Openreach Symmetric 1Gbps/1Gbps from April 2025

Finally, Openreach Symmetric 1Gbps/1Gbps from April 2025 but let's ask ... how much per month do you reckon it will be?

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2024/08/openre...

For me, I think monthly charges £125 a month

Also reported on this site:
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/10223-openreach-...
Says it will be in limited areas.

I wonder if some big ISPs have been asking OR for symmetric options given the wholesale competition today from CityFibre, and the upcoming wholesale options from VirginMedia due to launch.

TBB say: We've asked if they can name any of the first places that will see the symmetric service.

Me say: I bet they won't telling you. Probably another site to check FTTP Symmetric Checker like another waiting game again.

It's obviously not going to be over £100/month

Its all irrelevant if you haven't got Openreach FTTP or likely to get it anytime soon.

FTTP not yet in my area, I think Openreach won't do my area until December 2026 I bet!

There might be a bright side for us third class citizens with no prospects of OR FTTP any time soon. Although this announcement is just PON based, maybe by the time they eventually get around to us we might get XGS-PON from the get-go? Having finally introduced a symmetric product, if they ever want to offer symmetric >1.2gps, they will have to go this way.

It is a good sign that competition from the likes of Cityfibre and Nexfibre and the various AltNets is starting to make OR look and take notice.

Be interesting to see how it compares price wise given my 2gb/2gb is
£49 pcm from you fibre.

In reply to a post by choppersrock:

Be interesting to see how it compares price wise given my 2gb/2gb is
£49 pcm from you fibre.

It won't compete at all with that.

In reply to a post by kingbiscit:

It won't compete at all with that.

But they're going to have to...at least in areas served by altnets.

I wonder if we'll start to see variable pricing - lower where there's competition on the pole, higher where there isn't?

Not sure if they would be allowed to discount areas where there is an alt net.

They don't compete on price at the moment and have a 35% takeup, and as mentioned they have to do this with Ofcom insisting on minimum pricing.

YouFibre are a bit of an outlier in terms of pricing, matched sort of by Community Fibre who are hyper-regional. Hyperoptic's regular price is now £40 for their 900Mbps service, Virgin Media is £40.99 for the same. TalkTalk on CityFibre costs £36.50 over the contract term. Openreach aren't going to look at what an ISP with 80k customers retails a 2Gb product for and set their pricing in response, as nice as that would be.

The TBB article says this is on existing GPON infarstructure - if that's the case OR must be expecting minimal uptake, as one heavy upload user could almost saturate the entire upload bandwidth.

quite, just need two users on a single pon to cause major issues, i suspect in reality it will be heavily managed so your upload will vary alot.

CityFibre have been running 900 symmetric over GPON since they were created, so in practise people must not saturate their services that heavily.

In reply to a post by jpm:

CityFibre have been running 900 symmetric over GPON since they were created, so in practise people must not saturate their services that heavily.

Most users don't. Most users will do the occasional large upload or download but with the higher speeds they are doing so for a shorter period of time. For the most part I would guess that the majority of backhaul in the GPON network is underutilised most of the time and that there is likely very little real contention.

Curious if this will be like the vectoring situation, better service for those in certain subsidised areas, maybe as it was a requirement of the contract or something?

Although my thoughts are it will eventually be everywhere.

In reply to a post by ian72:

In reply to a post by jpm:

CityFibre have been running 900 symmetric over GPON since they were created, so in practise people must not saturate their services that heavily.

Most users don't. Most users will do the occasional large upload or download but with the higher speeds they are doing so for a shorter period of time. For the most part I would guess that the majority of backhaul in the GPON network is underutilised most of the time and that there is likely very little real contention.

The numbers will have gone up, but there was a UKNOF Gigaclear presentation from 2013 where they said their utilisation across a 400 customer village peaked at something like 150Mbps. I think most people's connections sit idle and PON technology will keep advancing before congestion can become a problem.

Shame Youfibre are working in my area and have sprayed up the BT boxes for CBTs.

Not like I'd hold my breath for Openreach anyway

Edited by BuckleZ (Thu 15-Aug-24 14:20:09)

In reply to a post by BuckleZ:

Shame Youfibre are working in my area and have sprayed up the BT boxes for CBTs.

I'm sure you'll be happy with Youfibre anyway - cheaper and, for me anyway, a good service. No real downsides, TBH.

In reply to a post by BuckleZ:

Shame Youfibre are working in my area and have sprayed up the BT boxes for CBTs.

Not like I'd hold my breath for Openreach anyway

I love to have Youfibre in my area and all over Telford but I think they not bothered to sign up with Telford & Wrekin Council as they always taken from both rubbish Virgin Media and Openreach for years!

Edited by adslmax (Thu 15-Aug-24 17:02:06)

In reply to a post by jpm:

It's obviously not going to be over £100/month

Why do you say "obviously?"

At wholesale, the current OR 1000/220 service is 97.78+VAT per month, which is why nobody except Cerberus sells it - not even BT themselves.

Reference: OR wholesale price list, 5.1.3 Generic Ethernet Access (FTTP)

Virtually noone will be hammering the upstream 24/7. 1gbit/sec is an enormous amount to sustain upload, even on pirate sites.

Even if they did there is still 200mbit/sec to play with which is a lot given upstream is limited on 'standard' products.

And on top of that GPON has pretty good algorithms to not let one use hog all the bandwidth.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

For me, I think monthly charges £125 a month

Do you have any source for this? Is it £125 at wholesale or retail?

It will be a completely made-up number, don't waste time looking into it

In reply to a post by behuk:

In reply to a post by adslmax:

For me, I think monthly charges £125 a month

Do you have any source for this? Is it £125 at wholesale or retail?

Openreach Pricing quote:

Up to 1000Mbit/s /220Mbit/s 01/04/2024 £1,173.36

but if it was Up to 1000Mbit/s /1000Mbit/s 01/04/2025 £????? - I think £1,500.00 (will cost more than £1.173.36 as I think many ISP's will not selling it if it was far too expensive!

Edited by adslmax (Thu 15-Aug-24 23:17:34)

BTW are saying when we finally get it it will be 1.8 down - so will there also be a 1.8/2.2 option?

In reply to a post by VMDIAPunter:

BTW are saying when we finally get it it will be 1.8 down - so will there also be a 1.8/2.2 option?

Pretty sure it will be 2/2 marketed as 1.8/1.8. But they just downscale to include overheads because of ofcom rules. Same has cityfibre 1G is marketed as 900.

Hi,

In reply to a post by agent_r00t:

In reply to a post by VMDIAPunter:

BTW are saying when we finally get it it will be 1.8 down - so will there also be a 1.8/2.2 option?

Pretty sure it will be 2/2 marketed as 1.8/1.8. But they just downscale to include overheads because of ofcom rules. Same has cityfibre 1G is marketed as 900.

As this is being delivered over GPON then the best Openreach could offer is 2G/1G marketed as 1800/900.

Of course Openreach will no doubt have plans to introduce XGS-PON at some point in the future which would (a) reduce the risk of contention in the case where there is a high take-up of higher speed services and (b) allow higher speeds to be offered.

The announcement of these higher upload speeds is not an announcement of XGS-PON services but certainly makes it more likely that such services will be introduced in due course.

I would have thought that 1.8/250 or 1.8/500 would be better (more popular) options than 1/1

Well, I'm on 900mbps down and 900mbps up with Brsk and paying currently £32 per month. should have been £45 but they had a promotion. I can't see it being much more either around the £45 mark or possibly a little higher at £50 - £60.

Not on BTw product 1Gbps / 1 Gbps (will be more expensive) you will find out sooner or later next April when Openreach release final pricing but BTw will cost more passed onto ISP who likely to be additional bit more expensive side. I think BTw will be better off with two products eg: 160/160 or 330/330 are better cheapest one for any home users for FTTP.

Edited by adslmax (Fri 16-Aug-24 17:00:32)

In reply to a post by Keith016377:

Well, I'm on 900mbps down and 900mbps up with Brsk and paying currently £32 per month. should have been £45 but they had a promotion. I can't see it being much more either around the £45 mark or possibly a little higher at £50 - £60.

On the one hand, you might think so. But, BTW are not even trying to compete with the cheaper wholesale altnets. Many ISPs sell both OR/BTW FTTP and also Cityfibre. The Cityfibre offering is cheaper for 1Gbit symmetric than the BTW 1Gbit asymmetric product.

Also looking at the current wholesale price-list, it's clear they are marking up the upstream far more than downstream. Which, kinda makes sense. They might not want to price gouge their own leased line products for business users.

While they're by far the biggest fibre wholesale provider out there, they can afford to do it too. I also wouldn't assume symmetric speeds on altnets (at least wholesale providers) will remain so cheap either. Once they become established, they might well also want to get a foot in the business sector too. Making their home grade products asymmetric would make sense then.

Time will tell, for the time being altnets want customers to fuel expansion and don't have a reason not to offer symmetric connectivity. BTW/Openreach are miles ahead in terms of deployment, so they don't really need to compete on upstream at the cost of their more lucrative business products.

But, that's not to say they might not decide to try to slow down altnets by stealing their customers by competing on price and upstream speeds.

We shall see.

In reply to a post by agent_r00t:

While they're by far the biggest fibre wholesale provider out there, they can afford to do it too. I also wouldn't assume symmetric speeds on altnets (at least wholesale providers) will remain so cheap either. Once they become established, they might well also want to get a foot in the business sector too. Making their home grade products asymmetric would make sense then.

Time will tell, for the time being altnets want customers to fuel expansion and don't have a reason not to offer symmetric connectivity. BTW/Openreach are miles ahead in terms of deployment, so they don't really need to compete on upstream at the cost of their more lucrative business products.

Given Virgin have decided to sell symmetric speeds for a £6 per month extra charge I would expect that sort of pattern to be copied. Perhaps some providers will offer symmetrical speeds for free, and others will charge a little more, but I can't see symmetrical speeds retaining a leased line style premium.

In reply to a post by agent_r00t:

so they don't really need to compete on upstream at the cost of their more lucrative business products.

Quite a difference between a consumer PON network and leased lines for any real business (ie, not a couple of people working in a house).

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by agent_r00t:

so they don't really need to compete on upstream at the cost of their more lucrative business products.

Quite a difference between a consumer PON network and leased lines for any real business (ie, not a couple of people working in a house).

I have 3 people working in a house. I have a leased line. I agree there is quite a difference and I can't wait to have access to a cheaper alternative. Whilst it's great for writing off against TAX it's not always worth it and often costs more than intended.

In reply to a post by agent_r00t:

But, that's not to say they might not decide to try to slow down altnets by stealing their customers by competing on price and upstream speeds.

That would be assuming that a significant proportion of consumers care about upload speeds: the vast majority don't. Users of this forum are not representative of UK population as a whole.

Competing on price, yes, hence Equinox and Equinox 2. But OR have a regulated floor price for FTTP (at 40/10 speed) which they cannot undercut. All they can do is to reduce the differential between this and the higher speed products, which they have been doing. It doesn't actually cost Openreach any more to offer 1800/110 than 40/10 - at least not until the PON becomes so congested that they have to start splitting it.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

That would be assuming that a significant proportion of consumers care about upload speeds: the vast majority don't. Users of this forum are not representative of UK population as a whole.

I would tend to agree. But generally there's not really a reason to limit upstream except to differentiate the business products from home products.

But if symmetric becomes the norm because of altnets, then I would expect BTW/OR to follow suit. I don't think they'd want to be the outlier. I also think as more people work from home, upstream will become more valuable to "normal people".

Being able to work with remote folders over the work VPN as if they were LAN shares is one of the best things (for work) about gigabit internet I think.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Finally, Openreach Symmetric 1Gbps/1Gbps from April 2025 but let's ask ... how much per month do you reckon it will be?

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2024/08/openre...

For me, I think monthly charges £125 a month

Only 1Gb/s by the seems of it, if they charge £125 a month they will get few takers.

That's what BTw wanted this way

In reply to a post by choppersrock:

Be interesting to see how it compares price wise given my 2gb/2gb is
£49 pcm from you fibre.

That is good, £64.95 for 2Gb/s from Zzoomm, both ways, £54.95 for the first 12 months. 1gb/s is £40 more or less, a tenner less for 12 months.
knowing Openreach they will charge a fair bit and then ISPs using the network will have to charge more. BT/EE will just charge more because they think they are worth paying more for.

Can get 8gb/8gb for £99 pcm too.

(My underlining):

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Knowing Openreach they will charge a fair bit and then ISPs using the network will have to charge more. BT/EE will just charge more because they think they are worth paying more for.

I think that's not quite right . They just charge retail consumers more because most people over 60 have never known anything else but BT or VM and they also remember the poor performance of whichever cable provider was in their area and bought by VM.

They don't know how to switch their landline and too scared of it all going wrong if they try that they don't even look into it.

Having said that just amongst such of those that I know, all have got in a mess if they had a BT mobile and were persuaded at contract end to move it to EE. The sort of sales talk being "It will be easy. We do it all internally. If you also take our offer of a new iPhone all you do when it arrives is turn it and your old one on and put them close together and mobile number, contacts and messages will be transferred ".

Untrue of course. It comes with an EE SIM that has to be inserted, which in the past they usually had done in a shop; their eyesight can fail to detect the pin-hole to open the slot; a new direct debit needs setting up and the the user only finds out when EE tell them their bill hasn't been paid.

The only contact they have at that point is the mobile helpline and the EE staff on that haven't a clue. (Or at least earlier in the year they didn't). They may even say they have set up the D/D again so just pay it this month and next month it will be fine. Except of course, it isn't.

All they were doing was setting it up on their own system with the customer name and bank details obtained from BT. But with EE as the debitter. Which their system had done automatically in the first place. Fail!

As I had to explain in more that one case, only the bank account holder can set up a D/D unless EE have obtained a suitable authorisation from the customer.

Ultimately, with the first case I dealt with, the mobile service was stopped after the "Help" people failed for a third time so the Fraud department took over. I explained what was going on to them, service was reinstated, and my friend was given the EE bank details so she could set up the D/D at her bank.

With the later ones I was able to forestall the D/D problem arising.

Why would you need live stats for 2Gbps/2Gbps. You don't need it. Only for FTTC and G.fast

The stats don't work anymore. I was using it when my fibre was faulty. Needed it to show yf as had a speed issue which they couldn't see as I use my own router etc. The only thing that works on there now is the tbm.. must get round to updating my sig!

Edited by choppersrock (Mon 19-Aug-24 18:36:49)

Fair enough. As I know FTTP don't work with any router, modem or dslstats for full stats! lol

Edited by adslmax (Mon 19-Aug-24 18:39:41)

In reply to a post by choppersrock:

Can get 8gb/8gb for £99 pcm too.

8Gb/s or 8GB/s?

8Gbps

In reply to a post by pluralist:

I think that's not quite right . They just charge retail consumers more because most people over 60 have never known anything else but BT or VM and they also remember the poor performance of whichever cable provider was in their area and bought by VM.

They don't know how to switch their landline and too scared of it all going wrong if they try that they don't even look into it.

I don't know about VM because we don't have VM here and until Zzoomm came here the thought of another network operating here was not in many people's mind. Most people did not think we would have fibre for years. Myself and others say that the reason Openreach started to build their fibre network so quickly here was because of Zzoomm. There were a couple of roads that had Openreach fibre before Zzoomm came here, but that was it and why those roads I don't know.

i am still surprised that Zzoomm came here.

As for people being too scared to switch, it is not just over 60s, but you are right it is normally the older ones.
I am going to admit, I was well, not scared as such, after all I did drop the Openreach network and went onto a wireless broadband service a few years ago.
My problem was that I was worried the same thing would happen that happened when I jumped ship before, also a bit worried about the CEO of Zzoomm, after all he was the CEO of another broadband service and flogged it. Did not want it to get gobbled up by something like Talk Talk
Also, as I have said before, I did not need the higher speed, 36Mb/s was and still is fine for me.
I only changed because Plusnet would not give me a decent offer on FTTC and was pushing me to FTTP. So I thought if I have to go to FTTP then I may as well go for a better network.

I changed to the wireless network all those years ago because 10Mb/s was a lot better than 2.5 if I was lucky.

Having said that just amongst such of those that I know, all have got in a mess if they had a BT mobile and were persuaded at contract end to move it to EE. The sort of sales talk being "It will be easy. We do it all internally. If you also take our offer of a new iPhone all you do when it arrives is turn it and your old one on and put them close together and mobile number, contacts and messages will be transferred ".

Untrue of course. It comes with an EE SIM that has to be inserted, which in the past they usually had done in a shop; their eyesight can fail to detect the pin-hole to open the slot; a new direct debit needs setting up and the the user only finds out when EE tell them their bill hasn't been paid.

The only contact they have at that point is the mobile helpline and the EE staff on that haven't a clue. (Or at least earlier in the year they didn't). They may even say they have set up the D/D again so just pay it this month and next month it will be fine. Except of course, it isn't.

All they were doing was setting it up on their own system with the customer name and bank details obtained from BT. But with EE as the debitter. Which their system had done automatically in the first place. Fail!

As I had to explain in more that one case, only the bank account holder can set up a D/D unless EE have obtained a suitable authorisation from the customer.

Ultimately, with the first case I dealt with, the mobile service was stopped after the "Help" people failed for a third time so the Fraud department took over. I explained what was going on to them, service was reinstated, and my friend was given the EE bank details so she could set up the D/D at her bank.

With the later ones I was able to forestall the D/D problem arising.

I can see where that can be a problem.

One of my brothers have been using Vodafone Sim only for about 4 years now and was paying a fair bit, ok £20 a month, but paying for a load of data he is not using, so I got him a get a Smarty sim which is £6 and have more than enough data for him, and he uses voice a lot, so unlimited voice is great for him.
He is older than me and him and technology is not a thing, but we managed to get it working fine. Next is to get him off Talk Talk broadband, which Octopus put him onto when they got rid of the Shell broadband customers. I would like to put him on Zzoomm, but I don't think he will go for that, sadly.

Now my other brother who is still, in his late 60's like tech and before his wife passed away she had FTTP instead, shame it was BT, but she wanted to keep the emails. But he mucks about with analogue synths panels and audrinos.

So not all order people are scared.

I'm still on Three for my phone and now also Three Home Broadband for the supply to everything that needs it when my phone is out with me. Maybe what your brother could use?

A benefit I've never seen mentioned is that you can take it with you if you move. Just plug the router into the mains, job done, as long as the signal is decent. Of course the router can be tried in any room to find the best.

you have any speed tests or tbb monitors setup? be nice to see if its actually worth it over the standard lines?

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Fair enough. As I know FTTP don't work with any router, modem or dslstats for full stats! lol

With PON there is no dynamic modulation adjustment based on line quality. For example, GPON works at a fixed speed of 2.4Gbps down, 1.2Gbps up.

The ONT itself collects other stats like received light power and error rates, but those are retrieved by the OLT, and only visible to the network operator. They're not made available to end users.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

I'm still on Three for my phone and now also Three Home Broadband for the supply to everything that needs it when my phone is out with me. Maybe what your brother could use?

A benefit I've never seen mentioned is that you can take it with you if you move. Just plug the router into the mains, job done, as long as the signal is decent. Of course the router can be tried in any room to find the best.

I did think about something like that, to be honest, my brother has a small mobile thing he uses for camping, something like that would be fine.

I changed me mind now. I don't want Openreach to come to my area to install FTTP. I rather CityFibre come to my area as CF will be lots cheaper than OR for Symmetric Fibre.

Hopefully CF come to Cuckoo Oak Telford next year. Dear Openreach, don't bother come to install FTTP, we don't want your service next year!

How nice of you to make the decision for your neighbours,

I am sure Neighbours want to see cheaper from cityfibre as openreach will be more expensive!

Maybe they will want to see a cheap network available , that’s not really the point though , you said ‘we’ don’t want Openreach , rather than ‘I’ , so in what capacity do you speak for others ?

I'm also on the Cuckoo Oak exchange, and we seem to be the last to get anything, so if someone was to come in ahead of OR planned dates, then they would get all of the business sitting here waiting with money on the table. I'm all for it.

In reply to a post by stevebrowne:

I'm also on the Cuckoo Oak exchange, and we seem to be the last to get anything, so if someone was to come in ahead of OR planned dates, then they would get all of the business sitting here waiting with money on the table. I'm all for it.

I doubt it we will ever get it! No one want to bring it to Telford, they know Telford full of virgin media useless!

In reply to a post by stevebrowne:

I'm also on the Cuckoo Oak exchange, and we seem to be the last to get anything, so if someone was to come in ahead of OR planned dates, then they would get all of the business sitting here waiting with money on the table. I'm all for it.

After the experience Thomas Bibb at Exascale had they're probably scared to announce anything. If someone else were planning on building there they'd have probably done so by now. You'll get Virgin Media's parent company building full fibre sooner rather than later, they've been building to your south already and connecting the network back to Telford. Openreach in the next year I believe. Some newer towns are just nasty to build to due to the Openreach network present there, others because of both that and the same reasons that made cable networks expensive to build there.

Will be two full fibre options in the next couple of years most likely.

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

After the experience Thomas Bibb at Exascale had they're probably scared to announce anything. If someone else were planning on building there they'd have probably done so by now. You'll get Virgin Media's parent company building full fibre sooner rather than later, they've been building to your south already and connecting the network back to Telford. Openreach in the next year I believe. Some newer towns are just nasty to build to due to the Openreach network present there, others because of both that and the same reasons that made cable networks expensive to build there.

Will be two full fibre options in the next couple of years most likely.

Openreach say my area should get Full Fibre no later than July 2025 but I wouldn't hold my breath! Still on my current G.fast until December then cease it. I will be using EE 5G as it rock solid 500 to 510 down and 70 to 80 up by locked to band 1, 3, n28 from my nearer local mast under 300m away. Been tested EE 5G (renamed BT) because of router 5G.

https://www.speedtest.net/result/16695801322.png

Edited by adslmax (Mon 02-Sep-24 14:40:26)

Believe me or not

Thomas Bibb at Exascale won't roll out all over Telford because it cost too much money! I do believe Exascale won't happen in everywhere in Telford for 100% coverage within next 5 years!

Can see one network map as there is loads of Nexfibre around Broseley, Coalport, Ironbridge and Shifnal. But that was outside of Telford.

Don't think Nexfibre will come to Telford next.

Edited by adslmax (Mon 02-Sep-24 17:14:16)

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I don't want Openreach to come to my area to install FTTP.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Dear Openreach, don't bother come to install FTTP

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Can see one network map as there is loads of Nexfibre around Broseley, Coalport, Ironbridge and Shifnal. But that was outside of Telford.

Don't think Nexfibre will come to Telford next.

I didn't say anything about Nexfibre and your immediate area, I was referring to the NetCo that Virgin Media's parent will have running, and as you neither want Openreach or Virgin Media I wasn't addressing you.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Believe me or not

Thomas Bibb at Exascale won't roll out all over Telford because it cost too much money! I do believe Exascale won't happen in everywhere in Telford for 100% coverage within next 5 years!

I believe you. You would know better than me given the amount of emails you sent and how often you sent them to him.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

I don't want Openreach to come to my area to install FTTP.
Dear Openreach, don't bother come to install FTTP

I got no choice because OR will roll out FTTP in my area for all these customers but I will not ordered FTTP from OR.

And they will be happy not to have you as a customer, so everything's good.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I got no choice because OR will roll out FTTP in my area for all these customers but I will not ordered FTTP from OR.

You have said multiple times elsewhere you are a looking forward to ordering FTTP from OR as you wont have to monitor your G.Fast stats like you promised multiple times not to do.
You have Virgin available to you but that's not good enough and now all of a sudden neither is OR.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I changed me mind now. I don't want Openreach to come to my area to install FTTP. I rather CityFibre come to my area as CF will be lots cheaper than OR for Symmetric Fibre.

Hopefully CF come to Cuckoo Oak Telford next year. Dear Openreach, don't bother come to install FTTP, we don't want your service next year!

Oh dear me!!!! I think Openreach must have heard me right now. Got email this morning as my Full Fibre in plan has now not available and went to Openreach website fibre checker, they have now removed me off my address (before Build planned between now and Dec-2026) -> (Now Not available)

Wish I keep my mouth shut! But, let's hope Cityfibre can come now!

Edited by adslmax (Tue 01-Oct-24 16:44:54)

But you don't want OpenReach so what is the problem?

In reply to a post by ian72:

But you don't want OpenReach so what is the problem?

Correct but I was hoping for nexfibre or cityfibre in my area soon

Edited by adslmax (Tue 01-Oct-24 16:52:52)

The checker has updated again back to "Build planned between now and Dec-2026" for Cuckoo Oak. Hopefully closer to "now" than "Dec-2026"

Mine is not available 😢but my parents updated again back to "Build planned between now and Dec-2026" for Cuckoo Oak. (they has FTTC but no G.fast or No Virgin Media)

Openreach seem don't like me at all as every houses for Cuckoo Oak will be FTTP Planned except me NOPE! (got G.fast 255/34) Still not available with no updates.

Edited by adslmax (Tue 15-Oct-24 21:40:03)

You might end up disappointed m8 for Cuckoo Oak got email from Openreach

More bad news for my area. Openreach are pretty useless now!

Hi Mr **********,



I hope you’re well and thanks for bearing with me while I spoke with our build teams.



How things stand right now

As you are aware, we are currently in the process of installing FTTP all over the UK, with an aim to provide 25 million homes with full fibre by 2026. Sadly, the project concerning your address has faced delays and we are now aiming for the technology to be delivered around April/May 2025. Delays are not uncommon as we have strict budgets and deadlines we need to adhere to, and there are numerous factors which may result in the delay.



Things such as extensive civils work, road closures and traffic management, and damaged network may result in significant delays in projects. In addition to this, if an area exceeds our commercial model budgets, we will look to push the dates back and revisit it at a later date. Due to the above reasons, we cannot and will not guarantee a date as to when FTTP will be available, as we understand circumstances may arise that are out of our control which can impact the delivery of the project. However, after speaking with the project team we are now aiming to have the project in your area completed in September 2026.



I realise that this news will be very disappointing, especially given the length of time that you have been waiting for the upgrade to happen but we do make clear that our plans can and do change.



Once again, I’m so sorry I haven’t been able to provide you with an immediate solution but I trust this answers your query. Please feel free to let me know if there is anything else I can help with; of course I’ll be happy to help.



I will arrange for this case to be closed on the 22/10 by 5pm, but anything you need please do not hesitate to reach out.



Thanks,



***********







Executive Complaints and Escalations team
Openreach

You ask for Openreach FTTP not to come to your area , you then concede that you can’t stop them but won’t be ordering a FTTP service on Openreach , yet you continue to post about them , why ? , you do hopefully realise the contradiction, simultaneously complaining that they aren’t in your area , and you don’t want them in your area and wouldn’t use them if they were …..what is it that compels you to post continually that the FTTP network you don’t want isn’t available , you may need professional help

Phil you are one strange character if you don't mind me saying, you have told everyone multiple times you don't want Openreach FTTP then keep writing to Openreach every 5 minutes asking when its coming to your property. Lucky for you I'm not going to go into detail about your on-off saga with G.fast or the fake screenshots of your broadband speed.

Is life that bad that you can't find anything else to waste your time on.

My fake speedtest?

Here is my proof with G.fast - https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/17291619786... and here another proof again with 2nd speedtest - https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/17291620424... and lastly here is 3rd proof - https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/17291621075...

In reply to a post by adslmax:

My fake speedtest?

Here is my proof with G.fast - https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/17291619786... and here another proof again with 2nd speedtest - https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/17291620424... and lastly here is 3rd proof - https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/17291621075...

You kinda proved my point regarding the use of your time with this post 🤣

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by adslmax:

My fake speedtest?

Here is my proof with G.fast - https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/17291619786... and here another proof again with 2nd speedtest - https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/17291620424... and lastly here is 3rd proof - https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/17291621075...

You kinda proved my point regarding the use of your time with this post 🤣

TTB time is always wrong clock (1 hr behind) but here is my real BTw speedtest with time and stamp

https://i.ibb.co/2NcWdpf/Screenshot-2024-10-17-at-11...

In reply to a post by adslmax:

TTB time is always wrong clock (1 hr behind) but here is my real BTw speedtest with time and stamp

https://i.ibb.co/2NcWdpf/Screenshot-2024-10-17-at-11...

Since you posted fake screenshots and was caught out by someone one here, I like probably many others now just ignore any you post.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

TTB time is always wrong clock (1 hr behind) but here is my real BTw speedtest with time and stamp

https://i.ibb.co/2NcWdpf/Screenshot-2024-10-17-at-11...

TBB's servers seem to use gmt/utc (not conflating the two btw) and so it won't "always be an hour behind"

It's very likely that when FTTP does arrive this poster will buy an optical power meter and keep unplugging their fibre to check the light levels.

In reply to a post by jpm:

It's very likely that when FTTP does arrive this poster will buy an optical power meter and keep unplugging their fibre to check the light levels.

1x2 splitter and a power meter and job done. Could even put a GPON SFP+ module into something even though it won't be activated and log both transmit and receive power there, put it into a database and feed it into Grafana along with automated speed tests done absurdly frequently.

Cloning the serial number from the provided ONT, some other settings and might be all good, too. No need for a splitter just something that'll handle SFP+ modules.

Is there any point in doing this? No, absolutely not.

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

Is there any point in doing this? No, absolutely not.

but but but won't it go faster ? and will i notice? 😁

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/10558-openreach-...

You have to admit that adslmax called it, although he actually went in too low - at £100+VAT wholesale, retail packages are likely to be more like £160, if they appear at all.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/10558-openreach-...

You have to admit that adslmax called it, although he actually went in too low - at £100+VAT wholesale, retail packages are likely to be more like £160, if they appear at all.

To be honest I thought it would be around £125 monthly charge for 1Gbps/1Gbps but I think £160 a month is put off by many customers. Who would pay for it?

2000/2000 on Virgin Media seem to be a winner over Openreach 1000/1000 for residential pricing! Think VM does offer 2Gbps/2Gbps for around £45!

Edited by adslmax (Fri 28-Feb-25 15:06:06)

In reply to a post by jpm:

It's obviously not going to be over £100/month

Well, I bet you are shocked now it will cost more than £125 now

In reply to a post by candlerb:

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/10558-openreach-...

You have to admit that adslmax called it, although he actually went in too low - at £100+VAT wholesale, retail packages are likely to be more like £160, if they appear at all.

Yup. I'm expecting £160 to £180 until next year with full deployment with xgs-pon. and I then expect it be around £70-80pm

Just remember this is a commerical test in all but in name. Its not meant to cause issues with the existing product stack price wise and also deter users from ordering unless you really really really really really need it

I've seen people complain how they desperately need 1G symmetric, but when faced with paying an £3 extra per day for it, I wonder how many will still see it as important.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

I've seen people complain how they desperately need 1G symmetric, but when faced with paying an £3 extra per day for it, I wonder how many will still see it as important.

I guess OR obviously believe that people will flood their the network. Other ISPs are assuming the loadings will be similar as they have at slower speeds. Many alt nets are offering symmetric 1Gbps for £50 or less per month; will they all go bankrupt?

I think this is Openreach being really conservative as they are a wholesale provider. I only found out recently that the committed rate of CityFibre's 1Gb business service is 100 down and 40 up (https://cdn.cityfibre.com/Partner-page/Downloads/CF-FTTP-Local.pdf) - if they supply more this to an ISP customer then they are not in breach of contract, but I'm sure you'd be pretty annoyed if you bought 1Gb and could only upload at 40Mbps.

If Openreach's 1000Mbps symmetric service has higher committed rates than the above then it's a point of differentiation, the question is whether 'the market' is happy to buy gigabit services that aren't considered faulty unless they drop below 40Mbps in exchange for a cheaper price, and getting the headline rates for the majority of the time.

Very interesting thanks.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

I guess OR obviously believe that people will flood their the network. Other ISPs are assuming the loadings will be similar as they have at slower speeds. Many alt nets are offering symmetric 1Gbps for £50 or less per month; will they all go bankrupt?

yup

In reply to a post by Taras:

Its not meant to cause issues with the existing product stack price wise and also deter users from ordering unless you really really really really really need it

They will want some areas where small businesses are situated amongst residential properties, as that will give a different usage profile for the area than business parks.

In reply to a post by Taras:

Yup. I'm expecting £160 to £180 until next year with full deployment with xgs-pon. and I then expect it be around £70-80pm

Just remember this is a commerical test in all but in name. Its not meant to cause issues with the existing product stack price wise and also deter users from ordering unless you really really really really really need it

I think it will come down to around £100 a month inc vat for top tier 1Gbps / 1Gbp from 2026 onwards from BTw to ISPs.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I think it will come down to around £100 a month inc vat for top tier 1Gbps / 1Gbp from 2026 onwards from BTw to ISPs.

On what basis do you think that? Why would they want to reduce the price? They will get no more customers at an £83+VAT price point than a £100+VAT price point, so by reducing the price they would only reduce their profit from the business customers who take it.

Remember that OR could have reduced the 1000/220 product which has been around for years, at any time they wanted to. They haven't done so, not even after announcing 1G/1G.

They are simply not interested in competing in this niche space for consumers. The altnets *are* going to take some customers, or else they will fold - and OFCOM won't allow that. Therefore, let them take all the high bandwidth uploaders and deal with issues around PON contention. Openreach keeps all the rest, and the vast majority (and I mean vast) don't give a hoot about upload speeds.

You have to remember that people like us, who talk about broadband all day, are not representative of the population as a whole. Most people just see it as a tool to watch TV and do their shopping. Those are the customers Openreach want to capture.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I think it will come down to around £100 a month inc vat for top tier 1Gbps / 1Gbp from 2026 onwards from BTw to ISPs.

we really don't know OR's xgs-pon tiers yet. That will dictate 1g/1g pricing. When or goes to 50g pon, we may see gpon, xgs-pon and 50g pon in co-existence. Note that 50g pon has more or less succeeded 25g pon and 40gb pon.

There's an article in the latest issue of PC Pro about OR testing 50G PON.

They test a lot and their trials last years usualy.

Now that April has come and gone, has anyone seen any ISPs offering 1G/1G on FTTP?

Given the high price point set by Openreach I imagine only business ISPs will be offering it.

I thought Cerberus might, but no - although they still offer the older 1000/220 service at £212.16 per month (plus a £594 installation fee). Either they haven't gotten around to updating their portfolio, or this means BTw don't offer it yet.

Nor do AAISP who use multiple wholesale networks, nor IDNet, although they do offer 1800/120.

I expect as Openreach will only make this product (initially at least) available in rural areas covered by their Project Gigabit (Type C) roll-out contracts, then it somewhat may dampen the enthusiasm of any ISPs likely to offer it.

Perhaps as such it’s available in those areas on a request-type basis rather than being openly advertised on their websites etc, as that may just cause more unfulfillable requests…

I do understand the need for OR to understand how such a product would work in the wild, but with its high price and very limited availability it does seems a borked product. Only upload useage and the effects of it on other users would be something new.

Unless it is an xgs-pon product then it just reminds me of g.fast ... ie made sense at the dp level but not at the cab level and in the meanwhile fttp became defacto. Which will be like the xgs-pon trail next year.

So so messy

Yeah. Its evidently not a priority for them.

In reply to a post by Taras:

I do understand the need for OR to understand how such a product would work in the wild, but with its high price and very limited availability it does seems a borked product. Only upload useage and the effects of it on other users would be something new.

Unless it is an xgs-pon product then it just reminds me of g.fast ... ie made sense at the dp level but not at the cab level and in the meanwhile fttp became defacto. Which will be like the xgs-pon trail next year.

So so messy

They offered it because they had to, it was required for the public subsidy. They have no intention of selling it more widely and had no other reason to provide it.

Nothing messy about it. Nothing more interesting about it either really. Priced to minimise uptake, offered where they had to and nowhere else, they don't want to sell it.

Not comparable to anything else as just a configuration file.

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

They offered it because they had to, it was required for the public subsidy. They have no intention of selling it more widely and had no other reason to provide it.

Nothing messy about it. Nothing more interesting about it either really. Priced to minimise uptake, offered where they had to and nowhere else, they don't want to sell it.

Not comparable to anything else as just a configuration file.

I didn't realise or knew that it was a requirement for the type c contracts. But if that was the case, won't start to ask in type c areas "why can't i order OR 1G up/down ?

It would presumably have to be the ISPs asking that question, if Openreach have the product on a price list and no partner buys it then they've still held up their side of the deal - they can't force an ISP to take the service, and neither can BDUK.

It's a pretty similar situation to the 1Gbps+ packages from Openreach, in that currently, most ISPs have a commercial relationship with BT Wholesale for OR packages. BTW have not released pricing/commercials or made available the 1000/1000 package.