back to article Be chums offer 1Gbit/s fibre-to-the-premises in London

A new ISP arrived today courtesy of Be Broadband's founders, offering extremely speedy fibre connections. However the telco currently has very limited reach to some larger residential and commercial properties in London. Hyperoptic is offering 1 Gbit/s fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) to some homes and businesses in the capital …

COMMENTS

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  1. Jon Massey
    Thumb Up

    Are those symmetric?

    If so, that's some stonkingly good value!

    1. Ragarath
      WTF?

      Proof of the pudding

      Or it once again proves that BT are offering up rubbish. If they can deliver it at those prices why cant the huge sprawling mass that is BT?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Depends what the transfer allowance is.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      If thats the case

      ..expect some Pirate Bay servers in London :)

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Indeed...

      But at those speeds the upstream capacity becomes very important.

      You only have to see the severe throttling BT feel compelled to impose with their infinity product on certain protocols to see that ISPs are seriously overselling their capacity.

    5. Ben 5
      Go

      According to the FAQs on their website (www.hypersonic.com) the 20Mb product is 1Mb up, but the 100Mb and 1Gb products are symmetrical. Not sure why they bother with the bottom rung product given the other two; I guess it helps get lots of subscribers onboard in a single building which makes putting the fibre in viable.

      1. Paul Kerton
        Thumb Up

        URL Mistake

        Their URL is actually http://www.hyperoptic.com/ - not as previously mentioned www.hypersonic.com.

        HTH

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wow!

    That's twice the bandwidth for less than half the costs compared to the service I get from Virgin... sounds like excellent value for money.

    When can I sign up!

  3. Tony Carter-Inman
    Thumb Up

    Hotel broadband will just about become usable...

    It's currently quicker & cheaper to use my T-Mobile dongle in the hotel than connect to their in-room 'super fast broadband' at £5/hour (or £24/day).

    Even if they've got a 100 room hotel, they'd be making money even if they only charged £1/day/room.

    When can I get it!

  4. myhandle
    Thumb Up

    Cool

    But can they make a statement guaranteeing no packet shaping or filtering ?

  5. Asgard
    Joke

    Major acronym overload Batman

    My brain finds FTTP distracting. Its like the Acronyms FTP mixed with HTTP. :)

    My brain hurts, am I the only one?

    Joking aside, I would so love to have a 1GBit connection. :)

  6. Jacqui

    perhaps they should

    get the website working before they do a press release?

    A "register-interest service is not yet available" message does not give a good impression of competence.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Shady website

      Yes after an optimistic start, I just tried the website (would have helped if the article linked to them) and clicked on the button to see if I can get it.

      Several pages of forms followed, which start titled "Can you go Hyperoptic? Find out now" and gradually morph into a process harvesting your full name, address, telephone and email, under the title of "Register your interest - join the campaign for fibre to your building!". Very misleading, and not answering the initial question - Can I get this ISP?

      At that point I aborted and left trusting the new company less than the Be they used to run. I'll keep watching them but wait for a bit of word-of-mouth from early adopters before signing up.

  7. LPF

    Where do I sign up??

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The download limit (if any) for that

    had better be on the order of terabytes.

  9. Stu_The_Jock
    Facepalm

    nice speeds

    But if they use normal UK terms you'll use your months 'fair use' quota in 10 seconds . . .

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If something looks too good to be true...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      O² to B²

      Ordinarily, I'd think the same. However, purely because it's the old be people, I'm interested.

      I'm a happy old Be customer, but I only get about 6mbps due to BT's line made largely out of compressed milk bottle tops and damp sawdust.

      BT keep (what I can only describe as) harassing me over Infinity, but I won't go to them out of principle. And as much as I'm still happy with Be, it's clearly just O2 under another name now, with all the good management and tech people all gone.

      So if the old team can do it all over again, I'm up for it.

      But that's a big 'if'. I remember after the family who built up Pipex into an outstanding ISP sold it for 30 pieces of silver, they tried to launch a new ISP, and even posted on the Pipex newsgroups blatantly asking how many people they could rely on poaching, but it never lived up to the old Pipex. I don't even know if it's still going.

      So... Yes, I would switch from 6mbps/£18 Be to 20mbps/£12.50 Hyperwotsit, but cautiously.

      Conversely, I'd rather work for a year at the minimum wage as Paris Hilton's fluffer than go to BT Infinity. I'd like to get rid of BT as a phone line supplier too, if Hyperwotsit can offer me that while they're at it.

  11. Oli 1
    Mushroom

    bring it on!

  12. Chad H.

    *Want*

    Can someone *please* nationalise BT and sell it to these guys?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Why do you think they will buy it?

      Why do you think they will buy it?

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Never mind the speed, feel the bandwidth limits.

    And what are the bandwidth limits?

    It's all very well offering a 1Gbit service when you could plough through your bandwidth allocation in no time at all. Some providers are offering fibre services but are taking the sneaky opportunity to lower their download limits. Indeed that's one of the reasons I've opted to stay on standard ADSL2 for now. It may not be as fast, but at least it won't end up costing me more.

  14. phear46

    property value

    Is pay more for fiber connections, or to be close to the Exchange. No doubt.

  15. BFG
    Meh

    What isn't said is just as important

    "The company's initial strategy for rolling out its tech appears to be relying on large residential buildings such as blocks of flats to sign up to its FTTP offerings."

    So the cynic in me says this will be a single 1Gb pipe shared amongs multiple (10's or 100's?) of flats...

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Optional but relevant

    Well if it means anything Be was and is one of the few that do no traffic shaping and with no traffic limits.

    Now if we could just get 100MB/s to the home, not just the large apartment building and I'd be happy.

  17. Ben 5
    Happy

    Read the FAQs

    It's worth reading the FAQs (http://www.hyperoptic.com/web/guest/faq) - which state:

    Q: Do you "traffic shape" or throttle your connections?

    A: No. We don't restrict the flow of our online traffic at all.

    Q: Do you have a traffic management policy?

    A: We prioritise our voice service over other data traffic to ensure a consistent and reliable voice service.

    So it's an unthrottled, unshaped connection but VoIP traffic gets a higher priority.

  18. IonU

    Be have always been good to be re download limits

    I've been with Be for a few years now and have never had any problems with download limits.

    One day alone I got through 180 GB. No nasty email just service as normal. I only wish the town I live in had fibre and Be was avaiable at 1GB.

  19. hexx

    Original Be was excellent. Been with them for almost 4 years. Now I live somewhere else and am waiting for Sky to connect us - i feel crippled without net. Shame my flatmates want TV and I'm sure they'll enjoy it for first 2-3 weeks and then it will be business as usual, freeview channels and net only. Oh well

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