Aluminium cable and Infinity

I'm not on Infinity yet, but the Infinity checker telles me I'll be due on 31st December! My question relates to the cable from the cabinet to my home. I am assuming that the fibre optic cable only goes to the cabinet. I believe (having spoken with an ex-BT engineer who was employed when my estate was being built) that the underground cabling is aluminium rather than copper and that aluminium is very poor when it comes to broadband - hence my diabolical speeds at the moment. What I would like to know is whether the aluminium cable will render the change to Infinity pointless. At the moment I get around 1.5mbps - and that only since BT upgraded the exchange. Does anyone have experience or knowledge of this?

Just as a guide. My line to the cab is aluminium (laid early 1980's). When I was having "issues" with my previous broadband, OR did some extensive testing. The loss to the cabinet was 9db, and then another 51db back to the exchange. So overall my line was around 60db loss. Add a noise margin of 15db onto this, and I was lucky to see 1 meg. The line to the cabinet was also very noisey, and so the DLM used to stick me at around 135k-160k for weeks on end, until I managed to convince someone to get it to re-train. Then I would get 1-3 megs, dropping to 1, and then back to sub 0.5megs. I had lift and shift, etc, to no avail.
Moved to O2 LLU, and was getting a very respectful 3.5 megs with a NM of 3db (got lots of disconnects, but no DLM to stick its nose in and drop to a "stable" speed).
Now on Infinity, and I get 37.5 over ethernet (sometimes a bit more). Just great.
Using wireless (and "g" as well!), I get around 20 megs, which drops to around 15megs when everyone comes home and starts up. But, in reality, makes no difference to my internet use.
Very very pleased with the "uplift", and apart from problems which have beset the whole network over the last couple of weeks (not just BT), the speeds and stability have been wonderful. Can't fault it. Option 2, unlimited - brilliant.
Oh yes, the best bit, 10 megs upload, and I get about 9meg, is just great. If you move photos and music around (I use DropBox for sharing preliminary mixes of locally recorded music), then life is SO SO much better.
Cheers,
Rob
PS Have a HH3 type B

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I have had Infinity for 12 months and have had speeds issues since day 1.
I now have dropped to 6MB down and have never exceeded .5MB up (not a typo 1/2 of 1 MB up)
The problem is due to Aluminium cable between my house and the FTC. BT wont replace the cable so I will never get the promised speed.
How can I get a stable service and what is the policy on these old cables as I am sure a copper connection will resolve the issues.
This weekend a BT engineer will visit my house and probably lift a few man holes and re-terminate the cables which will result in speeds of upto 15MB if I am lucky which will last for a few weeks or until heavy rain. At that point it will revert to 6MB.
Any advise greatly received.
Peter

peterdavies wrote:
Thanks to everyone for the helpful comments.
Quick update - Open Reach came on Saturday and confirmed the speed was 6MB and did a test that showed a sync speed of 10MB was obtainable.
They then left it at the original Sync speed of 6MB since they said it would just degrade again.
They have raised the cable as a fault but I get the impression that the only way to get the cable replaced is if someone steals the existing one. The post code for anyone wanting Aluminum is BH24 2LG.
Does not seem much point in Open Reach investing in high speed services if the old infrastructure destroys the benefits.
Probably going to switch to Sky broadband to see if a new line service will improve the speed since it will be a different pair of wires and maybe different equipment?
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Using the BT wholesale checker my telephone number result .-
Our test also indicates that your line currently supports a fibre technology with an estimated WBC FTTC Broadband where consumers have received downstream line speed of 26.6Mbps and upstream line speed of 11.1Mbps.
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My results over wireless "n" came out as THIS. (My upload is capped due the option of Infinity I am on).
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But lets face it your checker estimate is much higher than mine so I would hope so.
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So think of it as if your exchange has now been moved to your local green Fibre Cabinet. (Typical fibre cabinet picture HERE.)
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This document updated monthly by Openreach giving information when exchanges are ready or coming soon/future.
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Current speed check over wireless "n".-
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