Gone Fibre Pro

An upgrade from Sky Fibre Unlimited (up to 38Mbps) to Sky Fibre Unlimited Pro (up to 76Mbps) took effect overnight.

When the order was placed, the estimated maximum download speed given was 56.9Mbps.

This is about what I was expecting, taking into account the distance from the cabinet (about 250 metres), according to this (taken from a thinkbroadband guide):

After rebooting the SR101 this morning, downstream sync speed has gone from 39998kbps to 61971kbps and upstream sync has gone from 9999kbps to 19999kbps.

Over the past 12 months, the average downstream throughput speed has been 37.67Mbps and the average upstream throughput speed has been 9.12Mbps on Sky Fibre Unlimited (as measured by the "Whitebox").

I'm waiting for SamKnows to update the profile of the "Whitebox" so that some proper results can be observed over the next few days, weeks, months!

Thanks to a retention deal though, the cost is unchanged for 12 months.

Happy 29th Birthday to Speedyrite Limited

29 years ago today, on the 1st April 1985, was the first day of my very first freelance contract assignment (at Tesco Stores plc in Welwyn Garden City) - and Speedyrite Limited commenced trading!

A lot has changed over those 29 years.

Mobile phones were in their infancy - they were about the size of a house brick and had quite a short battery life. Video cameras were massive and shot onto tape - I remember once seeing a Japanese tourist wheeling around what looked like a small car battery mounted on a trolley and connected by a long cable to his VCR camera! Now all replaced by a smartphone more powerful than the computer that sent astronauts to the moon.

Legacy application systems are still around though. The front end access to them may have changed though. Gone are the green screens (mostly), replaced by GUI front ends (not so much screen-scraping as there once was, now developed using more versatile tools). And, of course, access to all that data via a browser interface over the intranet & internet.

I'm still here though...

Sky high fibre broadband pricing!

Just been surveying the price of VDSL2 fibre broadband service, from what I consider to be the four leading mass-market providers in the UK, as I'm looking to maximise the value for money. Current provider is Sky on their "40/10" product.

I have ignored the cost of call packages and any one-off joining discounts, and I have assumed that both voice & data services will both be switched to the new provider (giving free activation in all cases, except BT Infinity 1 Unlimited which is £30).

First of all, the annualised cost of an "80/20" product:

VDSL2 “80/20”	Sky	BT	PlusNet	TalkTalk
Line Rental	£184.80	£141.00	£131.88	£141.00
Broadband	£360.00	£312.00	£239.88	£222.00
TOTAL	£544.80	£453.00	£371.76	£363.00
	* No Upfront LR

And the annualised cost of a "40/10" product:

VDSL2 “40/10”	Sky	BT	PlusNet	TalkTalk
Line Rental	£184.80	£141.00	£131.88	£141.00
Broadband	£240.00	£276.00	£191.88	£162.00
TOTAL	£424.80	£417.00	£323.76	£303.00
	* No Upfront LR			* BB is “40/2”

In both cases, there's quite a big cost difference between my current provider and the cheapest mass-market provider.

If I wanted to stay on a "40/10" product, I would from £100 to £120 a year just by switching to another provider.

If I move up from the "40/10" product to the "80/20" product with Sky, it will cost me £120 a year more than it does now.

But if I switch to another provider's "80/20" product, it will save me at least £53 a year over the cost of my "40/10" product from Sky - and I will get higher throughput speed!

Sky high fibre broadband pricing!

Year 1 of Fibre Broadband Performance Measurement

Here are the results of the first year's performance measurement using a SamKnows "Whitebox"on a Sky Fibre Unlimited VDSL2 (FTTC) broadband connection.

Analysis of the Monthly Report Card results from SamKnows gives the average download throughput as 37.67Mbps.

Analysis of the Monthly Report Card results from SamKnows gives the average upload throughput as 9.12Mbps.