BT Bonding and 30Mhz

Last year I heard that BT would upgrade to their frequency plan to 30Mhz. But I havent heard any news of it. Is there any reason behind this?

Also, many operator in europe are turning to bonding to boost speeds, is this an option for BT?

I don't think they will go down the bonding issue. It is more likely they'll move to FTTdp or Fibre to the Remote Node as they are calling it.

They'll move to 30Mhz when they feel the market demands it and when Virgin Media increase their speeds further.

In reply to a post by gh22:

Last year I heard that BT would upgrade to their frequency plan to 30Mhz. But I havent heard any news of it. Is there any reason behind this?

Also, many operator in europe are turning to bonding to boost speeds, is this an option for BT?

30MHz wasn't on the roadmap last year and still isn't.

I think bonding is problematic for regulatory reasons.

Thanks Ignitionnet, any ideas of the regulatory reasons?

Who would benefit from a move? Very few. Those with a short line currently getting 80 Mbps will see an increase, those from maybe 70Mbps might get a small increase but those getting below will start to see a drop off and reduction in throughput capability. Some tests and estimate suggest that a customer receiving 40Mbps on profile 17a could potentially drop to 30Mbps.

In reply to a post by gh22:

Thanks Ignitionnet, any ideas of the regulatory reasons?

In order to bond the FTTC product would have to change considerably. At the moment Openreach sell a loop back to the exchange which stops off at an FTTC cabinet where it picks up the broadband signal.

To sell a bonded solution would either require 2 sets of line rental, be it a full line or a combination of full line and d-side between customer and cabinet which would be a regulatory change in itself, or a change to a model where a line rental element is bundled into the FTTC charge.

Either way it's a change in how the product works.

As far as I know BT Business does support Sharedband (see http://www.sharedband.com/) where you can bond up to 4 lines (ADSL or VDSL). However, BT Business does not support IPv6, nor Annex-M (in case of ADSL2+ lines).

In reply to a post by JNeuhoff:

As far as I know BT Business does support Sharedband (see http://www.sharedband.com/) where you can bond up to 4 lines (ADSL or VDSL). However, BT Business does not support IPv6, nor Annex-M (in case of ADSL2+ lines).

That's simply using a VPN to bond connections. Not related to pair bonding unfortunately.

is there a requirement for a 2nd line in a bundle to have line rental applied by ofcom?

EFM can use multiple (up to 8 I think) FTTC connections that all go into one special router. Couldn't they just tweak that for the residential market?

What consumer can afford 8 line rental and FTTC products?

Also when buying that sort of connection the expectation from many is they have paid for the bandwidth so will use it, thus usually sold with a lower contention or guaranteed performance level, i.e. more like a leased line.

If people had to pay per Mbps for their bandwidth on top of a basic physical connection fee, willing to be 90% would opt for just 2 to 3 Mbps due to the cost involved.

What consumer can afford 8 line rental and FTTC products?

I suspect there are many who could afford it but few who could justify it. I could afford FTTPoD but couldn't justify the large increased costs for the extra bandwidth/certainty.

In reply to a post by Icaras:

EFM can use multiple (up to 8 I think) FTTC connections that all go into one special router. Couldn't they just tweak that for the residential market?

EFM doesn't use FTTC; it's SHDSL and not an Openreach product, it just consumes line rental in the same way as everything else.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

What consumer can afford 8 line rental and FTTC products?

This is kinda the problem. As of right now Openreach are required to charge line rental on 2 loops which is unlikely to go down well with customers being bonded as a 'range extender'.

It would require an entirely new product and even then is problematic as Openreach either have to charge more which would make people unhappy or deliver something for free which would make their competition unhappy.

It's only really of use as a speed booster with that in mind, and Openreach have little interest historically in delivering more than is absolutely required - it costs money.

I also suspect that there is a shortage of lines in a lot of areas, so BT wouldn't want to promote line bonding.

Post deleted by Icaras

then add the "lucky dip" problem with the pairs.

the initial line might be a good pair, and say 65mbit. The 2nd one might be [censored] and say 40mbit, Customer expects 130mbit and gets 105mbit instead. Cue complaints, engineer callouts etc.

Edited by Chrysalis (Thu 10-Jul-14 06:35:41)