Any use case for 3gb speed?

Currently on Community Fibre 1 gb getting constant 940 speed and 0ms(wired) 2ms(wireless) pins, and recently 3 gb is available in my area, really want to get it, but can't make a use case to justify the additional monthly cost, what could be the use case for this apart from having the fastest home broadband in the country?

Possible use cases:

* You're running an office block with 500 workers?
* You're in the video content production industry and you have your own edit suite at home?
* You want to challenge yourself to build a LAN that's actually capable of filling 3Gbps with usable data?
* You believe in what Community Fibre are doing so much that you want an excuse to give them some more money?

It's a smart way for Community Fibre to increase their revenue for zero additional cost, because it's very unlikely that people's usage patterns would severely change going from 1Gbps to 3Gbps.

The people buying this would likely do it to post Speedtests on forums and then regret being in a 24 month contract at double the price of a 1Gbps service.

If you want it and can afford it (assuming it's your own money) why do you need a case?

In reply to a post by hanxu:

can't make a use case to justify the additional monthly cost,

Do you have fully wired systems with 10Gb Ethernet to make use of this?

None of above haha

It’s a good marketing ploy, a ‘halo’ product if you will. I don’t think there are any other residential ISPs offering a symmetric 3 Gbps service in the UK. I would hazard there would be very few takers, probably less than 5% of their subscribers, so no real threat to their overall network performance from oversubscription!

They also do a 10 Gbps service for business connections, which you’re no doubt aware of. The 3 year price for that is actually comparable to lot of 1G/1Gb leased connections.

All pales into insignificance when the Swiss ‘nerd’ ISP inet7 (their words) explain “How we inadvertently created the fastest residential internet access” at the most recent UKNOF virtual event.

25 Gbps symmetric ‘broadband’ - just weird in a particularly Swiss way!

I admire your honesty on this one - I would be the same. Zero justification, but just 'want'...

I am of the want what is available school, so I had an excessive 2GB connection - however I was offered a significant price cut if I went down to 1GB - so I downgraded - did I notice the diffrerence? - no (apart from the bank statement).
I think actually the connect was more reliable as it was not challenged so much.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

I would hazard there would be very few takers, probably less than 5% of their subscribers, so no real threat to their overall network performance from oversubscription!

I'd be surprised if it was more than 1 or 2%. I'm also of the 'want what is available' school, but 1Gbps is totally fine for me.

I'm interested in what your 0ms and 2ms pins (presumably pings) are. Presumably just to your router?

I expect ping104.16.104.50 is a little greater.
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(That's the address used when I did ping nyse.com)

Edit: Ah, looking at your 2019 speed test, I see it is to their own Ookla in London

Edited by pluralist (Sun 24-Oct-21 14:44:52)

Most of my neighbours are on 100m LOL, I think even 1 GB is a small percentage of people.

Ye, speedtest, their server is 0ms, most London servers are 1ms ping.

However, the figure is almost meaningless .

Edited by pluralist (Mon 25-Oct-21 09:44:47)

In reply to a post by hanxu:

what could be the use case for this apart from having the fastest home broadband in the country?

Surprised nobody corrected you but 10Gb is available via B4RN, only costs £150 a month so is easily affordable to the type of people who would really use a 10Gb connection.

In reply to a post by dogcat:

In reply to a post by hanxu:

what could be the use case for this apart from having the fastest home broadband in the country?

Surprised nobody corrected you but 10Gb is available via B4RN, only costs £150 a month so is easily affordable to the type of people who would really use a 10Gb connection.

B4RN is proper PTP ethernet fibre as well rather than GPON. I'd be all over it. Wouldn't even need a media converter, just an SFP+ module.

It's a marketing advertisement.

Community Fibre also came live in my area last week after 6 months following its wayleave agreement! I also inquired a few months ago if I will get 3Gbps available or just the 1Gbps.

Now I see 3Gbps is available including 2 other properties that only had 1Gbps available now have 3Gbps.

The only reassuring factor with 3Gbps availability is that we are being connected to XGS-PON rather than GPON.

So in theory Community Fibre could support 10Gbps.

XGS-PON is better than GPON since even using a 1Gbps connection would mean less network congestion, more likely to receive max speeds and it will be symmetrical.

While Hyperoptic does not even use PON, rather Fibre to a basement of building and the rest is twisted pair of copper feeding each properties! While it is able to offer symmetrical 1Gbps, it is more likely to suffer network congestion if too many people in a building were to subscribe to the 1Gbps package.

Openreach FTTP can't do symmetrical Gigabit as it is only GPON. That's why neither Openreach or Hyperoptic are able to offer higher speeds than 1Gbps.

So all in all Community Fibre is the best choice. But the 3Gbps is no doubt a marketing ploy to let people know that their service offers the highest speeds. That way they are of-course going to be able to persuade more customers to join their service instead, even if nobody chooses their 3Gbps package!

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

While Hyperoptic does not even use PON, rather Fibre to a basement of building and the rest is twisted pair of copper feeding each properties! While it is able to offer symmetrical 1Gbps, it is more likely to suffer network congestion if too many people in a building were to subscribe to the 1Gbps package.

I read Hyperoptic used 10G uplink to the building, in which case, obviously this is no worse than XGS-PON.

Technically GPON could support a symmetrical 1gbps connection, the issue would be the contention would be somewhat higher than XGS.

In most use cases people upload very rarely and in short bursts.. so in reality not many people would ever notice the extra contention?

I hope we will see some higher upload packages at some point at a more reasonable price point.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

While Hyperoptic does not even use PON, rather Fibre to a basement of building and the rest is twisted pair of copper feeding each properties! While it is able to offer symmetrical 1Gbps, it is more likely to suffer network congestion if too many people in a building were to subscribe to the 1Gbps package.

I read Hyperoptic used 10G uplink to the building, in which case, obviously this is no worse than XGS-PON.

Well, even if they did use 10G uplink to the building. The problem is that Hyperoptic are using Cat5e cables to feed all of the properties within their buildings.

Now I know I've heard from some in the past saying that Hyperoptic don't just use Cat5e, they use Fibre as well. But the point is that existing old builds with Cat5e need to be upgraded to harness from higher speeds than 1Gbps.

This means Hyperoptic need to redo their work and either replace those Cat5e cables with Fibre drop cables like how Community Fibre do it or upgrade them to Cat6a and above for 10Gbps to work.

This is why you don't see Hyperoptic offering 3Gbps because they simply can't do so without replacing the cables. Even if they were to be able to offer it to few buildings, they will be exposing themselves for not providing Full Fibre to most of their buildings. From a marketing point of view it gives a pretty bad impression. Hyperoptic sneakily try to hide that information from their website, because they know most customers with another altnet provider will not go with them should they know they aren't being fed with Fibre to their door.

In reply to a post by kjwkjw:

Technically GPON could support a symmetrical 1gbps connection, the issue would be the contention would be somewhat higher than XGS.

In most use cases people upload very rarely and in short bursts.. so in reality not many people would ever notice the extra contention?

I hope we will see some higher upload packages at some point at a more reasonable price point.

That's exactly the problem. This is why Openreach 1Gbps FTTP packages are very high in cost, this is to reduce the risk of network contention by preventing too many of the users selecting 1Gbps.

I don't think Openreach will be able to offer cheaper FTTP packages in future unless they upgrade to XGS-PON. This contention issue is a major drawback. It means that customers are in danger of getting degraded speeds for the same 1Gbps package compared to another Altnet provider that supports XGS-PON.

The only way the GPON contention can be minimized is if there are multiple FTTP overbuilds in the same building. So that way more customers are divided into different Altnet providers. But if there is only Openreach FTTP in a given area contention from GPON is much likely to have an impact from higher speeds.

The majority of what you wrote is nonsense.

Hyperoptic have been deploying fibre instead of cat5e for a couple years at least.
Cat5e isn't stopping them selling higher than 1Gb/s either

There is nothing stopping Hyperoptic selling higher tiers to some of their customers, exactly as Community Fibre have been selling 1Gb/s to some buildings and 3Gb/s to others.
What makes you think that companies can't offer different tiers to different customers?

I don't think Openreach will be able to offer cheaper FTTP packages in future unless they upgrade to XGS-PON

What on Earth does XGS-PON have to do with OpenReach selling cheaper FTTP in the future.
That would increase costs, not lower them.

OpenReach FTTP isn't high in cost to deter high tiers to prevent contention.
You're just making rubbish up.

You compare OpenReach to Hypeeoptic and CF as if they are 1 and the same.
1 network isn't better/cheaper/dearer than the other because of X technology being deployed.

OpenReach are a highly regulated Wholesale network.
OpenReach need to apply to OFCOM to reduce the price of their wholesale offering, and the likes of Hyperoptic and Community Fibre object to them lowering those prices.
Read up on the recent Equinox FTTP deal OpenReach just reached.
Pretty much every single Alt-Net opposed OpenReach lowering their FTTP prices.

OpenReach also have considerable revenues they would like to protect in the dedicated circuit/leased line sector.
Such as the EAD links that Hyperoptic buy from OpenReach in order to sell fibre from a building.

It's got nothing to do with GPON or XGS-PON.
XGS-PON will allow faster (more expensive) or more symmetrical tiers (more expensive) from OpenReach, not cheaper deals.

That's what you told me before, John, I remember! But Cat5e limits speeds to up to 1Gbps only at around 100 meter line length.

You cannot deliver above 1Gbps with Cat5e cables being fed across the flats in a building even if the up-link to the basement supported 10Gbps. This is not nonsense, this is fact!

Plus, fair enough Hyperoptic may be deploying Fibre now for the last couple of years. But as I said the old buildings for a decade prior are still on the old Cat5e cables. They need to be replaced. Hyperoptic are being dishonest as they do not mention this on their website. No where do they inform that they install twisted pair of copper cables from the basement to each flats. I only found that information from people on these forums as well as on ISPreview.

XGS-PON reduces risk of contention for the same 1Gbps packages. That's the whole point why Openreach 1Gbps is not symmetrical. It can only deliver symmetrical to a few number of customers with GPON (2.5G/1.25G). But if more customers overload the network with 1Gbps package, symmetrical will no longer be possible, so therefore they limit the upload to 220Mbps and the prices are way higher than that of Community Fibre, G-Network, Hyperoptic, Gigaclear, B4RN, etc.

You are not getting value for money here, the customer in essence is being ripped-off.

You say XGS-PON would drive prices up. Actually it would mean more happier customers, as they won't be complaining why they aren't getting symmetrical gigabit speeds.

You just compare all the Gigabit packages supplied on the Openreach network they cost double or triple that of the Altnet while being asymmetrical!

I don't see how a customer who has both Openreach FTTP and another Altnet FTTP overbuild would want to join Openreach for a more expensive and non symmetrical service unless the monthly cost was cheaper!

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Cat5e limits speeds to up to 1Gbps only at around 100 meter line length.

Nope: you can do 2.5Gbps ethernet over Cat5e, at 100 metres.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2.5GBASE-T_and_5GBASE-T

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

You cannot deliver above 1Gbps with Cat5e cables being fed across the flats in a building even if the up-link to the basement supported 10Gbps. This is not nonsense, this is fact!

It's not a fact. It's absolute nonsense you just made up.

XGS-PON reduces risk of contention for the same 1Gbps packages.

Why do you keep saying that?

What makes you think XGS-PON reduces the risk of contention compared to a Hyperoptic building with a 10Gb/s EAD link?

You write things as such a matter of fact when in reality you know very little about the market
Broadband networks are meant to be contended. They don't build them 1:1.

You can probably download 24/7 at the full 80/20 of your FTTC connection.
The link between your FTTC cabinet and its OLT is nowhere near enough to handle everyone utilising their connection fully at the same time. That's not how people use their broadband. It's used in short bursts mainly.

XGS-PON or not, Community Fibre won't have enough capacity for all their customers to saturate their connections all at the same time.
It isn't some wonder technology that stops all contention or congestion.
Deploying it won't lower prices. The hardware is considerably more expensive than GPON hardware although it is slowly coming down in price

That's the whole point why Openreach 1Gbps is not symmetrical. It can only deliver symmetrical to a few number of customers with GPON (2.5G/1.25G). But if more customers overload the network with 1Gbps package, symmetrical will no longer be possible, so therefore they limit the upload to 220Mbps and the prices are way higher than that of Community Fibre, G-Network, Hyperoptic, Gigaclear, B4RN, etc.

Utter nonsense again.

Broadband Networks are not built for 1:1. They do not build enough capacity to cover every single user using it all at the same time.

GPON isn't some ancient technology unable to support symmetrical packages. It absolutely can and does.
There are a number of GPON networks in the UK that sell symmetrical gigabit. CityFibre being the biggest.
The PON is just a tiny part of the network and is not the place where most contention exists. Far from it.

OpenReach don't limit the upload to 220Mb/s because of GPON either.
Unlike many of the other networks you mention, OpenReach have considerable leased line/dedicated circuit revenues that they would like to keep.
They aren't massively limited on how many 1Gb/s packages they can sell on a PON.
Them not selling symmetrical gigabit (or faster) for very low prices isn't just down to GPON but is down to deliberate market decisions and huge regulation.

John, but the question is why all the FTTP packages on the Openreach network show 220Mbps as the max upload speed on the 1Gbps package?

I watched some Youtubers and they mentioned the same thing, that they moved away to an altnet because they needed higher upload speed for their video productions and they mention also that they aren't getting higher than 220Mbps upload speed in speed tests using any Openreach FTTP ISP.

I haven't seen a Gigabit package yet, higher than 220Mbps average upload on the Openreach network. I have also not seen a single low package that's symmetrical either.

Ok, we can argue that GPON (2.5G/1.25G) can do 1Gbps symmetrical max. But what's the excuse for not having 80/80Mbps and have that set to 80/20Mbps? 80/20 may be an FTTC limitation, but it is not a limitation on FTTP.

If it is a deliberate marketing decision, from a customer point of view it doesn't seem like good marketing. The majority of the users such as myself who choose a new package are not obliged to know how the marketing or regulation works.

We want to choose what's best in ratio to the price that's on offer. Sure 3Gbps is currently a marketing ploy, I'm not going to choose that as I don't need it at this stage and certainly not for £89 a month.

But if I were to also have Openreach FTTP come to my property one day, give me a good persuasive reason why I should switch to Openreach 80/20 or 150/30 (£30-£35)? When the same 200/200Mbps costs £25 and 500/500Mbps is £35 on Community Fibre, Hyperoptic, etc.

Again, I'm the layman here, I don't know how the marketing works. But I am the customer and you need to try and convince me why it would be better to go for the more expensive asymmetrical Openreach packages and forget about my other altnet provider.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

John, but the question is why all the FTTP packages on the Openreach network show 220Mbps as the max upload speed on the 1Gbps package?

That's the highest they have decided to offer. It's not a limitation of GPON.

In fact the 1000/220Mb package isn't even a residential offering.
It's a business tier, with very high monthly rental and a £500+vat install fee.

The highest OpenReach have decided to offer for residential is 1000/115.

If it is a deliberate marketing decision, from a customer point of view it doesn't seem like good marketing. The majority of the users such as myself who choose a new package are not obliged to know how the marketing or regulation works.

Most users don't know or care what technology delivers their broadband. Many already think they have "fibre" when they don't.
Most only look at the headline download rate and the price.

The likes of CityFibre do gigabit up and down on GPON, with the exact same split ratio as OpenReach. There's nothing within GPON that requires such low upstream rates.

The vast majority of home users don't need 115Mb/s upload, nevermind a gigabit.
The vast majority of the country only has access to Virgin or OpenReach. Virgins highest upload is 50Mb/s.
Both those companies appear to me to be healthy, successful businesses.

A small number of technically minded users or users who currently WFH will opt for an Alt-Net for the higher upload.
That doesn't mean it's a bag marketing decision by OpenReach to not offer higher upload speeds.

You as a customer are entitled to order whatever you want for whatever reason you want.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Cat5e limits speeds to up to 1Gbps only at around 100 meter line length.

Nope: you can do 2.5Gbps ethernet over Cat5e, at 100 metres.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2.5GBASE-T_and_5GBASE-T

There's a heck of a lot of dodge or borderline dodge installed structured cabling out there.

I'm not even sure the contractors that installed any of the Cat5e structured cabling in these MDU would be using performance/cabling certification testers like Fluke DSX's to verify the cable meets all the (well established) performance criteria.

The issue at hand is that 2.5G Base_t runs a really high spectral bandwidth - practically the full 100 MHz spectral bandwidth for Cat5e (admittedly on a 100 m channel)...basically there is zero performance headroom in the cabling. Spelling potential trouble for [censored] cabling or installs..which otherwise happily pass 1GBase-T all day long.

https://www.cablinginstall.com/sponsored/berk-tek/ar...

I suppose in this particular respect, its all rather academic, as HyperO have moved on to pushing fibre to flats and the chances of them using copper to deliver >1 Gbps is slim to none.

I have community fibre 3gb service and it's fantastic.

However, there's a few things to consider. You'll usually only see the full speed from a wired connection when transferring several large files.

I would highly recommend it - assuming you have a usecase and understand the limitations.

https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/42ca9d1d-e746-...

Edited by jon999 (Thu 28-Oct-21 12:22:24)

Speedtest.net tests from your providers own server often don't leave their network.

What's the performance like to a speedtest.net server that isn't within Community Fibres own network?
What's the single thread performance like?

P.s I'm not jealous, honest.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

Most only look at the headline download rate and the price.

…

The vast majority of home users don't need 115Mb/s upload, nevermind a gigabit.

Well said, personally I care more about latency than bandwidth. More bandwidth == better is something far too many people believe when the reality is that if your packets are crashing head-on into a router with a poor nutritional diet lacking in fibre and congested badly you're going to have a bad time no matter what. I do actually have a 10 gigabit LAN at home but not because I need that bandwidth but because it was a fun challenge to try to build-it and now I'm having fun trying to keep it working.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

Speedtest.net tests from your providers own server often don't leave their network.

What's the performance like to a speedtest.net server that isn't within Community Fibres own network?
What's the single thread performance like?

P.s I'm not jealous, honest.

The Community Fibre speedtest.net server often or not gets me the fastest round trip times, typically under 1ms and regularly reported as 0ms.

I’m testing from another provider network that I believe is peered at the same Docklands datacentres (Telehouse Docklands North / LONAP). Their speedtest servers to me at least are regularly 2-3ms faster than other public servers in Equinix or Telehouse.

I have a hosted server based in the Netherlands and I'm able to upload/download at full line rate.

Speed tests to other networks are pretty similar. Here are a few other examples:

https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/e4ded2df-e08a-...

https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/40fea51f-3ed1-...

https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/bac23e94-8f04-...

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

The vast majority of home users don't need 115Mb/s upload, nevermind a gigabit.
The vast majority of the country only has access to Virgin or OpenReach. Virgins highest upload is 50Mb/s.
Both those companies appear to me to be healthy, successful businesses.

A small number of technically minded users or users who currently WFH will opt for an Alt-Net for the higher upload.
That doesn't mean it's a bag marketing decision by OpenReach to not offer higher upload speeds.

Yes, you are right that currently vast majority of us home users do not need higher than 115Mb/s upload speeds.

The problem is not whether we need higher or symmetrical upload speeds, but we deserve to get what we pay for. If I pay for a Big Mac, I expect to get a bigger burger and not a smaller 99p cheese burger even if it was more than enough to keep me satiated with my caloric needs.

Yes, Virgin Media and Openreach are naturally successful businesses, but that is because up until now there has been no consumer choice, they have been the monopoly in providing fixed line broadband for the last 15-30 years!

If I am stuck with only providers like VM and OR then in this case I will indeed have no choice but to select an asymmetric provider that costs double that of the Altnets. But this isn't exactly what most people wanted or wished for, they are simply stuck with the packages that are currently offered.

Just like how I have been previously stuck only with ADSL EO Line with a connection that kept dropping out! I was waiting for years to get FTTC and finally got upgraded 2 years ago, but that doesn't mean I was happy with Openreach. I was simply stuck as I had no other choice.

Wayleave agreement for FTTP was a barrier for the last 6 years as management team kept rejecting both Hyperoptic and Openreach FTTP at that time. Finally 6 months ago wayleave was granted for Community Fibre and the service is now live in my building.

Now that FTTP has come Openreach will naturally lose most, if not all of of their customers for FTTC. I only now need to wait to see out my contract with TalkTalk FTTC in February before I migrate to Community Fibre.

You as a customer are entitled to order whatever you want for whatever reason you want.

Of-course, I'm entitled to order what I want. But my point was how will Openreach convince to gain back their former customers like myself?

When there is an injection in competition like in the case of London, where most of the Altnets have scooped up most of the MDUs. From a business point of view (in the interest of Openreach) they will have to figure out how to gain back customers either by lowering their asymmetrical packages by quite a bit or sooner consider making them symmetrical.

That is the only way they can win back customers.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

When there is an injection in competition like in the case of London, where most of the Altnets have scooped up most of the MDUs. From a business point of view (in the interest of Openreach) they will have to figure out how to gain back customers either by lowering their asymmetrical packages by quite a bit or sooner consider making them symmetrical.

That is the only way they can win back customers.

That logic is incorrect. Firstly, because Openreach's pricing is regulated (so they can't drop it without Ofcom's permission); and secondly because the *vast majority* of people don't care about upload speed. If Openreach does drop prices, it won't be to chase the tiny proportion of people who do care.

The majority of customers want cheap, cheap and cheap. The majority are happy with 40/10 - it's all they need to stream Netflix and browse the web.

Case in point: Aquiss used to sell the slowest FTTP package in the UK, at 40/2. When this was pointed out, they responded saying that 35% of their customers picked this package - even though it was only £1-£2 per month cheaper than 40/10 (£1 for an initial period, £2 thereafter), and £2-£4 per month cheaper than 80/20!

(Aquiss have only stopped selling 40/2 FTTP now because BT Wholesale have withdrawn it from sale. They do still sell 40/2 FTTC.)

That's all the Altnets need to succeed: to be able to retail any service at £1 per month less than the cheapest OR-based service (regardless of speed). And that's why they got upset about Openreach being allowed to lower their FTTP prices recently in their 'Equinox' offer.

Edited by candlerb (Thu 28-Oct-21 20:28:07)

I'm aware that Openreach have to apply for permission from Ofcom to lower their prices as noted in a previous post by John. Indeed, vast majority do not care about upload speeds as much as download.

Majority of the customers want a cheap package. The case about Aquiss is quite understandable. The difference between 40/2 vs 40/10 in upload is small, so a saving of £1-£2 per month may be totally worth it!

But then again, you are looking at these price comparisons from an Openreach FTTP perspective. Do these 35% of customers have an alternative FTTP choice? Probably not!

Now let's look at TalkTalk Future Fibre that's on the Openreach network. 150/25 for £29.95 and 500/75 for £40. These are the cheapest deals, but they are still quite expensive when you compare to what the Altnets have to offer.

Community Fibre 200/200 ~ £25 500/500 ~ £35 or Hyperoptic 150/150 ~ £20 500/500 ~ £30 a month.

From a customer's perspective it is difficult for me to see how someone would pay £40 for 500/75 unless they had Openreach FTTP as their only choice. Let's just say I don't care about the upload speed, but this is still a more expensive deal. It's not £1 less, it is £5-£10 less than the cheapest Openreach TalkTalk FTTP packages.

Now for me to agree on this deal that package has to be under or around £35 a month. Then Openreach will more likely win back customers. That was what my point was.

I read the 'Equinox' offer and I can see why Altnets are not happy with this, but it all depends what the newer prices will be. So far most of the ISPs that sell FTTP on the Openreach network tend to be much more expensive even if upload speed wasn't that important.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Case in point: Aquiss used to sell the slowest FTTP package in the UK, at 40/2. When this was pointed out, they responded saying that 35% of their customers picked this package.

I can update this further, so we withdrew the 40/2 roughly inline when we introduced 330, 550 and 1000 packages, so it's taken a couple of months for percentages to settle themselves out.

During September we saw 27% of customers take 40/10 on FTTP and in October it's currently just shy of 28%. 80/20 in both September and October is the same, on 55%. The remaining 17% / 18 % is roughly the same for the range equally (160/330/550 and 1000).

So basically just over 80% still opt (even on FTTP) for speeds less than 100Mbps. Regrades (ie: those upgrading up beyond 100Mbps currently accounts for circa 0.7% of the customer base and remains steady). We actually bring in more new customers per month, than those regrading.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Community Fibre 200/200 ~ £25 500/500 ~ £35 or Hyperoptic 150/150 ~ £20 500/500 ~ £30 a month.

Community Fibre and Hyperoptic are generous with their speeds, but that's not the point here. Certainly if you're a technical user and happen to be in the footprint of one of these altnets, these are attractive.

For the majority, the only price point which matters is the bottom one. Since Cityfibre has a more national footprint, I'll include them too: Vodafone on Cityfibre is £24 for 100/100.

What the altnets are primarily competing with is the lowest price offered by FTTC *or* FTTP on Openreach. You can still hit £22 for 40/10 on Plusnet FTTC. Plusnet haven't launched FTTP, but until then BT will do you Fibre Essential for £25. It's this sub-£30 price point where the majority of consumers buy, and that's what they're competing for.

The higher-bandwidth products are just icing on the cake for the ISPs, like business class seats for airlines. Very few airlines have made a "business class only" model work.

Edited by candlerb (Fri 29-Oct-21 12:35:54)

In reply to a post by aquiss:

During September we saw 27% of customers take 40/10 on FTTP and in October it's currently just shy of 28%. 80/20 in both September and October is the same, on 55%. The remaining 17% / 18 % is roughly the same for the range equally (160/330/550 and 1000).

Interesting stats. Thanks for sharing

Very impressive.

No, totally pointless and a complete waste of money.

Admittedly, I'd subscribe immediately if I could get it here.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

For the majority, the only price point which matters is the bottom one. Since Cityfibre has a more national footprint, I'll include them too: Vodafone on Cityfibre is £24 for 100/100.

For a significant proportion of the population that is the only price point that they can afford, and many can't even afford that.

I would also add that a lot of people don't care about upload speed because they don't understand the issues that a low upload speed can cause.

Finally I would argue strongly that the last 20 months have shown that more than 2Mbps upload speed is actually desirable for the vast majority of people. Certainly anyone wanting to do a video meeting with decent video quality. Though admittedly if you have poor upload it's not you who see the problem, it's everyone else on the call so it can be the case you don't realise there is a problem.

Those speeds are amazing! You are actually the first person I've seen online that has the service....

Just curious: their "3 gbps" service, is it 2.5gbe? do you need 10 gbe wiring or is it 2.5 wiring to get the full speed? As the costs will be significantly if it's 10 gbe.

What's your use case for using 3 gbps connection?

Cheers,

Edited by hanxu (Wed 03-Nov-21 11:39:14)

You can’t physically deliver (or access) a 3 Gbps service over anything less than a 5 Gbps Ethernet port. It’s not possible.

"inally I would argue strongly that the last 20 months have shown that more than 2Mbps upload speed is actually desirable for the vast majority of people. Certainly anyone wanting to do a video meeting with decent video quality. Though admittedly if you have poor upload it's not you who see the problem, it's everyone else on the call so it can be the case you don't realise there is a problem."

That was our issue what with 2 people working from home it was nigh impossible for clear Teams, etc.

Most of my network supports 10Gb so it's not been an issue.

I have a couple of devices with 2.5Gb NICs and they topout around 2Gb sometimes a little higher.

Edited by jon999 (Wed 03-Nov-21 16:32:40)

In reply to a post by arfster:

No, totally pointless and a complete waste of money.

Admittedly, I'd subscribe immediately if I could get it here.

That is exactly how I feel. To be honest I can't justify the 900mbps connection I have from a 'use' perspective but ordered it to upgrade from 300mbps as soon as it was available.

In reply to a post by hanxu:

Currently on Community Fibre 1 gb getting constant 940 speed and 0ms(wired) 2ms(wireless) pins, and recently 3 gb is available in my area, really want to get it, but can't make a use case to justify the additional monthly cost, what could be the use case for this apart from having the fastest home broadband in the country?

Current discount offer ends tomorrow - £89 pcm. Hurry while stocks last

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

In reply to a post by hanxu:

Currently on Community Fibre 1 gb getting constant 940 speed and 0ms(wired) 2ms(wireless) pins, and recently 3 gb is available in my area, really want to get it, but can't make a use case to justify the additional monthly cost, what could be the use case for this apart from having the fastest home broadband in the country?

Current discount offer ends tomorrow - £89 pcm. Hurry while stocks last

They’re now doing 6 months free on a 24 month contract or 3 months free on a 12 month contract. Effectively 25% discount.

If they were in my neighbourhood in London I’d bite their hand off for 3 Gbps symmetric service for less than £75 a month.