Fibre Optic cables, do they make any/much difference?

[salymap]

My telegraph connection in the next road is being updated by BT with Fibre optic cables so will be off line and phone for a time.

Do they make any difference to the quality of emails etc?
BT are asking for a massive rise in charges, and after all it won't affect the rest of the computer which is very slow too. Any opinions welcome.

[MrGongGong]

My telegraph connection in the next road is being updated by BT with Fibre optic cables so will be off line and phone for a time.

Do they make any difference to the quality of emails etc?
BT are asking for a massive rise in charges, and after all it won't affect the rest of the computer which is very slow too. Any opinions welcome.

Quality of emails ?
do you mean Content, Grammar or Spelling ?

[Dave2002]

Salymap

Your emails will all now be written to you using cursive writing, and in the style of Jane Austen. Outgoing mail will be in the style of Shakespeare, with "f"s substituted for "s"s.

I don't see how BT can force you to pay a big price hike because they're upgrading their infrastructure. However I would expect it to make quite a difference to the speed of your connection, with much improved performance. Technically that should be the case.

I'd query why you have to be singled out to pay for it though, unless you've asked to have the work done.

[french frank]

My telegraph connection in the next road is being updated by BT with Fibre optic cables so will be off line and phone for a time.

Do they make any difference to the quality of emails etc?
BT are asking for a massive rise in charges, and after all it won't affect the rest of the computer which is very slow too. Any opinions welcome.

I have gone over to BT's fibre optic, erm, thing (technical term). The BT package should give you faster downloads, if you download a lot of pictures or audio files.

As mentioned on another thread, I have a better wireless connection throughout my house now, both for my laptop and my desktop - which I previously had to keep connecting with an ethernet cable. They said it would be more reliable and it is. For you, it's a matter of the increased cost set against whether you'll have much benefit, or, Are you very impatient with internet speeds at the moment?

As you say, it won't speed up your computer ...


Edit: I was given a choice as to whether I wanted to upgrade.

[Frances_iom]

My telegraph connection in the next road is being updated by BT with Fibre optic cables so will be off line and phone for a time.

Do they make any difference to the quality of emails etc?
BT are asking for a massive rise in charges, and after all it won't affect the rest of the computer which is very slow too. Any opinions welcome.

Unless you use iPlayer for TV or are a downloader of pirated videos etc I suspect you will see little no no benefit from any upgrade - if your computer is slow (I presume from that old) then even less reason to upgrade - and if things go wrong (which after anyupgrade they most certainly will) getting support from BT is a right pain.

[Lateralthinking1]

.....but not necessarily as much of a pain as one or two other ISPs I could mention. On slowness, my father has Vista. It seems to go at half the speed of my XP next door. Truly awful.

[aeolium]

my father has Vista

Unquestionably the worst operating system ever devised by man. It should have been called 'Vasta' (Waste) or even 'Vasto' (I lay waste), though I'm sure it has been called many unprintable names by its unfortunate users.

[Frances_iom]

Unquestionably the worst operating system ever devised by man. It should have been called 'Vasta' (Waste) or even 'Vasto' (I lay waste), though I'm sure it has been called many unprintable names by its unfortunate users.

no that belongs to another MicroSoft O/S Win-ME
the catch is that you have a corrupt company with illegal market resticting agreements with manufacturers that make it unprofitable for the manufacturers to offer any alternatives - Vista was a pain (+ installed on many machines that did not meet the specs needed) - I'd suggest installing a Linux variant eg MINT

[salymap]

Quality of emails ?
do you mean Content, Grammar or Spelling ?

I suppose I mean speed mostly.

[salymap]

Oh dear, I AM on Vista but a friend who has updated to Windows 7 says it is no better. And I have not been targetted for £30 a month extra, they are phoning all BT customers and enclosing bumf with bills. I aim to keep my costs down as a fairly hard up oldie but if it speeded up Windows Internet Explorer, which is "not responding" on a daily basis, that might save my temper a little. It's here for us but we don't getit unless we pay more. I'm inclined to leave things as they are. Thanks for replies.

[Dave2002]

salymap

How old is your machine, and how much memory and disk space does it have?

I think most MS OS are "the pits" - to use some common vernacular, but nevertheless it is possible to get them working better. Maybe you need to clean out files and do other things, force it to defragment etc., in order to speed it up. That way you'll spend a day or two cleaning it up, and then it should last .... er.... at least a week at a higher speed.

If you're used to it, even though I'm pretty sure that one of the Linux variants would be a lot faster, then you might find it easier to stick with it. There are also ways of getting Linux installed as well as Windows, but I suspect you won't want to be bothered with those as a bit technical. You can see what a Linux system, such as Ubuntu would look like from one of the Magazines, such as Linux format, using a so-called live disk - which just works from inside Windoze.

[salymap]

Dear Dave, Remember you trying to get me to sort out the Audacity thing? Apart from saying computer,[my first since IBM System 34 at work, big as a house,] was purchased in September 2007 I can't answer the other questions. Several experts, profs and family can't do the fragmentation thing on it, so as long as I can do what I need to do I shall carry on. Quite proud that I listen on nearly a daily basis to live concerts from Paris that I found for myself. I do have a good external Seagate Hard Drive now though. Bestwishes

[scottycelt]

We switched over to Infinity a month ago and the difference in download and upload speeds is significant. Whereas with normal copper cabling our maximum download speed was 6 meg I now regularly get up to 40 meg. The biggest difference will be noticed by those who live furthest from their local BT Exchange as installing fibre optic cable to to the street cabinet is a bit like moving the Exchange to there, at least as far as broadband is concerned! As we are two miles from our own, the change has been well worth it.

Dave is so right about Linux and especially Ubuntu. This marvellous OS is easy-to-use, user-friendly, about ten times faster than Vista, viruses are almost unheard of, and what's more it's free. The old problem of finding Linux drivers for some devices has greatly dissipated in recent years.

However, for many people it might simply be advisable to stick with the devil they know. I was once harangued by a friend who chided me for introducing him to Ubuntu because 'it isn't anything like Windows'

[salymap]

Scotty I mostly stick with the devil I know because I have discovered that there is no such thing as a real computer expert. They know what they know, sometimes they are trying to sell you something, sometimes not but the next person will disagree with their solutions. I started too late with this game....

[scottycelt]

Scotty I mostly stick with the devil I know because I have discovered that there is no such thing as a real computer expert. They know what they know, sometimes they are trying to sell you something, sometimes not but the next person will disagree with their solutions. I started too late with this game....

Me too, saly ... and how right you are about computer 'experts', though I suppose those are little different from any other sort of 'expert' ?

Best treated with the greatest of suspicion !