G.fast question

Does G.fast reduced massive speed chunk off in Autumn & Winter season? Because I only got G.fast for nearly 4 months now.

Higher speed I get in July & August are 237/42 but it now reduced to 209/31 as SNR remain the same as before both on 3.1dB

============================================================================
xDSL Training Status: Showtime
Mode: G.fast Annex A
Traffic Type: PTM Mode
Link Uptime: 2 days: 11 hours: 36 minutes
============================================================================
xDSL Port Details Upstream Downstream
Line Rate: 31.293 Mbps 209.837 Mbps
Actual Net Data Rate: 31.139 Mbps 209.377 Mbps
Trellis Coding: ON ON
SNR Margin: 3.1 dB 2.9 dB
Actual Delay: 0 ms 0 ms
Transmit Power: 4.1 dBm 0.0 dBm
Receive Power: 4.7 dBm 3.0 dBm
Actual INP: 535.0 symbols 550.0 symbols
Attainable Net Data Rate: 31.529 Mbps 209.669 Mbps
============================================================================

Edited by adslmax (Wed 15-Sep-21 11:57:22)

My FTTC speed varies by two or three meg between summer and winter. I would expect G.Fast to be affected more, given that it uses higher frequencies and is more sensitive to the characteristics of the line.

In the 3 years been using it I haven't noticed any meaningful change between seasons, just like all the previous years on fttc (at least 6 or 7).

Edit to say....I don't look at stats, don't care about them unless there is a clear and obvious reason to do so.. The odd speediest confirms all working as does a clear BQM.

Edited by NGDragon (Wed 15-Sep-21 18:12:24)

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Does G.fast reduced massive speed chunk off in Autumn & Winter season?

Temperature seems to affect communication over twisted copper pairs. Might be more effects if you are overhead fed versus underground fed. Hence the future is optical fibre, light over glass isn't affected.

Thanks all. Because when I was on FTTC for 7 years on it, the Spring / Summer / Autumn and Winter season doesn't affect at all. It always stay at 79999/19999. I understand G.fast use very high frequencies and SRA with FRA as well. Slightly different technology to VDSL2.

Did you check if your "max attainable" values went up and down though?

If your attainable speed is >80/20, then Openreach clamp it at those values anyway.

When I had G.fast my speed was about 120mbs in the winter and then 103mbs in the summer.
My line hated the higher temperature.

Also mine line would drop approx. 3mbs DL and 0.5mbs upload for each new G.fast connection on the cab in the end I ended up with under 100mbs, so Vectoring is next to useless on it...

Unless you can see the cab out of your window it's useless and rubbish..

I'm well shot of G.fast and have Virgin FTTP.

Virgin isn't FTTP (it copper core coaxial cable ran to your house from the street cabinet)

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Virgin isn't FTTP (it copper core coaxial cable ran to your house from the street cabinet)

You should look up Project Lightning where Virgin has expanded their network. In these locations they have used FTTP to the home and have a converter mounted on the outside wall that takes the fibre and outputs a coax cable. Virgin need to use this to be able to sell their existing TV services, so they also use the cable modem. It is known as RFoG (Radio Frequency over Glass) as DOCSIS is a radio frequency based signal.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Virgin isn't FTTP (it copper core coaxial cable ran to your house from the street cabinet)

I’m pretty sure he means Virgin RFoG (RF over Glass) which technically is fibre to the premises, albeit it still uses DOCSIS 3 technology (like their traditional hybrid fibre coax network which you’re thinking of) and the fibre terminates into an RFoG modem situated in the equivalent of a CSP box on the outside wall of ones home and runs via a coaxial cable internally to a Virgin DOCSIS cable modem.

In future Virgin are actually moving to a more “classic” FTTP - they announced in July their entire network would be upgraded to full fibre by 2028.

Oops cross posted!

Even their project lightning (RFOG) is FTTP though.
It's a bit ridiculous for anyone to argue that it isn't (i know you aren't saying it's not).

There was someone making the point on ISPReview this week that Virgin is FTTP but it's not "full fibre". OpenReach is full fibre though?
I think that's just as ridiculous an arguement. It's both FTTP and full fibre in my opinion.

The length of coaxial from my Virgin omnibox (CSP) to the Virgin Hub is shorter than the Cat5e patch cable between my OpenReach ONT and router.

At what point does the pedantry end? Copper on the circuit board of the ONT?

Max just has a grudge against Virgin as his area is an older coax deployment and is oversubscribed.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Virgin isn't FTTP (it copper core coaxial cable ran to your house from the street cabinet)

In your area yes.
For a few million homes it very much is FTTP.

Edited by j0hn83 (Thu 16-Sep-21 11:54:33)

I read somewhere that there’s more premises served by Virgin FTTP (RFoG) ~ c.1.2 million, than are currently connected to Openreach FTTP (c. 1 million). Although Openreach has now passed 5 million odd.

Either way the numbers aren’t insignificant, especially in context of the raw rollout and connections numbers the like of CityFibre, Hyperoptic, Community Fibre and G.network in the competing areas of VM. The benefits of having your own duct network ready to go and no PIA etc to contend with.

I guess the other takeaway is that in some respects RFoG is now a dead end tech in the eyes of senior VMo2 management - for them, beyond Lightning they need to compete and moving the same general direction as many AltNets and going to XGS-PON. A strategic pivot away from a future of DOCSIS 4

I think this may be very short sighted from the VM execs.
Their current system allows the TV and broadband to coexist without interfering with each other.
When they move are they going to deliver all their TV by IP?

Thanks
Dan

I guess so yes. They may look jealously / nervously at the meteoric rise and financially successful streaming provider competitor business (with absolutely no massive legacy delivery network to maintain) and on the other hand be eying the rise of the AltNet competition in their franchise areas with the near potential for multi gig symmetric broadband and be thinking…..hmmm why are we fashioning and maintaining a technology that is (let’s be harsh) obsolete.

We've gone thoroughly off topic here but I agree, the future is (and has been for some time) fibre, RFoG is a clever way to build infrastructure that is basically a PON while requiring little change to legacy cable headend equipment.

The projected lifetime costs of XGS-PON (or 25G/50G/100G... take your pick) are steadily decreasing and there's a long history of the price of optics falling as technology moves on. I doubt the same can be said for all the clever trickery required to make DOCSIS 3.1 and upwards keep pace.

To come back to the OP's question, as a guess I'd expect longer and more overhead copper lines to be slower in summer, as increased temperature leads to increased resistance. I'd expect lines in poor condition / more underground to slow down in winter as moisture ingress increases.

I leave this thread open to discuss over Full Fibre (true fibre optic) as I do believe Openreach use fibre optic (glass fibre) as Virgin Media might say it full fibre but it not a fibre optic in my view.

I don't know what RFoG are.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

In your area yes.
For a few million homes it very much is FTTP.

Yes my area still on copper core coaxial cable from cable. My mate has his virgin media 1Gig but never get full speed only getting 350Meg to 550Meg as his area still on copper core coaxial cable. He has cancelled within cooling off period because it not getting 1000Mbps.

My brother got full fibre with BT (1Gig) and he getting 900/110 Meg all day. Openreach are much better than Virgin Media 1Gig.

Edited by adslmax (Thu 16-Sep-21 15:15:20)

RFoG stands for Radio Frequency over Glass.
In the areas where it is deployed by Virgin Media they run a fibre cable to your house where it gets converted to coaxial to plug the modem into.
Very similar to how most FTTP providers run the fibre to your house then convert to copper to plug the router in.

Thanks
Dan

Does VM will roll out full fibre via RFoG in my area one day but I think they probably not bother and leave as copper core coaxial cable from the street cabinet to the house. Maybe to do with too costy to replaced with full fibre RFoG.

It’s unlikely you’ll get it Max as it is/was being rolled out in new subscriber areas, rather than those cabled up in coax.

The next VM migration would be to XGS-PON based FTTP in due course.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

The next VM migration would be to XGS-PON based FTTP in due course.

I will be happy with any of AltNet or OR, or VM upgrading to XGS-PON but I want something to replace the failing copper & failing coax and connectors in my street!

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Does VM will roll out full fibre via RFoG in my area one day but I think they probably not bother and leave as copper core coaxial cable from the street cabinet to the house. Maybe to do with too costy to replaced with full fibre RFoG.

You might not think they will, but that's exactly what they have announced they will do:
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/07/virgin...

It is 100 percent fibre to the home. They used the original BT ducting to deploy it round here. There is a 10 meter Coax cable from the OMU box outside which the fibre terminates to.

Either way I get 550mbs down and 37 up no matter the time. Much better than the gfast cab.

Good for u. But next year when my contract has expired with g.fast. I am downgraded to 40/10 FTTC with BT Home Essentials @ £15 a month. Because I don't need faster speed as I won't be using pc computer anymore. Only TV for Netflix, NowTV, BBCi Player, YouTubes and my mobile phone via email and few browser etc.

Edited by adslmax (Fri 17-Sep-21 11:09:57)