Information about FTTP in block of flats under construction

Having been frustrated by lack of FTTC/FTTP/cable in blocks of flats in my area, I recently made a point of asking the developers of prospective blocks if they are making any provision for NGA - or indeed anything other than exchange-driven ADSL.

Most ignore this type of question or say "standard broadband only" but I just got an interesting response from one developer:

Blocks A-C will have a copper wire based telephonic system, suitable for a conventional Broadband connection by the resident. For Blocks A-C we will also be installing the infrastructure for a BT fibre connection. We are intending to provide a fibre bare wire to a point in the service cupboard only inside each flat for later connection by the resident, please note that there will not be any fibre distribution throughout the flat. It will be up to the resident to make their own connection and service arrangement with BT Fibre as and when the fibre service is available from BT. Internal points within each flat will be a mixture of RJ-11 and RJ-45 for voice and data use. We have decided to proceed with copper but allow our customers the opportunity to future proof their communications by providing the site infrastructure for a fibre connection direct to their apartment, subject to our customers making the final connection arrangements as and when the service is available from BT

I have a couple of questions:

1) I assume this is likely to be the Openreach FTTP product currently marketed by BT as "Infinity 100Mb". If so, has this product been officially launched by Openreach yet and is anyone other than BT Retail offering it?

2) Is this something that Openreach are doing these days? As far as I know the development is not in a FTTP exchange area nor in their apartment blocks trial area.

3) I don't quite get the bit about "fibre bare wire" - does anyone know what that means?

Just trying to make sure that this is for real and that it isn't likely to be restricted or limited in some way that affects future-proofing. If it''s the real deal though then I'm very encouraged that blocks are being built like this now.

They've run fibre from a point in each flat to a central location. It's not connected to anything at this central location so they've referred to it as bare fibre.

It's just like me or you wiring ethernet from one end of our house to the other and then doing nothing else - its useless unless there is something you can connect at the other end.

BT don't have any intention of running FTTP in your area as you mention - however the fibre on demand service they're planning will be available to all FTTC areas and the install cost should be reduced as the last section of fibre will already be present.

The way that reads it sounds almost as if the developer has purchased a load of fibre and has run it from each residence to an easily accessible location for BT.

...whether BT are onboard and are running fibre to the building it doesn't really state. Either way, I'm sure that the work they've done will make the building very attractive for a FTTP solution! If I'm right & the developer is going it alone, give Hyperoptic a call, they might be able to help out..

I don't quite get the bit about "fibre bare wire" - does anyone know what that means?

As they also mention RJ45 I suspect they mean wired ethernet for connection to a fibre based service, rather than actual "fibre to the apartment".

It's probably cheaper to run Gig-E copper around a block of flats than fibre - less specialist skills - and no great difference in performance for "real world" services.

The few pictures of FTTP in flats (can't be bothered to find them) show fibre tube to the utilities cupboard for each flat, with the ONT housed in there, and then ethernet going inside flat to where the router will be.

In short to be sure of what builder is doing then pictures rather than words are needed.

It may simply be that the builder is fitting fibre tubes for Openreach to blow their own fibre later.

Thanks all,

They've sent through some more information which sheds a bit more light on the situation. They're building six blocks on the development. A-C, which the quote above refers to, are going to become available early 2013, whereas the fibre will not reach the development until "mid to end 2013"

They say this is why they're putting both copper and fibre into these three blocks so the early residents can have ADSL2+ while the fibre is being sorted out.

The other blocks, D-F, won't be available until 2014 and as such they are saying that these blocks will be fibre-only, no copper at all. I'm still waiting for another email regarding that though.

It all sounds very promising and they keep mentioning BT in emails so it seems likely that it has something to do with them. I'm just still a little worried that there's nothing in any of their marketing materials nor on the Openreach site about it.

As to whether it's actual fibre or ethernet, as you say it doesn't affect the available speeds for any realistic application so I'm not too worried.

Final note re: FTTP on Demand, I read this while reading up on it:

In reference to www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/super-fastfibreaccess/fibret...:

We recommend that you discuss the property type with the end customer to establish whether their premise is an MDU (apartment block) or MOU (multi occupancy business premise) prior to the order being raised. Any orders received for MDUs or MOUs (with the exception of The Paintworks in Bristol) will be rejected.

Goes to show how important it is that they build blocks of flats like this from now on I guess. If they're only putting in copper then I'm not sure there's much hope.