{"id":47906,"date":"2026-02-14T07:45:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T07:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/?p=47906"},"modified":"2026-02-14T07:45:44","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T07:45:44","slug":"switching-broadband-provider-uk-bt-to-vodafone-fttp-upgrade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/2026\/02\/switching-broadband-provider-uk-bt-to-vodafone-fttp-upgrade\/","title":{"rendered":"Broadband Upgrades"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Exciting News! We\u2019ve changed broadband provider. Yes, I know, yawn, yawn, that\u2019s not news, it\u2019s just common sense to change now and then to save some money, but it does come with a few new \u2018upgrades\u2019.  We were fortunate back in 2016, despite living in the middle of nowhere, we were one of the first places to get fibre direct to the property (FTTP). At the time, we could only use it with BT as the provider so we\u2019ve been with them ever since and were a little reluctant to change as things were working well. We had a super-fast connection and a decent set-up. The price however had crept up over the years and was beginning to get ridiculous as it edged close to \u00a370 a month. We could have saved money by dropping to a 500Mbps speed service, which would be plenty, but when you\u2019re used to faster, that seems like a backwards step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, it was time to jump ship to a Vodafone package. The same speeds, but at half the price. It did mean we no longer had a 4G backup as part of the package, but with 5G on our phones and hot-spotting that wasn\u2019t really needed anyway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Changeover<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The changeover was smooth. We were sent a new router and Wi-Fi booster, plugged it in on swapover day and then had the decision to make. Did we change the SSID and password on the router to match the previous one, or go with a new Vodafone SSID and then update the wi-fi connection on ALL of our devices? The former was the easiest option, but we went with the latter just so that we had a new SSID, partly for a clean start, partly as an excuse to audit what was actually on our network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With phones, computers, watches, iPads, lightbulbs, smart plugs, vacuum cleaners, bathroom scales, lawn-mowers and various other things such as printers, solar panel inverters and car chargers all connected to the Wi-Fi we were looking at over 50 devices on the network! Yes, it took a while to update the Wi-Fi credentials on all of them!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faster Wi-Fi<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There were one or two advantages to this new network, mainly due to a router upgrade. The new router actually has faster Wi-Fi. The broadband speed into the house remains the same. Previously, devices wired into the router via Ethernet would get download speeds in the range of 1.1 to 1.4Gbps. That remains the same. Devices connected via Wi-Fi however, have seen a speed increase. Real-world speeds on these devices used to top out around 300Mbps, but now speeds closer to 600Mbps.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Speedy!\"<\/a>
Speedy!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Compatability Network<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The other advantage of the new router is that it allows the SSID to be split into two distinct networks: <\/p>\n\n\n\n