Cerberus, Trunk: BT Wholesale or Talktalk Business?

Hello,

I might choose Cerberus or Trunk Networks (No one) for FTTP. They both allow you to choose between BT Wholesale or Talktalk business for the backhaul. How would you choose? What factors would your choice depend on?

My local exchange, as SamKnows shows, has only 2 LLU companies, one of which is Talktalk. This means that almost everyone will be using BT Wholesale and choosing Talktalk would be wise. Is my reasoning correct?

I am on Cerberus since 2019, and I was offered no choice of backhaul - I believe they delivered using BTW, and I don't have anything to complain about.

A while ago AAISP used to give you a choice, and gave you a larger data cap if you went with TT, but I don't know if that still applies.

I don't see any particular reason to choose one over the other. Both are well-regarded, robust backhaul networks. Both should be correctly scaled to the amount of traffic they are carrying.

You should beware that SamKnows data is many years out of date, so I wouldn't hold any store by that. In any case, FTTP doesn't go to local exchanges at all - it goes directly to the larger "head end" exchanges. Those exchanges will be the local exchange for some people, of course.

Cerberus were v.good when I was with them for a couple of years. They just weren’t in the ballpark when it came to pricing (at the time) when I renewed so went TTB.

From a performance perspective BTW backhaul on Cerberus was possibly faster from a baseline ping perspective (used to get around 6ms to London now around 8 ms from Suffolk). Otherwise ceterus paribus on performance and throughput between the two backhaul providers.

I found the customer service better at Cerberus than TTB. Far easier and faster to get a meaningful response.

Can’t speak for Trunk Networks.

Samknows haven't regularly updated that part of their site for a number of years.
Samknows also shows you your local copper exchange which may not be your Head-End exchange.
FTTC and FTTP bypasses the local copper exchange and goes straight to the Head-End.
I would be very surprised if only Talktalk and BT Wholesale had backhaul from your Head-End. Is Sky or Vodafone not available to you?

Basically Samknows is useless for availability checks.

This means that almost everyone will be using BT Wholesale and choosing Talktalk would be wise. Is my reasoning correct?

No your reasoning isn't correct. Talktalk wholesale to a very large number of providers.

Talktalk Business and BT Wholesale can both buy varying levels of capacity in a Head-End exchange.
BT Wholesale may have double the traffic of Talktalk but they may have 3 times the capacity, meaning they are less likely to suffer congestion.

Without looking at tiny changes to latency or small routing changes, I would be very surprised if anyone would notice their backhaul being swapped between the 2.

Edited by j0hn83 (Mon 27-Dec-21 15:58:40)

Thanks candlerb Pheasant and j0hn83. I didn't know that SamKnows was out-of-date and it nevertheless shows the correct results for Voda and Sky. It seems that I'll stay silent and let Trunk Networks choose for me.

Another point is that for both FTTC & FTTP, there is no such thing as LLU.

LLU is where the providing company has its own DSLAM(s) or MSAN(s) in your copper termination exchange, to provide ADSLx over which that provider has total control. (In a sense, even BT Wholesale is an ADSLx LLU provider).

On Openreach FTTC the broadband service providers can only specify one of three stability options offered by Openreach. On FTTP I haven't checked the relevant SINs but assume even that isn't available. It's stable anyway.

In both FTTC & FTTC the provider buys GEA (Generic Ethernet Access) cable links at the fibre headend exchange to pass the broadband traffic to their backhaul. The cable link capacity they buy is of course critical to their performance.

AltNets, i.e. non-Openreach providers, are of course a totally different matter.

Then I'd presume that the SamKnows page lists ISPs who have their own equipment in the exchange as LLU providers?

It did originally. I doubt if that facility is kept up to date any more, and others have already said it isn't. It was only really relevant when LLU was rare and BT Wholesale behind the curve on ADSL2/ADSL2+.

And remember, LLU is only ADSLx stuff.

FTTC provides VDSL2 from the fibre cabinets over copper via the PCP (traditional phoneline cabinet).

FTTP supplies fibre to the premises, as per its name. Not through the cabinets. Through underground Aggregation Points.

GEA cable-links are not related to LLU status. The word "equipment" you have used there is confusing, so I'm not sure what this latest question was really asking.

Edited by pluralist (Tue 28-Dec-21 12:48:34)

SamKnows shows Vodafone lacking in the exchange's profile page LLU section. Although Openreach FTTP is available Vodafone really doesn't want customers here. What are they lacking, if not equipment in the exchange?

Quite probably backhaul and cablelinks as noted above.

In reply to a post by weelan:

Then I'd presume that the SamKnows page lists ISPs who have their own equipment in the exchange as LLU providers?

Simply having ISP equipment in an exchange is not enough for service over FTTP either. The ISP has to also have:

1. sufficient backhaul capacity from their equipment
2. connectivity from their equipment for FTTP to the headend L2S / OLT equipment from Openreach. They must procure from Openreach cablelink connectivity within the exchange from their equipment / backhaul onto the L2S /OLT.

For the particular ISP above is another (national scale) rollout exercise, subject to a business case of whether there are sufficient subscribers in a given geography to make it worth while at given point in time. This is improving as FTTP gets further deployed, but is one reason why once Openreach FTTP is activated in an area, there may not be all the ISPs available to order service immediately. In some cases this may take many months after the FTTP instructor is otherwise complete and 'ready for service'.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

On Openreach FTTC the broadband service providers can only specify one of three stability options offered by Openreach.

Tell us more! (Or send us to the SIN)

In reply to a post by Woolwich:

In reply to a post by pluralist:

On Openreach FTTC the broadband service providers can only specify one of three stability options offered by Openreach.

Tell us more! (Or send us to the SIN)

I don't believe any of the SINs detail the DLM policies available to CP's.

kitz wrote a great DLM page a number of years ago. While some info has changed the majority is still relevant.

https://kitz.co.uk/adsl/DLM.htm

The 3 main policies available are Speed, Standard and Stable.

Residential ISP's use the Speed or Standard DLM policy. I've never come across 1 that uses the Stable DLM policy.

To confuse things further BT Wholesale has different naming for the 3 policies.
What Openreach call Speed, Standard and Stable are named Standard, Stable and Super Stable by BT Wholesale.

There's also a 4th policy available called "Custom" though these are meant to be used by test lines only.

The available DLM policies (in my opinion) are more relevant on ECI cabinets as the choice of policy can determine if a line is interleaved or not.