How fast is my exchange

This is our most reliable, fastest broadband with a pure fibre optic cable straight into your home or business. Fibre to the Cabinet increases basic broadband speeds by connecting powerful fibre optic cable to the cabinet, then copper wires to your home or business. Basic broadband access uses a copper phone line connected to the exchange. Watch our video about different connection types.

According to the national Infrastructure Commission, Full Fibre has five times fewer faults than copper connections. Read the Cebr research report. About Community Fibre Partnerships. View all News and Opinion. Where and when we're building. Modern slavery statement. About Engineer Appointments. Make a Complaint. Cookies and Privacy. We use cookies to bring you a great browsing experience - and to find ways to make it even better.

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The longer your wire, the noisier it will be. If you're a long way from the exchange, there's probably a lot of noise on your line, which is why your speeds are… let's charitably say 'less than adequate'. Distance from the exchange isn't the only reason your broadband speed may be slow - the quality of wiring in your house, number of people sharing the broadband infrastructure on your street, and interference from electrical equipment will also contribute.

It's definitely a biggie though - but luckily there are a few things you could try to work around the issue. If you live some distance from the telephone exchange, here are a few suggestions on what you can do:. Speed can be affected by a range of technical and environmental factors. The speed you receive where you live may be lower than that listed above.

You can check the estimated speed to your property prior to purchasing. Another option - if fibre is unavailable - would be to go with a low-cost package from a provider like Plusnet or Post Office.

You'll still get rubbish speeds, as they share the same infrastructure as BT, but your monthly bills will be less. See our favourite cheap broadband deals here. The further your property is from the local street cabinet, the slower your connection is likely to be. But before you take drastic action and put your house on the market, here are a few suggestions as to what you can do to improve your snail-pace broadband. If you are suffering from painfully slow broadband speeds one reason could be that your property is a very long way from your nearest exchange or streetside cabinet.

This is particularly the case if you are on a standard broadband connection rather than a fibre connection. Standard broadband runs on copper wiring which causes degradation to the signal over long distances.

If you experience crackling and interference on your phone line when making a call on your landline, this is most likely to be the reason why. The interference you hear on your phone line is also the reason your broadband connection is likely to be slow. Type in your landline number and postcode and you will be shown where your local cabinet and exchange are in relation to your home and the speeds you can expect to get. There are several things you can do to improve your broadband speed if you live a long way from your local exchange or street cabinet, from switching to a fibre broadband package to using a 4G connection to get online.

If you currently have an ADSL or standard broadband service, you should consider making the switch to fibre if it is available to you. Fibre cables run all the way to the local cabinet and provide far faster download speeds than ADSL. The final stretch from the cabinet to your home is still connected by copper cables, but the overall speed is likely to be better. You can see what fibre broadband deals are available in your area by using our fibre broadband comparison page.

Virgin Media runs on its own network of cables and does not use copper telephone cabling at all. There are a few main reasons why your internet is slow, the most common being problems with your router, poor Wi-Fi signal, or too many devices running on a slower broadband connection.

This depends on the type of broadband you're using. ADSL broadband is a shared service. Therefore, the more people who are using it, the slower it will be. The amount of people using a broadband connection in an area affects what's known as the contention ratio, which is the number of people using the area's telephone exchange compared to the coping capacity the exchange has for those connections. Most people using broadband in their homes use their computers in the evening, so connections tend to be a lot slower at these peak hours i.

The best time to use broadband at its fastest is between 12am and 8am when most people are sleeping. Fibre broadband using full fibre or fibre-to-the-premises FTTP technology is unaffected by distance from the exchange since the fibre connection goes directly to your building or home. Not everyone has access to FTTP fibre, though — many users are still on fibre to the cabinet FTTC technology, which is still affected by your location and how far away you are from the "cabinet" on your street, but location affects cable connections less than ADSL connections.

While both cable options are more consistent alternatives to ADSL, they are still impacted by the number of people using the service at peak periods. We use cookies and similar technologies. You can use the settings below to accept all cookies which we recommend to give you the best experience or to enable specific categories of cookies as explained below.

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