Symmetric full fibre broadband

My street has recently been upgraded to FTTH Offering up to 900Mbps download and up to 215Mvps upload. Is the asymmetric speed an intrinsic feature of FTTH or is it just BTOR purposely limiting the upload speed to conserve bandwidth? If the latter then how can I get a symmetric service?

It is a feature of the way the Openreach GPON fibre works. See.

My Gigaclear 1Gbps FTTP connection is symmetric as the fibre goes direct from my property to a Gigaclear cabinet without being combined with data for anyone else.

In reply to a post by joconnell:

If the latter then how can I get a symmetric service?

Not from Openreach at present. Other GPON networks offer symmetric options, some (e.g. nexfibre) charge more for this.

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

My Gigaclear 1Gbps FTTP connection is symmetric as the fibre goes direct from my property to a Gigaclear cabinet without being combined with data for anyone else.

Is Gigaclear Point-to-Point then?? I thought only B4RN was.

Other GPON networks, the newer ones these days are XGS-PON, offer symmetric speeds even using splitters. Commonly 900 Mbps download, 900 Mbps upload. Openreach currently doesn't offer this on their FTTP.

In reply to a post by joconnell:

My street has recently been upgraded to FTTH Offering up to 900Mbps download and up to 215Mvps upload. Is the asymmetric speed an intrinsic feature of FTTH or is it just BTOR purposely limiting the upload speed to conserve bandwidth? If the latter then how can I get a symmetric service?

It's a mixture.

The GPON technology used by Openreach runs at 2.4Gbps down, 1.2Gbps up, and is shared by up to 30 subscribers. Although all the bits are sent at the same speed, the OLT in the exchange limits the rate at which packets are sent to each subscriber to the overall speed they have paid for.

Openreach have decided to limit the upload speeds (a) to protect the network against becoming over-contended at busy times, degrading service for other users on the same PON; and (b) to protect their leased line revenues, where they charge a lot more for a dedicated 1G/1G link.

But this *is* a business decision. Cityfibre use the same GPON technology in the older parts of their network, and still allow 900/900 symmetric. They are basically accepting the risk that two subscribers on a PON could completely saturate the upload direction; in practice it doesn't happen too often.

Side note: although Openreach claim 1000/220 for their network, almost nobody sells the 220M upload product (not even BT themselves) because the price is stupidly high. You can buy it from Cerberus for £594 install plus £204 per month. It is cheaper to buy two separate 1000/115 services! But higher download speeds are now offered (to compete with VM) so in practice, 1800/120 is the maximum you can buy.

It's primarily a commercial decision, if you've only got the Openreach FTTP network available to you then you can't get a symmetric service (yet). It's not worth worrying about too much since there's nothing you can do about it, pick an FTTP provider and enjoy it.

I've had another look at what's available via PlusNet and the upload speed is 115Mbps and not the 200-odd that I'd first thought. Which is a shame as I'd hoped full-fibre would allow me to make the most of on-line backup services for my NAS drive.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Openreach have decided to limit the upload speeds (a) to protect the network against becoming over-contended at busy times, degrading service for other users on the same PON; and (b) to protect their leased line revenues, where they charge a lot more for a dedicated 1G/1G link.

But this *is* a business decision. Cityfibre use the same GPON technology in the older parts of their network, and still allow 900/900 symmetric. They are basically accepting the risk that two subscribers on a PON could completely saturate the upload direction; in practice it doesn't happen too often.

Side note: although Openreach claim 1000/220 for their network, almost nobody sells the 220M upload product (not even BT themselves) because the price is stupidly high. You can buy it from Cerberus for £594 install plus £204 per month. It is cheaper to buy two separate 1000/115 services! But higher download speeds are now offered (to compete with VM) so in practice, 1800/120 is the maximum you can buy.

So basically if VM start offering symmetric products to us home users, BT will be forced to do the same to stay competitive. I reckon that'll never happen though.

In reply to a post by joconnell:

So basically if VM start offering symmetric products to us home users, BT will be forced to do the same to stay competitive. I reckon that'll never happen though.

VM’s nexfibre areas offer symmetric already.

https://www.techradar.com/computing/wi-fi-broadband/...

In VM’s coax/DOCSIS areas, probably won’t be offered until the cabling is replaced under Project Mustang, which is reported to be planning to replace all coax with FTTP by 2028. (Assuming XGS-PON, which is what nexfibre are installing)

Edited by jchamier (Wed 18-Sep-24 18:56:05)

In reply to a post by joconnell:

So basically if VM start offering symmetric products to us home users, BT will be forced to do the same to stay competitive.

Not true, because only a very small proportion of users care about upload speeds. If BT can keep milking the undemanding majority, as well as their leased line business, they won't mind a small number of bandwidth hogs moving off to VM or the altnets.

For reference: Aquiss used to sell FTTP 40/2 (yes 2Mbps upload!), which they priced at £1 per month less than 40/10, which in turn was £1 per month less than 80/20. And yet, a full one third of their customers took the 40/2 option.

They were forced to stop selling it because Openreach withdrew the product.