In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by ppppenguin99:

Thanks. I wondered if that might be the case. So it could work at full speed on day 1, then drop as neighbours also get FTTH. Unless a few neighbours are diehard downloaders who max out their connections there will be a statistical multiplexing effect.

This is reminiscent of contention in the old days of ADSL.Is there any meaningful contention on FTTC?

Yes the FTTC cabinet has a number of fibres going to it (I honestly don't know how many) and the bandwidth of those fibres is spread across the properties connected to the copper line cards.

FTTP is far better than FTTC even if you are living on top of the cabinet

FTTC cabinets start with a single gigabit symmetrical link to the OLT. This gets upgraded with another link if load gets too high but some congestion is absolutely tolerated. Openreach routinely run reports on it.

So, yes, FTTC absolutely has meaningful contention from cabinet to exchange, especially if the cabinet is busy. Could happily have 15 Gbit of FTTC connections being backhauled by one gigabit fibre and it'd probably be fine.

Either way worrying about contention whether on FTTC or FTTP isn't really worth it. Very few instances of it on either platform even with the sale of 1.8 Gbit download products.

There are a lot of TLAs in that last reply! I worked out that PON is passive optical network. I had to google some others. CIR = Committed Information Rate. DIA = Dedicated Internet Access. DBA = Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation. OLT = Optical line termination.

Put in practical terms, if (for example) I'm downloading a 4GB Linux distro, that might get throtlled but I'm likely to be OK if I want to watch a 4K stream which only needs about 25Mb/s.

In reply to a post by ppppenguin99:

Put in practical terms, if (for example) I'm downloading a 4GB Linux distro, that might get throtlled

And even that's very unlikely. Your 4GB download at 1Gbps would only take ~40 seconds, so the chances of two other people doing that at exactly the same time are low.

Maybe if several of your neighbours are hardcore gamers, who have all decided to download the same update for the same game at the instant it is released. Even then, you're unlikely to hit those few minutes.

Demographics are your friend. In principle, up to 30 houses could be on the same PON. But even if *everyone* in your area has upgraded to Openreach FTTP, most of them will be normal people with normal lives, not broadband addicts.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by ppppenguin99:

Put in practical terms, if (for example) I'm downloading a 4GB Linux distro, that might get throtlled

And even that's very unlikely. Your 4GB download at 1Gbps would only take ~40 seconds, so the chances of two other people doing that at exactly the same time are low.

If you download said linux distro, sometimes its 40s others 41s or 45s ......... you won't ever know if its server load, other contention or OR contention.

In reply to a post by ppppenguin99:

On the 76Mb/s tier the guaranteed download speed is only 40Mb/s. Does anyone know why this should be? It's not like copper which can cause significant speed loss with distance. I don't want to sign up for 76Mb/s FTTH and find my speeds have significantly dropped.

This seems a very low 'guaranteed download speed', we are FF150 from TT and the 'guaranteed download speed' is 120, i.e. 80%, I would have expected yours to be a similar %, so say 60, but as others have said, we get what we pay for, in fact most times slightly higher, the only time I've noticed that to be impacted is with a free VPN on.

In reply to a post by ppppenguin99:

There are a lot of TLAs in that last reply! I worked out that PON is passive optical network. I had to google some others. CIR = Committed Information Rate. DIA = Dedicated Internet Access. DBA = Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation. OLT = Optical line termination.

Put in practical terms, if (for example) I'm downloading a 4GB Linux distro, that might get throtlled but I'm likely to be OK if I want to watch a 4K stream which only needs about 25Mb/s.

You won't get throttled. No-one cares what you're doing. If there's not enough capacity available you're more likely to notice on the download but the systems only try and ensure everyone can get their CIR. After that it's fight amongst yourselves.

I have now ordered 76Mb/s FTTH. OR visit scheduled for 6 August.

Thank you for all your help.

In reply to a post by ppppenguin99:

I have now ordered 76Mb/s FTTH. OR visit scheduled for 6 August.

Thank you for all your help.

Please keep us updated on how things go with the install.

I've just done the work to make it easy to pull in the fibre to where I want the ONT. It's in the underfloor void rather than in conduit but it's still an easy pull.

I ordered the PN hub 2 router (just pay for p&p) because I don't want any arguments about it not working. I hope to continue using my TP-Link modem router (Archer 400) simply by connecting one of its ethernet ports to the port on the ONT.

I'll let you know how it goes.

In reply to a post by ppppenguin99:

If several neighbours sign up for the top tier of 900Mb/s that might impact the parsimonious few who only have 76Mb/s.

I'm also rather parsimonious: I've had Openreach FTTP for more than 2 years and there has been no impact on speeds...principle benefit has been stability

Good luck.