Cabinet Speed Query

[1IwantFiber]

Hello again everyone, after looking at various other options, USO, community partnership etc. I am once again at the same stumbling block and looking for guidance and help.

Apologies, I realise these are dreadful times and everyone is very much grappling with difficult circumstances but as our poor broadband has meant that we have sadly had to inform the school our children won’t be joining any online education this is something I would really appreciate assistance with if anyone has the time. 

In summary: 
We live in a rural area. We are connected to Exchange ‘XXX’ cabinet 2 and like everyone else near us connected to this cabinet have very poor broadband speeds (Max 7Mb). The cabinet Downstream line rate mbps is detailed as High:20.8 Mbps. 

My nearest neighbour left and my nearest neighbour right is also connected to Exchange ‘XXX’ but to cabinet 4 and has good broadband speed (45-55Mb). The cabinet Downstream rate is detailed as High: 80 Mbps. 

It seems pot luck as to which household is connected to which cabinet and as neighbours are aware of this there is no appetite for a Community Fibre Partnership - there is confusion and resentment rather than community spirit.  If people understood why some neighbours had faster internet than others it would greatly help.  The message board always states that ‘all cabinets which are FFTC are capable of the same speeds and if that is the case, please can someone explain the difference in household speeds and figures.  The figures were obtained via www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com

Many thanks 

[iniltous · Accepted solution]

If your immediate neighbours either side of you are connected to a different cabinet than you , that seems odd, but in rural areas, not impossible.
All FTTC cabs do deliver the same service, but it’s quite simple physics that dictate the speed any individual line gets.....in your example, if cab 2 and cab 4 are both FTTC , and each had a customer who’s line was effectively the same length , then each customer would get the approximately the same speed , so if both were 100m from the cab , and both had purchased an 80Mb product they both would get around 80Mb, but ADSL /VDSL are ‘rate adaptive’ systems, the longer the line the slower the speed, so instead of 100m from the cabinet , if one address was 1km from their cabinet , the speed would be more like 20Mb, it would be the same for cab 2 or 4, a 1km line will be really slow in comparison to a 100m line ..in your case you are obviously further away from your cab , than your neighbours are away from theirs.

Are you sure that both cabinets are FTTC enabled, if cab 2 wasn’t , then the broadband available would be ADSL which is exchange based , and then it’s the distance to the exchange not the cabinet that is the overriding factor in what speed is achievable,  and ADSL2 is a max of 24Mb (ADSL is 8Mb,) and the line length would have to be really very short to get those speeds ....as an example when I was on ADSL2 my line length was 5km  and 3Mb was the speed achieved.

[1IwantFiber]

Thank you so much, that makes perfect sense. Yes both cabinets are FFTC. I think it is just bad luck that we are on a cabinet that is a long way away. No home school happening here!