Has anyone else been frustrated that we live so close to London (as you may remember, I showed we are closer to the City than Stratford, which is zone 2) yet have no option but to have BT as our broadband cable provider or Three as our 5G provider?
Should we not expect better?
It may be a hyper local issue, we use BT and 3 in honor oak, although BT fibre took some wrangling to get set up as their post code checker showed we werenāt eligible even though our neighbours were. If you are willing to invest some time and stress then contacting openreach may work for you too, they may just need to set up fibre to the premises, wiring your house to the nearest cabinet.
Hi Paul
Not sur what you mean, there are other providers other than BT (mostly on the Open Reach network though Virgin are seperate).
Is this FTTP or FTTC - we have the latter, with 2 different providers, and the speed is the same pretty much (as expected), but at present I guess so many people using it feeling the strain. Did oyu have to go to Open Reach or BT to get it done?
Thanks
Ours is FTTP, when we got here most of the street (including downstairs flat to us) could get FTTC just by signing up, but we could only get broadband over copper with a 14mb maximum. Openreach checker said fibre was ācoming to your area soonā or something like that. So we called Openreach and explained and they advised they could book in an installation for FTTP, no extra cost to us. We donāt pay for a super super fast package but have all the bandwidth we need and I donāt think it has dropped out once. You do need an extra box alongside your router and a small port installed in the wall but itās not a big deal, probably a 1hr job for the engineer.
I donāt know if you could opt in for this if you already have FTTC mind, I think it might be a happy upside of not having fibre broadband at all that you might then end up with FTTP.
We have 1 Gig cable with Virgin. For mobile, I believe the only provider around my house with 5G at the moment is EE. Iām with O2. They do have 5G on Forest Hill Road as I was pleasantly surprised to see the 5G symbol appear on my phone whilst walking near Camberwell Old Cemetery in November.
I have fttp with bt and itās fast, enough. Iām not complaining about that.
Iām just surprised that there are no other companies to choose from. You can, as others have said change to another provider over copper, but thatās not fibre broadband (or 5G) speeds.
I went to visit a friend in Harrogate a few years ago who had Virgin and it was incredibly fast. Much faster than I have now, and much much faster than I had at the time. He had a choice of BT fibre or Virgin. We donāt. Also, despite prominent masts, EE, O2 and Vodafone have left us in a 5G blackspot. I think Three has some sort of 5G coverage. But itās a surprisingly poor offer is my observation.
I would like to switch from BT on a point of principle but the free market hasnāt made it down here yet!
Ha sorry I totally misread your post! Yes we basically have the same setup.
EE claim 5G coverage across most of London and certainly Iām getting it around Forest Hill. You need a compatible phone and suitable SIM, though their flex SIMs seem to offer 5G without having to sign up to a long contact.
Honor Oak Park is where itās a 5g deadspot. āYouāll get weak coverage outdoors on 5G-enabled devicesā is what it says here https://coverage.ee.co.uk/coverage/ee
Maybe unrelated but lately Iāve noticed my EE reception has gone down the toilet at home in HOP.
Calls constantly cutting out
On the mobile front, there are pockets of SE
London that still donāt have a decent 3 or 4G signal, let alone 5G. Theyāve always responded to complaints by saying the neighbourhood topography doesnāt help propagate the signal.
I recently moved from Three to Virgin and my 4G download speeds (same device, same location,same time of day) went from 8 to 80Mbps. Still only shows 2 bars though and thereās a few spots in the Horniman Gardens where calls just donāt connect.
Virgin donāt seem to have a very comprehensive offering in SE23 for cable, sadly. Definitely not in the area close to HOP station.
I donāt understand why 5g is so poor in the area, especially along the major train tour between Croydon and London. Brockley and Forest Hill are red on this Vodafone coverage map, in stark contrast to the white of Honor Oak Park.
They might be finding it hard to put up new cell sites. This planning application recently got 77 comments, 76 objections, and was refused: 5G masts on corner of Blythe Vale & Perry Hill. It would have been 1.5km from Honor Oak Park, so within range of the mid-band spectrum typically being used for 5G here, depending on the exact contours of the land and transmit power.
With EE I get a 5G signal at Forest Hill Station, but it is very poor quality so that I often have to switch manually to 4G. That said, it isnāt appear that bad on the line to LBGā¦ and the signal is fairly good and strong on Sunderland Road.
Would really appreciate your advice on this. Iāve been emailing openreach and trying to get FTTP. Could i ask what number you called? Our neighbour upstairs has fibre and iām struggling to be able to work at the moment with our terrible internet!
That sounds like a similar situation to us. It was mostly arranged via email, via the address sifibreenquiriesmop@openreach.co.uk
If that doesnāt work, then tweeting them may also help!
Has anyone in HOP been using 5G regularly and has it been ok, and if so who are you with?
EE say you will get good coverage outdoors (not sure what that means for indoors thoughā¦) EE Coverage & Network Status Checker | Check your signal
Vodafone say limited coverage (below good outside and good in and out) https://www.vodafone.co.uk/network/status-checker
Virgin say the same as vodafone (map looks the same) https://www.virginmedia.com/mobile/coverage-checker
O2 say they donāt offer coverage https://www.o2.co.uk/coveragechecker
On the broadband front no FTTP via any OpenReach providers, and no Hyperoptic or Virgin etc to our house so stuck on today 14Mb download and less than 1Mb upload (it is normally slightly better than that but between 15-20 mb download).
I can report on Three, which also claims good outdoors and bad indoors.
Three (outdoors) 5g speed near Honor Oak Park station, is not reliable and when it does click on, on my dual SIM phone, the speed is less than O2 4G signal on the same phone. Three was from memory around 4Mbs compared to 100Mbs for 4G.
Given the 4G speed is faster than what youāre getting anyway, maybe you should look into that and keep fingers crossed that 5G gets here. I have checked O2 5G in Lordship Lane and got 350Mbs.
Iāve not had any issues outside with EE 5G around HOP, only issue is my house is a dead zone for any mobile signal.
Weāve got Sky fibre internet and 5G with EE. I live on Lowther Hill and whilst the signal indoors is poor, thatās probably because the house is very old with thick walls. Fine 5G signal in the garden. However, if I leave our house and go to the corner of Brockley View - 200 yards if that - I get no signal at all - not 5G, not 4G, not 3G, nothing.
