Why the difference in ISP support FTTP and FTTC ?

Dumb question of the moment

Why does it seem to matter that the Fibre ends at the Cabinet, and lots of ISP's sell you that, but if it comes all the way to the home and ends at equipment in the home, they don't.
Sky, TalkTalk etc don't want to know. (let's ignore York/Talk Talk project)

With so many homes being planned to be FTTP/H only
this means they will only have a very restricted choice of ISP (BT/plusnet or one of the specialists). Your standard Sky etc user is not going to be very impressed at not getting their bundle offer ?

What technically (or otherwise) is the difference that stops ISP's putting their connection to a Fibre in the exchange.... which ends up in a FTTC or FTTP end. Surely it is the same at the exchange - to not be so, seems unfortunate to say the least.

I have an interest, as Management Co I am in contact with, has finally got OpenReach to agree we really are not a Virgin Media area (despite their notes saying otherwise), and install FTTC for a sensible price. We have also got a price for FTTP (about 5-6 times higher). Then suddenly I see that few 'normal peoples' ISP's want to connect to FTTP.
I can't therefore support FTTP to everyone if most of the 300 or so residents will be disenfranchised.

Solution looks like go FTTC
and encourage the enthusiasts to go FTTPoD ?

Trying to get my head around it
Thanks.

Its all down to the fact that the FTTP rollout is too small compared to FTTC and the ISP will have to train their support staff to also support FTTP which all costs money.

As time goes and more FTTP is rolled out more and more ISP's will provide FTTP.

There is 7 ISP that provides FTTP for home users and 13 for the business side etc.
https://www.homeandbusiness.openreach.co.uk/fibre-br...

But yeah it kind of sucks the lack of providers for FTTP, but I understand why.

Paul

But technically surely it is not different ?

and can be compared to the early
Openreach Modem + WAN based Router config of FTTC ?
Just that it is now a
PON Modem + WAN based Router config for FTTP ....

After the modem, it is not dfferent
Where does the training of the staff come in to it ?
And open reach presumably do the in house connection... (and already brought the fibre there 'waiting' anyway)

All you would need is a small core group to know about it at the support center, and as more and more homes are being built FTTP only (announcements last Nov about the next 30 builds of new homes all being FTTP only etc) why wouldn't Sky etc want to be in on it - they are talking up their internet only alternative to sat dishes again.

Am I going wrong in thinking it is the same at the exchange, and as you suggest, only a staff knowledge in case of customer issues ?

In reply to a post by andy88:

But technically surely it is not different ?

and can be compared to the early
Openreach Modem + WAN based Router config of FTTC ?
Just that it is now a
PON Modem + WAN based Router config for FTTP ....

After the modem, it is not dfferent
Where does the training of the staff come in to it ?
And open reach presumably do the in house connection... (and already brought the fibre there 'waiting' anyway)

All you would need is a small core group to know about it at the support center, and as more and more homes are being built FTTP only (announcements last Nov about the next 30 builds of new homes all being FTTP only etc) why wouldn't Sky etc want to be in on it - they are talking up their internet only alternative to sat dishes again.

Am I going wrong in thinking it is the same at the exchange, and as you suggest, only a staff knowledge in case of customer issues ?

I totally agree with you, there is nothing stopping the ISP for training a small group of their staff to support FTTP, but they just don't want to do it.

I phoned sky up mid last year to test something out, I enquired about fibre and they responded with something like my area is not fibre ready.

I said yeah it is due to I already have fibre, I was asked what speeds I was getting, so I told them around 300Mbits.

This then got silly due to they told me I was mistaken about the speeds I was getting and what product I have and that all that I could get was ADSL 2+ with a maximum of 4.5Mbits.

I went on listening to them trying not to laugh at them explaining things to me for about 10 or so mins.

I came clean to them telling them that I had "FTTP" and I was shocked that they didn't even know what it was fully and went on about fibre cabinets etc, so I had to explain to them.

Now with FTTC they can just read off a fault lookup card, but FTTP would require a new different card due to the types of fault would be different for the two.

You say "technically surely it is not different" well yeah it is different if you think about it.
Its all down to how the data is getting to the modem, FTTP is via a fibre cable where as FTTC is via your copper phone line coming from the cabinets to your home.

Each can have different types of faults, that's probably why along with the types of hardware they have to rent / pay for at the exchange etc. is why not all ISP's support FTTP "yet".

Paul

Couldn�t agree more Andy, and have been bemoaning this same point for a while now.

I see Openreach announced yesterday that they are pushing ahead with an increased FTTP roll out.

How long can the �big players� keep dodging this ? You�ve got to be in it to win it I say.

I completely agree, I find it extremely annoying when the companies like sky complain about BT not doing enough and yet they don�t don�t do anything to support fttp.
You mention that some people�s isps want to connect to fttp have BT already started rolling this out?

I've been saying it for years now.

In my street, there are two neighbours in my street that are on ADSL when the rest of us have FTTP. One elderly neighbour is with TalkTalk and currently trying to upload all her photos to Google's cloud with her ADSL connection's upstream speed of 0.3Mbps.

She came round the other day asking if there's anything that can be done to speed it up (it's been 2 weeks uploading so far and still not done!). I told her she should upgrade to fibre and she said that she's rung TalkTalk several times and they tell her that fibre is not available in the area.

I'm helping her to move over now to Plusnet's FTTP. We've had FTTP in our street since 2009 and there are still people locally complaining about speeds, but they are with the likes of TalkTalk and Sky.

I can understand if the footprint for FTTP was less than 100k premises, that the other big ISPs might not be so interested. But it doesn't make commercial sense now we've now passed over 500k premises, especially when the big ISPs are competing for thousands of net additions each quarter.

Edited by deleted (Fri 02-Feb-18 08:56:47)

In reply to a post by AndyHCZ:

... I told her she should upgrade to fibre and she said that she's rung TalkTalk several times and they tell her that fibre is not available in the area.

Make sure you put a formal complaint into OFCOM about TTs mis-information.

I raised this with OFCOM many years ago.

Sky are exactly the same. They even sent out flyers a number of years back to tell people that fibre services are now available in our area, but this was apparently a marketing mistake.

In reply to a post by bluemoon87:

You mention that some people�s isps want to connect to fttp have BT already started rolling this out?

See PaulKirby's link to
the handful supporting FTTP to Homes, Business and
the even fewer currently supporting FTTPoD
(should you only have FTTC and want a higher connect .. and have deep pockets)

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

There is 7 ISP that provides FTTP for home users and 13 for the business side etc.
https://www.homeandbusiness.openreach.co.uk/fibre-br...

But yeah it kind of sucks the lack of providers for FTTP, but I understand why.

Paul

And examples of more Builders getting supporting FTTP,
".....all future Redrow homes can expect to benefit from ultrafast broadband via Fibre-to-the-Premises "

Thanks to Home Builders Federation having a deal " to provide this infrastructure free of charge to all new housing developments of 30+ properties."

Seems the rest of the UK is moving on ... just the big boys don't want to connect..

Ah misinterpreted the line thought you meant FTTP had become available to some people, my bad. Something else to think about is the speeds that everyone will get at least with FTTP you would get consistent speeds over everyone but with FTTC you have the distance to cabinet, so not everyone may be happy anyway.

You seem to be a bit confused, FTTP is available to large numbers of people now (AndyHCZ mentions over 500,000 premises earlier in this thread) but only in certain areas where BT openreach or other suppliers have built the necessary infrastructure.

Edited by Realalemadrid (Fri 02-Feb-18 10:13:15)

Not confused, just missed a couple of words off the end of my sentence, in their area I meant.

I was referring to G.fast, which is a little bit different. This is a really an upgrade over FTTC, so BT Wholesale and ISPs with their own networks (like Sky and Talk Talk) will need to ensure they have adequate capacity from the handover exchange to support the potential bandwidth requirements of new customers that might order ultrafast products. I'm not sure of the technical details, but I would assume BT Wholesale is buying new 10G cablelinks and backhaul connections to ensure users don't see a degraded service.

With FTTP, once a circuit is built in an area and released for sale, then any ISP can sell it (there are over 500,000 premises that can order it). There are no technical limitations preventing Sky or TalkTalk selling FTTP, as it's essentially backhauled in an identical way to FTTC. Again though, ISPs need to ensure they enough bandwidth to meet the demand.

The reason seems not to be technical but financial. TT and Sky haven't agreed on a pricing structure with BT/Openreach. This article explains. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/02/01/bt-op...

I always thought the handover was identical to FTTC. But I never knew for sure and you can�t really tell from looking around in the handover exchanges. You can see the various fibre cabinets terminating on the equipment but FTTP infrastructure is harder to spot in there.

However someone said a couple of months ago that the likes of Sky would need to order a different Cablelink at the handover exchange. I wonder if Andrew or anyone knows the answer for sure as I�ve heard both opinions over the years.

The Openreach FTTP pricing is the same as FTTC (for the same speed variants).

I think the article is referring to the future expansion. Openreach will need some assurances on uptake or they will have to charge a higher line rental for FTTP to justify the expansion cost.

Everything is identical. The only additional thing an ISP usually needs to do is buy additional cable links and ensure they have enough backhaul capacity.

The reason Talk Talk and Sky didn't sell FTTP in the past is that supporting a new product would require a lot of changes to their back end systems and staff training. I assume they felt that the number of premises passed did not justify the development and training cost.

Edit: Another thing is they don't support FVA or VoIP. So this creates a further issue for new, FTTP only builds.

Edited by deleted (Fri 02-Feb-18 10:58:06)

For some years you needed two cablelinks if you wanted to support FTTC and FTTP but no longer the case, and prices for 10 Gbps cable links have come down substantially.

Remember when installs for FTTC were all engineer based and some providers did not really get on board and not the time they did was once they could supply their own CPE. Branding issues over the Openreach ONT and need to have one of those engineers attend to fit ONT may factor in.

Don't under estimate the public confusion around a box that has an Openreach logo so really this is a BT service, so why don't I buy direct from BT because I think I will get a better service i.e. the decades of work around splitting BT has not trickled down to public perception yet.

You may have hit the nail on the head there about FVA! That didn�t even occur to me.

In reply to a post by AndyHCZ:

The reason Talk Talk and Sky didn't sell FTTP in the past is that supporting a new product would require a lot of changes to their back end systems and staff training. I assume they felt that the number of premises passed did not justify the development and training cost.

There's also the branding thing. TalkTalk and Sky both really, really like to pretend that there's no BT Group involvement in delivering their services. They hate that the ONT has to be supplied by Openreach and has a brand identified with BT on it. Whether the Openreach rebrand has an any way mollified them I do not know.

They both still want the same level of control they have over MPF LLU.

But yet when people call their contact centres they mostly refer to Openreach as �BT�, so they don�t help themselves really.

The NTEs have now had the BT part of the Openreach logo removed. I�m not sure if the ONT has yet.

Sky and Talk Talk both (currently) have Mobile services...
so could provide that as their Voice solution.

Most people and certainly anyone who understands wanting FTTP would have one anyway. The use of landlines has been falling for a long time - many only having them for DSL needs.

Sky and Talk Talk could always partner / white label ANO VOIP brand ?

And if someone really only wants landline, then use BT

The technology for VoIP is simple and it's been around for some time now. However, Sky and TalkTalk have zero interest to lose their MPF/LLU network.

Two ISPs have been opposed to SOGEA from the outset. Any guesses which?

I understand from their point of view that they want to sweat their LLU equipment, however in new build areas why�re getting no revenue anyway. So they may as well get something rather than nothing at all.

Let's not forget BT�s own babies � EE & Plusnet � also don�t offer FTTP on the Openreach platform (for new customers at least). AFAIK Plusnet will migrate existing customers over to FTTP (still in trial?) but most non-PN customers won�t be aware of this and even they were they�d have to migrate to a xDSL service first which rules out those on FTTP only builds.

Personally I think once OR FTTP is more widespread then most/all of the mass market ISPs will start selling FTTP services. The fact that TalkTalk are already selling GFast services for those in live trial areas (see here & here) proves they are deadly serious about selling faster Openreach services. Its also possible that most ISPs are not (yet) totally happy with Openreach's FTTP installation timescales/procedures, so are waiting for further improvements (especially wrt timescales) before they take the leap. Plenty of FTTP installation/order horror stories on TBB forums, a recent one here.

Edited by deleted (Sat 03-Feb-18 04:40:59)

Our ONT (installed this week) has no branding - there is a approx 50x50mm recessed square for a branding label, with no branding label in it (it is the new single ethernet port / single phone port ONT).

The new master socket (they modified it ready for FVA) is Openreach branded, so maybe old stock is being used up (It says Openreach - A BT Group Business. It has a large Openreach 'logo' and a small BT one)

Simon

The actual ONT inside that box IS Openreach branded.

https://ibb.co/h4dZzR
https://ibb.co/e35EzR




*edited to add photo links

Edited by Zarjaz (Sat 03-Feb-18 11:11:52)

In reply to a post by Icaras:

The NTEs have now had the BT part of the Openreach logo removed.

Is this related to the *cough* separation of BT and Openreach?