Moving from FTTC back to ADSL

We are in the fortunate position of having just had our BTOR cabinet enabled and Accepting Orders for FTTC under BDUK, and within the foreseeable future having FTTP via Gigaclear. (They are laying fibre now).

For the time being I want to retain a landline and ADSL, as backups for phone in case of power cuts (mobile signals are flaky) and Broadband.

But the current intro offers on FTTC are sufficiently attractive to make it worth considering upgrading to FTTC anyway to cover the period until FTTP is available.

I would only consider doing this if there will be no problem in migrating back to a cheaper ADSL solution for backup once the initial FTTC contract ended.

Are there likely to be any technical or other issues arising from migrating back from FTTC to ADSL.

Thanks in advance for any advice

The only issue being that every migration no matter the combination carries the risk someone will mess something up. So FTTC back to ADSL is rare, but people have done it.

I thought it was just a matter of having an BTOR Engineer go into the Exchange to put in an ADSLx Line Card for his line and then remove the fibre to copper bridge link between PCP and Fibre Cabinets) and then have the ISP change broadband package back to ADSLx.

Or am I missing something here?

Paul

No technical issues other than the simple risk involved in any physical change to the connection. Just like upgrading to FTTC in the first place.

You shouldn't need to migrate, as you should be able to downgrade with the same ISP. Whichever you do you would be subject to whatever minimum term applied to the target ADSLx product.

In reply to a post by woodlander:

Are there likely to be any technical or other issues arising from migrating back from FTTC to ADSL.

The only issue we've seen with recent new orders is where people have gone from FTTC back to an ADSL-based service and although the work at the exchange is done, the work in the cabinet is not which then has to be raised to another engineer after.

As to what % rate this occurs at, I don't know but suspect it might be quite high.

Matt

I know someone that done that with BT, they had a pretty good ADSL speed, went to FTTC and realised that the extra cost was not worth it, so after their contract ended they went back to ADSL. No technical problem at all and only a couple of hours if that of lost of service.
The main problem was BT getting in a mess with their bill and carried on charging them for infinity, it got cleared up eventually.

It is, but as with any changes scope for mistakes exist and as FTTC back to ADSL is fairly low volume may have a higher error rate.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

It is, but as with any changes scope for mistakes exist and as FTTC back to ADSL is fairly low volume may have a higher error rate.

This could be true, I know we had an issue a while back going from ADSL Max (temp line card) to ADSL 2+ for a couple of hours we was using somebody else's connection along with their phone line, so maybe the engineer was installing a few cards at the exchange or messed up in the cabinet.

So yeah it can happen.

Paul

woodlander depends what sevuce you are going to get with the alternative vendor -- so if you are clase to the cabinet you could be better off whith 80 meg fttc raither than basic FTTH serice from alternatie provider which is this is 20/20 service

Thanks for all your comments.

You've all been v. helpful

W

Gigaclear's base service is a 50/50 Mbps symmetrical service.
Next service level up is 100/100 Mbps.

When is the Gigaclear service likely to be activated?
If they are laying fibre in your village now today as you say (and they work weekends as well!) then it is likely to be mere weeks before it is released to service. This lot don't hang about.

I've had FTTC and I am back on ADSL it's brill ( I am on AAISP using TalkTalk Business LLU)

Gigaclear told my dad that they wouldn't go near areas where FTTC was enabled as they had no interest in competing with BT. I always thought that was stupid.

Seems they have gone back on that - and that's good!

Don't worry about FTTC once you get 1Gbps from Gigaclear you won't ever look back

but you wnt get a gig - you get either at 50/50 or a 100/1000 and 100/100 is more than 50/50 service

Regardless of what service level/price subscribers choose - they also get a approx 5ms ping time to google.com - I've checked this on a Gigaclear connection.

In response to @aauser
From what I've heard Gigalcear are not currently interested in marketing their service in areas which already have an established superfast service (Bt/virgin etc) fully operational with people using it. They feel that they won't get the 30% signups they require out of those not yet signed up to a SFBB service and are unlikely to get many who have already signed to BT/virgin etc to swap to their offering as they will be 'in contract'
This is quite different of course to them going into an area which has not at that time got SFBB and getting the 30% signups, installing the FTTP network and then BT subsequently fit FTTC. Or indeed an area which is planned to have FTTC "sometime": all of which they might be interested in.
Indeed I know of areas where they have installed where some of the BT cabs are getting or have got FTTC, but some others are not, while at the opposite extreme another area where BT has done nothing in response and the locality is still on ADSLmax. And even one where Gigaclear and BT were racing each other to get their SFBB version up and running first!

Edited by deleted (Sat 16-May-15 19:11:32)

In reply to a post by zom22:

Regardless of what service level/price subscribers choose - they also get a approx 5ms ping time to google.com - I've checked this on a Gigaclear connection.

I'm sure there are large numbers of BT Wholesale based users who also get 5ms pings to google.com. "... a Gigaclear connection" is hardly indicative of "all".

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

The only issue being that every migration no matter the combination carries the risk someone will mess something up. So FTTC back to ADSL is rare, but people have done it.

It's not that rare! Openreach engineers will tell you they are constantly doing "FTTC Ceased-remove PCP jumpers" jobs. Maybe that's mostly for rented accommodation but a lot of the time people will just go with whatever is cheapest.

Possibly people gulled into upgrading to FTTC "superfast", but they never do anything except browse and email, where the effect is noticeable but not dramatic. At the end of their minimum term they realise they've been had, and downgrade to save money, as you say.