Making FoD a reality with community help?

What are the options for trying to get FTTP on Demand (FoD) to be extended in my area? Is there any sites similar to kickstarter were local people in this area could pledge a certain amount of money to bring it to this place? I'm sure the costs of digging up the roads would be cheaper if more people pledged to it. I guess it would be similar to the local projects that some areas have done in the past, only this one BT would actually be participating in as well.

I was looking at one story on ispreview about FoD and it said it would cost around £38 a month, and an outlay of £2 per metre. From the figures of distance I am from the cabinet I'd be willing to pay that price. The only question mark would be is how much the Excess Construction Charge (ECC) would be.

I'm sure the people like us who take a greater interest in our connections than the average person could team up in some way to give BT or whoever the company was, more confidence in trialing, investing and promoting certain highspeed services in different areas.

Though the Internet as become more popular in the last 10 and 20 years, I still think the technical side is still seen as a bit geeky. Unlike in other countries were the Internet is a normal part of life, even in the US I was suprised at how non-technical/computer people used the Internet as a normal part of their day. Maybe its just part of our history in how our society looks upon things technical.

Fibre on Demand requires you to have FTTC available from your cabinet and the prices have changed a lot since the old £38 figure
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/6267-openreach-in...

On the use of the Internet 80% of UK households have an Internet connection, so we use it a lot, and the amount we spend on online per capita is very high compared to other countries.

Back to fibre on demand, what is or is not actually available on your cabinet?

Wow, yes, I read your link.. hmm.. its a shame that new technologies are so high priced. I think if it could get over a certain percent of availabilty it might come down in price similarly to how FTTC as down with all these recent offers on tv.

I get FTTC from my cabinet, which is good.. But I was just wondering if more local people managed to organise with a pledge for the next level of fibre would that be viable.

I'm not sure if FTTC worked on pledges or support but I remember marking my interest in my area. I'm not sure if that had any bearing on who got the FTTC cabinet.

My town of Shaw is a sub town of Oldham. Oldham has both FTTC and FoD available. Ideally the Shaw exchange would be perfect for trials as the town isnt that big geographically than most other small'ish towns.

I guess the pace of progress seems slow in this country, especially when talking to european friends, scandinavians in particular who seem to have very high speed connections. One thing I've noticed that a lot of those countries invested in cable networks.

I guess we are ahead of the US in terms of speed these days. A friend in Wisconsin only as one provider available to her, CenturyLink which only gives her just over 2mb's.

Anyways, I was just seeing if there were such a thing as community groups on this issue. I do still think that if BT / Openreach could see groups of people joined together it would make deciding which areas to trial things in much easier.

There are other ways to get fast Internet http://www.aa.net.uk/ethernet-prices.html

Do you need the extra speed though and will it benefit you?

The majority of people on FTTP take 40/10 or 80/20.

Hmm an update on the Wisconsin friend I mentioned. Apparently CenturyLink are 'Coming Soon' to her town in 2015 and offering FTTH at 1gb speed.

@AndyHCZ - Everyone wants as best speeds out there lol .. I am happy with my current situation. I was just seeing if there are better ways that the community could encourage faster broadband coverage.

The install prices are 'ok', if seeing broadband as a house investment, which its increasingly being seen. But wow, the monthly fee's.. why so much? I thought when the work is done then what else is being charged for? If its to recoup money then why not say that the customer is locked in to an X year contract.

I just don't really see the value of FoD for residential users at the current pricing, particularly if you have FTTC and live close to the cabinet.

As the need for faster speeds develops, there will be new and improved technologies. Copper still has a useful life and won't be retired any time soon.

On Ethernet because you are usually getting uncontended bandwidth, i.e. dedicated capacity at the speed you buy between the property and the ISP.

FTTC and pledges - well if a pledge actually means a check for £20,000+ then yes an area might get a cabinet even if BT, or the BDUK process is not going to provide one.

If wanting to convert an area from FTTC to FTTP, then if everyone on a single distribution point where Fibre on Demand is available were willing to order at the same time then you might get a bit of a discount, but the monthly fee for a 330 Mbps service would still apply for the three year term.

Openreach does provider native FTTP to around 170,000 premises in the UK which is available at the same price as FTTC, and other firms will install FTTP, e.g. Gigaclear in rural villages and Hyperoptic for flats/apartments in cities.

Very little need for technical trials, trials to see what the take-up are maybe, but the evidence is that even if you make 1 Gbps available, if you offer a slightly cheaper 20 Mbps service an awful lot of people opt for that.

Talking to Openreach about custom small projects is something that will not interest them much currently, because of the volume of work to meet the BDUK deadlines, and Fibre on Demand is currently on hold for new orders too.

The BT WBC FTTP available to a few properties here (but not mine) is £39.65 + 16.99 line rental for 200mbps and £50 + 16.99 for 330 mbps. So it's not particularly cheap even if you are fortunate to have the infrastructure pre installed. Needless to say, no-one who can order it has. The general impression is here is that everyone gave up looking at checkers in about 2012/2013, so everyone just thinks there's no fibre available.

Edited by deleted (Sun 25-Jan-15 17:38:52)

I'd consider buying FTTP at that price. I'm thinking that FTTP has minimal noise margin issues? i.e. you get the full 330mbps? Or is that another 'upto' product?

Up to.

My neighbour is on it and the speeds vary from 100Mbps - 280Mbps.

"Up to" refers to the sync speed, not the throughput. On FTTP and FTTPoD the sync speed is fixed at that of the product purchased.

Throughput variations to the premises will be down either to exchange/backhaul/ISP congestion or simply the remote server not supplying the data fast enough. Variations within the premises if using wireless or Homeplug connections will be down to those factors.

The wording on the BT site makes it look like they're also referring to throughput though -

These "Up to" speeds are based on the technology that delivers broadband to your home, and are slower at peak times. The speed you get also depends on your location, phone line and home wiring.

Hmmmm.

I can't argue with what they say about their own service, but it isn't the generally understood meaning of it. It makes buying the high speed FTTP/FTTPoD an idiot choice if it's varying by the amount your neighbour's does.

Any chance of a link please, to save me searching for it? (I do believe you!)

Edited by RobertoS (Sun 25-Jan-15 18:28:59)

Sure...it's here http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/products/broad...

You'll need to put in a number/address for the FTTP options to come up. PN me if you want a dummy address or number to use.

If you hover over the "speed" wording for all the Up to options, it's in there.

In theory they could advertise FTTP Infinity 4 as 330/30 as everyone syncs at that speed.

Edited by deleted (Sun 25-Jan-15 18:49:29)

In theory but a speed test will not run at 330 Mbps since there are tcp/ip overheads etc

The connection is fixed speed but its gpon shared bandwidth and 330 Mbps has a CIR of 40 Mbps. 80 Meg cir is 30 Mbps and 40 Mbps service is 15 Mbps

Also, I would think they would eventually fall foul of the ASA if they did advertise the 330 downstream speed as it's not possible for anyone to get this.

Thanks . It shows up on all BT packages, now I know it's there. D'oh!

I don't think anyone has mentioned this before on these forums. Though no doubt someone will have, and prove me wrong again.

I think it's just BT covering themselves.

The DSL Checker also now says something similar, "Throughput/download speeds will be less than line rates and can be affected by a number of factors within and external to BT's network, Communication Providers' networks and within customer premises".

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

There are other ways to get fast Internet http://www.aa.net.uk/ethernet-prices.html

What is this? 80/20Mb/s TT EoFTTC

In reply to a post by adslmax:

What is this? 80/20Mb/s TT EoFTTC

Well whatever it is, those quoted speeds would be nowhere near fast enough for you!

You have to use vague wording as explaining the different commit rates and other possibilities would mean a page of figures that would mean little unless you understand how the network is laid out.

As the access speed from home to network increases the network capacity that is already fibre becomes even more important.

I mean what does TT EoFTTC do?

Ethernet over FTTC

i.e. uses GEA-FTTC but at exchange you get handled as per other Ethernet customer traffic, so closer to a leased line without the costs of installing one to the premises.

Do plusnet selling TT EoFTTC MrSaffron?

Yes, they sell Talk Talk products...

In reply to a post by bowdon:

I guess the pace of progress seems slow in this country, especially when talking to european friends, scandinavians in particular who seem to have very high speed connections. One thing I've noticed that a lot of those countries invested in cable networks.

And yet we have long had one of the highest rates of take-up and use of the WWW. Speed isn't everything. Widespread availability and low cost seem to be better things to work toward based on international league tables. Last time I looked (a year ago) we were still in the top 10 and number two or three compared to our peers.

In reply to a post by bowdon:

The install prices are 'ok', if seeing broadband as a house investment, which its increasingly being seen. But wow, the monthly fee's.. why so much? I thought when the work is done then what else is being charged for?

Nope, you've got it completely the wrong way round there

Bandwidth is the expensive bit a bit of old copper or even new fibre in the ground is cheap in comparison.

In reply to a post by AndyHCZ:

I just don't really see the value of FoD for residential users at the current pricing, particularly if you have FTTC and live close to the cabinet.

As the need for faster speeds develops, there will be new and improved technologies. Copper still has a useful life and won't be retired any time soon.

There's an Ofcom document kicking around somewhere where they looked at all the possible technologies and where they might get us if they lived up to their promises. I seem to recall it concluding that 90% of telephone lines would support 500Mb/s and over 50% would be at least 1Gb/s or something bizarre like that.

Edit: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/t...

I over egged it a bit. It reckons 99% should get at least 50Mb/s and 95% should get at least 100Mb/s

Edited by Andrue (Mon 26-Jan-15 16:06:24)

Does PlusNet actually resell TalkTalk products?

AAISP certainly do, but did not think PlusNet did

I was being sarcastic to adslmax

No doubt he'll try and get a quotation though.

I wonder how long it will be until Openreach upgrade the copper lines to fibre or at least some other higher quality line.. even ethernet would be better. Though I'm not sure phyically if ethernet is too big to have one per household.

Removing the copper is problematic due to 999 needing to work in power cut. A battery backup is supplied for fibre voice access if ordered on a FTTP line.

Over 160,000 lines are FTTP based already, though the copper is usually still available for the above reason and that many people seem to like it, e.g. free broadband from people like Sky/TalkTalk

Ethernet over copper needs powered repeaters. As standard it has a 100 metre limit.

Fibre to the Distribution point via g.fast is likely to be next step as that can provide 100mbits plus to most people on a DP

It's interesting seeing the distribution of our UK technology as compared to the US. The US has fallen majorly behind in high speed internet coverage, even commented on by President Obama recently. Two of the big providers have been named as being the ones holding back progress (CenturyLink was one, I forget the other).

But with Google's Fibre becoming a presense in major towns there, suddenly CenturyLink is also providing Fibre. I've noticed that when fibre is mentioned in the US it seems to be FTTH. I know my friend currently as DSL, and will be ordering fibre in mid-2015. It's just amazing though how fast CenturyLink went from having little fibre presense to now jumping straight to FTTH. I would have thought a FTTC technology would have been more appropriate for the US because of the larger geography. Unless of course doing the work is cheaper in cost compared to UK?

I think because the US is so massive, they've been doing it in chunks - almost like they're not even considering the coverage of the whole country. The funding and/or organisation of the "chunks" (i.e. built-up areas) has also been very different to the UK's way of doing things so far... or at least up to the stage we finally reached a few years ago when individual counties started realising they had to work together and sort something out, and at a similar time, very rural parts of the country doing things on a smaller scale.

I've not got a good knowledge of the US "ducting" system at all (as should be apparent from me referring to it as that) but you've got to consider they've had cable TV to a considerable percent of urban areas for decades now [citation needed, etc.]. There was also an electricity supplier who, implausibly, built fibre into (and/or with) its supply grid. I don't mean literally "into" of course, I mean they either did it all at once, or used an existing system of their own physical poles/holes/ducts to run the fibre through. That eliminates the delays which OR encounter with booking, and then waiting for, both the power companies and civil works to dig up roads and install new ducts, unblock old ones, etc.

The USA and The UK: Different

Edited by deleted (Tue 27-Jan-15 00:25:07)

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Removing the copper is problematic due to 999 needing to work in power cut. A battery backup is supplied for fibre voice access if ordered on a FTTP line.

How much does that battery cost if ordered? thinking ahead here for when/if they get around to finish of our FTTP install

Thanks

Paul

Edited by PaulKirby (Tue 27-Jan-15 01:32:03)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Ethernet over copper needs powered repeaters. As standard it has a 100 metre limit.

Don't believe that is strictly true. Cat3+ standards (10baseT) for Ethernet have a distance limitation of 100 metres. There are other ways to run Ethernet over copper. Both thick (10base5) and thin (10base2) wire had very different characteristics and distance capabilities than modern twisted pair Ethernet. Thick wire had distances of 500 meters whereas thin wire was 185 metres.

You can actually run at much longer distances as long as you change the parameters of the connection. The main parameter is timeout for acknowledgment of packet receipt on 10baset - if you lengthen the timeout you slow down the connection but extend the distance.

You don't pay extra, its rolled into the cost of the service

You would only get one if you are also taking FVA - Fibre voice access

If talking ratios then Google Fibre is possibly just about the size of Gigaclear in the UK

Larger geography and more spread out suburbs where people don't mind overhead cabling makes FTTH more likely than FTTC.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

You don't pay extra, its rolled into the cost of the service

That's good to know, last time I checked the FTTP 330Mbit package with BT was approx. £50p/m or there about the last time I checked, not sure on the price for the FVA option, but maybe the FVA will remove that intermittent static screeches we hear now and then on the phone.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

You would only get one if you are also taking FVA - Fibre voice access

Well that's something to think about for when we finally get FTTP maybe 2 to 4 years time

Thanks
Paul

They include the battery backup in all installs (even without FVA) for some reason.

It has zero use without FVA though as you lose broadband in the event of a power outage.

Ta, guessing its easier to have installers doing the same thing everywhere.

There is rather more to the difference between the US & the UK than just geography and business structures. The old Bell system was broken up and then gradually re-emerged under what are now AT&T and Verizon plus CenturyLink (which incorporates the old US West/Qwest Bell spinoff).

The first two companies have largely lost interest in their copper networks except in relatively dense urban & suburban areas. In such cases, control of ducts seems to be the real reason for keeping their copper networks. Outside these areas AT&T and Verizon have sold their telephone systems to second tier operators in order to finance their wireless and fibre networks. CenturyLink and its peers have gone heavily into debt to fund the purchase of telephone networks. They don't have the resources or face significant competitive pressure to roll out fibre (FTTH or FTTC) or even faster ADSL.

Cable penetration is higher than in the US. Further, overhead lines are used in most suburban areas for power & communications. As a consequence, the FCC and states (which share regulatory responsibilities) have promoted competition between infrastructure networks rather than requiring open access to incumbent networks. Lobbying by the large ex-Bell companies has played a large part in this.

The outcome is very uneven provision of faster broadband services with heated disputes about access rights and universal service obligations. Broadband prices are pretty high in non-competitive areas, which is why there are many more fixed wireless ISPs. However, where broadband is bundled with phone services and content - as for most cable and fibre systems - it is hard to allocate where the value and profits arise.

Translating this to the UK (or other European countries) the key issue is the role of a national monopoly controlling the copper network with no unbundling or regional operators (excluding Kingston). That was never the situation in the US, even under the Bell system. BT and its European peers have strong reasons to extend the life of their copper networks as long as possible, whereas AT&T and Verizon are going down a rather different path. The number of copper lines is falling rapidly in the US and for much of the population the future is clearly going to be a combination of fibre and wireless.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I can't argue with what they say about their own service, but it isn't the generally understood meaning of it. It makes buying the high speed FTTP/FTTPoD an idiot choice if it's varying by the amount your neighbour's does.

The BT Wholesale network appears to be going through another phase of struggling for capacity in a number of areas right now.

The SVLANs are also a bit 'skinny' on the whole to have 330Mb services running on them.