• Oooof, moving house in 2 weeks, 15 minutes drive up the road, in Derbyshire. My wife and I both work from home and have regular video meetings, so having a stable and relatively fast connection is important.

    I had done an internet speed checker before we put an offer in, and it showed me similar levels of coverage to where I currently am. Full fibre and Virgin Media not available, so various providers offering up to their 67MB packages. Fine, I thought.

    I rang up my current provider today (Vodafone), and they let me know that they'll not be able to move me on my current package, they will need to downgrade me. They can only guarantee a download speed of 12.6 Mbps, whereas my current is a guarantee of 52.5 Mbps. I've just done a speed test now and got 55 Mbps.

    I thought this was just Vodafone being jerks, but have done the rounds through all the providers just now. The best I can find is a guaranteed 16.4 Mbps from Plusnet. I really don't think this is going to be enough for our needs.

    Is there anything I can do to help speed up whatever internet I decide to order? I suspect the answer is no, but am feeling a little bit desperate for options. Am I right in thinking there's no point ordering a faster package (67 Mbps versus 35 Mbps) because it's the material/state of the line used to provide internet that's the limiting factor, not the internet package?

  • The broadband checker from A&A internet is very accurate, and there is a link on there to the BT wholesale checker. Will prob confirm what you already know to be honest. https://www.aa.net.uk/broadband/home1/
    Yes to your other question, no point paying for a faster service that you can technically get.
    With A&A you can get bonded lines to double your speed but it costs. I’m not with them but used to be - fantastic service.

  • Sounds like you currently get VDSL/FTTC and the new place is ADSL only. If that is the case the only real way to get more bandwidth is to buy two lines. It's possible the local FTTC equipment is full and it will change as BT build out more capacity, someone clueful like A&A might be able to advise.

  • Dunno if it'll be any help but there's a new company called Brsk that's rolling out fibre to places. They seem to be quite aggressively expanding. We had a salesman around recently to tell us if we see the pavement being dug up for new cables it's them.

About