Is OR FTTP kit symmetric capable?

Am in an area of MK where I can get Cityfibre but have been happy with Zen so have stayed put.

Upped to 100 Mbps down and 18 up last month as could do with the extra speed but have now been looking at the Vodafone prices.

Difference is it's symmetric, is this likely to come to the OR network?

I do want to stick with Zen (I agreed to a new 18 month term anyway) but this would be useful.

Edited by techguy (Mon 12-Oct-20 20:26:19)

Cityfibre use the same GPON as OpenReach with the same 32:1 split.

So 2.4Gb/s down and 1.2Gb/s up shared between up to 32 homes.

Cityfibre have made the commercial decision to sell symmetrical even though the underlying PON isn't. It would only take 1 neighbour with 900Mb/s upload to take up 75% of the available upload bandwidth.

OpenReach are highly regulated and wouldn't get away with over subscribing as easy as CityFibre could.
They also have lots of Wholesale customers who wouldn't be happy at that either.
OpenReach also have huge leased line revenues to protect.

Both networks are easily upgradeable to XGS-PON which gives 10Gb/s symmetrical on the same 32 split, which can run alongside GPON.

OpenReach are trialling 1000/1000 tiers.
They are expected to be priced for businesses though.

I personally don't expect ANY symmetrical residential services over OpenReach in the next few years at least.

Interesting, colleague who ives not far from me has signed up to Vodafone's 500 Meg down service as his kids use bandwidth like there's no tomorrow so here's hoping there's no bandwidth hogs on his port then when he goes live in November.

Cheers for the reply, it's appreciated.

Edited by techguy (Mon 12-Oct-20 20:49:40)

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

OpenReach are trialling 1000/1000 tiers.
They are expected to be priced for businesses though.

Plans for commercial release got kicked into the long grass after Covid took hold I understand, which is kind of odd in some ways, esp. given the huge swing to WFH and the opportunity this presents for a product like this.

Then again perhaps it goes back to protecting their leased line revenues, which by accounts I’ve heard LL orders are through the roof, in some sectors like “C-suite / C-level” WFH...

In reply to a post by techguy:

...Cityfibre...
Difference is it's symmetric, is this likely to come to the OR network?

I'm in Doncaster and CityFibre are laying their own network here so would not be reliant on OR and will be offering symmetric connections.
I'm guessing that where they are OR orientated they are taking more of a chance.

Leased line and GEA-FTTP are two very different things.

Your leased line is not GPON and you pay a sum in line with the guaranteed speed and its a real guarantee.
Also repair options for faster repair can be added.

In short a leased line is like having your own private bit of fibre, and not shared between 32 others, then you also get dedicated bandwidth to the ISP rather than the additional contention at the headend.

Also as things are dedicated it is often simpler to integrate into company LANs, e.g. the leased line can be a simple extension of the office network without the need for VPN etc

Pheasant

95% plus of people working from home don't need symmetric service. We have run 3 skype / zoom sessions at once on a line that gets 48 / 15 while a 4th person gamed. Only when an auto back-up started up did we notice any effects. ( and that was mainly on the PC that was doing the backup so not really bandwidth just CPU).

If you are doing media heavy uploads or large database uploads you are in the 5% , Even then with a top FTTP package the lower upload is not going to slow your work down noticeably. Any really large file transfer will be slowed by the contention in the core network or far end processor.

The big upload bandwidth is usually real time video and most home workers won't be upload streaming more than 4 HD video streams. ( apart from the odd porn worker) .

I think the point is more that C-level staff are a lot more likely to live in a location that has access to nothing better than ADSL - we've seen multiple people in fancy London addresses that offer nothing better than ADSL, and at the other end very large rural properties have the same problems. It doesn't make sense to have someone that you're paying a six figure salary to unable to work from home for the sake of a few hundred each month for a leased line.

In reply to a post by jpm:

I think the point is more that C-level staff are a lot more likely to live in a location that has access to nothing better than ADSL - we've seen multiple people in fancy London addresses that offer nothing better than ADSL, and at the other end very large rural properties have the same problems. It doesn't make sense to have someone that you're paying a six figure salary to unable to work from home for the sake of a few hundred each month for a leased line.

That’s precisely my point, and anecdotally what I’ve been told by folks selling LL, who have seen a huge uptick in business serving that geographic / business demographic.