What is my connection

[Keithrevis]

I think I have FTTC (so copper to our house). I get speeds of around 50mbps around our house on WiFi and I get Broadband from BT. I have attached photos of the box on the wall and my modem that connects to my Smart Hub 2 via Ethernet. I am thinking of switching to Sky or Plusnet but am worried about a drop in speed if I do so. I am even more confused as the Plusnet chap on chat said I would be going from BT cable to copper if I switch to them. I thought all these providers were supplied via BT Openreach and as full fibre isnt available in our area yet all speeds would be similar for the Superfast fibre.

Any thoughts please?ModemWall box 

[rbz5416]

Yes, that's an FTTC modem.

Switching to another Openreach provider should yield exactly the same speed. If you put your address & phone number into their web sites, you will get an estimate of speed & a guaranteed minimum.

If you told the Plunet guy that you had a modem he was maybe assuming that you had an ONT full fibre modem.

[licquorice]

You have FTTC, fibre to the cabinet and then copper to your house. Your speed will remain the same regardless of provider.

As an aside, you don't actually need the Openreach modem if you have a Smart Hub2, you can just move the grey cable from the DSL port on the modem and plug it into the DSL port on the SH2 and disconnect the Ethernet cable between modem and hub if you wish.

[NigelB72]

There could be a difference in speed if your new ISP has unbundled (LLU) at the exchange end, you could see a drop in speed. You could also expect to see a drop in service (fault repair) levels as some ISP's will have a lower maintenance package from Openreach. My in-laws are with another ISP on FTTC which is technically the same as we have but it's slower despite having the same advertised connection speed and they also had major issues with buck passing when they developed a simple fault. They're ISP kept blaming Openreach capacity issues when it turned out to be a noisy line due to water ingress during heavy rains 

[iniltous]

Its possible , that if your address is now covered by FTTP as well as your existing FTTC, and is in a copper stop sell area, then any attempt to switch provider, will require you to take FTTP .
Openreach can , in some circumstances, expect that any new ISP giving service has to use the FTTP network….there shouldn’t be any extra cost for the consumer, and you would need to be at home for the installation of the new ‘network’.
If someone in this situation doesn’t want the ‘hassle’ of a new installation, they pretty much have to stay with their current provider, perhaps it was this the PN representative was trying to explain

[licquorice]

@NigelB72 FTTC broadband doesn't come from LLU equipment in the exchange, it comes from the same DSLAM in the cabinet that all providers use.

The only thing that can affect speed between ISPs is DLM speed profile. Some ISPs use a super stable profile with 9dB or 6dB snrm target rather than 3dB but most use 3dB