FTTC (fttp on demand)

A friend of mine has an FTTC directly outside their house (installed against their boundry wall). Do you think there is anyway of getting FTTP? Without waiting for FTTP on demand...

Edited by deleted (Sat 30-Jun-12 20:20:08)

Not at this stage no

Surely not at any stage until they start replacing all FTTC? Which has to be a lonnnnnggggggggggg way away.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Surely not at any stage until they start replacing all FTTC? Which has to be a lonnnnnggggggggggg way away.

BT are planning to make FTTP on demand commercially available from Spring 2013.

Not just yet; sign for FTTC. But when FTTP on Demand is available then the costs to upgrade will be at the cheaper end of the FTTP upgrade scale.

How much is that? Who knows

Unless it's a fixed price upgrade. Within an extreme length limit as is a normal phone line.

They carefully do not mention a price. You are probabbly talking a few thousand pounds so will probably only be viable for businesses

THey may possibly keep the install price down a bit but load it on to the monthly charge and have something like a 28 month minimum contract

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

They carefully do not mention a price. You are probabbly talking a few thousand pounds so will probably only be viable for businesses

THey may possibly keep the install price down a bit but load it on to the monthly charge and have something like a 28 month minimum contract

There's been various speculative prices based on Openreach's standard charges and the average time an FTTP install takes, which Openreach has already indicated some time ago. These speculative prices range from £500 to around £2500.

In reply to a post by simon194:

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

They carefully do not mention a price. You are probabbly talking a few thousand pounds so will probably only be viable for businesses

THey may possibly keep the install price down a bit but load it on to the monthly charge and have something like a 28 month minimum contract

There's been various speculative prices based on Openreach's standard charges and the average time an FTTP install takes, which Openreach has already indicated some time ago. These speculative prices range from £500 to around £2500.

Correct and this is what the new trial will aid in setting, the install price.

It won't be one fixed fee, the distance from cabinet will be a factor in what I believe to be a variable price.

I hope that OR/CP's allow for several orders to be co-ordinated together. For example my neighbour and I who both have FTTC are interested in FTTP on Demand. It would be as easy for OR to lay fibre to both properties at the same time (shared driveway), in theory meaning one survey and halving the cost of the duct work which must be the major portion of the installation cost.

If orders could be progressed like this where groups of properties could club together to cut costs this could prove to be a popular product.

It won't be one fixed fee, the distance from cabinet will be a factor in what I believe to be a variable price.

If there's an existing FTTC connection, will it be the distance to the nearest cabinet or that to the cab you're already connected to? If they've got to dig up the road anyway there'll presumably be no reason to not use the nearest one?

Do you know that for sure Andrew? I was wondering how they'd do it.

One option would be to price per home (variable) but that would surely be difficult and costly itself, subject to survey?

The other option would be a fixed fee but quite high to ensure the tricky installs are covered overall, by that I mean overall across all of the installs they'd still have the total cost covered.

I mean once fibre is set on a pole most of the hard work is done and the install costs for the rest of the people on that pole are lower (to BT I mean)

In reality though I doubt it will work like that anyway as demand will be very low to start with

My guess is that they will have say 3 price bands.Band A shortlines, Band B Average lines and Band C Long lines doing much more than that it becomes very costly

Yeah that would make sense

In reply to a post by zag164:

I hope that OR/CP's allow for several orders to be co-ordinated together. For example my neighbour and I who both have FTTC are interested in FTTP on Demand. It would be as easy for OR to lay fibre to both properties at the same time (shared driveway), in theory meaning one survey and halving the cost of the duct work which must be the major portion of the installation cost.

Ditto for multiple orders into a block of flats.

In reality, can you imagine them being that flexible? Doubt it.

Im guessing it will be similar to the network rearrangement service openreach offer. That is £150 for the first hour and £100 every hour after. They also require a serveyor to come out and assess the route. This charge will be passed on to the CP then the CP will have the choice of passing it on fully, absorbing it completely or letting the customer pay it off monthly.
I plan to get it as soon as it becomes available in my area. Im a few hundred metres from the cab and im fed by pole.

In reply to a post by GMAN98:

I mean once fibre is set on a pole most of the hard work is done and the install costs for the rest of the people on that pole are lower (to BT I mean)

That's if the premises are pole-fed.

Something like that is what I expect.

But yes to previous question, everything I have been told is that it is not a fixed single price.

I would have thought that was obvious

Flats/MDU's are a different issue, and they may want to see a minimum level of demand for flats.

For on demand FTTP Openreach need to replace your copper line to the cabinet with fibre. To do this they probably need to dig up some part of the road and/or pavement. Does that mean they will dig and re dig the road every time a new customer on the cabinet wants FTTP? That doesn't seem likely even if Openreach were happy to do it the local council and residents would object to the disruption. So how will it work in practice, can they put fibre down the whole street in one go but terminate non subscribers outside their premises?

If they we're going to did up the road/pavement (due to no existing ducting) then I expect they would put ducting in. That way they would either T off of it for other customers, or simply extend it.

This would be the most sensible idea, but BT does not always do sensible otherwise there would all ready be ducting where BT has underground cables

They'll do it as they do FTTP now. That is, build out to the pole/joint box and connect end users ad and when they order

1. They DO NOT replace your copper line. This is only happening in a couple of trial locations, known as Fibre Only Exchanges.

2. There is an option to take voice over the fibre if you want and your provider supplies it.

3. They use existing ducting where at all possible, or tubes for overhead wiring.

4. Most UK telephoning is on a pole or more likely in a duct. So very little actual digging required, just a slow process to put the tubing into the duct and then blow and splice the fibre together.

5. The doing a whole street and connecting when you order, is the pure FTTP product. FTTP on demand is done on a per order basis from the cabinet. Pure FTTP does not use the cabinet, but rather passive components all the way from the NGA Handover (an exchange) that could be many many miles away.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

1. They DO NOT replace your copper line.

When I wrote above about replacing copper to the cabinet (for FTTP on demand) I meant from your house to the cabinet

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

1. They DO NOT replace your copper line.

When I wrote above about replacing copper to the cabinet (for FTTP on demand) I meant from your house to the cabinet

But they don't do that!

FTTP is in addition to the existing copper loop until the fibre exchanges have been trialled.

Point 1 still applies.

The full FTTP like the 15 exchanges have already also does not use a cabinet, it will reuse the existing ducting, but needs no mains power, and the components fit into underground chambers usually.

For FTTP on Demand, the telephone line is UNTOUCHED.

For Fibre on Demand your phone connection continues to use the copper. You get an additional fibre feed for the FTTP broadband.

In a few years I expect the phone service will be supplied over that fibre, but the others have already explained that. Presumably as much copper as is economically viable will then be recovered.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

For Fibre on Demand your phone connection continues to use the copper. You get an additional fibre feed for the FTTP broadband.

In a few years I expect the phone service will be supplied over that fibre, but the others have already explained that. Presumably as much copper as is economically viable will then be recovered.

Openreach are offering Fibre Voice Access now so the copper doesn't necessarily have to be used. There was a bit of a sticking point a while back with regards to the battery backup of the ONT because you have to be able to make phone calls if there is a power outage.

Ah I understand now, so for on demand FTTP fibre will be added to the existing copper from the cabinet to your home. Won't the ducting be a bit full once the whole street is done? And even if ducting means there is no digging needed, won't the amount of time and effort needed to run fibre to one house in the street mean that it's better to do the whole street in one go, or at least all the houses off one pole etc?

As I understand the fibre will not go back to the cabinet. It will a new build out just like commercial FTTP. Of course that means a lot of network build for maybe just one connection, so may require a minimum number of confirmed orders. A bit speculative but there is no confirmed launch date and BT have a habbit of being late!

Believe you are wrong, the fibre data will simply be multiplexed onto the fibres at the cabinet, which is where the ducting goes to a property. Hence the need to be on a FTTC cabinet, otherwise it would be an exchange offering GEA services that was all that was needed.

Even with full FTTP they DO NOT install the fibre to everyhome, they get to within the last pole or pavement chamber, and when you order it, they blow the final 20 to 60m of fibre to the home.

Fibre is incredibly thin, and a tube can carry a great many fibres, so duct capacity is less of an issue in many ways compared to adding more copper capacity.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Fibre is incredibly thin, and a tube can carry a great many fibres, so duct capacity is less of an issue in many ways compared to adding more copper capacity.

OK, so to kinda bring me back where I started, will Openreach put in fibre for the whole street when they do the first On Demand order so that future customers just need a connection to the pole etc?

Probably not, but they'll put in enough network for growth and expand as required.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Fibre is incredibly thin, and a tube can carry a great many fibres, so duct capacity is less of an issue in many ways compared to adding more copper capacity.

OK, so to kinda bring me back where I started, will Openreach put in fibre for the whole street when they do the first On Demand order so that future customers just need a connection to the pole etc?

Doubt it will be the whole street, just to that pole but from that pole it can feed as many homes as that pole feeds

When installing fibre you never install a single fibre, you install multiple as until its tested you don't know if it works.

So probably will be some spares, for the next house or two, and then add some more by blowing it through the tubing.

First person is not going to underwrite the cost of the street, there will be an element of BT gambling on others taking it, unless your in an area of just one or two homes, when your costs will be higher.

Of course their share price may collapse, we get a new Government and all many of things change between now and 2013.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

First person is not going to underwrite the cost of the street, there will be an element of BT gambling on others taking it, unless your in an area of just one or two homes, when your costs will be higher.

Yeah wasn't thinking first mover effectively paid for the street, more that after the first mover future customers would get an easier quicker install as fibre would already be as close as the pole

In reply to a post by simon194:

Openreach are offering Fibre Voice Access now so the copper doesn't necessarily have to be used. There was a bit of a sticking point a while back with regards to the battery backup of the ONT because you have to be able to make phone calls if there is a power outage.

That's on native FTTP, and maybe only on greenfield lines?

We are talking about Fibre on Demand (FTTP) for FTTC areas and the service isn't even available yet. So I don't think we can say that the copper will be redundant.

It will depend on whether the FTTC handover at the exchange can handle voice. If it could, wouldn't OR have already made it available on FTTC, so freeing up e-side copper to be used where someone else's e-side needs pair-swapping? Plenty of cabinets are struggling to provide ADSLx-capable e-side lines. Some even PSTN.

There's also the complication that not all FTTC cabinets feed back to the associated copper line's exchange. So assuming that number retention was desired the number would need to be rerouted to the fibre headend exchange. Interesting!

Would the pole or joint chamber not have the passive splitter in it?

Would they do this at the FTTC CAB?

/speculation

I believe the splitters are underground, the manifolds are mounted on poles where there is an overhead feed.
I dont believe it actually touch's FTTC

Roberto
As I understand it, the Fibre voice access product (FVA) can be rented on any FTTP installation, the ONT has 2 voice ports as well as two Ge ports so can have two lines. Uses the 135Kbit GEA product (unconteded VLAN) to give the quality.

Any Voice product would be carried over the IP layer so wouldn't connect to the existing voice network in the local exchange and it wouldn't matter which exchange building the Headend was in. The supplier would need to configure a voice VPN from the Head end site to avoid contention in their Core network.

A supplier would have an IP based Call server and would need some sort of Media gateway to interconnect to the TDM voice world.

I assume that to keep your existing number you would have to port it to the new system.

Some suppliers must alreadly be doing this as the small fibre based suppliers offer voice services without a copper pair.

FTTC served over the copper still uses the baseband for the voice so still uses the copper back to the original exchange and goes nowhere near the FTTC handover in the exchange. You could just use voice over the Broadband like Skype or BTs broadband talk product but are then at the mercy of power cuts and BB dropouts. They could fit an ATA in the Cab to feed the voice over the fibre as happens in the ONT but the cabs would have to be bigger with more power. I suspect the power would then need cooling due to the density, making it less economic etc.

In reply to a post by Ribble:

I believe the splitters are underground, the manifolds are mounted on poles where there is an overhead feed.
I dont believe it actually touch's FTTC

Andrew thinks it runs from the FTTC cabinet. Thats seems eminently sensible, otherwise we are talking about FTTC and native FTTP both being suppied to the same area. That would be a financial nonsense.

The biggest issue will be the installation cost, as the fibre is only ran from the FTTC street cabinet, it should be lower cost to install than fibre based Ethernet solutions, but a price in the range of £500 to £1500 seems likely.

from this News Article.

Contrary to my opinion earlier in this thread, it seems from that article that Fibre Voice Access will be an option.

Thanks kitcat. My post a couple of minutes ago I thought I had posted an hour ago and didn't see yours until I Continued from Preview. So I wasn't ignoring you.

I've read yours quickly a couple of times. Food and then another couple of slower reads needed .
_{Edit - typos.}

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 03-Jul-12 22:12:45)

In a few years I expect the phone service will be supplied over that fibre, but the others have already explained that. Presumably as much copper as is economically viable will then be recovered.

Round this way a few proactive souls have been trying to recover it before it's even finished with.