FTTPoD what happend?

I have been waiting for some news on FTTPoD rollout, seems to have gone so quiet? I thought it would here in the summer, now its the end of the year? Anyone have some new information?

The news article below is the latest news that we have, exchanges are being enabled in groups and more are expected by the end of December.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/6058-fibre-on-dem...

There will be very slow roll out just like FTTC roil out. I don't expect FTTPoD will be roll out pretty quickly.

The benefit of FTTPoD is that they only have to do work if someone is willing to pay for it. The downside is they need to train the local engineers (without knowing takeup) and the economics pay off when more than one person takes up a service within an area (a single person in a street is unlikely to cover all the costs and so BT are betting then on others taking up service).

So, much lower up front investment than FTTC but some of the same risks of costs not being covered if takeup is not high enough.

Don't really understand why they are limiting themselves to 300/30 when they're offering 80/20 for standard FTTP.

The 330/30 Mbit/s limit of FTTPoD is imposed for the same reason as the 36 month minimum term - to make the economics of ad hoc extensions to the fibre network more favourable to Openreach.

Hopefully, in time, Openreach find ways to extend the reach of the fibre network using cost sharing, but on terms that are more favourable to the CP and, ultimately, to the end user.

of course it works both ways tho.

the 36 months is a barrier to entry, it will reduce takeup.

the high setup fee is another barrier and someone who has a high estimated sync speed on FTTC will probably find it hard to justify the install costs for a extra measly 10mbit upload.

I think there's a broad range of developments needed if FTTPoD is to become anything other than a niche product for a small number of business users and wealthy residential users.


At the moment, the tiny number of exchange areas in which FTTPoD is available means it is really only in an early deployment type scenario. This may reflect the huge amount of FTTP work still to be done in relation to the commercial roll-out (though much of this was switched to FTTC) and for BDUK - if FTTP deployment resources are needed for this work, they are not necessarily available for FTTPoD roll-out.

As you rightly say, the product itself isn't that enticing - 30 Mbit/s upload is too slow for the costs involved.

The costs of FTTPoD are difficult to justify on a price/performance basis. Those who are the furthest from the cabinet, who have the most to gain from FTTPoD, are likely to be amongst the furthest from the aggregation node who therefore face the highest up-front costs for FTTPoD.

FTTP itself is sufficiently rare that few ISPs have a 330/30 Mbit/s product to offer.


I think the cost-sharing model for deeper fibre roll-out is a good one - Openreach invest knowing there is some sort of return, and the roll-out is targeted directly to those willing to subscribe. Hopefully the cost of FTTP deployment drops over time, allowing the creation of a more attractive FTTPoD offering.


I'd love to be free of DSL over a metallic pair, which I regard as a fundamentally kludgey (but nevertheless brilliant) technology. However, with solid fast path 80/20 Mbit/s service and almost no justification for a faster connection, I'm sticking with what I have at a very attractive price. I'm paying a few pence per month less today for unlimited 80/20 Mbit/s FTTC as I was this time last year for 16/1 Mbit/s ADSL2+ with a 200 GByte/month downstream cap.

The downside is they need to train the local engineers

But then they are training a few for the FTTP that is creeping in too. If interested, there are four engineers trained to install FTTP/oD round this way. But the work is still few and far between.

Cue http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/6208-fibre-on-dem... another batch of 82