What is the name of service BT offer with FTTPoD?

Apologies for all these simple FAQ questions on a Sunday. Trying to find how you actually order FTTPoD from BT and what internet package you get with them? The BT sales rep that we saw last week seems to be only offering 30Mbps/30Mbps leased line uncontended service. I'm sure there must be other services that don't cost £6k a year for just a 30Mbps downstream link. I think my client would be much better off with a 300Mbps/30Mbps contended service like this from Fluidone:

https://www.fluidone.com/data/plus-business-fttpod/

Note that the Openreach guaranteed throughput on the high end FTTP/FTTPoD products is much lower than the headline speed. I forget the figure but PaulKirby I think knows it.

BT don't sell FTTPod.
OpenReach sell it.
ISP's can but it from OpenReach.
You buy it from the ISP's.
The ISP BT Retail does not sell it.
BT Business is soon introducing FTTPod under the label "Infinity Build to Order".

Currently only FluidOne and Cerberus sell FTTPod but they are waiting till Feb 23rd for updated pricing from BTWholesale.

Well I don't know for FTTPod, but FTTP (300/30) Infinity 4, when we had speed issues (i.e. our 300Mbits dropped down to 45Mbits) BT told me on the phone before it becomes an issue (i.e. listed as a fault) when it drops below 40Mbits (downstream) and that the minimal guaranteed downstream speed was around 40Mbits which I think is stupid for the 300Mbits package, as for the up there was no guaranteed speed.

I can see with the new 300/50 that the guaranteed speed has increased to 100Mbits, but good luck in getting that form BT, BTW DSL Checker says I can get 330/50 yet BT says I cannot.

What you need to also take into account is that the fibre going into the splitter can handle about (2.5Gbits down / 1.2Gbits up) now that fibre is split 32 ways meaning if everyone on that split fibre had Infinity 4 (300/30) and everyone hammers their connections up and down, your speed to the Exchange would be 78.125Mbit down and 37.5Mbit up.

So the amount of users and what package along with how many connections the ISP cram together would both affect what speeds you get hence the 40Mbit guaranteed speed.

I assume that BT will upgrade their infrastructure with the 300/50 due to like I said the minimal guaranteed speed is 100Mbits and that's not possible with the 2.5Gbits / 32.

Paul

Thanks Paul.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

Currently only FluidOne and Cerberus sell FTTPod but they are waiting till Feb 23rd for updated pricing from BTWholesale.

We (Syscomm) can also supply this, principally to businesses.

In the interest of not to be seen as just trying to advertise, the Openreach website maintains a list of suppliers!:
https://www.homeandbusiness.openreach.co.uk/fibre-br...

The table on the bottom of page 3 in SIN 506 has the prioritised rates.

Unless you're purchasing the service on an unconnected basis from an ISP however, you shouldn't expect the higher prioritised rates to apply to residential or business connections on a "volume" basis, this is only a guarantee from Openreach to the CP in the handover exchange.

The CP/ISP will likely contend at multiple levels above this (Cablelinks/Backhaul/Interconnects for wholesale ISPs/transit), particularly when you start talking about speeds beyond 100Mb.

In the case of FTTPoD the PON is typically newly built solely for the customer(s) in question, so until other connections come on board there's effectively no contention as far as the last mile(s) is concerned (read: ONT to OLT). This being said, other user's hopping on afterwards will be far more likely now that FTTPoD will enable adjacent properties as native brownfield.

AIUI FTTPoD always did result in nearby properties being set to "FTTP Available", rather than FTTPoD.

It depends, there's definitely builds where this was not the case in the past, I've seen this as recently as last month, even though the surveyor factored in optimal split/CBT placement.
Policy as of Feb 1st is an "always" now, instead of a sometimes!

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

AIUI FTTPoD always did result in nearby properties being set to "FTTP Available", rather than FTTPoD.

That's new with the recent changes I believe.
Certainly with baby_frogmella and Snake, who both used different ISP's, none of their neighbours showed WBC-FTTP available. It only shows for their own properties.

Effectively the changes mean you're now paying to give some neighbours free FTTP.

In reply to a post by Blmcg:

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

Currently only FluidOne and Cerberus sell FTTPod but they are waiting till Feb 23rd for updated pricing from BTWholesale.

We (Syscomm) can also supply this, principally to businesses.

In the interest of not to be seen as just trying to advertise, the Openreach website maintains a list of suppliers!:
https://www.homeandbusiness.openreach.co.uk/fibre-br...

Always happy to be corrected.
I'll make sure to add your name in future.

Checking the link you posted I was anticipating perhaps another couple ISP's taking up this product. Nope, a grand total of 3 now.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

AIUI FTTPoD always did result in nearby properties being set to "FTTP Available", rather than FTTPoD.

That's new with the recent changes I believe.
Certainly with baby_frogmella and Snake, who both used different ISP's, none of their neighbours showed WBC-FTTP available. It only shows for their own properties.

Effectively the changes mean you're now paying to give some neighbours free FTTP.

That's correct, none of my neighbours are showing WBC FTTP on the DSL checker despite having FTTPoD installed last June. I think this may change in the future as I believe Openreach installed a FTTP splitter on my street and with nice clear ducts already in place (houses are relatively new), I imagine it wouldn't cost Openreach a huge amount to deploy FTTP to other properties.

Edited by deleted (Mon 19-Feb-18 05:22:47)

Thanks everyone for the replies. I'm flabbergasted that BT don't offer a service built on top of FTTPoD. I'm aware that Openreach is supposed to be a separate company who supply services on a level-playing field to all ISPs but I'm also aware that Ofcom aren't happy:

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/openreach-bt-split-ofcom

Thanks for the link to companies who do offer the service. Yes, a surprisingly small list but that kind of backs up why Ofcom and the government aren't happy about BT/Openreach progress in rural internet.

Also the caveats about real speed are noted but to be honest, if my client could get speeds nearer the VDSL2 limits from FTTC, they would be more than happy. Contention is not a real hot spot for them. 5Mbps upstream would work.

It's always sad when a customer is in a difficult position due to existing contracts and actions of BT. They are almost been forced down the expensive BTNet leased line route because a) BT don't offer a service built-on FTTPoD, b) they are able to absorb £2,800 of the install costs and c) they can write-off the existing nine contracts without early termination fees. I'm not sure the ISPs offering FTTPoD services will be able to match (b) and (c) so my customer ends up with a slow download speed for a lot of money

I will also suggest that no decisions are made until the new pricing structure is in place.

The scenario where BT is not selling Openreach services is a direct result of Ofcom regulation and the separation. so they are very happy with FoD situation I suspect.

The write off existing contracts, given VDSL2 is just a 1 month contract from Openreach its no big deal to close them down, and similar with phone lines.

On the absorb costs - probably why the BT.net connection is the price it is. Have you sought alternate leased line pricing?

Still question of why you think 5 Mbps or more is needed for VoIP? If you have maybe if you had 30 or more people on the phone at the same time then can see the reason.

>The write off existing contracts, given VDSL2 is just a 1 month contract from Openreach its no big deal to close them down, and similar with phone lines.

Only two of the lines are VDSL2 (upgraded in last year) - the other seven are ADSL. If this was my business, I'd be finding out exactly how much it would cost to get out of contract but one can't apply such pressure to one's clients. You can suggest...

>On the absorb costs - probably why the BT.net connection is the price it is. Have you sought alternate leased line pricing?

No, not yet - have asked Fluidone to get in touch to get a quote on their FTTPoD 300Mbps/30MBps service.

>Still question of why you think 5 Mbps or more is needed for VoIP? If you have maybe if you had 30 or more people on the phone at the same time then can see the reason.

5Mbps is mainly a figure plucked out of the air. All I know is that the current VDSL2+ link is not good enough. They're getting 1133kbps today:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/v78v6uy7i2kirnd/OHWB-VDSL2...
https://www.dropbox.com/s/h681b0jjvbpio9i/OHWB-VDSL2...

My client's tenants VOIP over a Cisco-VPN is not fit for purpose. To be honest, I've not been on site to do any tests because the topic is sensitive.

So if 1Mbps isn't enough, I'll double it and then double it again for two of them plus throw in another 1Mbps for good luck I was also going off this page where is says minimum recommended is 3Mbps:

https://www.phone.com/2014/10/18/much-bandwidth-need...

I've not set-up QOS yet on the Vigor2860 because I'm playing with so little upstream bandwidth.

Cheers, Rob.

Client if they cannot get VoIP to work for one call with a 1 Mbps upload has some other issues e.g. perhaps trying to do full bit rate lossless uncompressed audio, rather than the decent codecs that will handle a call in under 0.1 Mbps

Running over a VPN carries overheads ontop of the voip too, and it may be other business activity is the issue.

Immediate change that should be done, is VoIP on a different line to any web browsing or other activity so that downloads or uploads of web etc do not interfere.

Well sharing the expensive fibre install makes sense but is this reflected in the original install pricing? I get the feeling that the install costs might go up with the new FTTPoD pricing?

Install costs go up with the new FoD pricing but contract term drops to 12 months and you pay less per month

Your Draytek 2860 web interface is accessible from the Internet - you can restrict access to particular public IPs or subnets in the interface - under �System Management� menu I think from memory.

Yeah I know this is intentional at the moment as I'm managing it from a computer with a dynamic IP. When I set this up, I really wished you could use a CNAME instead of a fixed IP for access.

Other option is you can connect to it with a simple windows VPN client connection

To original poster:

If the router does have a HTTP visible to the Internet then this may be part of the problem i.e. rogue scanners will see this and try to connect, which may occupy router CPU and limited bandwidth.

Does the router allow you to monitor bandwidth use? Reason for asking is you can see how much bandwidth each VoIP client is using during a phone call, otherwise you can figure it out based on the codec settings