Secret Truth Behind the UK's Broadband Services!

The Products tested in today's video:

800mbps Business from Virgin using Cable (DOCSIS)
900mbps Residential from EE (Openreach FTTP)
80mbps Residential from TalkTalk (Openreach FTTC)
5G Unlimited Data Sim (Three)
40mbps MMWIFI (WISP)

:@: Social Media:

Chapters:
0:00​ - Intro
0:21 - Delivery of FTTC
1:20​ - Delivery of DOCSIS
1:44​ - Delivery of FTTP
2:39​ - Looking at PING
4:36 - Messing up PING
6:49​ - Comparing SPEED
8:07 - They Don't Want You To Know
9:43 - Gaming is Strange
10:30 - Other Superfast Options

[techflow]

Let us know in the comments your loaded and unloaded ping's along with the provider and make the comments section useful for people deciding who to go for

[xMetax]

A few comments. FTTP is *not* a fibre direct from the exchange to your property. Openreach use GPON (Up to 1Gb/s), and there will be optical splitters, and ultimately multiple properties use the same "feed" fibre. Altnets (Cityfibre etc) generally don't use the same technology as Openreach. They seem to have looked to the future and are installing XGS-PON, which is up to 10Gb/s. Most of them also offer a symmetric connection, whereas Openreach's upload is restricted to between 10-20% of the full upload speed. As for DOCSIS, it is not just a coax cable. It is a hybrid coax/fibre solution, in the same way as FTTC is a hybrid twisted pair/fibre solution. Perhaps you were trying to keep it "simple", but some if this was just plain wrong.

[gh]

0:57 Currently, the fastest provider in the UK though full fibre is _not_ EE. You Fibre's plans range from 150Mbps to 8Gbps - a full _five times_ faster than EE. Who would need 8Gbps in a residential setting is beyond me, but it's there if you want it.

[hegedusuk]

Upload speed is more important than you think. While you're downloading, acknowledgement packets need to be sent back (uploaded), and if the upload bandwidth is saturated already then it'll affect download. Several newer FTTP providers do 1000 Mbps upload with the 1000 download

[davidw]

One thing to watch out for with those 1GB for 30 quid fibre plans is that many of them run CGNAT. This means that you share the same IP address as the other houses on your street. This can prevent some VOIP software and home security cameras from working. It can also prevent you from self hosting a gaming server. Most of them will let you turn off CGNAT and have your own IP, but for an additional monthly cost.

[patrickschottert]

In The Netherlands there are multiple ISPs (Delta/Odido(Old T-Mobile-Tele2)) that can give you 8 Gbps, which is INSANE

[ParagramCOD]

FTTP has just been installed to my house a month ago and I got the BT 900 Package, zero complaints and its insanely more stable compared to my previous FTTC! However since I'm a new customer they installed a 2.5gb ONT, Openreach are soon to offer 1.8gbps download, BT, EE etc... are dropping them at any moment.

[Tomellingham]

Nice video, Alex. Other thing for people to remember is speed is measured differently to size - so a 1Gbps connection will download (in a perfect world) a 1GB file in 8 seconds - speed is measured in bits and storage is measured in bytes...8 bits in a byte etc. etc. I think you've covered this before.

Also - there are some default settings in Windows that throttle downloads. Worth doing an overview on them. Makes a huge difference.

[LeonsVlogsx]

You can actually get 100-300mbps via GFAST DSL Line (copper) if you're within a certain radius of the cabinets.

[MPsNewswatch]

Thanks for such a plain English explanation of the basics of Broadband. You've got a follow.

[crnppscls]

It’s worth noting that looking up your isp’s peering should be something you do, if you want low ping.
Like if you’re in the north of uk or Scotland, the last thing you would want is your traffic to be routed through London.
If you chose Brawband as your isp for example, your pings would be in single digits because they route through Edinburgh.

It can be a minefield though because even if your isp might use a data centre in Manchester, there’s no guarantee that your traffic will go through there if it’s congested. They might even bounce it from there to london.

[zeberto]

5:20 just because fibre doesnt suffer as much EM interference as a copper cable doesnt reduce the mumber of problems. Fibre optic cable is notoriously fragile and can crack easily. Kinks in the cable and dust in the connectors are also potential problems. The number of packet loss issues Ive seen fixed by a field engineer cleaning the ends of the fibre is insane.

[danielscotcher]

I have been using Three 5G for a couple of years now. Used to have to reboot but it’s been fine recently. Get around 400 down and 60 up but for £20 a month that’s just fine with me

[brunoxing]

Just a sidenote: the latency under load is also dependent from the QoS management of both the CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) and the backhaul of the provider.
For example, here in Portugal we have 2 major ISPs, NOS and MEO, which both use FTTH, although NOS still uses DOCSIS (it is migrating to FTTH tho). With some tests, where NOS uses DOCSIS (HFC) and MEO uses FTTH, under no load, the MEO FTTH connection wins, because it can provide much faster latencies than NOS HFC. However, when you insert some load in the network, for example, a speedtest, the NOS HFC performs better than MEO FTTH, although NOS uses DOCSIS.
Why? Because NOS made a good job to apply a good QoS for it's network than MEO. The NOS routers and the network itself (on the last mile, and inside the backbone) were configured to prioritize traffic for UDP, VOIP and other real-time traffic in case of a pretty loaded network. MEO, on the other side, does not has those configs for that, causing a worse experience under loaded networks.
Im not saying that DOCSIS is better than FTHH, none of that; what Im saying is that the technology itself helps to deliver a good speed and latency to a customer, and also the equipment and the config that is being used by the ISP enters the equation.

[sturdyblock]

Low Ping / latency is foremost. Don't be fooled by faster is better. Run a couple of services via Virgin DOCSIS and watch the ping times soar. The Virgin 'business' service is simply a lie. Run the exact same services via BT FTTP and the ping times are night and day. Swapping out the BT router can further improve latency. Avoid Virgin at ALL cost if you can. Their customer service is a joke, bordering on pathetic.

[andrewdunn]

Virgin now offers 2 Gbps in some areas but at £85 a month for a household, I won't be taking that.

[johndoe-cvwe]

While watching your from around at 10min, couldn't help but notice that your consumer unit (fuse box) seems to have some regulation issues being different branded mcb(Volex in a Hager enclosure) and a white flex entering the closure possible without a gland or flame retardant entry method. would recommend to get your CU upgraded to a metal flame proof box with surge protection and RCBOs for peace of mind

[thebigguy]

Why there is differences in speed depending on the website is because of how these providers or the CDN's interconnect into the ISP's network. They could already have the connection saturated or even be a slower interconnect than the other.

You should have done a trace route to dropbox/google drive to see the differences in how/where it connects into the CDN.

[imark]

In the US a lot of companies will give you a nice download speed but a very minimal upload speed. I wish symmetrical was the standard. this has the effect of sure you might have 25 down but you have 1 up and that gets saturated which causes information not to get out to bring you a download like videos, streaming or gaming. Next the whole thing feel even slower than it is. Or in some cases unusable depending on time of day and user load on the network and on your network. I've had a few sites where there's just too many buses trying to go down a one-way street.

[Kyle-xvkv]

ex ISP worker here, speed tests are designed to saturate your connection, you need to do something more realistic like load up the network with 10 or so machines and check the latency. Also its worth mentioning that there are other suppliers our there such as Zayo which offer a 10 gig+ links to anyone willing to pay for the installation fees.