Ultrafast Gfast fibre available??

[mezjohn]

Hi,

Just looking on the open reach website, and searching my postcode it says Ultrafast Fibre Fast is now available in my exchange and my street cabinet number.

However when searching TalkTalk site for the ultrafast speeds, it say not in my area.

Any one know if this GFast can be accessed via TalkTalk.

(ive currently got 68meg speed with TT)

Thanks,

john

[Gondola]

Hi @mezjohn 

G.fast from TalkTalk is not available at every location where Openreach have installed G.fast cabinet equipment. Faster 150 Fibre is the article to look at for the locations where TalkTalk are actively providing G.Fast connections.

Put your postcode into the Faster 150 Fibre availability checker. If you’re eligible, you’ll be able to call to place your order.

[mezjohn]

Thanks for the quick reply. 

Yes it was the faster fibre 150 link which told me it is currently not available to me.

I just did not understand why, if the Gfast technology was already installed in my postcode cabinet.

Is it because TT use a different technology for openreach or was it just someone at TT needed up click a button? (if you know what I mean?)

[Gondola]

Hi @mezjohn 

G.fast from TalkTalk is not available at every location where Openreach have installed G.fast cabinet equipment.  It's that simple.  TalkTalk have a generic agreement with Openreach for connection of customers to Ultrafast broadband services but have a specific roll-out plan for the named locations. Locations have been added to the initial launch of G.fast and I'm sure more will follow. 

[saltwaterc]

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@Gondola wrote:

G.fast from TalkTalk is not available at every location where Openreach have installed G.fast cabinet equipment.

---

That's reasonable compared to what TalkTalk's salespeople said over the phone. A phone number was returned when I punched in my postcode and address. They said it is unavailable, but they'll come back with a callback. Eventually, they came back with a callback, they were confused and transferred me to another team, then the absurdity of the conversation that has followed can't be reproduced. Now the website claims that it is unavailable at my address, but you're the first person to provide a proper reason.

TalkTalk's salespeople insisted that my line doesn't support G.fast, they insisted on the fact that the best I can get is 67Mbps as my line doesn't support more than that, and that Openreach, BT, EE, and Zen don't know what they're saying as they're trying to sell me a service that can not be delivered. This is despite BT actively advertising their Ultrafast plans at my address following their introduction in August last year and I've made TalkTalk's salespeople aware of this.

In the mean time, I have cancelled my TalkTalk order and decided to keep my G.fast order (placed before the callback) as there have been other bits of misinformation TalkTalk salespeople have supplied before placing the order and that has voided the contract in my books.

The actual situation in the field: my line supports up to 285 Mbps download and 73 Mbps upload, per the data testing device the Openreach engineer has used to install my G.fast service. So that's quite a bit more that what TalkTalk's salespeople have claimed.

Perhaps it would be in everybody's interest for them to be informed about this aspect rather than misrepresenting facts to get a sale which subsequently got cancelled after I've gathered more actual information.

[ferguson]

That's an interesting post @saltwaterc  and thank you for sharing your experience.

Sadly it shows how BT Openreach are insistent on sweating their copper assets to the nth degree before getting on with the real job of FTTP.

[saltwaterc]

@ferguson That's what the OR engineer kind of said - providing some middle ground until the FTTP rollout, but I'm not holding my breath. My humble opinion is that both OR and Virgin are just polishing a certain brown substance by milking everything they can from their copper lines, but that's a consequence for lack of healthy competition in the market. Gigaclear stick to the grants and rural areas. Hyperoptic aren't interested unless it's a reasonably large new development. TalkTalk and Sky got the right idea with UFO, but that's still York only and I don't see a national rollout happening any time soon.

Up until recently, Virgin was the only reasonable option for me, but even that is still more than a decade behind the actual times. For all the Internet connections bar UFO, I should be getting close to gigabit capacity for the actual price paid, taking into considerations what a healthy market looks like, the current price of technology, and the cost of living. There's no excuse that only now they are starting to do what they should have done a decade ago.

[ferguson]

Yep, totally agree. It used to be how randomly lucky you were to be close enough to the exchange for ADSL broadband, paying the same whether you got 20 meg or 2. Now it's how close you are lucky enough to be to your nearest cabinet, although at least there is a moderate level of differential pricing.

Virgin may be a good option if they happen to operate in your area and are prepared to pay their extortionate rates. What an opportunity missed that was all those years ago though when the Thatcher government decided to leave things to "the market," which duly decided and swallowed myriad local cable operators into one. 

So here we are, the world's fifth largest economy apparently, with a 19th/20th century communication system. Marvellous.