Broadband speeds in Stone are set to get turbo charged with the rollout of BT’s fibre-optic network.
Known as Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC), BT Openreach enabled the Stone exchange last week for fibre broadband services. The rollout across Stone has seen the addition of new fibre-optic cabinets that sit alongside the existing green cabinets that currently serve our phone and ADSL services.
Virgin have had high-speed broadband in the area for a while now but for those houses not covered by Virgin’s network it’s soon going to be possible to get these faster speeds to more of the town.
If you switch to a fibre broadband provider such as BT, Plusnet or Sky, your internet connection from the main Stone exchange will be over fibre optic cable to your connected cabinet where it will be then patched back to the existing telephone cable infrastructure.
The Stone exchange’s fibre-optic network can provide speeds of up to 80Mbps as opposed to ADSL, which typically tops out at 16Mbps in ideal circumstances.
The rollout of enabling the various street-based cabinets will now commence and once your cabinet has been enabled you’ll be able to order fibre broadband.
To check your cabinet’s likely maximum speeds then check out this link https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/main.html
If you’d like to check the current speed you’re receiving then check out SpeedTest.net and share with us your results.
Here’s mine on Aston Lodge :
5.33Mbps Download 0.99Mbps Upload on 02 ADSL, soon to be migrated to Sky.
I’m certainly going to be upgrading to fibre as soon as it’s available!
7 comments
Tricia
Moddershall on cabinet 19 Radford street supposed to get 8 now it has been upgraded guess what only get just over 1 download and 0.34 upload on ping 52 we are supposed to be considered in phase 2 left out completely from phase 1. We are still in the 1900s with our cable. This is not fair we deserve the same as the others fed up of our village being ignored.
Jim
Upgraded to fibre 3 days ago and download / upload speed as follows.
74.34 Mbps download, 18.51 Mbps upload.
This is at Walton and I believe it takes 10 days to settle down.
Nick
Most of Aston Lodge is on cable.
I regularly get nearly 60Mbps download with 3Mbps upload!
However that is with Virgin and they are notorious for restricting bandwidth at peak times. I have just run a speed test and I’m only getting half of the above.
BT do not restrict users so if you can us BT’s fibre optics then that would be my choice.
Ian Procter
Hilderstone Exchange is not currently in BT’s commercial plans for Fibre Broadband. However, it looks like it should be coming as part the Staffordshire Council funded roll-out. Take a look at https://www.superfaststaffordshire.co.uk/
Rob
Thanks Ian! I’ve checked it out and it looks like it may be upgraded sometime in 2015. At least it’s not a No.
Liz
mine is only 2.8 download and 0.77Mbps upload in North Walton. We’re with BT but want a faster speed so may or may not migrate.
Rob Malkin
I hope the Hilderstone exchange gets upgraded as the broadband here is awfully slow.