100M : Fibre/Fast Internet

[Thorski]

Hi, newbie here.
Wasn't sure where to post this and being a virgin customer decided maybe this was the right sub?

So, virgin have held a monopoly in my area for as long as I've been here (about 13 years). I have nearly every year asked bt/open reach when they're going to upgrade their internet in my area as quite frankly it's pathetic (average is less than 10mb).

I'm at the stage now where I'm sick of virgin ripping me off and want to change to another provider, or at the very least have that option.
The trouble is, I don't know what to do or who to speak to. With the country apparently at over 90% fibre ready and me living in a well built up area I'm dumbfounded as to why we still don't have any competition to virgin in terms of speed.

So my question is, who do I speak to about actual time scales of getting faster internet in my area? Openreach have been less than useful each and every time.

[daveeb]

Originally Posted by Thorski

Hi, newbie here.
Wasn't sure where to post this and being a virgin customer decided maybe this was the right sub?

So, virgin have held a monopoly in my area for as long as I've been here (about 13 years). I have nearly every year asked bt/open reach when they're going to upgrade their internet in my area as quite frankly it's pathetic (average is less than 10mb).

I'm at the stage now where I'm sick of virgin ripping me off and want to change to another provider, or at the very least have that option.
The trouble is, I don't know what to do or who to speak to. With the country apparently at over 90% fibre ready and me living in a well built up area I'm dumbfounded as to why we still don't have any competition to virgin in terms of speed.

So my question is, who do I speak to about actual time scales of getting faster internet in my area? Openreach have been less than useful each and every time.

Hi Thorski
I don't know what area you are but it may be worth a quick search on companies who are doing FTTP (fibre to the premises) in your area. You don't have to necessarily contact BT Openreach (although they are involved in the process), There's Cityfibre and Zen broadband that spring to mind.

[Thorski]

Originally Posted by daveeb

Hi Thorski
I don't know what area you are but it may be worth a quick search on companies who are doing FTTP (fibre to the premises) in your area. You don't have to necessarily contact BT Openreach (although they are involved in the process), There's Cityfibre and Zen broadband that spring to mind.

How do I find that out?
I live in pontypridd, south Wales and I haven't seen anyone coming here at all to survey potential upgrades etc
Much of this town has fibre as far as I know, but my area in this town hasn't had an upgrade to internet since I moved here.

[daveeb]

Originally Posted by Thorski

How do I find that out?
I live in pontypridd, south Wales and I haven't seen anyone coming here at all to survey potential upgrades etc
Much of this town has fibre as far as I know, but my area in this town hasn't had an upgrade to internet since I moved here.

Our FTTP is via the telephone pole and I didn't notice any upgrade happening. I just contacted the companies I mentioned above and asked them. Cityfibre weren't much help but Zen were really good so i went with them although they are quite expensive..

[Jaymoss]

A quick search has some providers offering 30 meg in Pontypridd so I guess you are unlucky. I assume you have done a comparison check ? ( I know you are gonna )

I am guessing you do not have 5G, What is your 4G coverage like?

Strange VM has you covered and FTTC does not. You could still try the old 30 days notice and see if they will cut you a better deal but with less switch options they may not play the game

[Thorski]

Originally Posted by daveeb

Our FTTP is via the telephone pole and I didn't notice any upgrade happening. I just contacted the companies I mentioned above and asked them. Cityfibre weren't much help but Zen were really good so i went with them although they are quite expensive..

I had heard recently that some university were able to get fttp speeds from copper above ground but wasn't aware that people were getting these yet... Or is that actual fibre above ground? And if so, did they come and fit that fibre to the poles for you or was it already done?
As I said, I have never seen any company installing anything on our street.

---------- Post added at 09:49 ---------- Previous post was at 09:45 ----------

Originally Posted by Jaymoss

A quick search has some providers offering 30 meg in Pontypridd so I guess you are unlucky. I assume you have done a comparison check ? ( I know you are gonna )

I am guessing you do not have 5G, What is your 4G coverage like?

Strange VM has you covered and FTTC does not. You could still try the old 30 days notice and see if they will cut you a better deal but with less switch options they may not play the game

Some parts of ponty have really good speeds, some friends of ours already have fibre across town for example... But it's like this area of ponty has been forgotten about. Would they consider a rough area (and therefore less likely to be able to afford fibre) for upgrades? The back part of our estate is pretty rough, some call it giro city haha

I don't think we have 5g (don't have a 5g phone to test it) and our 4g signal with Vodafone is sometimes shocking, they can't offer us very high speeds either.

Have tried the 30 days notice a few times and I'm almost positive they know the situation as they don't drop the price by much at all

[cje85]

Try entering your house number/postcode on https://bidb.uk/ (top right) to see what's available and anything planned in the near future.

From trying a random address for a Spar (117 Hopkinstown Rd CF37 2PT) there's not much in the area except VM and nothing planned in the near future. However, EE has some 5G coverage as does Three.

[Taf]

Pontypridd Industrial Estate gets 4G BB from BT.

[Skie]

Use the openreach checker: https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broa...ibre-broadband

Or just zoom in on the map until it loads the coloured zones, it's only a few steps of zoom. Shows planned rollouts up to 2026.

According to that, I should have it by April 2024.

[InsaneNutter]

Virgin have had a monopoly in our area for the last 20 years, ever since the NTL days. The only alternative until 2016 was 2meg ADSL, even now the best BT can do is 60-70meg, so no real competition to Virgin.

Probably your only real alternative is 5g or Starlink: https://www.starlink.com/ although to be honest Starlink would be only realistic if you couldn't get Virgin as it's going to be way more expensive.

Starlink doesnt seem much better than the 70M you could get from BT (about 100M down, and 15M up).

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by Paul

Starlink doesnt seem much better than the 70M you could get from BT (about 100M down, and 15M up).

Starlink 2 will change that but it needs Starship to be operational which should happen in the next couple of months.

[broadbandking]

TBF Virgin was the only part fibre company for a long time, but with the need for faster internet more companies have been born

[Martin_D]

Our area is the same Virgin are the fastest at the moment but Cityfibre & Youfibre plus some openrech FTTP in parts has really started to put them under some pressure works well under way to move this area from HFC to FTTP most of it so far is repairing chambers and phishing the fibre deeper into the area