Fibre Leased Line vs FTTP On Demand - Difference?

This question is probably showing my fundamental misunderstanding of the differences here. But can someone explain to me what the difference is between a Fibre Leased Line and FTTP On Demand?

Are they same thing and will you in effect be getting a private FTTP On demand by taking out a leased line so in the end of the Leased Line contract you are free to go and get regular FTTP.

I ask as Cerebrus quoted me £20,600 ex vat build costs and also the (I think) either £100 or likely £160 ontop per month for FTTP on demand.

So we are talking around £30,000 for a years FTTP with Cerebrus. Which is crazy prices.

But looking at this website for their Fibre Leased Lines

https://www.cix.uk/leased-lines/fibre-leased-line

It says I can get to my exact home address a 12 months 100mb guaranteed up and down Fibre leased line installed from BT Wholesale. Which means they would have to install FTTP for this wouldn't they, or at the least load bond a whole load of FTTCs?.

£916.55 Installation costs and
£4098.6 for one years 100mb up and down Fibre. Both including VAT

So totalling £5000 all in for a year

Would this effectively be a much cheaper way to get FTTP so at the end of the 12 months Leased Line contract you could go to Zen and get regular FTTP for £60 per month I just cannot see how they would offer this without installing FTTPod to my premisis?

Edited by Anth (Sat 24-Mar-18 11:27:37)

Doubtless someone will correct me shortly ...

The leased line will have a much higher SLA service level agreement, repair times etc.

The fibre itself will be point to point, so will be a different topography... so you couldn�t just migrate to FTTP after.

Fibre based lined (as opposed to a bundle of copper circuits) is very different in architecture to FTTP.

FoD FTTP delivers a GPON based FTTP connection, which means the light is split between 32 other premises, and bandwidth is shared, now that light can handle 2.5 Gbps down, so if you get a 300 Mbps connection and you are the only person then local contention not an issue, but once 8 or more connect it might be seen if you all hit a speed test at the same instant. Then as you get to the headend exchange you join with many more people to be fed into a handover fibre which may be 1 Gbps or 10 Gbps in size before heading to ISP own backhaul which may or may not get the FoD customers priority, or leave you fighting with the ADSL/FTTC customers.

Leased line you pay for 100 Mbps and if its 100 Mbps committed that is what you get between you and the providers core network, leaving the ISP you to the wider internet you will be on shared links but as you can see you get a better bandwidth deal.

On FoD yes massively expensive in the first year, but then after 12 months you can migrate to things like BT Infinity 1 with offer prices of £28.99 per month.

On the leased line the £4,000 per year will go on for ever.

So FoD over three years, if you drop to a cheaper say £80 service after 1st year
£24k + £1.8k+ £1.9k = £27,700
Leased line over three years
£13,000

Over six years
FoD £30,840
Leased Line £25,504

So if you look at long term costs you can assuming you live where you are for a long time the FoD will eventually work out cheaper, and you get a hint of the cost equation i.e. FoD Openreach front load the costs of building the service. Leased Line they know firms tend to keep leased lines for long periods of time so spread the build costs over a longer time frame.

Post deleted by candlerb

Correct, with the leased line you are stuck to leased line pricing until you cancel

But often if you re-contract, the pricing can drop massively.

TTB and Virgin both do this at the end of the term if asked.

Matt

Can drop - but not certain i.e. its the usual works for some when phoning for a bargain and not for others.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Correct, with the leased line you are stuck to leased line pricing until you cancel

Yes but what my question is.

I take out a 12 months Fibre leased line contract with either BT Wholesale or Virgin

They come they install the Fibre line to my premiss (from where I am not sure, the aggregation node, a cabinet or what exactly).

But anyway they install this to my premises. I pay them for 12 months. My contract ends. I then do not renew the contract for the leased line.

What then do I have? As I thought I had a regular fibre line now that I could go to BT infinity or Zen and pay for FTTP? How is this not the case.

Where do BT or Virgin run the Fibre cable from to my house that means it cannot be connected to the agregation node to get regular FTTP?

Edited by Anth (Sat 24-Mar-18 17:50:58)

No.
What you then have is fibre to your property that can be used for leased lines again in the future. It's totally different to the way OpenReach FTTP works.

It will NEVER allow you to access any OpenReach GPON FTTP service.

The fibre would not come from an aggregation node.

MrSaffron answered your question in detail. I suggest you read his response again.

Fibre based lined (as opposed to a bundle of copper circuits) is very different in architecture to FTTP.

FoD FTTP delivers a GPON based FTTP connection, which means the light is split between 32 other premises, and bandwidth is shared, now that light can handle 2.5 Gbps down, so if you get a 300 Mbps connection and you are the only person then local contention not an issue, but once 8 or more connect it might be seen if you all hit a speed test at the same instant. Then as you get to the headend exchange you join with many more people to be fed into a handover fibre which may be 1 Gbps or 10 Gbps in size before heading to ISP own backhaul which may or may not get the FoD customers priority, or leave you fighting with the ADSL/FTTC customers.

Leased line you pay for 100 Mbps and if its 100 Mbps committed that is what you get between you and the providers core network, leaving the ISP you to the wider internet you will be on shared links but as you can see you get a better bandwidth deal.

On FoD yes massively expensive in the first year, but then after 12 months you can migrate to things like BT Infinity 1 with offer prices of £28.99 per month.

On the leased line the £4,000 per year will go on for ever.

So FoD over three years, if you drop to a cheaper say £80 service after 1st year
£24k + £1.8k+ £1.9k = £27,700
Leased line over three years
£13,000

Over six years
FoD £30,840
Leased Line £25,504

So if you look at long term costs you can assuming you live where you are for a long time the FoD will eventually work out cheaper, and you get a hint of the cost equation i.e. FoD Openreach front load the costs of building the service. Leased Line they know firms tend to keep leased lines for long periods of time so spread the build costs over a longer time frame.

Have actually had a survey for a leased line to know if there are any excess construction costs of top of installation costs? I'd be surprised if there were not.

NGA services ( FTTP/C) connect to aggregation nodes. Leased lines connect fibre distribution nodes . The 2 are not readily interconnected.
Additionally , if you went the leased line route and wanted to change provider there is no easy migration route . At best it would be a cease and provide . At worst you could be looking at additional costs to connect to an alternative providers POP.

Edited by witchunt (Sat 24-Mar-18 19:28:16)

Should that have read �have YOU actually had a survey� ?

In reply to a post by witchunt:

NGA services ( FTTP/C) connect to aggregation nodes. Leased lines connect fibre distribution nodes . The 2 are not readily interconnected.
Additionally , if you went the leased line route and wanted to change provider there is no easy migration route . At best it would be a cease and provide . At worst you could be looking at additional costs to connect to an alternative providers POP.

... or moving to FTTPoD!

Edit: Initial version was rubbish, because I misunderstood your post.

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 24-Mar-18 20:13:13)

What then do I have?

You have a piece of fibre that can only be used for another leased line contract

In reply to a post by Anth:

I ask as Cerebrus quoted me £20,600 ex vat build costs and also the (I think) either £100 or likely £160 ontop per month for FTTP on demand.

So we are talking around £30,000 for a years FTTP with Cerebrus. Which is crazy prices.

If you are really serious about getting FoD then why not get a proper survey done? The initial prices quoted by Cerberus/Openreach appear to have been randomly generated (they're probably using this) and don't seem to reflect the true nature of the work required. For example my immediate neighbour was quoted £21,500 despite the FTTP splitter (from my FoD installation) being 20 metres away from his doorstep. Yes, it will cost you £250 - if you don't proceed with the order - but at least you'll know for sure the amount of work required to bring fibre to your home. Waiting for others to give you their costs after survey probably won't help you much as build costs are unique for every property. £250 isn't a huge amount to cough up when you're willing to pay say £3000-£5000 for the installation. I suspect the £250 fee is there to stop "tyre kickers" (as someone on TBB so eloquently put it lol) wasting Openreach's time.

As for a leased line, forget about it unless you need speed guarantees and quick fix times (SLA). A leased line over the long term will cost you far more than FoD with the huge disadvantage of not being able to use Openreach's FTTP (GPON) network.

Edited by deleted (Sun 25-Mar-18 06:42:41)

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

If you are really serious about getting FoD then why not get a proper survey done?

I am serious of wanting FOD but I cannot afford £20,000. I cannot afford £10,000. Money does not grow on trees where I live.

I can afford £2000 which is what I was quoted in January - only two months ago. I would have been happy taking up the quote I was given but I stupidly read all the news articles going up about the February price changes and those news articles made it appear like the price was going to hit rock bottom and I would feel a bit stupid paying £2000 and another £3000 ontop for 3 years worth of internet when everyone else would be paying a fraction of this.Technology improves, people streamline tasks and find ways to drive down costs over time so this added up to me that the prices were going to drop and Openreach would be using this as part of their FTTP rollout plans.

I did not in a million years expect a 10x price increase for a Band B property. I expected the price to increase to around £5000 install costs for my property at the most when people were talking about price hikes. which again I could afford at the absolute highest buidget open to me for this.

I have asked on a topic on the ISPreview forum for people to post what their survey costs come back as in comparison to the desktop assessment before I potentially throw £300 down the drain.

I also suspect Ofcom may get involved in this and force Openreach to reassess the costs. If BT Wholesale can install Fibre to my property as a leased line for £900 and expect me to pay £350 per month internet ontop. Why is it £25,000 for them to install it as FTTPod. The sums do not add up. Its ths same fibre cable after all.

Edited by Anth (Sun 25-Mar-18 11:40:29)

Did you get a survey for the leased line. If not then then there will likely be excess costs on top of the £900 That your provider is charging.

Did you see the way that things change as time goes on in my post...i.e. ROI on installing full fibre is a 5 to 10 year period, leased lines recover it with a higher monthly cost, FoD used to but now front loads it.

The front loading is so high because after the 12 months the only revenue that Openreach can bank on from FoD is £88.80 per year from the 40/10 service which I would bet a lot will downgrade to or £119.40 per year on the 76/20 variant

I would also highlight that it is likely Openreach having installed FoD in a number of places has investigated the costs they incurred and may have found that costs were well in excess of what they would have recovered.

FoD might actually be more expensive to install than a leased line, since a leased line includes no provisions for breakouts or sharing, whereas when building FoD you include splitters and manifolds, this can mean more kit on poles or bigger chambers in the ground.

If fibre installs on demand can be done cheaper then with the duct sharing rules expect to see similar products from Vodafone and TalkTalk, though I would suggest buying a lottery ticket is probably a safer bet.

In that case forget about FoD as there's absolutely no chance of Openreach quoting you the old build costs and only have a minimum term of 12 months on it. I'm sure the bean counters at Openreach would agree with you that money doesn't grow on trees. I highly doubt OFCOM will take any complaints seriously as FoD was never intended to be sold as a mass market product.

MrSaffron warned people in November (see here) not to get too excited but that advice appears to have fallen on deaf ears. I guess when some people saw the new monthly Openreach wholesale pricing for FoD, they became giddy with excitement and any logic was out of the window.

I also suspect Ofcom may get involved in this and force Openreach to reassess the costs.

Why? BT is a private company rather than a charity and has to cover its costs. If you are serious about paying for an FTTP connection then pay the £250 and get a survey carried out and obtain a proper quote.

In reply to a post by MCM:

If you are serious about paying for an FTTP connection then pay the £250 and get a survey carried out and obtain a proper quote.

The OP wants an accurate price from Openreach....without a site survey. Never going to happen in a million years. Ditto for a leased line.

Edited by deleted (Mon 26-Mar-18 08:01:34)

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

The OP wants an accurate price from Openreach....without a site survey. Never going to happen in a million years. Ditto for a leased line.

Under the old banded system you got an (almost always) accurate price. There was the possibility of ECCs, but FluidData told me they'd only ever had one case of ECCs and that was for a band G property. And in any case, if the survey did turn up ECCs, you had the option to cancel at no cost.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Under the old banded system you got an (almost always) accurate price. There was the possibility of ECCs, but FluidData told me they'd only ever had one case of ECCs and that was for a band G property. And in any case, if the survey did turn up ECCs, you had the option to cancel at no cost.

100% correct, as FluidOne also re-assured me that it it would be highly unlikely I would be hit with ECCs after my FoD site survey.

However at this moment we cannot say the same for the new pricing as no-one on here has yet managed to compare confirmed post-survey costs versus desktop survey costs. I imagine FluidOne or Cerberus in X months time will be able to tell you what % of customers were charged ECCs under the new pricing but its probably too early to say right now. At least the £250 survey fee under the new pricing will keep the freeloaders/tyre kickers/Walter Mittys at bay

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

At least the £250 survey fee under the new pricing will keep the freeloaders/tyre kickers/Walter Mittys at bay

I love the way how you are calling people unwilling and unable to afford paying £20,000 for a Band b property, or £40,000 plus for Band F and onwards Walter Mitty's.

I feel so puny being in the presence of so many millionaires.

On the old scheme I was going to be charged £1,800 build charge and £160 for 36 months. So a total of £7560 for three years. On the new scheme its £30,000 total for only one year. I do not wish to pay someone for price fixing this.

Anyone would feel a bit cheated at this and refuse to go along. This is not just frontloading the costs, if it was I'd be paying £5000 for the build given I still need to pay for a years FTTP.

In reply to a post by Anth:

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

At least the £250 survey fee under the new pricing will keep the freeloaders/tyre kickers/Walter Mittys at bay

I love the way how you are calling people unwilling and unable to afford paying £20,000 for a Band b property, or £40,000 plus for Band F and onwards Walter Mitty's.

I feel so puny being in the presence of so many millionaires.

On the old scheme I was going to be charged £1,800 build charge and £160 for 36 months. So a total of £7560 for three years. On the new scheme its £30,000 total for only one year. I do not wish to pay someone for price fixing this.

Anyone would feel a bit cheated at this and refuse to go along. This is not just frontloading the costs, if it was I'd be paying £5000 for the build given I still need to pay for a years FTTP.

No-one is asking you to pay £20k or £40k for the survey. As no-one at present knows for sure if the desktop price is realistic or not, the only way to get a firm cost is to get a survey done @ £250 - which comes off your build costs if you go ahead. Why is that so hard for you to understand? You somehow seem to think the price (20k) you've been quoted initially is set in stone....its not!!

Edited by deleted (Mon 26-Mar-18 10:04:01)

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

In reply to a post by Anth:

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

At least the £250 survey fee under the new pricing will keep the freeloaders/tyre kickers/Walter Mittys at bay

I love the way how you are calling people unwilling and unable to afford paying £20,000 for a Band b property, or £40,000 plus for Band F and onwards Walter Mitty's.

I feel so puny being in the presence of so many millionaires.

On the old scheme I was going to be charged £1,800 build charge and £160 for 36 months. So a total of £7560 for three years. On the new scheme its £30,000 total for only one year. I do not wish to pay someone for price fixing this.

Anyone would feel a bit cheated at this and refuse to go along. This is not just frontloading the costs, if it was I'd be paying £5000 for the build given I still need to pay for a years FTTP.

No-one is asking you to pay £20k or £40k for the survey. As no-one at present knows for sure if the desktop price is realistic or not, the only way to get a firm cost is to get a survey done @ £250 - which comes off your build costs if you go ahead. Why is that so hard for you to understand? You somehow seem to think the price (20k) you've been quoted initially is set in stone....its not!!

I would expect real surveys to come out somewhere in the ballpark of the desktop quote. They have to, otherwise once a few people get the £250 surveys done and the quotes drop to reasonable <£5k quotes, word will get out pretty quick making the desktop surveys entirely pointless and redundant.

In reply to a post by killsta:

I would expect real surveys to come out somewhere in the ballpark of the desktop quote. They have to, otherwise once a few people get the £250 surveys done and the quotes drop to reasonable <£5k quotes, word will get out pretty quick making the desktop surveys entirely pointless and redundant.

Yes you would think the initial quotation would be very similar to the confirmed cost - as it was under the old distance based pricing regime. However the build costs under the new pricing model appear to be based on more factors than just distance to nearest agg node so is probably more complicated. Openreach themselves have admitted there are issues with the new system of estimates:

from https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/03/expens...

Quote from Openreach

We do have some work to do on getting the estimates to be closer to the expected quote, as there are a number of situations where we know this generates high estimates.

Edited by deleted (Mon 26-Mar-18 10:39:55)

It looks a bit as though the desk map-based survey is being carried out by some untrained student on work experience.

I'd be happy to go in once a week to Openreach Towers to process all these request for the appropriate fee

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

I'd be happy to go in once a week to Openreach Towers to process all these request for the appropriate fee

How much is your hourly fee these days Mr S?

Are we talking what I'd like, or what salary actually works out to based on the hours worked each week or consultancy rate

Everyone who got a quote earlier and saying, in total they would have paid about £10k and now under the new pricing they have to pay £20k/£25k - you waited to get a better deal and it didn't happen.

Now you are waiting for someone to pay £250 and tell you the results. If you really want it, pay it and move on. I won't be surprised if people have paid it and just haven't told anyone the results.

In reply to a post by Snake:

Everyone who got a quote earlier and saying, in total they would have paid about £10k and now under the new pricing they have to pay £20k/£25k - you waited to get a better deal and it didn't happen.

Now you are waiting for someone to pay £250 and tell you the results. If you really want it, pay it and move on. I won't be surprised if people have paid it and just haven't told anyone the results.

Agreed, though I think your reply was meant for someone else

Edited by deleted (Tue 27-Mar-18 15:06:53)

Yeah sorry about that.