FTTPoD desktop quotes and final prices Part 3

Thought I would start a new thread as the previous one was getting quite long. Links to the old threads

FTTPoD desktop quotes and final prices Part 1

FTTPoD desktop quotes and final prices Part 2

In reply to a post by Feejus:

Dear All,
I just wanted to give you my update as i think it is well worth a read. In October 2018 i requested a desktop quote for FTTPoD.

The area is Totteridge, in High Wycombe.

The first response is a desktop quote which is super expensive.

We have now received the estimate of the charges from BT. These are detailed below.
Estimated Build Cost: £17,100.00 ex VAT
The build charge includes the estimate for the work and materials required to deliver the service. It also includes the connection charge.
Number of premises passed for FTTP: 5


I have followed it up with a full quote, which i am expecting within a week, however here is the twist I also got a letter from "Virgin Media" who said they want to expand into the area I live. I am wondering if there is some back handling of my data and someone has leaked information to Virgin Media that someone in my area is looking at FTTPoD and this raised their interest.

Mind you that 3 houses down they are able to get G.Fast however i am just a bit to far away. Few houses down the road is able to get 145 Mbit down. I would have been ok with this but i am on a 46Mbit right now with BT.

I keep you all posted on this as i get the final quote.

Thanx
Feejus

1) Have you only just got the desktop quote? If so, waiting ~ 4 months seems to have been a long time.

2) VM's plans/interest in your areas will be unrelated to what Openreach are doing or have done in your area.

Well Openreach have been busy.

The jointing team 'finished' last week and installed the ONT to speed the process up. But no green flashing light. Further investigation led to a problem with a supposed 750m straight run fibre actually being three partial lengths. Overtime was authorised for last Sunday and out they came. Spent all day making two extra joints in the middle and testing. Still no luck. They were approved to carry on Monday and eventually diagnosed a fault at the exchange (their words). This was repaired this morning and a flashing green light appeared followed by the jointer to check all was working. I now have a flashing green PON light!

As the ONT is installed I just need the ONT installer to visit and scan but new regulations require all FTTP to have an audit post installation and prior to the ONT being commissioned. So now I must await an audit, followed by the audits paperwork. Then the appointment for the ONT to be commissioned.

I already had 6 joints in my fibre run plus another couple, so I suppose the audit team have plenty to look at.

To go:
- Audit
- Commissioning of ONT
- FTTP service go live (solid light)
- Cerberus can place order for FTTP

On the plus side my brothers site has just had its site survey and we await the full quote before proceeding. So I will get to do it all again!

Dave

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

In reply to a post by Feejus:

Dear All,
I just wanted to give you my update as i think it is well worth a read. In October 2018 i requested a desktop quote for FTTPoD.

The area is Totteridge, in High Wycombe.

The first response is a desktop quote which is super expensive.

We have now received the estimate of the charges from BT. These are detailed below.
Estimated Build Cost: £17,100.00 ex VAT
The build charge includes the estimate for the work and materials required to deliver the service. It also includes the connection charge.
Number of premises passed for FTTP: 5


I have followed it up with a full quote, which i am expecting within a week, however here is the twist I also got a letter from "Virgin Media" who said they want to expand into the area I live. I am wondering if there is some back handling of my data and someone has leaked information to Virgin Media that someone in my area is looking at FTTPoD and this raised their interest.

Mind you that 3 houses down they are able to get G.Fast however i am just a bit to far away. Few houses down the road is able to get 145 Mbit down. I would have been ok with this but i am on a 46Mbit right now with BT.

I keep you all posted on this as i get the final quote.

Thanx
Feejus

1) Have you only just got the desktop quote? If so, waiting ~ 4 months seems to have been a long time.

2) VM's plans/interest in your areas will be unrelated to what Openreach are doing or have done in your area.

Weren't Openreach closed for new requests from September until December? Or was that just full quotes/orders rather than desktop.

Very interesting reading your FTTPoD updates.

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

Weren't Openreach closed for new requests from September until December? Or was that just full quotes/orders rather than desktop.

Only orders were suspended for a few months, non-binding desktop quotes were unaffected.

Will be interesting to see if Openreach really do ramp up the capacity to a maximum of 100 FTTPoD orders per month from April 2019:

https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/ultra...

Edited by deleted (Tue 12-Feb-19 19:45:23)

Not sure if this is the right thread but here's my current progress:

Recently there was an issue with installing a new underground cable chamber because of electricity/gas where it was meant to go, so they refilled the hole and put the pavement back (albeit a bit cracked/loose).

Two or possibly a bit more weeks later, after some chasing and escalation from Cerberus to Openreach, a surveyor re-appeared for a while and was busy outside around the location where the work couldn't be done. They appeared to do some marking and now today there's two large Openreach vans outside doing work on the pole. When asked if they were doing fiber optic they said yes with a grin (hooray!). I guess they worked around the problem, somehow, hopefully I'll know later this week.

So, hopefully I might be looking at a timescale of 3 to 6 more weeks before it's live?

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Not sure if this is the right thread but here's my current progress:

Recently there was an issue with installing a new underground cable chamber because of electricity/gas where it was meant to go, so they refilled the hole and put the pavement back (albeit a bit cracked/loose).

Two or possibly a bit more weeks later, after some chasing and escalation from Cerberus to Openreach, a surveyor re-appeared for a while and was busy outside around the location where the work couldn't be done. They appeared to do some marking and now today there's two large Openreach vans outside doing work on the pole. When asked if they were doing fiber optic they said yes with a grin (hooray!). I guess they worked around the problem, somehow, hopefully I'll know later this week.

So, hopefully I might be looking at a timescale of 3 to 6 more weeks before it's live?

Timescales are elastic and almost impossible to tell.

I have an ONT installed with a flashing green light. But a new process that means all FTTP orders need an audit means the progress is handed off to another team with unknown timescales to complete the audit. Then the ONT can be commissioned and I can move forward again.

Prior to this the jointers though they were complete but testing proved otherwise and another week was taken getting things working. I got lucky and they were approved overtime to complete on a Sunday otherwise I would have been back i the work queue waiting for resource allocation.

I wouldn't pin your hopes on any given timeframe.

I see, that is a shame, so could still be months away if I'm unlucky. Well, thanks for sharing anyway. They're back today working again.

Edited by Ixel (Thu 14-Feb-19 10:18:14)

In reply to a post by Ixel:

I see, that is a shame, so could still be months away if I'm unlucky. Well, thanks for sharing anyway. They're back today working again.

From what I have seen with mine each team is quite diligent on their own task and work through till it is complete, or they reach a sticking point.

Sticking point would be a blocked duct, or a chamber that won't fit. They then report this back and the right team (a surveyor, a duct unblocker, ground works) gets scheduled based on their availability. Once the sticking point is passed the original team get scheduled back on. But each time you are reliant on the availability of the relevant team, and take your place i their queue. They don't hold a slot open expecting team A to finish at x date so team B can take over. Plus the black hole of scheduling doesn't help the nerves.

Plus just because they are doing the bit on your pole doesn't mean they have done the bit upstream. And if even if that bit goes to plan doesn't mean the next bit will.

Best advice I would suggest is get out with kettle in hand, biscuits if possible, and talk to the guys doing the work. Ask them how it works, what things are, is it a difficult install or bread and butter for them, mine have all been great. Don't ask them when it will be done, show an interest in what they are doing. We have provided parking for trucks, toilets (we have guest/public ones), tea, offered biscuits (declined). I have the email/phone of one the teams responsible for putting in the fibre, his updates have been great.

You will get a better idea of stages remaining from the guys on site than Openreach's communication system.
(Mine keeps telling me they are going to arrange stores deliveries for the ducting I am due to install - it was delivered October and installed November).


Good luck.

Yeah understandable. I never asked them when it would be done nor would I want to ever do so, but I did ask them whether they were doing the fiber optic cabling and had a brief chat with them. I know from Cerberus that the underground work was done pretty near to the pole in one of the recent progress updates I had. It looks like they've been bolting something in place in the underground cable chamber today as well as some further work on the pole. I also saw a long reel of orange like tubing. Suffice to say I'll be patient, it'll get done when it gets done and I don't expect more than that .

Cerberus came back to me today, they're looking to submit my order in April, for the site survey.
I went ahead with the desktop quote on around 25th January, which is about the timescale I expected.

Edited by deleted (Fri 15-Feb-19 09:03:22)

In reply to a post by mrbaba:

Cerberus came back to me today, they're looking to submit my order in April, for the site survey.
I went ahead with the desktop quote on around 25th January, which is about the timescale I expected.

So Cerberus are still queuing orders for full surveys! The halt from September to December looks like it has created a decent backlog of interest in full surveys. The opportunity is there for Openreach to have individuals pay for a chunk of rollout. They just need the guys on the ground.

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Yeah understandable. I never asked them when it would be done nor would I want to ever do so, but I did ask them whether they were doing the fiber optic cabling and had a brief chat with them. I know from Cerberus that the underground work was done pretty near to the pole in one of the recent progress updates I had. It looks like they've been bolting something in place in the underground cable chamber today as well as some further work on the pole. I also saw a long reel of orange like tubing. Suffice to say I'll be patient, it'll get done when it gets done and I don't expect more than that .

It's not that you shouldn't ask them, its just that they will have no idea, each team is silo'd in their own bit. They will have no idea when the overall job might be complete. But finding out which bit they are doing lets you understand where you are overall. If they are jointing fibre then physical works are likely complete on the whole route.

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

To go:
- Audit
- Commissioning of ONT
- FTTP service go live (solid light)
- Cerberus can place order for FTTP

Audit is apparently done and passed, so just waiting on date for installation/commissioning of ONT. Although jointer has already installed 4-port ONT, so it is literally just a scan of the ONT to load details into the system. I keep looking at the flashing green light whenever I walk past it.

I'm available all day/night for appointment if it helps - all meetings will be cancelled!

So I thought I'd just chime in with an example of what an urban quote might look like... The area is Hanham, Bristol, and I know that I'm connected to the Kingswood exchange.

My desktop quote came back at £3,600 + VAT, with 11 premises passed, and an estimated distance to Fibre aggregation node of 600 - 799m.

Looking at the list of properties passed, they all appear to be connected to the same pole for their telephone lines, which is on the opposite side of the road to me. My line comes in underground from what I can tell...

I'm debating stumping up the £300 to get a survey done, and might knock on a few doors to see if anyone else is interested.
I'm not aware of any businesses being run from the passed properties, which I think rules out use of the Gigabit Voucher scheme... I used to have a business registered at my address, but I dissolved that a couple of years ago.

Food for thought though...

Edited by deleted (Fri 15-Feb-19 11:27:59)

Still waiting for cablers to be assigned, been a few weeks now.

In reply to a post by fatmcgav:

I'm debating stumping up the £300 to get a survey done

I noticed its still £250 even though it says £300 on the front webpage.

How do people get updates on progress? Are they emaling you directly or do you have to login to their (Cerberus) netconnect portal for updates?

In reply to a post by bowdon:

In reply to a post by fatmcgav:

I noticed its still £250 even though it says £300 on the front webpage.

£250+VAT = £300

In reply to a post by bowdon:

How do people get updates on progress? Are they emaling you directly or do you have to login to their (Cerberus) netconnect portal for updates?

In my case (and I'd imagine for others), the updates are emailed directly from a contact at Cerberus. Mine are usually on Thursdays, with the odd one on Friday.

Hi all

Just started out on this process myself. Quoted £8300 + VAT 5 houses passed. The 5 must include the person ordering, as we are at the end of a cul-de-sac and for some reason the 5 houses at the end are the only ones that connect via underground cable, all the others are from overhead poles. So us 5 houses must all be jointed in the same place where the fibre will be split from.

Distance to aggregation node is quoted at 200-399 metres. Now waiting on the full survey which could be up to 9 weeks according to Cerberus. Not going to be a quick process, just hoping the survey comes in lower to make it feasible.

In reply to a post by E300:

Hi all

Just started out on this process myself. Quoted £8300 + VAT 5 houses passed. The 5 must include the person ordering, as we are at the end of a cul-de-sac and for some reason the 5 houses at the end are the only ones that connect via underground cable, all the others are from overhead poles. So us 5 houses must all be jointed in the same place where the fibre will be split from.

Distance to aggregation node is quoted at 200-399 metres. Now waiting on the full survey which could be up to 9 weeks according to Cerberus. Not going to be a quick process, just hoping the survey comes in lower to make it feasible.

Welcome to the forum E300,

There's a summary of estimates and final quotes reported in this forum in the FTTPoD spreadsheet that you may find interesting.

If you're lucky enough then hopefully you'll get an actual quote that's just under half (if not even less) of the estimated quote.

---

Recent update regarding my FTTPoD order...

The initial update I received, as I expected, was a little out of date with recent developments (talking about chasing planning team or such). I passed on what I observed happening this week and Openreach confirmed that the jointers had indeed been working and appear to have completed the build of the order. They are now chasing the jointers for the test results before continuing further with the FTTPoD order. So, that's good news. Another step closer!

Edited by Ixel (Fri 15-Feb-19 15:27:37)

The spreadsheet was interesting. The entries where the desktop quote was around £8000 with the final cost being around £2500 would be good for me!

As an aside, I was googling FTTPoD just to get feel for what sort of thing was involved with the installation and saw someone splicing fibre then coiling up several metres of fibre into a plastic tray. I can understand having some extra spare length is useful for any repairs etc, but why so much excess, it was metres of excess fibre painstakingly coiled around some clips on a tray.

In reply to a post by E300:

I was googling FTTPoD just to get feel for what sort of thing was involved with the installation and saw someone splicing fibre then coiling up several metres of fibre into a plastic tray. I can understand having some extra spare length is useful for any repairs etc, but why so much excess, it was metres of excess fibre painstakingly coiled around some clips on a tray.

One of the best guys to answer that is Zarjaz who does it for a day job, there must be a good reason, I would be interested to know myself.

In reply to a post by fatmcgav:

My desktop quote came back at £3,600 + VAT, with 11 premises passed, and an estimated distance to Fibre aggregation node of 600 - 799m.

Congratulations, I think that's the lowest desktop quote we've ever seen - although I only add those into the spreadsheet who proceed with the full survey.

Just looked on Openreach ADSL checker for my number.

FTTPoD has always stated as available 330/80Mbps on top line. It now states 1000/220Mbps.

Is that an exchange upgrade or just reflective of the fact that fibre reaches my house (Pickering Exchange 2 MYPIC).

Is there any sign of costs for >330Mbps from any provider using Openreach?

In reply to a post by E300:

The spreadsheet was interesting. The entries where the desktop quote was around £8000 with the final cost being around £2500 would be good for me!

As an aside, I was googling FTTPoD just to get feel for what sort of thing was involved with the installation and saw someone splicing fibre then coiling up several metres of fibre into a plastic tray. I can understand having some extra spare length is useful for any repairs etc, but why so much excess, it was metres of excess fibre painstakingly coiled around some clips on a tray.

These days, where possible, Openreach will use connectorized (pre-made) cabling to connect you to your local fibre DP. They still use splicing but only if the distances are excessive. I think its down to cost saving as they can train Engineers far quicker in connectorized methods than teaching them how to splice fibre.

I had FoD installed in 2017 when splicing was still the norm. There are 3 spare fibres coiled up in the CSP on my external wall and taking a rough guess, each fibre strand looks to be 3-5 metres in length:

https://postimg.cc/Z02Z9CYz

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

These days, where possible, Openreach will use connectorized (pre-made) cabling to connect you to your local fibre DP. They still use splicing but only if the distances are excessive. I think its down to cost saving as they can train Engineers far quicker in connectorized methods than teaching them how to splice fibre.

Agree, my engineer said that some of the engineers keep breaking splicing machines and at £3500 each it is an expensive bit of kit to drop in the mud. Plus he couldn't get a joint spliced on a really cold day and had to give up and come back. A connectorised solution would be plug and play.

For a national roll out of fibre it would be a big cost that can be removed from the equation.

Edited by F00tS0re (Fri 15-Feb-19 17:23:55)

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

Just looked on Openreach ADSL checker for my number.

FTTPoD has always stated as available 330/80Mbps on top line. It now states 1000/220Mbps.

Is that an exchange upgrade or just reflective of the fact that fibre reaches my house (Pickering Exchange 2 MYPIC).

Is there any sign of costs for >330Mbps from any provider using Openreach?

Yep, its normal for the DSL checker to change to 'WBC FTTP' once your FTTPoD circuit is close to going live. Mine took about 3 weeks from the day the DSL checker changed to WBC FTTP to the go live date, but of course YMMV.

At present availability of > 330 Mbps on Openreach FTTP lines are in very few areas only (despite what the DSL checker says for your line), I think it will be a while before BT Wholesale starts selling the half gig and 1 Gig services nationwide. More info here

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/4609745-fttp-...

Edited by deleted (Fri 15-Feb-19 17:27:14)

Its worth just clarifying to E300 that splicing is still done on other fibre joints along the fibre run just not the last run to the property (as you have described)

In reply to a post by dect:

Its worth just clarifying to E300 that splicing is still done on other fibre joints along the fibre run just not the last run to the property (as you have described)

Yeah blowing & splicing fibre is/was done on the main (trunk) sections as well

A short video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py_TlWZGLlo

So remove the splicing skill from those that are duff at it ....

... as for splicing in cold weather, you have the splicer on charge and switched on for 10-15 minutes mins before the actual splice

Was taught to provide approx two metres spare into the tray ....

Seems excessive, but then it provides flexibility ... plus allowing the splicing to be done with the kit on the deck ... balancing expensive kit on the top of one�s step ladder is not recommended.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

So remove the splicing skill from those that are duff at it ....

... as for splicing in cold weather, you have the splicer on charge and switched on for 10-15 minutes mins before the actual splice

I will obviously bow to your experience and knowledge. But just to clarify it wasn�t chilly, it was cold. Somewhere around -3 Deg C. On a rural lane that gets no direct sunlight at this time of year due to hedges.

Of course with experience it is possible to plan and overcome many equipment issues.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Was taught to provide approx two metres spare into the tray ....

Seems excessive, but then it provides flexibility ... plus allowing the splicing to be done with the kit on the deck ... balancing expensive kit on the top of one�s step ladder is not recommended.

Always makes me chuckle when I�m on site using iphoneX as a torch inside some knackered bit of plant. Only £1000 torch I know.

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

Just looked on Openreach ADSL checker for my number.

FTTPoD has always stated as available 330/80Mbps on top line. It now states 1000/220Mbps.

Is that an exchange upgrade or just reflective of the fact that fibre reaches my house (Pickering Exchange 2 MYPIC).

Is there any sign of costs for >330Mbps from any provider using Openreach?

The 330 or 1000 difference one of two things:

ECI head end is 330. Huawei head-end 1000.
However you can have a Huawei head-end where its not been upgraded with sufficient capacity so they cap @ 330.

Well they seem to be assigned, no update yet from Cerberus but I have just seen Openreach and their fibre reels feeding it into the ducting that leads here.

Updates come into Cerberus Thursday and go out Thursday/Friday. (Although Vruti is on holiday so maybe not till 28th/29th if you have Vruti)
My experience was that looking out the window provided a real time update on the situation.

The eyeball update today also saw three Openreach vans worth of activity After weeks and months worth of waiting it is good to see activity!

EDIT: They just rang the doorbell to let me know they are running it to the house now, currently dismantling the gray plastic cover that protects the copper coming into the house from the underground ducts.

Edited by abat (Thu 21-Feb-19 15:24:42)

Ouch, I have updates from Vruti so I hope someone else is taking over while he's away . Also there's no '29th' day this month?

Edited by Ixel (Thu 21-Feb-19 15:24:43)

I'm going to miss my update from Vruti this week especially as it seems there is actually some progress to report!

Same for me, as the outside build work appears to be complete. Openreach were waiting on test results from the jointers (last week's second update when I informed Vruti what happened outside and Openreach then confirmed what I said is correct etc.). Hopefully all that remains is to get a line from the pole to the house and connect that all up. Oh well, as I say, patience is a virtue (I guess).

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Ouch, I have updates from Vruti so I hope someone else is taking over while he's away . Also there's no '29th' day this month?

Don't shoot the messenger!


I am currently on leave with No access to email. I will be returning on the 27/02/2019

Please note all FTTPoD order updates will be updated on the 28/02 � 29/02

For anything Urgent please email [email protected] and one of the team will respond.

Thank you
Vruti Malhi

Haha no worries, but thanks for sharing anyway. Just a shame that this wasn't shared in the last update email, but at least I know not to expect an update this week now.

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Same for me, as the outside build work appears to be complete. Openreach were waiting on test results from the jointers (last week's second update when I informed Vruti what happened outside and Openreach then confirmed what I said is correct etc.). Hopefully all that remains is to get a line from the pole to the house and connect that all up. Oh well, as I say, patience is a virtue (I guess).

If you can see it then it is more likely correct than Openreach update. They keep telling me they are waiting for stores to send the ducts I need to install, thatI installed in November!

Your update as follows:

Option A: - Your fibre is currently waiting post install audit.

Option B: - External build and testing have all now been completed. Order is ready for commissioning. I am now waiting on a date for an engineer to be assigned to attend your property if this is the case.

It is the unknown that does my head in. The waiting to find out how long you will be waiting is worse than the waiting itself.

Dave

Good news . Looks like it's option B!

External build and testing have all now been completed. Order to now be sent for commissioning.

Your next update due on 28/02.

I still received an update it seems, just from someone else instead. Hooray.

Hi Sorry for not getting back but wanted to give a quick update. It is 100% correct that the expansion of Virgin had nothing to do with my quote. Coincidently I had a letter from VM 2 month after requesting a quote for FTTPoD. I agree this is totally coincident.


I did say that certain premises down the street can get G.Fast. My conversation with BT has shown that even though i am just 10 meters from my neighbour, my premiss is on different loop of cable, reason for this theory is that we are on the same exchange yet they are border line G.Fast and i simply can't get these faster type of services.

Lastly, i got my quote today. Mind you that original quote of £17500 has been severely reduced, but given the fact that VM is on route in I am sure i won't engage.



We have received the confirmed build charge from Openreach following the survey for your FTTP on Demand order. The installation costs for this order are on the attached quote.

The estimated build charge was £17,100.00 + VAT. The confirmed build charge is £6,625.00 + VAT. This includes the reduction for the survey and a deduction of £950.00 for premises passed. A breakdown of the charges is below:



Labour £4,180.00
Stores £2,650.00
Contract Labour £0.00
Civils £500.00
Civils Stores £0.00

Tree cutting £0.00

BT Connection Charge £495.00


Deductions -£950.00
-£250.00
£6,625.00


Given my current situation and VM deployment i will hold fire until VM have deployed in my area.


Kind regards
Feejus

Edited by Feejus (Sat 23-Feb-19 01:01:43)

Interesting article just posted about the government gigabit voucher scheme: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/02/3660-g...

It includes a pinmap showing all the postcode districts where vouchers have been issued, and the number of properties connected so far.

In my district, 12 vouchers have been issued, but 0 have been connected. Clicking around it seems this is a common story.

I noticed on the pinmap it said 2 had been connected for my post code, though I've not seen any FTTP or FTTPoD installs listed on any map.

If anyone in the OL2 post code has full fibre do a speed test!

Could it be that they used the voucher for another type of connection such as a leased line?

In my postcode, it shows 1 connected (me) but 0 issued

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Interesting article just posted about the government gigabit voucher scheme: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/02/3660-g...

It includes a pinmap showing all the postcode districts where vouchers have been issued, and the number of properties connected so far.

In my district, 12 vouchers have been issued, but 0 have been connected. Clicking around it seems this is a common story.

That is interesting! Looks like i'm the only one to go for it under my postcode area.

Though there are 5 properties that can jump on my line it seems, assuming thats what properties passed means?

In reply to a post by rman:

Though there are 5 properties that can jump on my line it seems, assuming thats what properties passed means?

Yep: it means all five properties are able to order FTTP (probably because they fibre-enabled the Distribution Point which serves you plus four other properties).

In the entry for your postcode, did it show connected 1 or connected 5 ?

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by rman:

Though there are 5 properties that can jump on my line it seems, assuming thats what properties passed means?

Yep: it means all five properties are able to order FTTP (probably because they fibre-enabled the Distribution Point which serves you plus four other properties).

In the entry for your postcode, did it show connected 1 or connected 5 ?

Umm for my postcode *the first 4 letters/digits", it's showing 1 issued, 0 connected.. I'm not connected yet, very close now though!

I'm not expecting the 4 other houses to connect to the FTTP to be honest, they are all retired and from talking to the neighbours around me they have no interest. What they have is good enough for their basic browsing.

1) Have you only just got the desktop quote? If so, waiting ~ 4 months seems to have been a long time.

Yes i got the quote now because OpenReach was not taking any new orders I.E no new quotes so i had to wait until December and with holidays and everything else i just got my quote.

2) VM's plans/interest in your areas will be unrelated to what Openreach are doing or have done in your area.

you are right, it just happen to be in the same time. I am expecting a VM rollout end of the year saving me £8k.

Thanx
Feejus

Appears my DSL checker result changed today on the address checker for my address, it doesn't say FTTP is available yet but the FTTP on Demand 'up to' speed figures have changed from 330 / 30 to 1000 / 220 . I checked another house number and postcode (address checker) not too far away and it still says 330 / 30, so it appears to likely be a result of my current FTTP on Demand order.

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Appears my DSL checker result changed today on the address checker for my address, it doesn't say FTTP is available yet but the FTTP on Demand 'up to' speed figures have changed from 330 / 30 to 1000 / 220 . I checked another house number and postcode (address checker) not too far away and it still says 330 / 30, so it appears to likely be a result of my current FTTP on Demand order.

I wouldn't read too much into that, its probably just coincidence. Reason being that for some properties, the DSL checker shows FTTPoD 1000/220 instead of FTTPoD 330/30 despite never having ordered FTTPoD.

Its time to get excited once the DSL checker changes to 'WBC FTTP 330/50' or 'WBC FTTP 1000/220' for your property - it means you're close to going live

Edited by deleted (Mon 25-Feb-19 21:20:45)

Would WBC FTTP 1000/220 mean you could order that speed?

I have a question around the connection speeds, have you any idea why some connections are 330/30 and some are 330/50?

The 30Mbit upload i should be receiving on my FTTPoD line (when it's completed) is certainly better than my 9Mbit now, but 50 would be great

You can order that speed if you can find an ISP selling it. It's certainly available as a product from OpenReach to the ISP.

I wouldn't expect 1000/220 to be sold as a residential product or for it to be cheap.

In reply to a post by rman:

Would WBC FTTP 1000/220 mean you could order that speed?

I have a question around the connection speeds, have you any idea why some connections are 330/30 and some are 330/50?

The 30Mbit upload i should be receiving on my FTTPoD line (when it's completed) is certainly better than my 9Mbit now, but 50 would be great

Both the 330/30 and 330/50 FTTP products are priced at exactly the same from Openreach. See wholesale price lists here and here for the native and On Demand FTTP services respectively.

For native 330 FTTP, its quite rare to see an ISP selling the 30 Upload variant anymore, it tends to be 330/50 since the extra 20 Mbps upload won't increase their bandwidth costs massively. So they sell the 330/50 service at their previous 330/30 service prices.

However for FTTPoD, since there's very few ISPs selling the product I imagine most can't be bothered to change their ordering systems to the newer 330/50 hence why they still sell 330/30 on FTTPoD. The only CPs I know selling 330/50 (and above) on FTTPoD are Spectrum Internet & Syscomm but they tend to offer their services in certain areas only - S Wales and E Midlands.

The only way for you to get 330/50 after getting FTTPoD installed, is either taking out an additional 'native' FTTP line or completing your 12 months min term on FTTPoD and then upgrade to 330/50 or higher speed (if available at that time).

Now it's time to get excited then, just changed this morning to WBC FTTP 1000 / 220 - 1-stage. Hooray!

https://i.imgur.com/Lz1AFWq.png

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Now it's time to get excited then, just changed this morning to WBC FTTP 1000 / 220 - 1-stage. Hooray!

https://i.imgur.com/Lz1AFWq.png

Looking promising.

I got an update. Despite being told audit was complete and the order was working its way through back office systems prior to commissioning, I am now told the audit is still going on. I've gone backwards.

Mine jumped from 330/50 to 1000/220 a day or two after they finished the fibre line. But not changed in a couple of weeks.

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

However for FTTPoD, since there's very few ISPs selling the product I imagine most can't be bothered to change their ordering systems to the newer 330/50 hence why they still sell 330/30 on FTTPoD.

The answer I got before was that Openreach have FTTPoD 330/30, 330/50 and 160/30 products, but BT Wholesale only sell the 330/30 variant.

That's unfortunate, hopefully the audit will be completed soon. I assume that stage (audit) is still pending for me as I don't recall hearing anything about an audit, just external build and testing were complete and it's now going to commissioning. Well, we're nearly there I guess.

EDIT: Interestingly none of my neighbors, or any premises connected to the same pole, are currently showing WBC FTTP. Only my address is showing WBC FTTP. I guess records will update for some of the other premises soon.

Edited by Ixel (Tue 26-Feb-19 12:42:36)

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

However for FTTPoD, since there's very few ISPs selling the product I imagine most can't be bothered to change their ordering systems to the newer 330/50 hence why they still sell 330/30 on FTTPoD.

The answer I got before was that Openreach have FTTPoD 330/30, 330/50 and 160/30 products, but BT Wholesale only sell the 330/30 variant.

Ah ok, in that case its a bit strange why BT Wholesale don't align their 330 Mbps FTTPoD offering to their native 330 FTTP offering wrt upload speeds. After all, the DSL checker usually changes to 'WBC FTTP 330/50' or higher once FTTPoD has been installed.

In reply to a post by Ixel:

That's unfortunate, hopefully the audit will be completed soon. I assume that stage (audit) is still pending for me as I don't recall hearing anything about an audit, just external build and testing were complete and it's now going to commissioning. Well, we're nearly there I guess.

During my install, the last 2-3 weeks before going live were taken up by FTTP circuit testing, which involved the Openreach bods going to the various points on the PON network (agg node>splitter>dp>csp) measuring things like light loss. Everything has to be within spec before the provisioning stage.

I think you need to get the champagne ready as you're almost there

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

I think you need to get the champagne ready as you're almost there

Maybe, but champagne will might be put on hold whilst I commission a new router.

Will have to swap out Draytek 2860 for something better, it handles our two broadband connection excellently but firewall limits are circa 200Mbps so it won't cut the mustard for our new connection.
Likely Unify-Pro-4 as we have 4 ubiquiti switches and 10 APs, It isn't perfect but willing to give it a go for the single pane of glass network view. If it can't keep up then will go PfSense. Setting up a new router will be days of frustration. We have over 90 reserved IP addresses, 4 VLANs, 1 VPN, bandwidth control for guest access and some priority and permission control (on the kids stuff). Looks to be fun.

I'm like a kid before Christmas.

I've got an FB2900 which claims to be capable of routing up to 750Mbps. That's connected to a Ubiquti Edgeswitch 16 150W which claims to have a non-blocking throughput of up to 18Gbps and a switching capacity of up to 36Gbps, so all being well my local network should be ready to take on a downstream speed of up to around 300Mbps easily once it's live .

My update is that the CBT was installed today in the pavement box and a new small fibre cable run to the side of my house. So I am now ready for the final install stage of CSP and ONT - hopefully not too long now. Does the installation of the CBT trigger the availability of WBC FTTP on DSL checker?

In reply to a post by brookheather:

My update is that the CBT was installed today in the pavement box and a new small fibre cable run to the side of my house. So I am now ready for the final install stage of CSP and ONT - hopefully not too long now. Does the installation of the CBT trigger the availability of WBC FTTP on DSL checker?

It did for me, last week it was setup and the external build work and testing was confirmed by Openreach as completed, to then proceed to 'commissioning stage'. Yesterday my FTTPoD speeds changed from 330/30 to 1000/220, and this morning my address and phone numbers changed to WBC FTTP up to 1000/220 (but no other address connected to the same distribution pole is showing WBC FTTP as of yet, just FTTPoD 1000/220).

Edited by Ixel (Tue 26-Feb-19 14:15:14)

In reply to a post by brookheather:

My update is that the CBT was installed today in the pavement box and a new small fibre cable run to the side of my house. So I am now ready for the final install stage of CSP and ONT - hopefully not too long now. Does the installation of the CBT trigger the availability of WBC FTTP on DSL checker?

Some say it is just a coincidence, but lexl and mine both changed from 330/50 to 1000/220 within days of CBT being complete. Lexl's has gone one stage further to become available.

In reply to a post by Ixel:

I've got an FB2900 which claims to be capable of routing up to 750Mbps. That's connected to a Ubiquti Edgeswitch 16 150W which claims to have a non-blocking throughput of up to 18Gbps and a switching capacity of up to 36Gbps, so all being well my local network should be ready to take on a downstream speed of up to around 300Mbps easily once it's live .

Looks a nice router, I played with the online demo a while ago and couldn't get the hang of what I was doing. Trouble is I have had a Draytek for 6-years and know it inside out. I guess I will have to learn a new methodology whatever route I choose. But if the Unify-Pro-4 cuts the mustard then at £200 (ex VAT) it is both cheap and provides a single view of whole network performance. So certainly worth a shot for me.

I think I'm going to go with pfsense, at the moment I'm swaying towards a custom build VM server. Though an old dell r710 is also an option.

The Unify Pro 4/ Edgerouter-4 (basically the same kit with differently coloured case and firmware) should easily handle any FTTP connection from Openreach with the proviso you don't want QoS. At that point the Ubiquiti solution will probably only manage a 330/50 connection. However a pfSense box that can handle QoS at those speeds is also going to cost...

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Yesterday my FTTPoD speeds changed from 330/30 to 1000/220

This is likely because BT Wholesale *are* now selling 1000/220 and 500/165 variants of FTTPoD (see via link I posted above).

So probably it's whenever a property gets any sort of database update, the old "FTTPoD 330/30" is being replaced by "FTTPoD 1000/220".

In reply to a post by Retron:

In my case (and I'd imagine for others), the updates are emailed directly from a contact at Cerberus. Mine are usually on Thursdays, with the odd one on Friday.

...and this week's is a corker. The collapsed duct isn't in fact collapsed, instead it's "congested" - i.e. full. The whole thing's gone back to the planning stage, meaning it'll be well over a year since I ordered before this gets sorted.

Not Cerberus' fault, of course, and I'm sure Openreach would rather a different result. By the time the work's done to dig new ducting, what with all the permits they've applied for over the months (at £250 a pop, originally in batches of 3 but now singles), plus the two sets of roadworks already with traffic lights and all the overhead fibre rigging and so on... they'll be taking a massive loss, perhaps even a 5-figure loss.

Edited by deleted (Tue 26-Feb-19 17:13:15)

In reply to a post by candlerb:

This is likely because BT Wholesale *are* now selling 1000/220 and 500/165 variants of FTTPoD (see via link I posted above).

So probably it's whenever a property gets any sort of database update, the old "FTTPoD 330/30" is being replaced by "FTTPoD 1000/220".

Your reply above says the opposite though

Wholesale can provide us 500 & 1Gb On Demand now.
160/30 330/50 on demand available from OR, but Wholesale won't provide these.
We can provide these in some parts of the country.

edit: my mistake I see you're discussing the 500/1000Mb variants.

I wonder why they won't do the 330/50 variant.

Edited by j0hn83 (Tue 26-Feb-19 17:37:18)

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Yesterday my FTTPoD speeds changed from 330/30 to 1000/220

This is likely because BT Wholesale *are* now selling 1000/220 and 500/165 variants of FTTPoD (see via link I posted above).

So probably it's whenever a property gets any sort of database update, the old "FTTPoD 330/30" is being replaced by "FTTPoD 1000/220".

I thought there was a temporary suspension in place by BT wholesale for the half gig and 1 gig FTTP/FTTPoD services nationwide , despite what the dsl checker shows? Unless the suspension has been lifted?

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/t/4610109-re-...

If the BTW restrictions remain, then only where Spectrum Internet & Syscomm have their own networks in place (ie selected LLU exchanges in S Wales & E Midlands) can they supply the higher speeds, on both WBC FTTP & FTTPoD.

Edited by deleted (Tue 26-Feb-19 18:40:31)

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

The Unify Pro 4/ Edgerouter-4 (basically the same kit with differently coloured case and firmware) should easily handle any FTTP connection from Openreach with the proviso you don't want QoS. At that point the Ubiquiti solution will probably only manage a 330/50 connection. However a pfSense box that can handle QoS at those speeds is also going to cost...

Cost isn�t my biggest concern, we are a business. But finding either definitive answers, or users with experience is nigh on impossible. Having spent £12,500 on the FTTPoD and £3,000 ish on WiFi system scrimping on the router seems silly.

But the Pro4 (£200) seems a bit under powered, the XG (£2500) seems overkill. The XG7100 PFSense at £700 is rack mount and should keep me going to 1Gbps or 2*330Mbps, but I lose the single view of the network.
Given the leaps in price I can buy and sell a Pro4 for a fraction of the others. So my thought is suck it and see. But always happy to consider options or take advice.

Dave

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

The Unify Pro 4/ Edgerouter-4 (basically the same kit with differently coloured case and firmware) should easily handle any FTTP connection from Openreach with the proviso you don't want QoS.

I run my 330/30 link at full speed with a USG3...

My installation has been going great the last week or so. Lots of Openreach activity, cabling and jointing apparently all done right up to the house then they hit a snag. The last duct to the house is blocked as it comes out of the ground.

This time it is me they need permission from so Permission to Dig form signed and returned. Hopefully not too much longer now.

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

Having spent £12,500 on the FTTPoD and £3,000 ish on WiFi system scrimping on the router seems silly.

I use Mikrotik routers at home and in data centres, and like them a lot.

For your fairly complex FTTP use case, the 9-core CCR1009-7G-1C-1S+ would be way more than powerful enough, at about £350+VAT. There are desktop and rackmount variants, and it has a 10G port for a degree of future-proofing. Rackmount version is dual PSU; desktop version is fanless. I'd go for rackmount unless the router sits in an occupied area.

The ones I use in data centres are CCR1036-8G-2S+ with 36 cores. This doesn't even hit 2% CPU utilisation on a gigabit of traffic - although in that application I don't do any PPPoE or NAT - and I'm not using the two 10G ports yet. They are about £850+VAT, a bit more if you want 16G RAM. The slightly cheaper CCR1036-12G-4S drops the two 10G SFP+ ports in favour of four 1G SFP ports. Definitely overkill for your needs, but at least I can give a baseline on performance.

My home one is HeX PoE. This is much less powerful and I don't know yet if it's up to FTTP speeds. But it's great that the software platform is consistent from the smallest to the largest, and I like the integrated PoE. And it's incredibly cheap (around £60+VAT).

Mikrotik pluses: used by many service providers around the world; all features enabled with no extra licences to buy; frequent software updates, free updates for life; internally based on Linux; can manage using CLI or web or Windows client ("WinBox"); customer support actually answers E-mails.

Mikrotik minuses: some history of security flaws, mainly in the WinBox part - but these are quickly fixed. I'd keep WinBox turned off, firewall off the management ports, and remember to apply updates when they're available. There are so many features you might have difficulty finding your way around. The build quality is pretty lightweight - just a metal box with a PCB. The low-end models share CPU port bandwidth via a switch - see the block diagrams under "support and downloads" (e.g. HeX PoE)

The pfSense appliance should be fine too. I note that the XG7100 is only a 4-core Atom, but it does have 10G ports so presumably they believe it will work at that speed Or you could just use any old spare PC with two 1G NICs, and install the free version of pfSense, to get started and see if it does what you need.

Edited by candlerb (Wed 27-Feb-19 11:54:58)

In reply to a post by Jabes:

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

The Unify Pro 4/ Edgerouter-4 (basically the same kit with differently coloured case and firmware) should easily handle any FTTP connection from Openreach with the proviso you don't want QoS.

I run my 330/30 link at full speed with a USG3...

Do you run QoS or IPS? I think those two features slow it down lot from what I have gathered. Without either then USG will go close to gigabit speeds from what I have seen.

Plus we have 80 guest devices on the holiday cottages and circa 80 devices of our own (phones, tablets, sonos, IoT stuff)

In reply to a post by candlerb:

There are so many features you might have difficulty finding your way around.

Thanks for the comprehensive post.

Just had a play with the MicroTik emulator. Blimey! I will have another play later but seems to have every feature I have heard of and 200 other pages of features I have never heard of. Getting it set-up right would be a challenge, with a significant learning curve. I guess with some time invested it will become logical and many tweaks may not be needed. But I am wary of leaving defaults without understanding what they are. The Dryatek came with Firewall off as standard. It's a router, surely firewall on, and turning it off is the advanced feature.

But as you say processor vs price they seem to be very competitive.

Hi

I'd recommend pfSense, either a self built box or their own products. The UI is clear and modern and lots of help available in their forums or from resources online.

As a router I've had it running 24/7 for a couple of years now and it never needs any attention, been rock solid and is only rebooted for updates. The diagnostic options are really good and easy to use, and those have helped me investigate and solve several issues with outside services.

Regards

Phil

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

The Dryatek came with Firewall off as standard. It's a router, surely firewall on, and turning it off is the advanced feature.

A router just forwards packets. The Mikrotik ships as a router with no access rules by default, so defaults to 'permit everything', subject to NAT of course.

pfSense also ships with a default "allow everything from LAN", "NAT everything outbound on WAN" policy.

Hi

I think most routers with Firewalls allow outbound for anything by default, that is pretty standard as it would be an onerous task to set up rules for all the sorts of connections likely from inside the network wanting to go outside to the Internet, unless a company is just allowing a few ports 80/443 for the web for example.

However the Firewall is still operating even with an outbound allowed rule for everything as it allows the traffic out to anywhere but will make a note of what has gone out (state table), so that the only data allowed to flow back in is the reply to an outbound request, and not something unsolicited.

The Draytek firewall off as standard might simply be that it's operating as above and allowing outbound traffic but blocking unsolicited incoming traffic, I'm not sure, been a while since I've used a Draytek.

If a Firewall is really completely off, then any unsolicited traffic is routed to the internal network, however NAT generally means that nothing on the local network has a routeable IP address so can't be reached, and so NAT has always behaved a bit like a Firewall, this all changes with IPv6 where no NAT is required and all devices will be exposed on the Internet without any Firewall in place.

So the typical setup for a Firewall is simply to allow all outbound, and drop all inbound traffic. Inbound traffic though is unsolicited traffic hitting the router. Any traffic in response to an outbound request, i.e. to retrieve a web page is allowed back in.

Regards

Phil

Edited by deleted (Wed 27-Feb-19 11:47:42)

In reply to a post by PhilipD:

So the typical setup for a Firewall is simply to allow all outbound, and drop all inbound traffic. Inbound traffic though is unsolicited traffic hitting the router. Any traffic in response to an outbound request, i.e. to retrieve a web page is allowed back in.

Plus: there is this common misconception that if you enable a button called "firewall", suddenly you are secure. This could not be further from the truth.

These days, there are two main ways you get infected over the network: by clicking on malicious links in web pages, and by opening malicious attachments in E-mails.

In both cases, your client has made an *outbound* connection to fetch the item. And usually that connection is encrypted - HTTPS for web pages, IMAPS for E-mail. So even a firewall with an IDS won't be able to scan the content.

Some enterprise firewalls act as "man-in-the-middle", decrypting HTTPS traffic and generating fake certificates with their own key. That breaks the whole end-to-end security model of TLS.

The moral is: don't believe anyone (especially firewall vendors!) who say that a firewall makes you secure.

A firewall is just a policy tool: I want to allow X to connect to Y but not Z. It's still useful - e.g. you might not want people in holiday cottage 1 to attempt to connect to devices in holiday cottage 2. But in terms of security: you need to ensure your endpoint security is up-to-date (e.g. local antivirus), and ideally you'd have some way to *detect* when a device has been compromised, because this is going to happen sooner or later.

This is where an IDS can come in useful - it may be able to detect traffic patterns generated by known worms and viruses, after the infection has taken place. You can install snort in pfSense, but beware that you'll get a bunch of false alarms and will have to spend some energy tuning it for your environment.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by PhilipD:

So the typical setup for a Firewall is simply to allow all outbound, and drop all inbound traffic. Inbound traffic though is unsolicited traffic hitting the router. Any traffic in response to an outbound request, i.e. to retrieve a web page is allowed back in.

Plus: there is this common misconception that if you enable a button called "firewall", suddenly you are secure. This could not be further from the truth.

These days, there are two main ways you get infected over the network: by clicking on malicious links in web pages, and by opening malicious attachments in E-mails.

In both cases, your client has made an *outbound* connection to fetch the item. And usually that connection is encrypted - HTTPS for web pages, IMAPS for E-mail. So even a firewall with an IDS won't be able to scan the content.

Some enterprise firewalls act as "man-in-the-middle", decrypting HTTPS traffic and generating fake certificates with their own key. That breaks the whole end-to-end security model of TLS.

The moral is: don't believe anyone (especially firewall vendors!) who say that a firewall makes you secure.

A firewall is just a policy tool: I want to allow X to connect to Y but not Z. It's still useful - e.g. you might not want people in holiday cottage 1 to attempt to connect to devices in holiday cottage 2. But in terms of security: you need to ensure your endpoint security is up-to-date (e.g. local antivirus), and ideally you'd have some way to *detect* when a device has been compromised, because this is going to happen sooner or later.

This is where an IDS can come in useful - it may be able to detect traffic patterns generated by known worms and viruses, after the infection has taken place. You can install snort in pfSense, but beware that you'll get a bunch of false alarms and will have to spend some energy tuning it for your environment.

Agreed, I have never known an infection through a firewall but have know infections from email, web links, and attacks through internal hardware (CCTV). None caused by me, but one was caused by the MD at the time, but agree it is statistically likely to happen at some point.
I use VLANs to split off Network Equipment, Guests (with device isolation), IoT devices (with device isolation), and our personal devices+Sonos, I am tempted to isolate the kids on their own network but Sonos created a bit of a barrier. All of my kit is patched to latest versions, and anti-virus running on phones & laptops.

And I have to understand all this just to provide a free Wi-Fi service!
Cheers
Dave

Normally no CSP on a connectorised install .... there should be enough on that coil to be taken right into the ONT.

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

I use VLANs to split off Network Equipment, Guests (with device isolation), IoT devices (with device isolation), and our personal devices+Sonos, I am tempted to isolate the kids on their own network but Sonos created a bit of a barrier.

All very sensible. You won't have any problem with policies for those on either Mikrotik or pfSense.

If you add in IPv6, then the Mikrotik is a bit more awkward because it has separate policies for IPv4 and IPv6 - it's up to you to keep them in sync. pfSense lets you have rules and address lists which contain a mixture of address families, at least for TCP and UDP.

If you can get IPv6 natively from your provider, it's probably worth deploying in a network such as yours. It will reduce pressure on your NAT tables and ports. But of course you *do* want to ensure your firewall policies permit outbound but not inbound.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

If you add in IPv6

I haven't got my head around that yet. I know the basic logic with the increase in available IPs. But the implications for my network I have avoided. Will be with Cerberus. More homework to do.

Ta Dave

Have pfsense sorted the single thread issues for PPPOE connections?

I stopped using pfsense a couple of years ago.

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

In reply to a post by Jabes:

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

The Unify Pro 4/ Edgerouter-4 (basically the same kit with differently coloured case and firmware) should easily handle any FTTP connection from Openreach with the proviso you don't want QoS.

I run my 330/30 link at full speed with a USG3...

Do you run QoS or IPS? I think those two features slow it down lot from what I have gathered. Without either then USG will go close to gigabit speeds from what I have seen.

Plus we have 80 guest devices on the holiday cottages and circa 80 devices of our own (phones, tablets, sonos, IoT stuff)

No, I don't have QoS or IPS turned on. I have about 100 devices on my network including 5 access points. All switches and AP are Unifi and although the USG is not as fully featured as my previous pfSense router it does enough and I appreciate the 'single pain of glass'...

In reply to a post by fredfox:

Have pfsense sorted the single thread issues for PPPOE connections?

I stopped using pfsense a couple of years ago.

https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/4821
See last 3 posts: setting tunable net.isr.dispatch=deferred apparently fixes it.

In summary: multi-queue NICs generally can't hash PPPoE traffic and they just assign it to the first queue. Setting 'deferred' moves all the heavy packet processing out of the interrupt handler, so that multiple cores can work on it.

Latest update:

External build and testing have all now been completed. Order is currently awaiting an audit to be completed.

I will Openreach for a date and get back to you.

So nothing too new that I don't already know, except the audit which I presume may take up to several weeks to complete? At least that's what I thought I read somewhere in this thread when someone mentioned the audit step. So close... haha.

Edited by Ixel (Thu 28-Feb-19 17:07:02)

Thanks
I stopped messing with pfsense such a long time ago that I'm rather out of touch, maybe time to start playing again, although quite happy with the free version of Sophos XG & UTM9, but I love playing with this stuff!

I spoke with Openreach on my way home from work today, they were running fibre to/from the exchange (800m away) - at 7.30pm! They said the jointers will be in next join on to that from my village, and then down to my house.

Is it normal for them to be working at that time? If you've gone past this stage in the build, how long has it taken from here to completion for you?

Time to order the parts for a new home server!

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Latest update:

External build and testing have all now been completed. Order is currently awaiting an audit to be completed.

I will Openreach for a date and get back to you.

So nothing too new that I don't already know, except the audit which I presume may take up to several weeks to complete? At least that's what I thought I read somewhere in this thread when someone mentioned the audit step. So close... haha.

Mine went from audit completed to audit not done. Official line from Openreach (via Cerberus) was that Audit can take up to two weeks, but mine took 7-days to get to the audit team from the point the fibre was physically finished on site. Of course I understand the jointers would have paperwork to submit, and most of the stuff is still likely run on overnight batches. So some time to be expected.

Once audit is complete it is then passed to commissioning team, so figure another week or two for availability of commissioning team (YMMV).

So could still be 4-weeks away.

In reply to a post by Jabes:

No, I don't have QoS or IPS turned on. I have about 100 devices on my network including 5 access points. All switches and AP are Unifi and although the USG is not as fully featured as my previous pfSense router it does enough and I appreciate the 'single pain of glass'...

Note there is a lot more functionality in the UniFi line of routers than appears at first sight. However you have to manually edit a JSON file to get at it.

https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/215458888-Un...

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Now it's time to get excited then, just changed this morning to WBC FTTP 1000 / 220 - 1-stage. Hooray!

https://i.imgur.com/Lz1AFWq.png

Looking promising.

I got an update. Despite being told audit was complete and the order was working its way through back office systems prior to commissioning, I am now told the audit is still going on. I've gone backwards.

Mine jumped from 330/50 to 1000/220 a day or two after they finished the fibre line. But not changed in a couple of weeks.

Well I was told this week that audit was taking too long so it was put on the hurry up, audit was completed yesterday (even though I had already been told audit was done). Checked the ADSL checker this afternoon and it says 1000/220 which it has for a week or two but now also says FTTP Install Process - 2 Stage. Hopefully just updates going through the system as the ONT is on the wall winking at me. One wonders what they would find to do on a 2-stage install process.

Unifi Pro-4 delivered today along with US-24. Going to swap out a Netgear switch (GS724Tv4 ProSafe 24-port Gigabit Ethernet Smart Switch up for grabs in the next week).
With IPS/IDS it says limited to 250Mbps but will get me going. If I really like the single pain of glass will have to get the XG!

I hope you get a single pane rather than any pain

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

One wonders what they would find to do on a 2-stage install process.

Connectorized installs are usually �1 stage�, ie the final bit is all done in one go. It might be that due to your DP being a long distance away from your premises, this will require 2 visits. Alternatively you might be lucky enough to get fibre blown to a CSP, in which case a �2 stage� install is normal - this means you will get 4 fibre strands to your premises instead of 1

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

One wonders what they would find to do on a 2-stage install process.

Connectorized installs are usually �1 stage�, ie the final bit is all done in one go. It might be that due to your DP being a long distance away from your premises, this will require 2 visits. Alternatively you might be lucky enough to get fibre blown to a CSP, in which case a �2 stage� install is normal - this means you will get 4 fibre strands to your premises instead of 1

Yes I get that. But it states 2 stage but we have a connectorized install, and the fibre is already installed, along with the ONT. I just need it commissioned.

The ONT was installed by the jointing team to speed up deployment. It was connecterized in the ground box with 330m connecterized single fibre to pull. My only thought is that they supplied us a 4-port ONT on the end of the fibre so possibly labelled as 2-stage due to this.

The ONT has been sat on the wall since 12th February flashing it's green light.

Cheers
Dave

Fair do's. But I think a connectorized install can still show up as a 2 stage install if Openreach deem it necessary to complete the final leg in 2 visits. Like you I also had my ONT & internal cabling installed early as a "favour", it was all done on the day they blew the fibre to the external CSP but the Engineer at the time made it clear not to get too excited as my circuit wouldn't be going live anytime soon - i think it took another 8 weeks or so from that point. On the day the ONT was activated and service went live, the Engineer was quite surprised to see everything in place already.

Otherwise it might just be a simple case of a BT/Openreach database error in your case. But regardless, its not a big deal.

Edited by deleted (Sat 02-Mar-19 12:51:30)

Latest update is that Openreach have completed their audit, now waiting on an appointment date. Hooray! That was faster than I expected.

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Latest update is that Openreach have completed their audit, now waiting on an appointment date. Hooray! That was faster than I expected.

Get the case of champers ready

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Latest update is that Openreach have completed their audit, now waiting on an appointment date. Hooray! That was faster than I expected.

Get the case of champers ready

Awesome.
You will be able to order champers online pretty soon!

That's both of us one appointment away from digital gold!

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Latest update is that Openreach have completed their audit, now waiting on an appointment date. Hooray! That was faster than I expected.

Get the case of champers ready

Awesome.
You will be able to order champers online pretty soon!

That's both of us one appointment away from digital gold!

Save me some! Jointers were working on my line yesterday, believe they finished the job.

Though I am expecting issues with my ONT install, I don't want it where the current copper cable enters the house, should be fun as the entire drive is brick laid.

That sounds like it could be a painful installation, good luck. You're almost at the stage that some of us are waiting at. Next step after jointers is probably the audit, and then waiting for an appointment if there's no problems. That's assuming every other step is finished.

Edited by Ixel (Wed 06-Mar-19 10:44:40)

In reply to a post by rman:

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

... nested quotes trimmed ...

Get the case of champers ready

Awesome.
You will be able to order champers online pretty soon!

That's both of us one appointment away from digital gold!

Save me some! Jointers were working on my line yesterday, believe they finished the job.

Though I am expecting issues with my ONT install, I don't want it where the current copper cable enters the house, should be fun as the entire drive is brick laid.

Either the existing line is in a duct or it isn't.

If it is in a duct then the duct will appear where the existing line comes out and they will have costed to use the duct. It will be extra charges and delay to install new duct.

If it is Direct in Ground (DiG for short) then they will have allowed for running ducts but this would be on the quote. And they tend to do the civil first.

There are options to run the fibre inside but requires containment/protection for the route. Might be easier to accept the ONT where it is and run CAT5 internally to router.

Dave

Cerberus are firmly staying on top of matters, I just had an update again this morning regarding the appointment. Unfortunately bad news, due to a system issue on Openreach's side they can't currently commit an appointment date. The issue has been raised with the appropriate team in Openreach to fix the issue so that they can then commit an appointment date. An escalation/expidiate (expidite?) has been requested for once the issue is resolved, so hopefully that'll be given as this is Openreach's issue. It's nice to see another ISP who's chasing Openreach for a change, there's only one other ISP I know of who generally will keep on top of Openreach when there's a problem .

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Cerberus are firmly staying on top of matters, I just had an update again this morning regarding the appointment. Unfortunately bad news, due to a system issue on Openreach's side they can't currently commit an appointment date. The issue has been raised with the appropriate team in Openreach to fix the issue so that they can then commit an appointment date. An escalation/expidiate (expidite?) has been requested for once the issue is resolved, so hopefully that'll be given as this is Openreach's issue. It's nice to see another ISP who's chasing Openreach for a change, there's only one other ISP I know of who generally will keep on top of Openreach when there's a problem .

Were you offered a date?

This morning I was offered a date (next Tuesday) and have emailed to confirm my acceptance that I will be in (everything else has just cleared out my diary that day oddly enough).

Nope, no date was given due to the system issue on Openreach's side, sadly.

Great news for me then. Looks like I'm next Tuesday! If you don't hear from me after Tuesday then assume configuring the new router is going badly.

Hope they get you a date asap, and I don't even mind if it's before Tuesday!

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

In reply to a post by rman:

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

... nested quotes trimmed ...

Awesome.
You will be able to order champers online pretty soon!

That's both of us one appointment away from digital gold!

Save me some! Jointers were working on my line yesterday, believe they finished the job.

Though I am expecting issues with my ONT install, I don't want it where the current copper cable enters the house, should be fun as the entire drive is brick laid.

Either the existing line is in a duct or it isn't.

If it is in a duct then the duct will appear where the existing line comes out and they will have costed to use the duct. It will be extra charges and delay to install new duct.

If it is Direct in Ground (DiG for short) then they will have allowed for running ducts but this would be on the quote. And they tend to do the civil first.

There are options to run the fibre inside but requires containment/protection for the route. Might be easier to accept the ONT where it is and run CAT5 internally to router.

Dave

We have an existing duct running under the drive, but where it comes out of the ground and into house leaves no space for the ONT, fully expecting some issues with the install.

That being said, when he initial survey was done the guy asked where I would like the ONT, and the position we want it in was noted and pictures taken. Hopefully that had been taken in to account.

I can be patient though, every month that passes is one month off of my Zen FTTC contract.

What router have you gone for?

I'm ordering the parts for mine today, it's kind of grown from a basic router build for pfsense to a fairly power VM home server

In reply to a post by rman:

We have an existing duct running under the drive, but where it comes out of the ground and into house leaves no space for the ONT, fully expecting some issues with the install.

But the ONT does NOT have to be installed (& often isn't) at the point where the fibre enters the property internally. I don't know what the internal fibre distance limits are for a connectorized install but under the blown fibre install method, you can have up to 30m of internal cabling which for most people would be more than enough.

TBH I don't think you've got anything to worry about, Openreach will most likely install the ONT to the place of your choice provided the distances involved aren't excessive.

Surveyors aren't all they're cracked up to be! But my view is probably like yours, if it needs done, it needs done, and you just have to get it sorted. And for cabling that will be in a long time it is worth extra hassle to get it to the right place (says the one who did 150m of ducting self install cos he didn't want Openreach on his lawn).

Router: USG-Pro-4
It might not do the job. If I want IDS/IPS then it will hit stoppers at 250Mbps according to Unifi. Without IPS/IDS it is good for 900Mpbs according to some other posters, clearly this will depend on number of users, size of packets etc. One heavy user downloading likely to produce less processor use than 100 light users demanding same throughput. Especially with hardware off-loading.
My take on it was this. It was £200 ex-VAT. If it does the job great, if not sell it for £100 +VAT (as we are a business). I'll lose a £100 (although I have spent £25 upgrading the fans already to Noctura). But the alternatives for rack mount for pfsense were £700. I will learn a lot more about UniFi routing/firewall running one for a couple of months than I will reading manuals, and if it does want I want, and I love the single pane of glass view of the network then the USG-8 thing at £2500 might be an option.
If UniFi firewall and routing don't do it for me then I'll do an install of PFsense on some unsuitable hardware or play with the demo until I'm happy and get the cheapest rack-mount.

(I'm secretly hoping UniFi will bring one in the middle as £100, £200, and £2500 is an odd line-up but understandable as no-one had FTTP speeds so it was £4Mbps-70Mps or leased line territory.)

Currently the USG is up and running on 1 of the 4 VLANs doing DHCP duty with Gateway set to Draytek (and Draytek DHCP server turned off for that VLAN). I did the IoT VLAN first, next up will be the Guest WiFi network as it is just a wireless network. Then I can do some firewall testing between VLANs, then the private network. Hoping to have all ready for Tuesday so I can just change the gateway once it is commissioned.

Dave

Hi

I'm ordering the parts for mine today, it's kind of grown from a basic router build for pfsense to a fairly power VM home server

The one thing to think about when pfSense (or any firewall for that matter) is running as a virtual machine, is when you get windows updates or need to reboot the computer hosting the VMs for any reason, you lose all internet connectivity. Consider some updates for windows can take some time, you are sat there with no Internet. You may then need to update and reboot the virtual machine with pfSense on, losing all connectivity again. These days losing the Internet might see mobile phones dropping calls (where they are using WiFi calling), smart speakers stop working, any VoIP phones you might have drop calls and can't be used, so if a business, you will be needing to do it out of hours, if at home, you'll get moaned at

There is also more to go wrong with a VM hosting pfSense, and if it does the one place we tend to go for help, i.e the Internet, is not available. (Of course you could use your phone if you have a signal, but never quite the same on a small screen.)

It seems a shame to get FTTP with the potential for quite a bit of downtime.

My advice would be to get a separate pfSense box, set it up and forget about it. They do a low powered but high performance model now, using only a few watt that you could install next to the ONT. https://store.netgate.com/pfSense/SG-1100.aspx

Regards

Phil

In reply to a post by PhilipD:

The one thing to think about when pfSense (or any firewall for that matter) is running as a virtual machine, is when you get windows updates or need to reboot the computer hosting the VMs for any reason, you lose all internet connectivity. Consider some updates for windows can take some time, you are sat there with no Internet. You may then need to update and reboot the virtual machine with pfSense on, losing all connectivity again.

My advice would be to get a separate pfSense box, set it up and forget about it. They do a low powered but high performance model now, using only a few watt that you could install next to the ONT. https://store.netgate.com/pfSense/SG-1100.aspx

I'd echo that. I originally had my pfSense on my main home server, it worked well, but...

It became a hassle in the end. I wanted to upgrade the underlying Ubuntu install that the VM was running on, it was going to take a while to do so I had to keep putting it off because the router VM was running on that machine.

In the end I moved pfSense of onto its own low power PC. The Jetway PC I'm using isn't available anymore, but it is similar to this one:

https://www.mini-itx.com/~JBC375-F533M

I do still run less mission critical VMs, just not my router

I have just built my pfSense box in preparation for my FTTPoD connection. I went with a refurb HP 600 G2 SFF PC and installed an Intel i3-6100, 8GB DDR4, 120GB SSD and a dual port Intel PCIe x4 network card. I've not used pfSense before so this might be overkill for a 330/30 connection but I can always swap parts if necessary. Idle power consumption is showing as 15W which I think is pretty low for a PC - no doubt due to the 80+ Platinum PSU in these boxes.

Next step is to connect it to my existing Plusnet FTTC connection and have a play.

Hi

Yes probably overkill but better that than being too slow, although these days a mini-itx fan-less box is typically plenty fast enough.

The power consumption isn't too bad for a PC, I get 10 watts on my own built kit, unfortunately it could be around 5 watts idle if it wasn't for the BMC management chip in it (its a Supermicro board). Essentially it has a second processor for remote management running some form of Linux and it's own network port, the idea being you can always remote control/view the screen regardless of the state of the actual operating system, so there is never any need for an attached monitor or keyboard even if it crashed and wouldn't boot as you can be 'at the computer' via a web browser. I've not needed it really, but you can't turn it off to save a bit of power which is a shame.

For the SSD, you can set pfSense to write various temp files to memory (which you have plenty of so no issue doing that) to save wear and tear on the drive.

Regards

Phil

Project 2

Desktop Quote - Openreach estimated the build charge at £6,900.00 + VAT


Labour £6,778.00
Stores £4,089.00
Contract Labour £0.00
Civils £14,150.00
Civils Stores £0.00
Tree cutting £0.00
BT Connection Charge £495.00
Deductions
-£750.00
-£250.00
£24,512.00+VAT (reclaimable)
-£2500 Gigabit Voucher

The phrase 'Ouch!' sprung to mind, especially as I got a reduction from £29,100 to £12,500 following survey.

2 miles from exchange, 1 mile to nearest residential area, where ducting is likely, I think it is on poles for the rural stretch. The civils costs seems extraordinary for the length of route on a quiet country lane. I would view the installation as very similar to mine but twice the price. If you want Google Maps YO18 8EE (Barker Stakes Farm B&B).

Input welcome.

Noting that with a coupler and a length of simplex single mode SC cable (probably APC judging by all the green connectors I have seen in photos), you could move the ONT to anywhere in the house you want after the Openreach engineers have left.

https://www.fs.com/uk/products/74343.html
https://www.fs.com/uk/products/11894.html

UPC cables and couplers are a bit cheaper. You are going to pay more for postage than the cable and coupler are worth though.

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

Noting that with a coupler and a length of simplex single mode SC cable (probably APC judging by all the green connectors I have seen in photos), you could move the ONT to anywhere in the house you want after the Openreach engineers have left.

https://www.fs.com/uk/products/74343.html
https://www.fs.com/uk/products/11894.html

UPC cables and couplers are a bit cheaper. You are going to pay more for postage than the cable and coupler are worth though.

So you are recommending folks break the Openreach/CP t&c�s by moving the ONT? Nice......

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

So you are recommending folks break the Openreach/CP t&c�s by moving the ONT? Nice......

It is possible that people broke the T&Cs on the copper wired solutions. Is it much different if they break them for fibre? I suppose it could be more costly if they break stuff.

I do have a nice shiny 19inch rack with all my kit in. Including a UPS, and then on the wall I have two boxes with 63 wires between them (Fibre-In, Telephone out, CAT5 out, Power in to Battery, Power Out from Battery, Power to ONT (on the side not the bottom with the others). The fibre in is below and too the left of the ONT. Why wasn't it designed to come into the case in the first place (One benefit of ONTv2 is the enclosure).

A simple fibre port and then a rack mount ONT would have been a nice option. Even the ONT on a shelf would be neater.

Hi

With fibre there is more potential to knock other people offline as it's shared, you could take down your whole street with an ONT that isn't compatible or is slightly out of spec. With ADSL or VDSL that couldn't happen.

Still, if terms and conditions wanted to be enforced by BT should they be so concerned with their kit being tampered with, they would have put tamper evident seals or locks on it like they do with electricity or gas meters. I also expect as time goes by and properties have the fibre connection already, it will become more self install, i.e. you just get a router/hub and plug the fibre into it. Also BT didn't want you messing with their wires to help protect staff, i.e. in case a wire gets shorted to mains and electrifies part of the network, with fibre that can't happen.

People have been breaking BTs terms and conditions for decades with moving phones and installing dodgy extensions direct into the master socket or termination point and I don't think anyone has got into trouble for it, at worse they just pay the engineer to put it right if they've messed up.

If its moved and noticed by the engineer then I guess the worst case is being charged for any work to correct faults, but you could just move it back for the fix.

Regards

Phil

In reply to a post by PhilipD:

and installing dodgy extensions direct into the master socket or termination point and I don't think anyone has got into trouble for it, at worse they just pay the engineer to put it right if they've messed up.

Yup. There are two master sockets in our office on the same line! I doubt both were put there by Openreach. All the extensions were on bell wire, not to spec, removing them upped the broadband speed by 50% 4 to 6Mbps!

But good point on the upload time slicing, it could break the whole thing. Now who would create a system where a simple action, plugging a different router onto the fibre rather than the ONT, could affect multiple customers.

Technically you are not even allowed to remove it from the wall for decorating purposes which is unsustainable in the medium to long term. An extra few metres of fibre optic and a coupler are immaterial. Fibre optics are not some magic super secret proprietary stuff that if you touch is going to cause the end of the world.

If one wanted to [censored] the neighbours off you could just disconnect the fibre from the ONT and fire a laser down the cable. You can get a 1310nm single mode fibre coupled laser diode for not much money these days.

Heck for kicks and giggles you could pick a suitable CO2 laser and burn out the photodiode on the OLT.

We have an existing duct running under the drive, but where it comes out of the ground and into house leaves no space for the ONT, fully expecting some issues with the install.

.... but just because it comes out of the duct at a certain point, that doesn�t mean it has to go through the wall there ... run it exterior, then in to where you require it (within reason)

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

Technically you are not even allowed to remove it from the wall for decorating purposes which is unsustainable in the medium to long term.

Mines on slotted holes so just lifts off. In fact it nearly falls off if you try and insert a cable! It will definitely be off for decorating, we do sockets/switches off, lights removed, radiators off for decorating otherwise it just looks pants.

"Estimated completion Date 28/03." for the blockage right outside the house, can't be all that much longer now!

Another step closer hopefully.

As for me, my order appears to be in limbo. No news this week of Openreach fixing the issue with their system not being able to commit an appointment date to install FTTP. Surely they'll have it fixed by the end of next week. My address is still showing as WBC FTTP but interestingly none of the neighbors on the same distribution pole are showing as being able to get WBC FTTP yet.

In reply to a post by abat:

"Estimated completion Date 28/03." for the blockage right outside the house, can't be all that much longer now!

Let�s hope so. Once ducts are clear there should be no technical challenges left. Just process.

But mine had the ONT installed 12th Feb, they are coming Tuesday to commission . A whole month with the ONT on the wall not getting them revenue. Madness.

Just catching up on some replies.

If the fibre can be fed in and the ONT somewhere else (under the stairs) that will be perfect.

PhilipD, that's a good point and something that i had considered. I think i'm going to see how it goes and then if it becomes a problem i'll purchase a dedicated machine. With some time on my hands i think i may even try direct from china on ali.

The parts arrived today, so i'll have some fun building it and setting it up this weekend, all ready for the fibre

Talking of fibre, i just checked the dsl checker and my address is now showing: FTTP on Demaind | 1000 (Downstream) | 220 (Upstream) | Avaliable!

Along with that change my update today was that the cable had been ran and we're awaiting confirmation the jointers had completed their work.

Edited by deleted (Sat 09-Mar-19 01:22:00)

Today is the one-year anniversary of submitting my FTTPoD order to survey, having previously received my desktop quote under the new pricing regime. Sadly, installation still seems as far away as ever.

There's no fibre installed that I know of. Some sections of duct have been unblocked and roped; the 34m of new duct which my survey said would be required has been dug.

Before Christmas, Openreach identified another section of duct which needed unblocking (which has since been scheduled and missed several times). In early January they said another 164m of duct would need to be dug, which hasn't even been scheduled yet.

All credit to Cerberus for providing updates weekly or more, and who have said they are going to turn up the pressure further.

Openreach are boasting about their improving delivery times (for ethernet), but clearly there's plenty more scope for improvement in FTTPoD.

I guess they could do with QLiK on FTTPoD as well as leased lines!

Miy order for desktop survey was May, with full survey June-ish, and full order paid end of September. However yours sounds a nightmare and to be still so far away is awful. That said I don�t think we finished roping until early Jan and within 4-weeks the fibre was in and ONT installed. It has then sat waiting commissioning for 4-weeks.

Escalation for yours seems the right thing. They at least need to identify all civils remaining and have a plan. Once roped I reckon they could get it done pretty quickly if they were so minded.

Did you do a cake? Maybe tweet Openreach a photo of the Fibre order birthday cake.

Hi Guys,

Been skimming through the thread reading about all the installs happening, and im tempted to get a quote done.

A few people in my road have expressed an interest so it could be worth getting a survey.

IS there a link on how to order and start the ball rolling?

How to apply for voucher scheme if available?

Or is someone has any links to forms that need filling in.

Much appreciated.

In reply to a post by Alucidnation:

IS there a link on how to order and start the ball rolling?

Firstly you need to choose a service provider who sells FTTPoD. There are only two national ones that I know of: Cerberus and FluidOne. There are some which cover only parts of the country - e.g. Spectrum, Syscomm - and there are some companies which are resellers of the other ones - e.g. Amvia resells Cerberus.

You apply for a free desktop quote from them, which takes a week or two. Then if you decide to place an order, you pay £250+VAT; over the next 2-3 months the survey takes place and the final price is generated. This bears little relation to the desktop quote (fortunately, in most cases it's lower). Then you have 30 days to decide whether you're happy to proceed and pay the balance - or to pull out and forfeit the £250.

In reply to a post by Alucidnation:

How to apply for voucher scheme if available?

Or is someone has any links to forms that need filling in.

Tell your service provider, and they apply on your behalf. You can read the T&Cs here. Vouchers are only available for businesses, or for homes applying in conjunction with a business.

You mention a group of applications. If all interested parties are on the same distribution point (usually same manhole cover or pole) then one person taking FTTPoD will make native FTTP available for the others to order - this is the cheapest way to do it, but you need to sort out between you the sharing of costs. Those taking native FTTP will also benefit from a wider range of service providers and various deals / cashback offers. The FTTPoD purchaser can switch to these after their initial 12 month contract period of course.

It's also possible to have linked FTTPoD orders, which would be appropriate if a few nearby DPs need activating. However these are more complex, more expensive (each person is taking a business ISP service for at least 12 months), and riskier (if one person cancels, the order collapses and the monies paid are lost)

Thanks very much!

Just trying Cerebus, and is available but every time i get to the 'getting addresses for the postcode' it wont load the addresses!

using Brave or Chrome, or Safari on a Mac.

Scrap that.

Somehow or another it went through and will contact me with a desktop quote.

Yikes.

I'll be sat down when i open it.



For what its worth, my line is around 450meters and all underground from the fibre cabinet.

Is this were it would start?

The cable would pass around 20 houses, but i understand my DP does around 10 from what i have seen.

Also, what package have you guys gone for?

Seems to be a few to choose from with 330.

Edited by Alucidnation (Sun 10-Mar-19 15:58:14)

The fibre comes from an Aggregation Node.
There's usually 1 Agg Node serving 3 or 4 FTTC cabinets so it may or may not be near your cabinet.

Number of properties the fibre passes is irrelevant.
The discount per premises passed only counts the properties on your copper DP and it's these properties that will also have FTTP enabled.

In reply to a post by Alucidnation:

Also, what package have you guys gone for?

Seems to be a few to choose from with 330.

Which packages are you looking at? Cerberus only offer 330/30 for FTTPoD.

The trouble is that whilst Openreach have 330/50, 330/30 and 160/30 variants of FTTPoD, BT Wholesale only sell the 330/30 one. However, you will be able to upgrade or downgrade after your initial 12-month term. Indeed you could downgrade to FTTP 80/20 or 40/10 if you wanted.

Technically, the 1000/220 and 500/165 variants are also available through BT wholesale. But they are extremely expensive, and for now you'll have a hard time finding any reseller who will sell them to you.

Note: Cerberus charge a higher monthly rental during the 12-month initial term (£100+VAT per month, as opposed to their normal £62.50+VAT). I believe this is their way of getting back some of the time and energy they expend on FTTPoD - which trust me is a lot

Ah ok, so it could be further away.

Im not entirely sure how i would find out my nearest aggregation node?

But If thats the case, it will probably be out of my reach price wise anyway.

I was indeed looking at the 330/30 Pro but i thought it was around 60/month but looking now, that is probably once the 12 months is up.

Yep, after 12 months it's £62.50+VAT for 330/50 or £45+VAT for 160/30 - or you are free to switch providers.

Ok thanks.

With regards to the nearest agg node, this was put in a year or two ago.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.8515407,-1.7708868...

This isn't anywhere near my cabinet. Almost twice the distance from house that my own cab.

Mine, is a bit further down and closer to my house,.

This is a right next door to my pcp, but i am guessing it either not in use, or hasnt needed to be opened for a while, as it has almost collapsed.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.8538835,-1.7700135...

Edited by Alucidnation (Sun 10-Mar-19 21:41:49)

In reply to a post by Alucidnation:

Ok thanks.

With regards to the nearest agg node, this was put in a year or two ago.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.8515407,-1.7708868...

This isn't anywhere near my cabinet. Almost twice the distance from house that my own cab.

Mine, is a bit further down and closer to my house,.

This is a right next door to my pcp, but i am guessing it either not in use, or hasnt needed to be opened for a while, as it has almost collapsed.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.8538835,-1.7700135...

That second link shows an AIO (All-in-one) cabinet. A combo PCP and FTTC cabinet.

Edited by RobertoS (Sun 10-Mar-19 21:49:24)

I reckon FTTPoD will come down in price for installation cost, setup fee and monthly cost in the next five years time when all these g.fast has completed roll out.

There is no connection at all between the two technologies Max, and in five year's time both will be largely obsolescent and redundant. Both are stop-gap solutions to make Openreach coverage stats look good on the (relative) cheap.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by Alucidnation:

Ok thanks.

With regards to the nearest agg node, this was put in a year or two ago.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.8515407,-1.7708868...

This isn't anywhere near my cabinet. Almost twice the distance from house that my own cab.

Mine, is a bit further down and closer to my house,.

This is a right next door to my pcp, but i am guessing it either not in use, or hasnt needed to be opened for a while, as it has almost collapsed.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.8538835,-1.7700135...

That second link shows an AIO (All-in-one) cabinet. A combo PCP and FTTC cabinet.

Yes that is my PCP (12), but i thought the fibre cabinet was the one dead ahead with the fibre sticker on it?

Also, that cabinet 12 now has two pods on it, one at each end.

I was thinking the sunken lid on the chamber was an agg node, but i wouldn't be that lucky!

In reply to a post by Alucidnation:

With regards to the nearest agg node, this was put in a year or two ago.

The agg node which serves your FTTC cabinet would have been there before the FTTC cabinet went in, or installed at the same time. It's possible that a new agg node has gone in since, but not likely.

The new chamber you see could be for various purposes - perhaps for a leased line someone has had installed. Unfortunately that doesn't help you: leased line infrastructure is completely distinct from FTTP infrastructure.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

There is no connection at all between the two technologies Max, and in five year's time both will be largely obsolescent and redundant. Both are stop-gap solutions to make Openreach coverage stats look good on the (relative) cheap.

Given my quote above for my brother's site of £22k (14 B&B rooms, plus 12 lodges). The above comment filled me with glee and horror. Especially as I am hopefully having my FTTPoD finished tomorrow at a cost of £12.5k.

What will be obsolescent, the rollout, or the fibre itself. I know 5G will come but unlikely to hit rural areas for a while (don't have 4G, and don't have much coverage on EE just O2 & Voda). Plus for larger sites I am not certain a mobile network will want the traffic.

I believe each fibre can currently un up to 2.4Gbps and probably faster with differing head and client hardware.

What do you think is next?

Dave

Edited by F00tS0re (Mon 11-Mar-19 09:37:03)

Hi

The stop gap solution is really G.Fast plus VDSL, and ADSL before that was really only a stop gap. For data of any speed and reliability you really need data cable not decades old telephone cable that wasn't really that good for voice let alone data, and fibre is the ultimate data cable.

The main aim and push now is fibre to every property, so VDSL and G.Fast will be redundant. Paying for FTTP on demand gets you fibre earlier, how much earlier is hard to say. However it will take ten or more years before the majority of the UK has fibre.

As for FTTP it isn't going to be redundant for a very long time, if at all in any of our lifetimes, plus once fibre is in, it can carry ever faster speeds by just connecting different kit at each end, and already 10Gbps is out there and in use.

The gamble anyone takes with FTTP on demand is would it have arrived for free anyway in a reasonable time frame? Is it worth £20K just to get fibre say 2 or 5 years earlier than you would have done anyway? That answer will vary for individual circumstances of course.

Regards

Phil

Edited by deleted (Mon 11-Mar-19 10:05:51)

Looks like a Huawei cab, ECI cab and a PCP with an extension, and by the sounds of it now also has a G. Fast pod.

In reply to a post by PhilipD:

Hi

The stop gap solution is really G.Fast plus VDSL, and ADSL before that was really only a stop gap. For data of any speed and reliability you really need data cable not decades old telephone cable that wasn't really that good for voice let alone data, and fibre is the ultimate data cable.

The main aim and push now is fibre to every property, so VDSL and G.Fast will be redundant. Paying for FTTP on demand gets you fibre earlier, how much earlier is hard to say. However it will take ten or more years before the majority of the UK has fibre.

As for FTTP it isn't going to be redundant for a very long time, if at all in any of our lifetimes, plus once fibre is in, it can carry ever faster speeds by just connecting different kit at each end, and already 10Gbps is out there and in use.

The gamble anyone takes with FTTP on demand is would it have arrived for free anyway in a reasonable time frame? Is it worth £20K just to get fibre say 2 or 5 years earlier than you would have done anyway? That answer will vary for individual circumstances of course.

Regards

Phil

Thanks Phil, sorry hadn't realised in was G.Fast that was the stop gap. On that I would agree.

Mine was £12.5k, but we are a set of holiday cottages, so to some extent definitely worth it, spread over the next 3-years I don't need that many bookings lost due to complaints on broadband speed. North Yorkshire has had a lot of money spent on superfast through SFNY, I had a a couple of calls with them and the next two phases are mapped and I'm not on them, or close to it. We are a dead end lane with only 1 domestic property and 2 mixed use sites. They suggested on current funding levels they would get to me 'in a long time or 'never', which ever was the latter.

I had a desktop quote of £29,100, but opted to survey and got a cost of £12,500, nd went ahead. My brother runs a similar site and got a desktop quote of £6,500 but a surveyed quote of £25,000-£2500 voucher! Mostly civil works, I assume that half his lane must be DiG, but with some 14 houses on it I would be surprised. Half his lane is on poles so that should be cheap. Need to get out and walk his lane, I told him to do it but he did it in the car and didn't see any ground boxes ([censored])

I do know that he is on the last working pair available, and has a fault raised for a noisy line. It is intermittent and first time engineer came it was OK. Not sure what happens if they have to run new phone cable, will they duct the DiG section. (they have had a few faults over the years due to trees taking the line out in the lane).

Dave

The reason I will never get FTTPoD at my house because my house belong to the social council as it would be a waste of money if I went ahead with FTTPoD and later council landlord ask me to move and I would lose lots of money.

FTTPoD are ok for mortgage outright owner but not ok for any private rent or council rent.

I could help my parents to get FTTPoD as they already pay off the mortgage 15 years ago. But they don't want to waste money on expensive FTTPoD. They are happy with FTTC 60/15 for now.

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

What will be obsolescent, the rollout, or the fibre itself. I know 5G will come but unlikely to hit rural areas for a while (don't have 4G, and don't have much coverage on EE just O2 & Voda). Plus for larger sites I am not certain a mobile network will want the traffic.

I believe each fibre can currently un up to 2.4Gbps and probably faster with differing head and client hardware.

What do you think is next?

The physical fibre is unlikely to become obsolete in the lifetime of anyone alive today. If you had put in some single mode fibre 25 years ago for 10Mbps Ethernet you could go out and buy new optics for either end and use the very same fibre for 100Gbps tomorrow, and that's only the limit for what is widely commercially available. The fibre itself is good for at least 1Tbps and that's just the limit for what has been tested in the lab for a single wavelength. In all likelihood better optics either end will push it out further in the future.

Nothing in the history of computing has had and or is likely to have such a long run as single mode fibre optic cabling.

Clearly G-PON has a limited shelf life already, with XG-PON and/or XGS-PON being the next step. Ultimately I think the emerging CDWM-PON or a full PtP will be the winner.

Regardless the main hurdle for the future is from the final splitter to the premise.

The thing with 5G is if it where to replace fixed fibre optic you would need to have a mast on practically every street lamp, at which point you might as well put in the fibre to the premise to begin with and be ready for more bandwidth down the line. Basically 5G is the last throw of the dice for mobile, it's the equivalent of G.fast/VDSL-35b for copper.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

The reason I will never get FTTPoD at my house because my house belong to the social council as it would be a waste of money if I went ahead with FTTPoD and later council landlord ask me to move and I would lose lots of money.

FTTPoD are ok for mortgage outright owner but not ok for any private rent or council rent.

Agreed, and the landlord, private or council, is unlikely to see it as a valuable addition to the property. I have rental properties and spending £5k to improve an adequate broadband service to an outstanding one doesn't figure on the investment chart. It's not like they need FTTP to rent, and unlikely to generate a premium rent because of it. Let's say £6000 FTTPoD cost, 5-year ROI (which is a long time), £1200 per annum cost excluding interest. Would you accept £100 per month rent increase for FTTPoD, I doubt my tenants would thank me. And I wouldn't even make any money for risk of capital.

FTTPoD is like Tesla cars, and other tech goods. The early adopters get it first because they pay the most, the price we pay helps the industry streamline the deployment and reduce the cost for those coming later. We are paying for a bespoke fibre rollout. They have pulled 2km of fibre for my property, all those who it passes will get it cheaper.

That said FTTPoD will always be more expensive than standard FTTP rollout, or area schemes like SuperFastNorthYorkshire, the density provides obvious cost savings.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I could help my parents to get FTTPoD as they already pay off the mortgage 15 years ago. But they don't want to waste money on expensive FTTPoD. They are happy with FTTC 60/15 for now.

If they get 60/15 or anything close to it then FFTP isn't required. FTTC is fine for most domestic situations.

There are few internet activities where 60/15 isn't ample, streaming is only 4Mbps. But most of the posters on here have ADSL not VDSL connections so 5/1 not 60/15. Throw in working from home, or a gaming habit and suddenly FTTPoD becomes desirable. We can have 45 people on site sharing a 5Mbps connection, we need FTTP. The real gaming addicts want FTTPoD to reduce latency not bandwidth.

Are you close to your brother, and does he or yourself own the land in between, or do you have line of sight?

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

Looks like a Huawei cab, ECI cab and a PCP with an extension, and by the sounds of it now also has a G. Fast pod.

It never occurred to me to scroll the picture of the AIO sideways, in either direction .

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

There is no connection at all between the two technologies Max, and in five year's time both will be largely obsolescent and redundant. Both are stop-gap solutions to make Openreach coverage stats look good on the (relative) cheap.

What will be obsolescent, the rollout, or the fibre itself. I know 5G will come but unlikely to hit rural areas for a while (don't have 4G, and don't have much coverage on EE just O2 & Voda). Plus for larger sites I am not certain a mobile network will want the traffic.
...
What do you think is next?

xDSLx and G.FAST are just a stop-gap until FTTP becomes ubiquitous in all but remote areas. 5G and satellite will become the norm for farmers and the like to run their businesses efficiently.

Neither of those is likely to be of any use for serious gamers of course, due to the highly fluctuating latency.

I even wonder if 5G is as high as mobile will go? It might last a fair while, but I doubt if development will stop there.

Who knows what position-maintaining solar-powered drones might bring, and far cheaper low-orbit satellite clusters �!

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

Are you close to your brother, and does he or yourself own the land in between, or do you have line of sight?

2.25km as the crow flies. We both have copper broadband and wireless broadband from a local WISP who are great. Their mast is some 30km away on the top of a big hill. We use three nanoobeams and a litebeam around our site, and he uses probably a dozen nanoobeams or more. The WISP dishes are somewhat larger but have the same receivers. So we are familiar with Ubiquiti kit.

Most of the land between isn't ours, and crosses a metalled road so private fibre run is out of the question! We have discussed a backhaul link but there are rows of trees in the way and getting high enough to be over the trees is unlikely. Trees generally being as tall as houses.

My WISP backhaul is awesome and clear from interference , his is a bit ropey. So even if we could get permission to put our own relay on the mast his would be limited to 20Mbps max. Fresnel zones and trees and stuff.

Have wondered about putting masts in but we would be looking at significant spend to get two masts high enough (probably 12m+). At which point spending £10k on groundworks and masts and transmitters becomes uneconomical vs £20k for the real deal.

Dave

Well, it's situational. I rent but I know I'll be here for quite some time and I weighed in whether a leased line would be worth it or go FTTPoD. I decided that as long as I'm here for couple of years I'm better off going for FTTPoD, not to mention the actual install cost was on the lower end of the scale. The rent I pay is also a little below average for the type of house I live in and where I live, the landlord is pretty fair.

5G isn't going to address the needs of rural farmers.

Most of the frequencies allocated for it are much higher than 3G/4G. They are more susceptible to line of site issues and being blocked by things like trees.

You need more cell masts, closer together for 5G than you do for 3G/4G. It isn't aimed at low population density rural areas.

I agree. (Note I did say 5G and satellite ).

In fact AIUI the 5G signal even in urban and suburban areas is going to need a huge number of "masts", possibly every 50 metres or so. So much for self-driving cars talking to each other to avoid collisions! Travelling towards each other on different masts and carriers �.

Fun times?

But we are a very long way off topic. Not even in the right forum for that discussion.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Today is the one-year anniversary of submitting my FTTPoD order to survey, having previously received my desktop quote under the new pricing regime. Sadly, installation still seems as far away as ever.

There's no fibre installed that I know of. Some sections of duct have been unblocked and roped; the 34m of new duct which my survey said would be required has been dug.

Before Christmas, Openreach identified another section of duct which needed unblocking (which has since been scheduled and missed several times). In early January they said another 164m of duct would need to be dug, which hasn't even been scheduled yet.

All credit to Cerberus for providing updates weekly or more, and who have said they are going to turn up the pressure further.

Openreach are boasting about their improving delivery times (for ethernet), but clearly there's plenty more scope for improvement in FTTPoD.

Gosh, I just passed the 8 month anniversary from my order to survey. So far we have have had rotten poles replaced, tree cutting done and ducts rodded and roped.

I'm told all the overhead cabling is complete and sure enough there is a large roll of copper and fibre lead in cabling left coiled at the base of the last pole before it comes into mine.

I'm told by my Cerberus rep that the UG allocator is "trying to resource jointers asap" - well its been that way for several weeks. Ho hum...

Hope your install starts moving along sharpish too. All the best with it.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Today is the one-year anniversary of submitting my FTTPoD order to survey, having previously received my desktop quote under the new pricing regime. Sadly, installation still seems as far away as ever.

That makes two of us then - my one-year anniversary is in a couple of weeks. Like you, I can't fault Cerberus (they've been great with the updates), but by gum Openreach has had a rough time of it.

The visible parts of the install, the loops of yellow-and-black fibre coiled on the poles, were done months ago, it's the ducting which has held things up. There have been two sets of roadworks so far (with lights) and no end of problems, including scheduling them in the first place (as the council only allows roadworks outside a school outside of term-time).

The latest is that the blocked ducts further up the main road were congested - full, rather than blocked - and attempts to pull out redundant cabling to free up space have failed. That means 116m of new duct will have to be installed, presumbaly alongside the existing duct (i.e. under a pavement, so not cheap). The "required by" date is in April and, luckily for me, is during the Easter school holidays. Hopefully this time they won't need to reschedule it, as that would push it back to May.

Bear in mind the cost of all this to Openreach: at their prices, 116m of footway duct plus fibre is over £8000 - and that doesn't include the dozen+ permits (£250 a pop), the three sets of traffic lights, the labour, the costs of the other roadworks, the spools of fibre hanging from the poles, the pole equipment and so on...

For all this, I've paid £4010 - one of the biggest bargains going, judging by the amount Openreach are having to spend! If this had all been costed out in advance and a bill of £16000+ had been presented, I wouldn't have gone for it.

(I would imagine with all the work required for your install, Openreach will have booked a heavy loss there as well!)

Edited by deleted (Tue 12-Mar-19 07:22:31)

Hi

Sounds like Openreach have had a lot of extra work to do there. Still for Openreach whilst the extra work is costing them money (and for you time) they are essentially repairing their own infrastructure, so they would have had to do it eventually. It would be wrong for them to charge the customer for repairs.

Fingers crossed it is not much longer.

Regards

Phil

Congestion was the reason for the new 164m of duct on mine too. But it seems like they can never schedule two things at once: they have to fix one problem to completion, before they even think about starting the second.

I'm interested where you got the £250 per permit cost from. Do you have a link with more info? If the permit expires without them touching anything and it gets rescheduled, do they still need to pay each time? Is this a national price, or does it vary between local authorities?

Current news is that I'm still waiting for Openreach to fix their 'apparent' system issue with being unable to commit an appointment date for some reason. I don't know if I honestly believe that reason however, I get the hunch there's something a bit more to it than that (e.g. no available trained engineer in this area for this type of job). Hopefully I won't be waiting much longer.

I also had one or two �Openreach system errors� during my install which are just internal Openreach ordering bugs/glitches. They got resolved fairly quickly and it was nothing majorly concerned to be about. I can understand your frustration but i would remain optimistic that you�re very close to going live

In reply to a post by candlerb:

But it seems like they can never schedule two things at once: they have to fix one problem to completion, before they even think about starting the second.

It's not that they can't. It's just that they don't, and to be honest at their scale it would probably be impossible.

Any delay to the first part, results in a rescheduling of the next part, which affects the resource allocation of that team, result is engineers with no work which is costly to us the consumer. The other option would be constantly rescheduling. At scale with 100,000s of jobs scheduled all over the country the re-scheduling everyday would take all day, and nothing would get done. Part of the issue is caused by the fact that they have so many little jobs to fix/maintain that finishing all scheduled jobs on a given day is unlikely, at least one will have problems. Thus delays to some projects are guaranteed.

So they don't even try to run a contingent schedule. Team completes Teams A's work, then it is passed to Team B. Team B schedule the work, and complete it, the first Team C know about it is when Team B have finished. Each team being silo'd for work streams.

Now if FTTPoD had its own resources then possibly because of the smaller number and larger size of the jobs a contingent schedule could be planned. But they don't have their own resources and they just have to grab general resource. Not ideal but it is what it is.

As I see it, there are two issues here.

1. They could have proved the entire route up front, and identified all the problems in one go.

Not doing so was a big waste of resource. They sent in the cabling crew who found that there was a blockage, so they went away, the blockage was eventually fixed, the cabling crew were sent in again, only to find another blockage further along... and so on.

2. When they do know about two jobs that need to be done, they could schedule the work for both. They don't need to be done at the same time - they could be scheduled for different weeks - but at least a problem in one would not delay the other.

Yeah, I know some point in the next couple of weeks it should surely be live so I'm just waiting and hoping. At least Cerberus are staying on top of the order progressing. I had an update this morning that Openreach need to send an engineer back to the exchange as the head end doesn't line up apparently. I guess this wasn't checked as part of the audit. Hopefully that won't take long .

Edited by Ixel (Tue 12-Mar-19 13:46:07)

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

I also had one or two �Openreach system errors� during my install which are just internal Openreach ordering bugs/glitches. They got resolved fairly quickly and it was nothing majorly concerned to be about. I can understand your frustration but i would remain optimistic that you�re very close to going live

Not as close as me though.

Engineer called this morning to say with us 9-ish, to fit modem. I let him know the ONT was already installed and on the wall. Arrived, made him a cup of tea whilst he spent 5 minutes to test the fibre signal. All good, commissioned ONT, and we then sat for circa 10-minutes waiting for connection to complete. A solid green light. Added details from Cerberus to router and plugged in.

First speed test - 15 Mbps ?? - Checked router settings and turned off smart queues set at 20Mbps limit
Second speed test - 150 Mbps better - Checked router settings and turned off IPS (that's about a USG-Pro-4s limit)
Third speed test - 288 Mbps - Bingo! Bear in mind I had made no attempt to turn off guest wifi, or disable any of the other network equipment on site (some 80+ devices)

Roughly 10-months from first contact with the Cerberus to deployment. I have not been able to fault communication throughout the 10-months process. Vruti has been awesome.

A big thanks to the team at Cerberus and today I will be mostly streaming or running speed tests!

I must say one of the big differences I noticed was an absolutely rock solid 15ms ping (google averages 12ms-15ms). Previously on our wrecked copper we would get 40-50ms but regularly in excess of 150ms. 15ms is awesome for rural North Yorkshire.


Edit: tidied up some other settings and stopped a couple of radio streams and re-ran test. Not bad for a 300/30 service.
https://i.imgur.com/tcbR4VL.png

Edited by F00tS0re (Tue 12-Mar-19 15:08:12)

In reply to a post by candlerb:

As I see it, there are two issues here.

1. They could have proved the entire route up front, and identified all the problems in one go.

Not doing so was a big waste of resource. They sent in the cabling crew who found that there was a blockage, so they went away, the blockage was eventually fixed, the cabling crew were sent in again, only to find another blockage further along... and so on.

2. When they do know about two jobs that need to be done, they could schedule the work for both. They don't need to be done at the same time - they could be scheduled for different weeks - but at least a problem in one would not delay the other.

It was my understanding that all routes were rodded and roped prior to cablers, mine certainly were. So if that wasn't done it would seem to be silly, and doesn't seem to fit the silo'd system they suggest they use. Agree that parallel planning would make sense as all physical works to enable ducts are parallel not sequential in planning terms.

It's the period when you are told you are waiting on somebody to assign the work that did my head in. You were waiting to find out how long you would wait!


(The only error on mine was cablers installing 3 separate pieces of fibre spanning three junction boxes when the plan said a single length along the length. So when jointers installed all joints they were left scratching their heads as to why it wasn't working! Had to get two more joint boxes and install them).

Congratulations!

Like I did, you'll probably spend the next 24 hrs continuously speed testing to make sure your eyes aren't deceiving you lol

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

Congratulations!

Like I did, you'll probably spend the next 24 hrs continuously speed testing to make sure your eyes aren't deceiving you lol

And I can watch that without buffering

I have already spent too long running speed tests. After the success this morning it went down to no more than 15Mbps from my office. But eventually turned out it was my fault, I hadn't put a patch lead in properly when replacing the router and spent ages to diagnose the fault as the network connection was being re-routed via Sonos mesh! Sometimes Sonos, STP and the mesh do my head in.

Looking forward to seeing the site full of guests and everyone streaming and really putting it to the test. Might run a mock test on my own later to stress test install. Couple of smart TVs, SkyQs and a few laptops/tablets mean I can probably run a dozen streams of my own. A UHD download on sky will help. Next worry - rack temperatures!

You must feel like a kid at Christmas

I'd love an excuse to setup a network like that, maybe I'll switch from software development

The DSL Checker for my address has been updated today, now showing stage 1 like another member had, so hopefully not too long now!

Mine was roughly two weeks from that stage for the appointment (although it said 2 stage for me I presume that was related to four port ONT I had installed).
Should be just one more visit.

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

Mine was roughly two weeks from that stage for the appointment (although it said 2 stage for me I presume that was related to four port ONT I had installed).
Should be just one more visit.

Pretty sure that type of ONT provided wasn�t anything to do with the reported number of stages required for the final installation.

This was most likely to be a database error with Openreach systems believing your infrastructure was blown fibre to a CSP rather than connectorised.