Upgrade from Legacy FTTC to New EE Full Fibre

[XRaySpeX]

I recently upgraded my legacy EE Fibre Plus plan (FTTC 80 Meg) to New EE Full Fibre 150 (FTTP 150 Meg), but could just as well have been any Full Fibre up to at least 1 Gig. It all went smoothly as to be hoped & expected.

In early Dec. 2024 I ordered the upgrade & EE booked an Openreach (OR) engineer to install it on 30th.Dec. He promptly arrived then in an OR van also marked with C.J.Quinn, so I don't know whether he was really OR but he did do a neat efficient job.

He laid my new fibre cable overhead from the telephone pole in parallel to my existing separate landline about a foot apart to my roof area, than vertically down to near ground level to a small grey external box & then horizontally to a entry point he drilled close to where my existing landline enters. On the inside he fitted a 1 Gig ONT resulting in this setup:

Once I hooked up the SH+ (SH32B) sent me beforehand I speed tested it at ThinkBroadBand to get sync speeds of 150/30 Meg as it has been since. I confirmed with the engineer that all was satisfactory & he left.

It took about 2 weeks before my legacy FTTC line was cut off. So for a time I was running 2 BBs, FTTC & FTTP, thro' 2 different routers.

I am longer using the SH+ but am using my original BrightBox 2 because I know it can reach all the places I want it to reach, all my devices recognise it without change & it is functionally stronger than the SH+. The only thing missing is IPv6 but I can live without that..

[Minkey1]

Thanks Jim @JimM11 

So, someone like me, moving across to EE last October, new SH+, 2 new smart extenders, wifi controls via the app (once they’d got it going for me) - would I be on legacy or new?

[Matt_124]

That's New EE that you're on @Minkey1.

New EE Packages started being sold towards the end of 2023 I believe and it is very much built on top of the BT Broadband stack so the products are similarly named with broadly the same speeds and guarantees.

Legacy EE Broadband is a system which preceeded the BT&EE merger. It offered Standard, Fibre and Full Fibre broadband with the option of a standard analogue landline with no support for Digital Voice. A similar system was used since the days of Orange, as some people managed to keep some of their "free standard broadband for life" packages going on there until very recently (which originated before Fibre was commonplace so were horrendously slow and had to start paying again to upgrade).

It was very much "No Frills" Broadband and the converged benefits for broadband and mobile aren't as strong as New EE. 

[JimM11]

@Minkey1 You are new EE for certain, think after the EE Smarthub(2023) model, but for sure anyone 2024 onwards will be new.... Easy to prove if HELP to 66033 as a text starts of the testing, new is 100%.

The legacy customers are just a little restricted at present, once EE sort out all the issues then like BT to EE migration, there will be a Legacy to new EE migration also, nightmares in the pipeline no doubt, always the Forum see's the worst, know what i mean.🤔

[Schockwave]

@JimM11 , I am still on a legacy broadband, not tried upgrading, as do not want all the hassle , I have a Netgear router, it is several years old, would not mind having more speed, but do not want to pay more than I already do, my sister is the same, but not sure what her speeds are, she is two hours or more away from me.

[JimM11]

@Schockwave You are quite right, and newer is not all that it's cut up to be, also can bring more issue's to deal with.👍

[Minkey1]

Thanks guys @Matt_124 @JimM11 

Good to know the background.

[XRaySpeX]

@Mustrum : I have not noticed any difference in day to day performance or latency. I have not used TBB's BB Quality Monitor for ages but now it looks like this:

There are few spikes during the day.

[XRaySpeX]

@Minkey1 : My BB is too fast! 😉 I was quite satisfied with 20 Meg ADSL. I could still stream TV over WiFi to a TV in the Lounge across the hall. I never had the need to use WiFi extenders in a largish house. However due to various factors I have upgraded thro' 40 Meg & 80 Meg FTTC & now to 150 Meg FTTP.

[XRaySpeX]

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@Minkey1 wrote:

What is “legacy to new EE”?

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Basically the BB EE sold to new custs before & after about Sept. 2023.

• Legacy EE BB: Came with routers up to the original Smart Hub & the white Smart Router for G.Fast. It did provide all BB types, ADSL, VDSL, G.Fast & Full Fibre. All routers were generally fully configurable thro' the routers themselves. Landlines, if taken from EE, were analogue.
• New EE BB: Comes with routers starting from the Smart Hub (2023) (SH20A) onwards. It provides VDSL FTTC as well as Full Fibre but does not include G.Fast or probably not ADSL. Its routers are dumbed down & intended to be further configurable by a problematical app. It also provides a better fault reporting & testing by text. Landlines, if taken from EE, would be DV if available.

In essence for VDSL & Full Fibre there is no diff between the BB connection itself.

[Mustrum]

@XRaySpeX  looking at the TBB graph, not much traffic to notice any difference so far. But will be interesting to see how it goes.