Hi everyone, I've just had an offer accepted on a house and as both my partner and I work from home fast and reliable internet is a must. Our current usage is video conferencing calls and general internet use in the day and evenings are HD streaming on 2 tvs (Prime/Sky), Xbox gaming, Tablets (two kids). We're on Fibre 1 and get 48mb download and 10 mbs upload which has always been fine.
On viewing we did ask the vendor about their internet and they said it was fast and fine for their needs. I think we we're lulled into a false sense of security and now after using the BT broadband availability checker tool and looking at the speeds we could be potentially be offered, I'm very worried. The broadband deal checker suggests a download range of 20-35mb, Upload speed range 4Mb - 6Mb and estimated Stay Fast Guarantee 17Mb. The line stats I could find are below. The vendor is not the most technical and although I've asked the agent to double check what sort of speeds they are getting and reliability they weren't convinced they would get a reply.
So my worries are: Will the increased distance from the cabinet which lowers the line speed also likely impact the reliability of the line? If I get speeds at the lower end (or even top end of the estimate) what real world capacity will this give me based on the typical usage I have mentioned? I realise this is no exact science but a stable/fast internet connection is vital for us. Any advice would be gratefully received.
As you can see from the checker result, the current owners have received a maximum download speed of 32.39Mbps and upload speed of 6.62Mbps. Those are actual figures not estimates.
Stability of connection is more related to the quality of the line rather than actual distance per se, but obviously the greater the distance the more scope there is for poor joints etc. There is no way of determining stability without seeing long term stats from the router.
You can see form dslchecker that on 10 march the line speed was 32/6mb but you cannot tell about stability. However if the line was unstable I would not expect the speed to be near top of estimated range
You should be fine, HD streaming only requires about 5Mbps, gaming doesn't require a lot of bandwidth, videoconferencing about 2-3Mbps