Question about Plusnet FTTC exchange availability

can someone tell me if the following is correct?

Plusnet supply broadband through BT Wholesale...they have no LLu, so this should mean where BT have FTTC then Plusnet can supply it also?

someone Iam helping elsewhere says BT says he can have FTTC with them, but plusnet says they cant??

do Plusnet only get FTTC in certain exchanges?


thanks

Yes, Plusnet can get FTTC anywhere that BT FTTC (Infinity) is available.

To be precise, BT Infinity uses BT Wholesale just like Plusnet does. I know that's a subtle difference, but it's important. OfCom have made it so that the different internal parts of BT Group have to treat all ISPs the same, including BT Retail.

So somewhere there is a mixup about the person you are helping. If you put his telephone number into this checker that should give you the definitive answer.

If it doesn't recognise the phone number, tty the address option. Don't use the pure postcode option as for technical reasons it isn't reliable.

thanks for that RobertoS

here is the details from checker...to me it reads like FTTC is not available, using just the post code it has no fibre mentioned, using building number and postcode (address) it has FTTP but not FTTC

WBC FTTP Up to 330 Up to 30 -- Available
WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 3 -- 2.5 to 6.5 Available
ADSL Max Up to 3 -- 2 to 5.5 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 1 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 1 -- -- Available
Other Offerings
Fibre Multicast -- -- -- Available

so no FTTC is available at that cab and the BT rep was incorrect?

cheers

It may be an Exchange Only line - no cabinet, no fibre to the cabinet...

The checker usually gives the cabinet number if there is one.

Ah - they're right: FTTC is NOT available. Even BT Retail can't give it to you.

But that is because it is really FTTP that is available.

Now, BT Retail are selling FTTP as a standard option (and are one of the few ISPs that are), still labelled under the "Infinity" banner, so when you ask them, they say "Yes". You get the same 2 package options (40/10 and 80/20) as FTTC and at the same prices IIRC, but you get a higher speed option too (160/20 ?).

However, FTTP is also available from Plusnet, but within one of their trials. You can't order it from them as a new customer - instead, you have to order plain ADSL from them, and then go through their "trials" page to ask to be included. The details you can see (as a customer) say:

We are currently running a trial of FTTP in certain areas of the country. More areas are being added all the time. Existing Plusnet customers are welcome to take part in the trial.

If you would like to take part, then please use the Availability Checker link below and search by your phone number to see if it is available in your area.

If it is available then please be aware that FTTP is a trial and that you may find a few teething troubles. If you do have problems, please note it may also take longer to resolve than normal because it's a trial and new technology.

FTTP is an engineer installed service. An engineer will come and visit on two different days to install the FTTP service for you. The first appointment will be to run the fibre to your property and install a box on your outside wall to connect the inside and outside. You do not need to be at home for this appointment but if you have any preferences as to where the box is installed or if the engineer will be unable to attend (e.g. needs access through security gates) then please provide any notes we can pass on.

The second appointment will be to install the equipment inside your property which you will need to be home for.

Appointment times are available Monday to Friday from 8am only. The average appointment time for the first appointment is around 5-7 hours and around 2-3 hours for the second appointment. Please note these times are average and the actual appointments can take longer.

There needs to be at least 7 working days between the first and second appointments. Please note it may take 1-2 weeks to reply to your ticket. It's therefore best to give dates starting around 2-3 weeks ahead for the first appointment and at least 7 working days later for the second appointment.

As part of the trial we'll supply you with a free router. Most ADSL routers are not compatible with FTTP. If you want to supply your own router then please let us know but be aware that the router you're using must support PPPoE over an Ethernet/WAN port.


The following products and options are available for the FTTP trial:

Plusnet Essentials Fibre up to 38Mbps - £16.49 per month

Setup charge - free
Speed - up to 38Mbps down, up to 9.5Mbps up
Contract - no change to your existing contract period
Usage - 40GB (between 8am and midnight), unlimited overnight (midnight to 8am)
Router - free 3 port wireless

This product is the same as our FTTC Essentails Fibre product only with FTTP.

Plusnet Unlimited Fibre up to 76Mbps - £19.99 per month

Setup charge - free
Speed - up to 76Mbps down, up to 19.5Mbps up
Contract - no change to your existing contract period
Usage - Unlimited
Router - free 3 port wireless

This product is the same as our FTTC Unlimited Fibre product only with FTTP.

Please provide the answers to the questions below and we will start the ordering process for you.


1. To take part please confirm below that you've read and accept the Terms and Conditions for the trial.

2. Whether you need to be present for the external work and if so what dates you are available (if you need to be present please note there must be at least 7 working days between the external and internal appointments).

3. What dates you will be available for the internal work (if you do not need to be present the external appointment will be booked for 7 working days before the internal appointment)? Appointments are available Monday to Friday from 8am only

4. Please provide us with a mobile or contact number we can pass on to the engineer in case they need to contact you on the day.

5. Which product you want? Essentials Fibre up to 38Mbps (£16.49 per month) or Unlimited Fibre up to 76Mbps (£19.99 per month). Please note there may be a pro-rata fee for the difference between your current subscription and new subscription taken when your fibre install completes.

I know of someone else who joined this way, and I'm pretty sure that they're not being selective at all, so you should be fine. Hopefully someone frmo PN can confirm this is still OK.

You can also look at Plusnet's own forum, but you need to be a customer to actually post there.

BTW - It isn't really a technical trial. PN consider it a trial more in the ordering because they haven't pushed the processes & training out to all the staff.

Edited by deleted (Wed 17-Apr-13 04:04:29)

Irrelevant property has FTTP available.

And fits precisely with what has been said too.

Areas with native FTTP dont have FTTC

Out of interest, which exchange is this from?

(I'm now FTTP conntected on the Plusnet trial)

GunSmoke

Hi All

the property is served by Cabinet 18 - so its not an exchange only property.

to me it reads that their cab is not yet upgraded for FTTC - but if you want FTTP run from the exchange (at a hefty cost I imagine) then you can, typical FTTP installations would be run from the FTTC cab, so the longer run to the exchange is already fitted, so in his case it would cost a fortune to get FTTP unless BT offer it as a trial or something? am i right?

edit: actually he lves in cornwall and superfast fibre is being rolled out there? so would it be that he can get FTTP from BT but not from Plusnet or Sky .?

cheers

Edited by paulb100 (Wed 17-Apr-13 17:00:47)

Paul can I suggest reading what has been posted.

FTTP is available at the location.
It is available at the wholesale level

BUT at this time only a handful of providers retail it, BT being one, and with Plusnet you can order it, but only via a trial order process.

At places where there is native FTTP you can order a 40, 80, 110, 220 or 330 Mbps service. The on demand product will launch only offering the 330 Mbps option.

FTTP is not run from cabinets. End of.

Native FTTP is supplied instead of FTTC in the few places it is available - like the one you are talking about.

FTTPoD which will be available soon in areas that already have an FTTC cabinet will still not be run from the cabinet, but that's the one that will cost a lot more than FTTC and standard FTTP.

Hi again, thanks for the information guys

@ Mr Saffron - sorry for the confusion I missed some information, I need to try and sort the forum view to always FLAT, my apologies...

@ RobertoS - I thought in areas (for e.g.) where their is FTTC is availble and FTTP could be made available later that it would be run from the cab saving having to lay more fibre? ive seen diagrams that show FTTC as fibre to cab and copper from cab to home, and FTTP is the same diagram but with fibre from the cab to home?
- i know that in this scenario Iam asking about its not the case and its native FTTP.

- so when FTTP becomes available they are not using any of the FTTC fibre? they are istalling new fibre alongside it specifically for FTTP...is that right?

also, is their anyway of finding out which other ISP's are available over this native FTTP..? as mentioned he is in "Superfast" Cornwall which i THINK he said is part funded by BT and part by others, cant be sure though...

thanks again for the help guys, really appreciate it

There are three fibre product families

FTTC - you know all about that
Native FTTP which you are learning about
Fibre on Demand FTTP

Now physically the two FTTP ones are identical, and don't touch the fibre used for the FTTC service (but may share same ducting). In the native FTTP scenario then various GEA-FTTP product speeds are available, and ones that match the FTTC products to make life easy for ISP's. Alas many ISPs are slow to offer service in FTTP areas.

Fibre on Demand is new (launches in a week or so) and while same layout as native FTTP the FTTP part from a location near to your FTTC cabinet is only built when you order and pay a larger fee and will only OFFER one product speed at the time of launch as 330 Mbps service

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/guide/fibre-broadband.... lists the FTTC and FTTP providers.

The fact that it is the cornwall project makes no difference as to which services you can order, it is all Openreach based, so available to all providers, just that many don't want to bother with FTTP because its only available to 100,000 or so homes across the UK from Openreach.

The key point to remember is that BT is a big company, and when you say BT you are talking about many divisions that often have no contact with each other, or have regulatory limits on how much they can interact.

In reply to a post by paulb100:

- i know that in this scenario Iam asking about its not the case and its native FTTP.

And Native FTTP means there is no FTTC available in that location, only FTTP.

However, it also means that it costs the same as getting FTTC - there will be no charge for running that fibre to the house.

- so when FTTP becomes available they are not using any of the FTTC fibre? they are istalling new fibre alongside it specifically for FTTP...is that right?

Yes. Totally different fibre.

When they install FTTC (in other places) they also happen to be laying a fibre backbone for the future, but even then it is physically different fibre that is used for the 2 jobs.

also, is their anyway of finding out which other ISP's are available over this native FTTP..? as mentioned he is in "Superfast" Cornwall which i THINK he said is part funded by BT and part by others, cant be sure though...

Cornwall is indeed being part funded by BT, in its Openreach guise. That doesn't mean you need to use BT as the retail provider.

I only know of BT Retail that currently readily supplies service to native FTTP areas, and only know of Plusnet that offers it as a freely-joinable trial.

I suspect that Superfast-Cornwall will know better what other ISPs can be used for native FTTP.

Various SME providers do FTTP products too, but consumer side its BT Infinity or Plusnet.

Is this how we're going to refer to the original FTTP then: "Native FTTP"?

I hadn't thought how confusing it was going to get once FTTP-on-Demand arrived.

Edited by deleted (Wed 17-Apr-13 21:56:00)

thanks again for the replies, really appreciate it... well you learn something new everyday (and thats why I love it so much hehe) - yeha I just though FTTP was an extension on from FTTC cabs.. I suppose it has something to do with the Mutliplexing at the cab DSLAM etc? with the whole link being designed to work for VDSL in the manner that it does... its probably more awkward to pop a pure fibre link into it, suppose it would mean another 'pure fibre' DSLAM in each cab too??...so it makes sense just to run it direct to the exchange.

thanks again.

Partial fibre = FTTC
Full Fibre = FTTP

Native FTTP = my label for areas with just FTTP
FoD = Fibre on Demand

Any better ideas?

FTTC uses a point to point fibre solution from cabinet back to the exchange, though that should be called the Handover Node these days. This lets Openreach scale the backhaul in Gigabit chunks as they need.

FTTP uses GPON fibre which is then split between multiple premises using splitters, usually 2.5Gbps of download capacity is split between 32 to 128 premises.

http://blog.thinkbroadband.com/2012/11/spotters-guid... some FTTP and a bit of FTTC kit including inside Falmouth Exchange

Paul

Several of the ISPs mentioned in the 15 on the openreach site specifically say FTTP so should provide it. I haven't looked at all 15 but I'm sure you could, ( Spectrum do not mention it but only appear to serve S.Wales so the wrong area).

Apart from BT speeds are identical to the FTTC products, I cannot find mention of a faster than 80Mb option on the BT site but I'm sure they offer something like 130Mb somewhere.

Our listing
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/isp/bt/package/1132-un...

Seems to have dropped off of the BT listing on their own site currently.

In reply to a post by paulb100:

I just though FTTP was an extension on from FTTC cabs.. I suppose it has something to do with the Mutliplexing at the cab DSLAM etc?

Think of BT radiating bundles of fibre out from an exchange (or, as Mr Saffron says, handover node). The bundles have *many* fibres within them, and they go to form a spine or backbone of fibre. This spine is common to all 3 products - FTTC, Native FTTP and the FTTP on demand - even if all 3 aren't available in any one area.

Along the spine are located a number of "Aggregation Nodes" - a fancy name for a box with a set of splice trays within, allowing joints in some of the fibres. Again, these are common to the 3 technologies.

For an FTTC cabinet, a fibre (probably more than one) will be taken from the spine at an aggregation node and jointed (spliced) to one heading towards the cabinet. The splice will be in the aggregation node. This fibre will be used exclusively for traffic for that cabinet - a concept known as point-to-point.

For an FTTP product, a fibre is taken from the spine (spliced again at an aggregation node) and used to service up to 32 separate properties as a shared service known as a PON. The single "master" fibre is spliced to those 32 other fibres in a different node known as a splitter - it looks the same as an aggregation node, and is also made of many splice trays.

This FTTP setup, in the ground and on the street, is identical for both FTTP and FTTP-on-Demand. The only difference is the way in which it is administrated, ordered and paid for.

So the FTTC cabinet isn't physically used in any of the FTTP products. In 20-30 years time, it can be taken away leaving a pure FTTP network hidden in the ground.

suppose it would mean another 'pure fibre' DSLAM in each cab too??...so it makes sense just to run it direct to the exchange.

A DSLAM is only needed to interface with copper. Pure fibre just needs to be spliced in a splice tray.

Some videos to watch, to see the different bits of equipment:
FTTP
FTTC
FTTx kit being worked on

wow! - amazing info WWWombat - thanks.

I understand, so really FTTP feeds into the fibre 'beyond' the FTTC cab at an aggregation node...

is each propertys connection a single strand of fibre to the exchange? (as splitters are mentioned) if not how is your traffic identified? diferent colours? also how does it affect performance on shared connections?

thanks

Edited by paulb100 (Wed 17-Apr-13 23:45:25)

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Partial fibre = FTTC
Full Fibre = FTTP

Native FTTP = my label for areas with just FTTP
FoD = Fibre on Demand

Any better ideas?

I've picked up your use of "native", but only because it needs some sort of label and I don't want to add to the confusion.

It certainly makes sense to use the simple FTTP name to mean *either* product.

Problem with the word "native" is that it suggests there is some sort of "non-native" variant, or perhaps a hybrid FTTC. Whereas, once FoD is in the ground, the only real difference is in the way it was paid for - so both are technically native.

But otherwise, I can't for the life of me think of a decent way of trying to describe an old "FTTP area" that is now the cheap way of getting FTTP, nor describing the old "FTTC area" in a simple way that shows you can now get both FTTC and FTTP there, except you have to pay more.

It's a marketing nightmare, and we're going to get a lot of people asking why it is cheaper for "him over there" to get the same FTTP kit installed.

Not a single fibre to exchange, that is termed point to point.

A shared system is used called GPON which uses different light frequencies that can be split to cover lots of different premises. Thus saving the need to run hundreds of individual fibres, apart from over the last few metres into each home.

GPON has a 2.5 Gbps speed limit, but a 10 Gig variant has been played with.

@paulb100 - If you want to see more than you ever thought possible about the UK access network, take a look at this presentation from Openreach to the British Computer Society. It dates back 2 years now, but it has some good stats, and a couple of pictures of the way in which both FTTC and FTTP are to be deployed in the field.

@MrSaffron - I didn't think BT were using WDM-PON yet, just keeping it open for the future (see same link).

Right now, the OLT is more likely to be transmitting packets to all the ONT's, which must filter based on address (MAC address?). Upstream likely to be split using TDM, hence the lower bandwidth (both total and to individual lines)

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Not a single fibre to exchange, that is termed point to point.

A shared system is used called GPON which uses different light frequencies that can be split to cover lots of different premises. Thus saving the need to run hundreds of individual fibres, apart from over the last few metres into each home.

GPON has a 2.5 Gbps speed limit, but a 10 Gig variant has been played with.

amazing isnt it?? so the different light frequencies must be able to travel alongside each other yes? they dont clash at al..

In reply to a post by paulb100:

so the different light frequencies must be able to travel alongside each other yes? they dont clash at al..

Well the visible frequencies manage to travel alongside each other OK wrt daylight, until you put a coloured filter in front of them. Or get a diffracting medium such as a prism or raindrops to separate them.

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 19-Apr-13 13:34:26)