That's what I said was wrong all those months ago.
I'm pleased you had one of the good guys turn up - they're few and far between.

The status has now moved to 'Build'.  Exciting!

If anyone wants to check the status of fibre to their cabinet or the premises, this is the proper Openreach checker.

You'll notice it more with streaming and watching video. Browsing doesn't make much demand on bandwidth (but lag can be noticeable).

Ah but high internet speeds are not all you need for great video streaming..
Devices and browsers might also play a part

For a couple of years I've had TennisTV annual sub and only really been able to use TennisTV and get smooth video using MS's Explorer (Win8) and then Edge (Win 10) browsers.

Chrome and Firefox always gave choppy, stuttering video. I accepted this as it worked on Explorer and Edge in spite of TennisTV support always telling me that Chrome was their preferred browser and I should be using Chrome!
The old platform had it's problems - needing to clear cache and DNS flushing regular being major bugbears!

BTW, I use two laptops, one for upstairs, an old but good Lenovo X200 and a Lenovo G500 in the lounge that I connect up up to the big screen. Both work faultlessly with every other Streaming service Eurosport player, Netflix, Amazon prime, BBC Iplayer, Ch4 player, ITV etc etc.
I always have the latest OS, Browser, Adobe flash and Silverlight versions. Eurosport player uses Silverlight

Come the release of TennisTV's much heralded new platform 2017, (minus the WTA Grrr!), I was never been able to get a smooth stream using any browser! Always choppy and stuttering and unwatchable.

I raised this with TennisTV straight away, and that I'd found it was only problem on the newer matches and replays that run at 6.0mb/s. The classic matches at 3.5mb/s all play fine.

3-4 weeks of prodding TennisTV for help - nothing, always the issue was passed on to the tech team but never anything back.
Oh yes, Their new service worked perfectly well on my Android Tablet! Just the screen is a bit small for any real tennis watching.

I had been seeing processor loads on all browsers of up to 96% (well into the red) and thus the lagging and stuttering).
I have a plenty fast enough and stable internet connection BTW. Obviously the laptop was struggling horribly trying to keep up.


I was digging around on the internet and found some help about Google Chrome - bear in mind I had avoided Chrome like the plague for 2-3 years of TennisTV watching!

Now, most articles on the internet tell you to untick all HW acceleration setting as they cause problems!
This one advocated a change to the HW acceleration settings in google chrome Flags:

In the web address box type Chrome://flags - enable override of software rendering list settings and then find the GPU rasterization and enable.

After doing this and relaunching Chrome the processor loads dropped to 25% and the processor speeds were regulating well below the max processor capacity. The laptops are no longer running hot and the stream is always 6mb/s and completely smooth the whole time.

See

fixmynix.com/enable-hardware...opera-slimjet/

Enable hardware acceleration in Chrome, Chromium, Opera ...
fixmynix.com
We often experience choppy graphics performance in almost any chromium based browser like Chrome, Chromium, Opera or Slimjet. Screen tearing and some dark


After doing this all is fine on both laptops and I get perfect smooth streaming for hours on end!

I have advised TennisTV of all this and that they should put the HW acceleration settings advice up on their support pages (which are quite frankly - useless).

Searching the internet it seems other chat fora folk are having the same choppy problems too! So I am not alone.

Since the new platform and my settings changes I've not had any error problems and now the streaming problem is solved it's been rock solid.
Lets see how long it lasts..

Now to figure out why it does not work with Edge, Explorer or Firefox and what settings I need!

Internet connections are a nightmare & something i do not want in my life. Rely on a TV Catch up connection or Music streaming! Absolutely no chance.

I think you guys rely too much on a supposid technology that for the age were are in is quite frankly pathetic & more unreliable that a stone age amplifier..

That's even better news then. You'll notice a heck of a difference.

Our 18 month EE contact is nearing its end.
I contacted them to see about renewing and haggling possibilities.
I had my details etc checked and then got a very curt and short direction that if need to use their website to renew. Nothing they could do on the phone. When I probed and asked for clarification and said I could not see the pages they were directing me to, it turned out they were seeing me as staff member. Back when we joined it seems we were put on a staff deal!
Perhaps a way for eager EE or it's sales staff using a work around to get customs signed up on better than competition could offer deals.
The long and the short of it is there was nothing they would do.
We would become 'normal' customers and have to pay close to 100% more!
Now i know we got a good deal from EE when we signed up. I knew there would be some increase, but 100% is just a piss take.

After they refused to help I searched around, swallowed my hate of all things Murdoch and switched to Sky broadband / phone only.
Let's see how that is in comparison. it was the most competitive and one of the few to offer a guaranteed minimum broadband speed.
 
Wonder if I'll have to do some configuring under the hood of the new Sky Q router well get to keep my lan chained WiFi extension solution working. It only has two LAN sockets, but that's precisely enough.
The annoying thing is the current setup is brilliant, fast stable, cheap etc... Ho-hum!

I renewed with Plusnet. The least worst for me.