Can anyone help me with what broadband I need when I move house?

[CadburySpira]

DH and I are currently house-hunting, we found a house we really like and have booked a second viewing. It occurred to me to check the broadband speeds as we both work from home and they are coming up much lower than we are used to. We have the top Virgin broadband at home but it seems Virgin don't serve the town we wish to move to.

I'm feeling really disheartened as the best BT speed that is coming up for the new house is 27Mb - 36Mb. Vodaphone is coming up 63mb. Firstly, how can these speeds differ, as surely they would be using the same cable?

Secondly, do you think we will have to pass up on this house because of this? It seems silly, but there are 2 of us working from home, we both use VPN, I am a graphic designer so I am uploading and downloading large files all day long. At home we generally have some kind of wifi TV running on the TV and sometimes running another personal laptop and an ipad, plus 2 phones!

I don't really understand it all so if anyone could help, please tia

[CadburySpira]

Hopeful bump

[PhoneLock]

I'm not sure if it helps but, BT quote 27 Mbps for this address. We actually get 53 with them so they can seriously underestimate.

Have you asked the current owners what they get?

[CadburySpira]

That is good to know, will be hard to be certain without testing though. Current owner is an elderly lady who has already moved out and in a home, I saw no evidence of a router at the house (completely empty though) she's probably never had internet!

[CadburySpira]

It seems such a silly reason to not buy a house, but I don't like to think what would happen if we moved and then I couldn't keep up with my work due to the internet speed.

[PhoneLock]

Have you considered 4/5g routers like Three HomeFi?

[handmademitlove]

Try asking the neighbours?

[SpoonBlender]

The quoted speeds are FTTC - fibre to the cabinet - speeds, which is the second tier of BT-supplied internet. It comes in 72mbps and 36mpbs flavours, which are the two speeds you've seen quoted.

It's perfectly fine for fat uploads/downloads. As a pair of IT pros DP and I have been working off that for years and years, two VPNs and big file transfers haven't phased it, even remote desktop is fine. I use Zen Internet for my provision, they look after things very very well and mean I never have to deal with BT!

The fastest BT tier, G.fast, isn't in many places yet. That comes in 150mbps and 300mbps flavours.

[CadburySpira]

Spoonblender that’s really helpful, so you think it will be fine for us?

Not heard of Three HomeFi Phonelock but I will google it.

Not sure about asking the neighbours tbh, think I’d be a bit miffed if someone knocked on my door and asked my internet speeds because they are thinking of buying next door!

[CadburySpira]

Also SpoonBlender could you explain to me, in layman’s terms, how come BT are quoting one speed and Vodaphone a faster speed? Surely they would come through the same cable?

[cdtaylornats]

Where I live we have the option of Virgin, they have seperate cabling from BT.

As well as speed, you might want to check availability.

I get 80mbps with BT. With 14 devices attached everything works fine.

[CadburySpira]

There are no Virgin cables. The availability coming up when I do a postcode check is: BT, PlusNet, Vodaphone, EE, TalkTalk etc, all quoting similar speeds of 63-67. When I go through to the BT website however, the speed quoted is lower: 27-36. What I don't understand is if all the providers are using the same cables, how can they offer different speeds?

[SpoonBlender]

They do come through the same cable and the same boxes in the street, difference is speed+price only, not ability. It's totally artificial.

BT will probably sell you the faster grade of service if you ask them (I'm guessing, I'd never use BT directly because they're awful to deal with in case of incidents). Vodafone and everyone else default to the faster service cos it's a bigger number.

I think you'll be absolutely fine on it, it's really good! Go for the 70ish Mbps though.

[safariboot]

My guess is BT's checker is making a mistake for some reason, and not showing the faster service.

If you need a faster or more reliable connection for your job, and you're earning highly enough, look into dedicated internet access, sometimes called leased lines. Guaranteed speeds for download and upload, and service level agreements for how quickly problems must be fixed. You're looking at several hundred pounds a month for that, but if it's what it takes to ensure you can bring in big revenues and not risk letting your boss/clients down then it might be worth it.

[notangelinajolie]

You will not get better speeds than broadband cable. If the new house doesn't have cable your internet speed will be significantly slower. Another thing to look out for is mobile phone signal. We have just moved house but we used to live in a leafy suburb of a large city and the leafy bit prevented us from getting a phone signal.

Personally, I could live without cable but the crappy phone signal was a huge negative. You should check this out too.

[RageAgainstTheSnowMachine]

Hi OP
Just been through this. Vodaphone could not provide the megasuperfast broadband to my area (they were absolutely crap wrt customer service).
I ended up going with Shell - on their cheapest tariff and supposedly slowest broadband, what they guarantee anyway - and I have had no problems at all. Has been as fast as any in the past.
Money Saving Expert will give you the best deals to compare.

[CadburySpira]

I'm going to check the phone signal next time we view the house, especially now I know about the 4g routers as that may be an option.

I tried the live chat with BT to see if we could get higher than the 27-36mb quoted and they have done a line check and said no, the only way would be to wait for new Openreach cables to be laid. So I guess the higher quotes from other providers are wrong and 27-36mb is the best available.

I will look into the dedicated internet access/leased lines thank you safariboot

[CruelAndUnusualParenting]

When I moved to this house in 2013 the best available speed was 8Mbps and that was more than adequate for 1 person working at home, so 27-36 Mbps should be adequate for 2. OK, you are used to faster speeds, but that doesn't mean you really need the faster speeds. It might mean you need to wait a minute or two longer for some big downloads, but maybe you can multi-task and do something else with the time? Don't worry too much about the number of devices only the TV will normally use more than 1Mbps.

What's your actual speed at the moment with Virgin? How long does a typical download take?

[CadburySpira]

Sorry, didn't realise anyone else had replied! You may be right that it's just that I'm used to the speeds now and need to get used to waiting a little! Current speed test shows downloads at 79.76 Mb/s. When I'm working I don't notice anything taking longer than a few seconds, downloading a film onto my v old ipad would take a few minutes though.

I checked my speeds in the office the other day where we have a wired connection and it was over 200 Mb/s but I can't say I notice the difference, so hopefully the same will be true of slightly slower again 27-36 Mbps!