'Free' Full Fibre Upgrade?

[symmetry]

Just received a letter from BT saying my home phone service is going to be updated and that I will be moved over to Digital Voice. I have no real problem with that other than it will involve a engineer visit plus a DV adapter if I want to keep my existing telephone (which I do).

However, what intrigues me is this, I currently have 'Halo 1' BT broadband giving me 70(D)/16(U) and in this letter it tells me "To support the transition, your broadband will be upgraded, for free, to Full Fibre"... it goes on to say "it will be "Up to 25x faster than Superfast Fibre with up to 10x faster upload speeds" and "Your Full Fibre upgrade and new home phone service comes at no extra cost to you". 

Sounds great, but in my experience there is no such thing as a free lunch, so what's the catch? 

1. I'll have to switch to using a BT router? I'm happy with my current Synology router. For my work I have to VPN into any one of 25-30 client companies, sometimes multiple connections concurrently using VMs and I have zero issues with the current router. Is it possible to just use the BT router to manage the physical connection (disabling its Wi-Fi) and to daisy chain my Synology router off a WAN port on it and leave it managing the home network as before?
2. I'm assuming they are going to cap my connection because why would they give me much faster broadband when they can charge me for it or tie me in to a new contract? I've been 'out of contract' probably for over a decade (I got BT Infinity 'Unlimited' back in 2013) and despite numerous rebranding exercises I've never signed up to anything new.
3. My current master phone socket is in the sitting room downstairs, and when the engineer originally did the BT Infinity installation, he was really accomodating and ran a cable from there up (through the loft) and down to my study at the back of the house where I work, i.e. where my computer, BT Openreach modem and router are. I'm wondering whether the upgraded install can use that existing cable or more likely, they'll say they can't do it? Incidentally, my computer, NAS drives, etc., are all hard-wired ethernet connections to my router. I only use Wi-Fi for my phone and a couple of accessories.

This supposed free upgrade sounds great but in reality could mean a complete b*ll-ache for me in having to relocate equipment and/or change my current router. Is there light at the end of this tunnel?

[Keith_Beddoe]

@symmetry 

Are you a business user?

[symmetry]

Afraid not. I get reimbursed by my employer for my monthly broadband cost, but it's my name on the bill so to BT I'm a Joe Public user. If my connection goes down (as it has done in the past) I travel in to my local office to work.

[iniltous · Accepted solution]

A free upgrade to FTTP will be keeping your existing speed profile , so in your case Fibre 2 , you will get a slight bump in performance because FTTP will give you the headline speed 80Mb not 70Mb download and 20Mb not 16Mb upload as there is no reduction dependent on the distance you are from the cabinet ….obviously something you would have the option to do , that you don’t have with FTTC , is taking a higher speed upto 1Gb ( sold as 900Mb ) possibly 1.6Gb if an EE customer but his is optional , you can stay on F2 .

You need to use the SH2 router if you use BT telephony as the service is via the phone port on the BT router , if you don’t use telephony it’s irrelevant, however you existing router can be used as well as the BT SH2 , if connected appropriately , the SH2 doing the telephony and your router doing everything else.

[Keith_Beddoe]

I get reimbursed by my employer for my monthly broadband cost

@symmetry 

That`s a pity, as some companies pay for a proper business grade service, which has better performance and a fast repair time, sounds like they are trying to do it on the cheap, and  against the residential T&Cs which forbid business usage. It a very grey area.

[symmetry]

Well that's answered one issue in that I should be able to continue using my Synology router and leave the SH to manage just the physical connection.

Also noted regards connection speeds when moved to FTTP. Have to say that the letter from BT could have made it clear that to benefit from faster speeds the customer will have to renegotiate, and presumably get tied into a new contract.

As for how my employer reimburses me, I'm not surprised what they do is a bit shady! What's more, they always pay expenses about 4 weeks after they are incurred, so the company effectively has an ongoing interest free loan from its employees!