Broadband Guide

Make your superfast broadband even faster

By Garnet Roach garnet@consumerchoices.co.uk

Wednesday 27 July, 2011

Make sure you get the most from your superfast broadband with our top tips to help you maximise your speed.

Broadband providers are touting ever faster broadband packages, with speeds as fast as 100Mb available in some areas.

But issues surrounding the advertising of broadband and actual speeds people get from their connection have had a big impact on consumer trust in the industry - so how can you make sure you're getting the best possible speeds from your superfast service?

Do you live in a superfast area?

To access superfast, you need to either live in a Virgin Media (www.Virginmedia.com) cable area or a part of the country that has been upgraded for BT Infinity (www.bt.com/infinity).

However, in some cases, people living in “enabled” areas still can’t access the faster speeds offered by BT Infinity.

In February, Stuart Watson, broadband product manager at Zen Internet (www.Zen.co.uk), which resells BT’s fibre products under its own brand, called on BT to be clearer about what an “enabled exchange” actually means. He said that in some areas, up to 60% of street-side cabinets had been left out of the rollout.

BT responded, saying that the problem affected very few areas, though it is still worth double-checking before you try to sign-up.

A spokesman said: “There are only a handful of exchanges with between 40-50% of cabinets enabled, and in many cases this equates to actual coverage of up to 70% of homes and businesses.

“In the roll out overall, on average well over 70% of cabinets are enabled within each exchange area, covering around 85% of homes and businesses," he added.

It’s hard to understand fibre broadband without getting a bit technical, but for consumers, the technology can really be divided into two areas;

• Fibre-to-the-cabinet - Abbreviated to FTTC, this simply means that the fibre optic cables carrying more data at faster speeds run to the green telephone cabinet on your road. From there, either copper or electrical coaxial cables will connect your home
• Fibre-to-the-home - Also known as FTTH, this means that superfast fibre optic cables run directly to your home, delivering a faster connection

However, these aren’t the only things that will affect your speed. For most people, the “last mile” is actually even more important.

The last mile refers to the type of wires used to connect the fibre in your green street-side telephone cabinet to your home. BT Infinity’s 40Mb broadband uses copper wires for the last mile - which lose speed over distance - so if your house if far from the cabinet, your speed will be a bit slower.

On the other hand, Virgin Media uses a connection known as “coaxial cable” which keeps speed over long distances.

What speed will I get?

As with all broadband packages, it’s always a good idea to ask your provider for a speed estimate before signing up.

Virgin Media says that because it uses coaxial cable for the last mile connection, there is no loss over distance and every customer has the potential to reach their top speed - though other factors such as peak time congestion, traffic management and the sites you're using could slow you down.

Research by telecoms regulator Ofcom published in March 2011 backed these claims up. It found that Virgin Media’s cable customers received an average of between 90-96% of their advertised speed.

Although BT Infinity customers received a little less than this, averaging 78% of their advertised speed, this still equated to over 31Mb. However, BT Infinity did deliver the fastest uploads at around 8Mb.

What speed do you get?

Even once you know what speed you should be getting, it is a good idea to test the speed you are actually getting.

An independent broadband speed tester is the best way to find out how your ISP (internet service provider) is performing.

But there are a few things you need to take into consideration; if you have a really fast service, such as Virgin Media’s 100Mb, you might get a skewed result from some testers.

If you have a connection up to 50Mb, you can use our own free Broadband Speed Tester. But if you want to test a connection that’s faster than this, such as Virgin Media’s 100Mb broadband then you might want to try Thinkbroadband.com.

I'm not getting the speed I expected

If you find that you're not getting the upload and download speeds you expected, then there are some steps you can take.

The first thing you should do is talk to your provider - there may be a fault on the line or some tweaks they can make to speed things up.

Check your hardware

Your modem or router connection speed is often the most limiting factor in superfast broadband packages, says Andrew Ferguson, editor of Thinkbroadband.com. So you need to make sure you have an up-to-date wireless N router that can handle the fast speeds being sent down the line.

You also need to make sure the hardware in your computer is up to speed. If you have a very old PC, its wireless card won’t be able to handle the faster speeds and you won’t see the benefit. Equally, if your old computer takes a really long time to start up, load pages or install updates, the problem might lie with your hardware rather than your ISP.

Are you using wireless?

Using wireless could lose you 30% of your broadband speed, according to research by broadband analysts Epitiro in March 2011. Although you wouldn’t notice this on a superfast connection, you need to take into consideration that this might skew your speed test results.

Peak time traffic

Although your connection might be so blisteringly fast that peak times don’t slow you down, you're still subject to network congestion on the websites you want to use.

For example, if you want to watch the last episode of EastEnders in high-definition on the BBC iPlayer, and experience problems streaming at peak times, this could be because the website is overloaded with requests, not because your connection isn’t fast enough.

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