BT Full Fibre supplied equipment.

Evening all.

After an absolute nightmare with BT and Openreach, they have both finally agreed that Fibre is actually available to us since the cabling was installed in the street a couple of months ago.

This will me, they turn up, rip out the copper cabling and install the fibre direct to a port in the house. What they are not telling me, is what equipment is going to be installed in the house.

We are still on the FTTC but only hitting 29-35Mbps at the moment, and we've been told 1650 Mbps is to be expected (happy with that!)

I have a Billion 8800AXL at the moment doing the Modem work, with that hopping over to my Asus RT AX88U which is dealing with DHCP and alike.

Anyone know what "Smart Hub" I'm likely to get, or ONT and which will be the better method of routing in the house?

Happy to wave bye to the Billion, not so the Asus.

Many thanks in advance.

Rick.

The fibre, if/when ordered, will be fitted without, in the most part, removal of the existing copper.

There WILL be an ONT fitted giving you an ethernet connection to which ever router you plan to use.

In reply to a post by mr2gti:

We are still on the FTTC but only hitting 29-35Mbps at the moment, and we've been told 1650 Mbps is to be expected (happy with that!)

They must be referring to the future trial of 1.8G service.

In reply to a post by mr2gti:

I have a Billion 8800AXL at the moment doing the Modem work, with that hopping over to my Asus RT AX88U which is dealing with DHCP and alike.

Anyone know what "Smart Hub" I'm likely to get, or ONT and which will be the better method of routing in the house?

They will install an ONT which takes the role of the modem, and the router plugs into that. The ONT is owned and managed by Openreach.

Whether you can keep using your existing router or not depends on who you are buying your FTTP service from and exactly what service you're taking.

If you are buying from BT, *and* you are keeping your phone number through BT, then you will have to use the BT-supplied Smarthub. This is because the voice service can *only* provided through their router. It's locked down so you can't get it any other way.

If you don't care about the phone service, or you're buying FTTP without voice, then you can just plug in your existing router, and leave the smarthub in its box (I have a vague memory of a change in T&Cs that it is not your property any more, and you'll have to return it at the end of the contract - but I'm not sure if that was BT or some other ISP I was reading about)

If you are buying from BT and want to keep your existing phone number but *not* use the Smarthub, then you'll need to port your number to a third-party VOIP provider. It then becomes independent of the broadband and can be used anywhere (including elsewhere in the country, or even abroad). But to do that, you have to get the sequencing right, to avoid losing either your phone number or your FTTP service. What you have to do is:

1. Order FTTP without voice, from any provider of your choice, as a separate service. That is, you must leave the existing FTTC+voice running in parallel.
2. At the same time, set yourself up with a VOIP account and test it. They'll generally provide you with a temporary number for this.
3. Once this is all working, instruct your VOIP provider to port over your original number
4. Once the port completes, it will automatically cease the FTTC+phone service on the copper. You don't need to notify the provider.

It might be a pain, but once you've done it once, you're set for life - all future broadband migrations won't have any effect on your voice service. The important thing is, *don't* give notice of termination to BT, and don't order FTTP from BT as a migration of your existing service.

Yep if you go with BT, the smarthub isn't your to keep anymore and needs to be sent back at the end of the service.

In reply to a post by mr2gti:

We are still on the FTTC but only hitting 29-35Mbps at the moment, and we've been told 1650 Mbps is to be expected (happy with that!)


Rick.

its upto 1000/110 for consumers(currently in 40/80/150/330/500 and 1000 tiers - theres probably a few more too) and if you want the 1000/220 product you would need need to go with business orientated isp/package. There is 1.2gbps and 1.8gbps packages coming .

Some fantastic info in here. We're getting the phones so it will mean the Smart Hub too, but that'll be where the fun begins I guess as want my Asus to deal with the traffic.

It all happens on the 26th, so the fun starts there.

In reply to a post by mr2gti:

We are still on the FTTC but only hitting 29-35Mbps at the moment, and we've been told 1650 Mbps is to be expected (happy with that!)

Ah that might be how they are selling Openreach's 1800 Mbps service. Thanks for the heads up!

This.

Just had my FTTP 900 installed on Friday. Engineer arrives and as soon as he gets out of the van he notices our pole doesn't have fibre fitted to it.

Walks down to the next one on the opposite side of our house (both are equidistant) which is fitted for fibre.

End result, I now have two cables from two different poles going to my house. The old copper line may be reused in the future by the next resident, he said.

Take FTTC on the copper and you have full redundancy with diverse routing! (*)

(*) Unless the fibre from the cabinet goes to the same fibre aggregation node as the splitter on the other pole

Currently I also have VM 1gig running simultaneously while I evaluate the FTTP.

Here's a thing (related to the above mention of a 1.8g service). Is the ONT's port capable of delivering more than one gigabit?

Adtran and Nokia have 2.5g port units available to OR (Nokia G-010G-T and ADTRAN SDX 611Q)

how common are aggregation nodes or is that the secret how long is a piece of string

That's a rather strange question, I would say they are extremely common wherever FTTC cabinets and FTTP PONs are deployed. They are just collection points where fibres from FTTC cabinets and FTTP Splitters come together from a geographical area before heading back to the head end exchange. What are you actually trying to find out?

I think I read there's typically one between every 4-5 FTTC cabinets.

Note that since the copper networks and fibre networks are independent, it's quite possible that your copper cable heads in one direction (towards the local exchange) whilst the fibre heads in another direction (towards a larger head-end exchange that drives FTTP). The FTTC cabinets will also have fibre connections back to the head-end exchange, and that is likely to be the same one.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

I think I read there's typically one between every 4-5 FTTC cabinets.

Note that since the copper networks and fibre networks are independent, it's quite possible that your copper cable heads in one direction (towards the local exchange) whilst the fibre heads in another direction (towards a larger head-end exchange that drives FTTP). The FTTC cabinets will also have fibre connections back to the head-end exchange, and that is likely to be the same one.

Almost certainly the same headend and if you're very early FTTP build potentially the same OLT. We were a new build in an FTTC area so among the first to go onto FTTP. We're on a Huawei OLT that was originally installed to backhaul BDUK-funded Huawei cabinets.

Thank you candlerb, that was the answer i was looking for. The reason i as was two fold, one in general, because its never really discussed partly because of security. The other was selfish and trying to work out how many our village had, 13 fttc units over a larger area and I was wondering if some where going one way and others another. They are also finishing off fttp rollout cab by cab which is interesting.

Our exchange got moved from a shed sized thing to a double portacabin sized thing. I'm expecting the head end exchange is christchurch

In reply to a post by candlerb:

The FTTC cabinets will also have fibre connections back to the head-end exchange, and that is likely to be the same one.

will they for a village use existing fibre connections (since theres usually quite a few spare) to back to the olt. Just wondering how much is re-used.

Quick update.

I have come to the conclusion BT are utterly hopeless and have already given up on serving customers.

Short story is, I logged into our account a few days after the order, they had cancelled it. No warning, no heads up, anything.

According to them, Full Fibre isn't available and they blamed Openreach.

Openreach was contacted, and they repeated their earlier info that it 100% was/is available.

We told BT to sort their [censored] out and to get it sorted out. 10 days or so later, BT are still saying "No" after re-ordering the cable link and now saying only "300" service is available.

Speaking directly to Zen, Vodafone and others, they all say 900+ is 100% available and just an order away.

I am 3-4 hours of communications in with BT and ready to throw in the towel and bin them off. It's utterly pathetic how they have handled it and and apparently re-looking into if they have the wrong info - or if indeed Openreach are lying to us.

I have no idea now what to do? 35Mbps for now though I guess.

Edited by seb (Mon 29-May-23 01:11:00)

In reply to a post by mr2gti:

Speaking directly to Zen, Vodafone and others, they all say 900+ is 100% available and just an order away.

I have no idea now what to do? 35Mbps for now though I guess.

So there is your answer. Get FTTP from a different isp.

In reply to a post by spile:

In reply to a post by mr2gti:

Speaking directly to Zen, Vodafone and others, they all say 900+ is 100% available and just an order away.

I have no idea now what to do? 35Mbps for now though I guess.

So there is your answer. Get FTTP from a different isp.

100% this. And if for some bizarre reason, even after this experience you *still* want to order FTTP from BT (why?!), then take the 300M service they have offered.

I have FTTP 300/50, although not from BT, and it's plenty. You almost certainly wouldn't notice the difference with 500M or 900M, especially over wireless.

Sounds to me like BT have insufficient cablelink capacity at your exchange.

ZEN - Shockingly poor. 2 Chat bots (apparently humans) and there own website saying YES.

Ring up to order... NO GO. BT Wholesale are the ones saying no but Openreach saying Yes.

This is an absolute farce.

And, it gets better.

I call BTW and speak to a nice chap, who states BT have actually not placed an order, if ZEN places an order AND send a serious complaint, BTW will do a thorough issue check and resolve the problem.

Speak back with ZEN and they said (and this is hilarious) that they cannot raise a complaint with BTW, as to do so I would need to be a customer, which I'm not because they declined to take the order, because BTW had a warning on their system saying it wasn't allowed to be ordered.

BT Chairman next for the complaint.

Out of interest have you tried ordering via an ISP who doesn't use BTW for backhaul? someone like Sky as an example.

I haven't, no. Sky does show as available, but is a by far the most expensive, though.

In reply to a post by mr2gti:

I haven't, no. Sky does show as available, but is a by far the most expensive, though.

Just another suggestion, you could try private messaging Martin Pitt who runs Aquiss to see what he can do for you as I'm not sure what backhaul he uses.

I have Aquiss full fibre and this is the result I get from the TBB Traceroute Tool:

bundle-ether1.the.dsl.enta.net 15 15 1ms 1ms 3ms

TBB speed test also displays my provider as Entanet.

Not sure if it's relevant?

Edited by 4M2 (Sat 27-May-23 18:16:51)

In reply to a post by 4M2:

TBB speed test also displays my provider as Entanet.

Thanks I believe Entanet are now owned by Cityfibre so Aquiss may be another possible due to using Entanet backhaul although the OP would need to confirm with Aquiss regarding what backhaul is used in his local exchange.

Edited by deleted (Sat 27-May-23 21:57:36)

In reply to a post by mr2gti:

Ring up to order... NO GO. BT Wholesale are the ones saying no but Openreach saying Yes.

Sounds like BTWholesale may not have their datalink ready with Openreach or is at capacity currently, so whilst Openreach have done their bit, the various wholesalers will be at different network builds timescales to connect/upgrade.

In reply to a post by dect:

I believe Entanet are now owned by Cityfibre.

They are, but now known as CityFibre "Wholesale" (still technically separate, more a branding thing).

In reply to a post by aquiss:

In reply to a post by mr2gti:

Ring up to order... NO GO. BT Wholesale are the ones saying no but Openreach saying Yes.

Sounds like BTWholesale may not have their datalink ready with Openreach or is at capacity currently, so whilst Openreach have done their bit, the various wholesalers will be at different network builds timescales to connect/upgrade.

It's insane what I'm having to go through to get a 100% correct answer from BTW.

I'd have no issues if it's simply not ready in my area - but even BTW are telling me no-one has even sent them an order or requested an escalation/complaint to allow them to sort it.

In reply to a post by mr2gti:

It's insane what I'm having to go through to get a 100% correct answer from BTW.

I'd have no issues if it's simply not ready in my area - but even BTW are telling me no-one has even sent them an order or requested an escalation/complaint to allow them to sort it.

I personally think you need to move on and fine a provider who doesn't use BTW as currently you're not making any progress. You say you spoke to Vodafone, did you place an order? I thought Vodafone use their own cablelinks so not BTW

Please don't use masked swearing (adding asterixes to hide the word).

OK. We've all but binned BT off now.

ZEN were tried but ended up being completely hopeless, website and 2 chat humans telling us false information, then the sales guy saying it's actually not available. Hollow apologies, so they 100% won't get our recommendation.

We have looked into MS3 (not sure why, looking at the reviews) but gone directly with a service provider.

First try was Open-Fibre. Ordered the Full Fibre, but they were dog slow responding to questions and broke immediate promises to send us information / paperwork. Cancelled.

Tried Infinics, clearly pointless as they still haven't responded to my email. Binned off.

Finally "Squirrel". Super fast responses, answers to all questions, Zero to do with BT or Openreach anywhere in the chain apparently. £35 a month full pelt 1Gbit.

Ordered.

Insane to have to go through all this in 2023