as they've always given us good service, but our sons want to improve their games performance.

 

Sounds like your old PC has something that's either using a heck of a lot of data - or its trying to do something odd. Which OS? Open task manager, click networking and see what its doing in terms of network usage.

 

The main data usage on home networks is streaming video, or downloading / P2P.

 

General surfing, gaming, music and things like VPN use very little in terms of bandwidth when you have a 100+mb/s connection. I would say your connection is the problem if you only had a sub 5mb connection - but you have a very fast connection - which can handle lots and lots of data.

 

Something is not right.

 

[Steve-B]

OFCOM passes new rules on OpenReach mandating SLA's for delivery, fixes and the like.

 

Keep 'em honest Doug, fingers crossed

[Jonathan Kay]

Quoting Red SLR: 

Quoting Anton: 

We have one desktop (old) three laptops and a games PC operating on Virgin's fastest fibre-optic system, using the mains wiring as a LAN, also Virgin TV and phone as part of the package.

 

When our son's laptop/games PC combo are operating on their own, playing the same game, the speed is adequate, but if our old desktop is in use as well on the internet (not playing the game - it couldn't) everything slows down as, according to Virgin, the bandwidth/speed is shared equally between the three machines. This seems logical to me.

 

But BT have told us that we won't see this effect if we use them - even if all five are in use at the same time they will all operate at BT's top speed and will therefore all be faster than with Virgin.

 

I'm no IT expert - is this correct? And in that case, why does Virgin slow down with more PCs using it where BT won't?

 

I don't want to just drop Virgin as they've always given us good service, but our sons want to improve their games performance.

 

Sounds like your old PC has something that's either using a heck of a lot of data - or its trying to do something odd. Which OS? Open task manager, click networking and see what its doing in terms of network usage.

 

The main data usage on home networks is streaming video, or downloading / P2P.

 

General surfing, gaming, music and things like VPN use very little in terms of bandwidth when you have a 100+mb/s connection. I would say your connection is the problem if you only had a sub 5mb connection - but you have a very fast connection - which can handle lots and lots of data.

 

Something is not right.

I'd check the LAN is configured and working correctly as well as suspecting the connection to the outside world.

 

Jonathan

[Doug phillips]

No news yet, I will be calling Sky in the morning to get my MAC code. I have the builders in today, so it is a tad noisy.

[SJD]

We've been using BT Infinity since it was available, about 5 months ago and are very pleased with it, no problems with the installation or since.

 

I will be calling Sky in the morning to get my MAC code

- Good luck!

 

I was quite happy with our download speed of 37.8 Mb/s - how do you get 160.42 Mb/s?

[Red SLR]

I suspect that's virgin which is (almost) fibre to the prem rather than the cab.

[Roger Ford]

Yes, that's Virgin Cable which uses a fibre connection to the cabinet then coaxial cable to the house.

[davef]

Quoting Jonathan Kay: 

Quoting Red SLR: 

Quoting Anton: 

We have one desktop (old) three laptops and a games PC operating on Virgin's fastest fibre-optic system, using the mains wiring as a LAN, also Virgin TV and phone as part of the package.

 

When our son's laptop/games PC combo are operating on their own, playing the same game, the speed is adequate, but if our old desktop is in use as well on the internet (not playing the game - it couldn't) everything slows down as, according to Virgin, the bandwidth/speed is shared equally between the three machines. This seems logical to me.

 

But BT have told us that we won't see this effect if we use them - even if all five are in use at the same time they will all operate at BT's top speed and will therefore all be faster than with Virgin.

 

I'm no IT expert - is this correct? And in that case, why does Virgin slow down with more PCs using it where BT won't?

 

I don't want to just drop Virgin as they've always given us good service, but our sons want to improve their games performance.

 

Sounds like your old PC has something that's either using a heck of a lot of data - or its trying to do something odd. Which OS? Open task manager, click networking and see what its doing in terms of network usage.

 

The main data usage on home networks is streaming video, or downloading / P2P.

 

General surfing, gaming, music and things like VPN use very little in terms of bandwidth when you have a 100+mb/s connection. I would say your connection is the problem if you only had a sub 5mb connection - but you have a very fast connection - which can handle lots and lots of data.

 

Something is not right.

I'd check the LAN is configured and working correctly as well as suspecting the connection to the outside world.

 

Jonathan

 

My VM 60Mb connection went bad last year - the symptom was with multiple users the bandwidth dropped off sharply. Speedtest showed good d/l speed, but the upload speed was all over the place. Turned out the tap in the street cabinet had gone bad and was affecting the upload speed. Once the engineer had moved it to a spare everything returned to normal.

 

Can't complain about the service either - I called it in mid morning on a Saturday, about 15 mins on the phone checking things and looking at the modem logs, engineer booked for 2-2:30pm that afternoon, all sorted by 2:45.

 

Dave

[Guest]

I have Infinity 2 which is FTMLW (fibre to my lounge wall) on a 320mb profile. On some test servers I get 270mbs with 8ms response times. It's enough to be getting on with.

 

That's using only 1 core of the 4 cores, so plenty of capacity for future developments.

[Doug phillips]

Update time

 

Chased Sky yesterday (as I still do not have my MAC code) who told me I would have it within 48 hours. We shall see

 

Also while I was cleaning out my in box, I noticed that one of the emails from BT said that if I did not hear from them after 5 days to call them. So I have just got of the line to them, to be told that there will not be another email from them, and to call them back when I have the MAC code

 

So why in the last email did it say to expect one, and that it would tell me what to do with my MAC code, when I have it. I guess that this is to be expected when dealing with BT