Crystal Ball Gazing - Openreach roll-out of XGS-PON

So who has their crystal ball under control?

I wonder how long it will be before the Openreach XGS-PON trial concludes; what that will mean for a roll-out; how rapid it will be; and how expensive faster circuits will end up being

Any predictions?

The full launch will be this year, expecting q3 or q4 of this year. Q4 is more likely, just so that isps are ready .... OR have been sitting on combo pon for age now so the bean counters will want to see a return on that.

Price wise i'm expecting 5% to 15% more on the openreach pricing. Isp pricing who knows.

Price-wise, I'm expecting it not to undercut existing products.

At wholesale, the prices are currently:

£71.23+VAT for 500/165
£77.70+VAT for 1000/220
£103.60+VAT for 1000/1000 (in the very limited areas it's available)

I would not expect XGS-PON services faster than 1800/120(*) to undercut these. Why not? Because Openreach aren't competing with altnets; they're competing primarily with themselves for business services, and these FTTP services are priced to be low-cost leased lines.

It's in Openreach's interest to allow altnets a moderate proportion of market share (say 10% of total customer base), because having a market which appears to work means lower regulation from OFCOM. If Openreach were to crush the altnets, they'd be back to being a tightly regulated monopoly.

Those people who have Openreach connections and expecting to get cheap symmetric broadband for £5-£10 per month more than you're currently paying: I expect you will be sorely disappointed. I don't think you'll even be able to buy it through a retail ISP. Note that BT Retail and BT Business don't even sell the 500/165 and 1000/220 tiers today, despite Openreach making them available across the whole FTTP footprint.

I would expect existing tiers including 1000/115 and 1800/120 to be priced the same on XGS-PON; consumers don't care what technology delivers their broadband, and it gives OR the option to install XGS-PON ONTs as standard in areas that support it.

I suspect that with XGS-PON they'll use higher split ratios of 128:1, at least in new build areas. That's where the real ROI is for Openreach: one quarter the number of ports means one quarter of the amount of rack space and less power. Not faster services.

(*) 1800/120 is £44.23+VAT at standard wholesale pricing. I don't know if there is Equinox pricing for this tier.

Edited by candlerb (Thu 28-May-26 08:48:35)

From the current beta pricing there is no overlap between gpon and xgspon. Given that Gpon installs should be now "free bar maintence cost and any yearly license costs etc* " They might as well keep gpon there. The ideal sitatuion is a combo pon ont - so you install and forget!

* = obviously for 1 to 2 year installs its not "free". I don't know their break even point for an area. Since each pon has a different build cost.

gpon will become the new "adsl". Entry level.

As for higher split levels, wouldn't it complicate things if they had two different levels of spliting -ie 1/32 for gpon and 1/64 or 1/128 for xgspon?

Regarding pricing, Or will want the 800k lines they lost back, so there will be competive pricing, but not to much to kill their other "business products"

The other thing is, years ago somebody said(isp) it cost them more to send say 10gbytes at 100mbits than at 5mbits, even though it would take longer. obviously that was down to hardware costs and cablelink costs etc. Whilst still there now, it only becomes noticable, at 50gbits(could argue its really at 100gbits)+ simply because of the costs of running more expensive equipment (i know that you understand that) but for those who don't its important to understand costings.

In regards to rack costs and power, i suspect the sfp modules will be more power hungry just like rj45 sfp(+) modules are. The comments about 1/4 if went to 1/128 would only work if it was xgspon only .. Not sure if gpon can do 128 ( can look but cba -😂 ).

keeping to combo pon probably saves them more than a 1/4 reduction.

Even though i think moving to premium care levels that can applied to any product would make far more sense then to charge for base products. But lets see how they tackle xgs and the altnet

The big problem to work anything out is that if we (any tbber) went to a data centre and installed the same equipment into a rack the costs will be higher etc. That part is obvious. But those costings are highly sensitive information to OR, The alt nets could do a good guess but their price model is to undercut OR, so they will run their systems to the cheapest possible .

Edited by Taras (Thu 28-May-26 09:56:36)

In reply to a post by candlerb:

(*) 1800/120 is £44.23+VAT at standard wholesale pricing. I don't know if there is Equinox pricing for this tier.

I think there is due to the price reduction on some 1800 products.

In reply to a post by Taras:

Or will want the 800k lines they lost back

No, that's the point - they don't. They're much better off running with 90% of users and light-touch regulation, than having 100% of the users and much more onerous regulation.

EDIT: BT's public view here.

“we’ll have a smaller market share, but it’ll be a more valuable modern-day asset that delivers a much better customer experience … even with that lower market share”

Edited by candlerb (Thu 28-May-26 10:27:38)

In reply to a post by Taras:

In reply to a post by candlerb:

(*) 1800/120 is £44.23+VAT at standard wholesale pricing. I don't know if there is Equinox pricing for this tier.

I think there is due to the price reduction on some 1800 products.

Yes, you are right. Equinox 2 price list shows 1.8G at £23.28 or £20.70+VAT, depending on whether ARPU targets are met.

That's only a few pence more than gigabit, so gives the CSPs an opportunity to sell a "premium" service at a higher profit margin.

The prices for 500/165, 1000/220 and 1000/1000 are out of line with the 1000/110 and below products.
I would expect the symmetric and higher speed products to become more mainstream, but would they at these prices?

I personally would pay more for a symmetric 1000 connection; ideally I'd go a bit faster but I don't really need it - more because I have a 10gb internal core in my home-lab so I'm ready for it

In reply to a post by Jabes:

The prices for 500/165, 1000/220 and 1000/1000 are out of line with the 1000/110 and below products.
I would expect the symmetric and higher speed products to become more mainstream, but would they at these prices?

Remember that the 1g/1gbit offering was more a contractual thing for the type c bduk project gigabit areas. I'd be surprised if there's actually even 5 connections.

The pricing structure will need to change. But to what

In reply to a post by Jabes:

I personally would pay more for a symmetric 1000 connection; ideally I'd go a bit faster but I don't really need it - more because I have a 10gb internal core in my home-lab so I'm ready for it

I'd rather have 1g/1gb than 2.5g/220mbit if it was the same price.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by Taras:

Or will want the 800k lines they lost back

No, that's the point - they don't. They're much better off running with 90% of users and light-touch regulation, than having 100% of the users and much more onerous regulation.

EDIT: BT's public view here.

“we’ll have a smaller market share, but it’ll be a more valuable modern-day asset that delivers a much better customer experience … even with that lower market share”

from the same article

But equally, BT’s boss noted that they’ve still “got to be competitive, rather than just accept that every line we can lose forever“.

i think i should have said - they will want some of their 800k lost lines back. i think that they will have to be competitive with xgs pon baring the 5g and 8g products.

Note, I'm sorta being lazy with the speed terminology party because its hot and also we aren't talking about anything else.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

That's only a few pence more than gigabit, so gives the CSPs an opportunity to sell a "premium" service at a higher profit margin.

even if you grab 1k lines on that discount, a few pence matters. Plus being a "halo product" you will see mates bragging to each other.

In reply to a post by Taras:

I'd rather have 1g/1gb than 2.5g/220mbit if it was the same price.

Me too.
I'd rather have 2.5/2.5, then 1/1 if that was too expensive.

In reply to a post by Jabes:

In reply to a post by Taras:

I'd rather have 1g/1gb than 2.5g/220mbit if it was the same price.

Me too.
I'd rather have 2.5/2.5, then 1/1 if that was too expensive.

exactly.

In reply to a post by Jabes:

I'd rather have 2.5/2.5, then 1/1 if that was too expensive.

Some alt nets have offered this.
2300 Mbps symmetric - £40/month on 24 month contract.
https://www.toob.co.uk/

Shame they're just out of reach of me.

Not seeing much in the way of combo kit installed yet

In reply to a post by Jabes:

The prices for 500/165, 1000/220 and 1000/1000 are out of line with the 1000/110 and below products.

Which is intentional.

Actually, there was a slight drop in the 1000/220 tier from £97.78+VAT to £75+VAT on 1 Aug 2025. I believe this reduction was to increase the differential against the 1000/1000 tier which was £100+VAT at the time.

There was no corresponding reduction on 500/165 though, so no general signal that higher upload speeds will become cheaper.

In reply to a post by Jabes:

I personally would pay more for a symmetric 1000 connection

But *how much* more would you pay? You can order a 1G (or 10G) symmetric leased line today, and it will likely be delivered within 2-3 months.

IMO, Openreach are unlikely to introduce a service which gains £5 per month from a small number of home enthusiasts, but cannibalises a significant proportion of their leased line business.

That is actually interesting given that they have "bleeted on" that they were installing combo pon for the last two years or so. Thought it would be only at the sfp module level for the combo pon to be active - unless the backhaul on the olt wasn't enough.

ie https://www.fs.com/uk/products/162667.html

Edited by Taras (Fri 29-May-26 09:46:44)

In reply to a post by candlerb:

IMO, Openreach are unlikely to introduce a service which gains £5 per month from a small number of home enthusiasts, but cannibalises a significant proportion of their leased line business.

And most poeple don't understand this. Their business products are very lucative for them and untill (probably when hell freezes over) they won't change their product in therms of splitting sla and the physical product.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

IMO, Openreach are unlikely to introduce a service which gains £5 per month from a small number of home enthusiasts, but cannibalises a significant proportion of their leased line business.

I wonder how many leased lines are installed to domestic homes? They could arbitrate by the type of building I would have thought. (Yes there are some, but I would guess larger homes, than flats or terraces).

As Virgin Media are working on their coax to FTTP replacement, and when they start moving users over I expect them to compete with the AltNets as they do in nexfibre areas; and offer symmetric for a higher fee. VM has never had a problem charging high prices. As VM has sufficient national coverage, it could persuade Openreach to change their mind.

In reply to a post by Taras:

In reply to a post by candlerb:

IMO, Openreach are unlikely to introduce a service which gains £5 per month from a small number of home enthusiasts, but cannibalises a significant proportion of their leased line business.

And most poeple don't understand this. Their business products are very lucative for them and untill (probably when hell freezes over) they won't change their product in therms of splitting sla and the physical product.

And this forum was full of people saying Openreach/BT Group wouldn't roll out FTTP and would keep going with VDSL/FTTC and G.Fast.... to protect leased line revenue. Times and management change.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by Taras:

In reply to a post by candlerb:

IMO, Openreach are unlikely to introduce a service which gains £5 per month from a small number of home enthusiasts, but cannibalises a significant proportion of their leased line business.

And most poeple don't understand this. Their business products are very lucative for them and untill (probably when hell freezes over) they won't change their product in therms of splitting sla and the physical product.

And this forum was full of people saying Openreach/BT Group wouldn't roll out FTTP and would keep going with VDSL/FTTC and G.Fast.... to protect leased line revenue. Times and management change.

if the split there sla and other "addons" away from the actual phyiscal product, be it vdsl or fibre (fttp, leased lines etc) then that comment goes away.

I do agree management understings are key here. in the 2000s BT group thought high speeds were a luxury. BT(and then OR) were proved wrong not once, but thrice! (adsl, vdsl and fttp). TBF competition has pushed OR to change. Alt nets have done a lot of good which they very often do not get the credit for.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

As Virgin Media are working on their coax to FTTP replacement, and when they start moving users over I expect them to compete with the AltNets as they do in nexfibre areas; and offer symmetric for a higher fee. VM has never had a problem charging high prices. As VM has sufficient national coverage, it could persuade Openreach to change their mind.

You're talking about <10% of the population (as opposed to people on this forum!) who are interested in high upload speeds.

As far as I can tell, Openreach is quite happy to lose those customers from its network. Those are the bandwidth hogs - for example, the people who regularly download 8K videos to their desktop, process them locally, and then re-upload them to the cloud. Any PON is a shared resource, and these users degrade the service for everyone else, whilst not paying their fair share.

Here, altnets and Virgin: you have these painful customers, and we'll keep the profitable 90%, thank you very much!

However, the main competitive push from altnets is not on upload speeds, but on pricing. They cherry-pick build areas and undercut Openreach, but since OR's base price is regulated OR can't respond. Consumers *are* very sensitive to price, and most treat broadband as fungible: if they can save £1 per month, they will switch. In the case of large retailers like Sky and Talktalk who have access to wholesale altnets like Cityfibre, this happens automatically behind the scenes.

However, this same undercutting model is what's caused the vast debts to build up in the altnet sector. I expect OR is quite happy to watch the slow-motion train wreck from the sidelines. In a few years they will have a national FTTP network which covers 85%+ of the UK, funded primarily from revenue and not debt: their position is assured, even if 20% of users have moved to different networks by then.

In reply to a post by Taras:

TBF competition has pushed OR to change. Alt nets have done a lot of good which they very often do not get the credit for.

Absolutely: altnets gave BT/OR the kick up the backside they needed to deploy FTTP, and indeed they supplied the business case. Without Altnets, OR would only be migrating their own customers from copper to FTTP, at almost zero incremental revenue: there would be happy users but no return on investment, apart from perhaps lower fault rates. But once customers start being lost to altnets, deploying FTTP to stem or reverse that loss has direct impact on the bottom line.

I suspect the current XGS-PON work is based on two main drivers:

(1) Satisfying shareholders that the network remains fit-for-purpose into the future (although really the asset is the fibre in the ground, not the OLT/ONT)

(2) Ensuring supply chain continuity, as GPON equipment becomes harder to source and XGS-PON becomes the new base standard

However, it does also give some options for leased-line-ish business services delivered over XGS-PON, which can be quickly and cheaply delivered to any property where the FTTP network already exists. That's what I think the new XGS-PON speed tiers will be aimed at: enabling CSPs to sell services around the £150 mark, comparable to what some of the business-focussed altnets are delivering over their own fibre.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by Taras:

TBF competition has pushed OR to change. Alt nets have done a lot of good which they very often do not get the credit for.

Absolutely: altnets gave BT/OR the kick up the backside they needed to deploy FTTP, and indeed they supplied the business case. Without Altnets, OR would only be migrating their own customers from copper to FTTP, at almost zero incremental revenue: there would be happy users but no return on investment, apart from perhaps lower fault rates. But once customers start being lost to altnets, deploying FTTP to stem or reverse that loss has direct impact on the bottom line.

Alt nets have pushed speed as well and we may have been left on the 500mbits tier if there was no competition.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

I suspect the current XGS-PON work is based on two main drivers:

(1) Satisfying shareholders that the network remains fit-for-purpose into the future (although really the asset is the fibre in the ground, not the OLT/ONT)

oh Fibre is basically build and forget(except for cable damage etc)

In reply to a post by candlerb:

(2) Ensuring supply chain continuity, as GPON equipment becomes harder to source and XGS-PON becomes the new base standard

Just remember that 25g pon has been superseeded by 50gbit pon (40gb usable), why am i saying this, well thats how slow OR have been.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

However, it does also give some options for leased-line-ish business services delivered over XGS-PON, which can be quickly and cheaply delivered to any property where the FTTP network already exists. That's what I think the new XGS-PON speed tiers will be aimed at: enabling CSPs to sell services around the £150 mark, comparable to what some of the business-focussed altnets are delivering over their own fibre.

I think xgs pon speeds will be split between consumer and business pricing with the split either at 3gbits or 5gbits+.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

You're talking about <10% of the population (as opposed to people on this forum!) who are interested in high upload speeds.

No disagreement, but if you sell this as an option, you can gain significant incremental revenue that is, like most broadband, hardly used.

As far as I can tell, Openreach is quite happy to lose those customers from its network. Those are the bandwidth hogs - for example, the people who regularly download 8K videos to their desktop, process them locally, and then re-upload them to the cloud. Any PON is a shared resource, and these users degrade the service for everyone else, whilst not paying their fair share.

That was the debate we had 27 years ago in 1999 with NTL cable modem trial... and the technology has always been ahead; as noted the optical fibre is the asset, not the OLT/ONT. The assumption that there are "hogs" is managable when you have scale, Openreach obviously do, and Virgin Media now do. CityFibre is a maybe.

Here, altnets and Virgin: you have these painful customers, and we'll keep the profitable 90%, thank you very much!

You might argue that if it wasn't for cable that BT Group Plc wouldn't have launched broadband, preferring the revenue of ISDN. Time doesn't stand still, even for BT Group Plc.

However, the main competitive push from altnets is not on upload speeds, but on pricing. They cherry-pick build areas and undercut Openreach, but since OR's base price is regulated OR can't respond.

I actually would like to have ANYONE as an alternative to my current Virgin coax extremely expensive service; and I suspect even Openreach won't bother with the insane wayleave battle that my building owner is causing (I'm hoping for legislation). Either way the Openreach FTTP offerings are cheaper than VM offerings around here, and VirginMediaO2 has an absolutely horrendous end of fixed term contract mess.

Consumers *are* very sensitive to price, and most treat broadband as fungible: if they can save £1 per month, they will switch. In the case of large retailers like Sky and Talktalk who have access to wholesale altnets like Cityfibre, this happens automatically behind the scenes.

I disagree. There are some who will jump for as little as £1 but most of my team and wider colleagues want a) reliability and b) predictability... and that is worth some money. Not double.

However, this same undercutting model is what's caused the vast debts to build up in the altnet sector. I expect OR is quite happy to watch the slow-motion train wreck from the sidelines.

Reminds me of the coax world in the early 2000s, there will be mergers. Those with deeper pockets are already buying others.

In a few years they will have a national FTTP network which covers 85%+ of the UK, funded primarily from revenue and not debt: their position is assured, even if 20% of users have moved to different networks by then.

Exactly as Alison (newer group CEO) even said. The unstated obvious was that if they reduce enough then they might get out of Ofcom regulation. I doubt that myself.

(Interesting data point, traffic on mobile data has stopped increasing at the exponential rates... for quite a while now. So is the same happing in fixed line?)

In reply to a post by jchamier:

The unstated obvious was that if they reduce enough then they might get out of Ofcom regulation.

Or, if there are a couple of other players who grow sufficiently in their market power (Virgin/Nexfibre being one possibility, Cityfibre another)

In reply to a post by jchamier:

(Interesting data point, traffic on mobile data has stopped increasing at the exponential rates... for quite a while now. So is the same happing in fixed line?)

OFCOM publish figures for broadband traffic use and they still seem to be growing exponentially. Remember "exponential" means just increasing by the same multiplier per unit time; growth of 10% per year is exponential, i.e. (1.1)^t

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Or, if there are a couple of other players who grow sufficiently in their market power (Virgin/Nexfibre being one possibility, Cityfibre another)

Agreed, there is a lot of possibility.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

OFCOM publish figures for broadband traffic use and they still seem to be growing exponentially. Remember "exponential" means just increasing by the same multiplier per unit time; growth of 10% per year is exponential, i.e. (1.1)^t

It was the lack of radical increase for quite a period that seems to have surprised the mobile markets, and will be good for operators as the amount they've had to spend recently has been insane given the Huawei decision and the speed of 5G push.

Edited by jchamier (Fri 29-May-26 19:12:15)

"Openreach won't bother with the insane wayleave battle that my building owner is causing (I'm hoping for legislation)."

I Thought all this wayleave nonsense has been sorted? Making it impossible for landlords to refuse a wayleave?

Openreach Installed in my area
FTTC 2014
G.fast 2020
FTTP 2026

And finally XGS-PON FTTP maybe in 2032

Edited by adslmax (Sat 30-May-26 06:04:36)

In reply to a post by witchunt:

Not seeing much in the way of combo kit installed yet

Adtran is claiming 30%

https://www.adtran.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/20...

And the fun thing is that your statement can be true as well.........

In reply to a post by Brunel:

I Thought all this wayleave nonsense has been sorted? Making it impossible for landlords to refuse a wayleave?

Wrong. If the landlord fails to respond to enquiries, there's a legal process that can be followed [^1]. But if the landlord actively says no, there's still no recourse. Also, they can demand whatever fee they like.

This was discussed again last year as part of the renter's rights bill [^2] but dropped, partly because it would only apply to renters, not leasehold. However, the altnets don't want to see an automatic right to upgrade from copper to fibre, since they fear it would give Openreach rights that they don't have themselves.

Last I heard, discussions were still ongoing [^3]. There was talk of establishing a right for tenants to "request" gigabit broadband, and a new landlord duty not to “unreasonably refuse”.

[^1] https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/03/new-uk...
[^2] https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2025/05/govern...
[^3] https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2025/12/gov-to...

Edited by candlerb (Sat 30-May-26 09:14:34)

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Last I heard, discussions were still ongoing [^3]. There was talk of establishing a right for tenants to "request" gigabit broadband, and a new landlord duty not to “unreasonably refuse”.

We are going to end up with coax virgin media only, as its capable of gigabit, when two alt nets in the road, and (hopefully soon) Openreach will offer 2 Gbps and symmetric. Coax Virgin that disconnects due to failing infrastructure. Its all the funnier as they are a "Registered Social Landlord" which is Govt regulated, you'd assume things are much worse for commercially owned.

The SDX platform consists of both GPON only and Combo GPON/XGSPON. Openreach use the SDX 6020 GPON OLT. So far I have only seen a couple of SDX 6330 combo OLTs. Need to change out the OLTs for XGSPON.
I see NOKIA kit for the most part and have not seen any XGS cards yet.

In reply to a post by witchunt:

The SDX platform consists of both GPON only and Combo GPON/XGSPON. Openreach use the SDX 6020 GPON OLT. So far I have only seen a couple of SDX 6330 combo OLTs. Need to change out the OLTs for XGSPON.
I see NOKIA kit for the most part and have not seen any XGS cards yet.

Thank you for the clarification..its always appreicated. 👍🏽

I don't think there are many users downloading and uploading 8K videos. It's extremely hard to hammer a XGS-PON connection, especially with SSD prices the way they are. Given at even 1gbit/sec you an fill a 1TB SSD in a couple of hours (and you can't fill a HDD at line speed) it's very difficult to max it out 24/7.

Given even GPON has 2.5gbit/sec downlink you'd need more than 1 user to hammer it to cause any real impact at all. And even then the bandwidth allocation algos will share it with the other users fine. Realistically I think you'd need to have 3 or 4 users on GPON hammering it for anyone to start noticing it (and even then you'd , which is incredibly rare on the GPON split ratios openreach use.

Also this idea that BT is making a fortune off leased lines isn't particularly true. As far as I can tell they made around £1bn last year from leased lines (out of £20bn). And that includes ethernet products for eg exchange backhaul.

Plus most businesses used leased lines not for speed per se, but for the support and SLAs that come with it. I really don't think you'd see much attrition from those kind of customers to 'consumer' FTTH. The amount of people that need more than 100mbit/sec upload but also don't want to pay for proper support and SLA must be vanishingly small.

In reply to a post by mr_mojo:

I don't think there are many users downloading and uploading 8K videos.

You are absolutely correct. And hence it's not in Openreach's interest to provide a low-cost, consumer-grade service which appeals to such a tiny minority.

Aside: other big consumers of upload bandwidth are people running torrent sites and the like. By keeping the upload speeds low in relation to download, this limits the amount of bandwidth such users can consume whilst leaving products as "unlimited", i.e. without having to apply data caps or fair usage policies to residential broadband lines. (The altnets who offer symmetric services are happy to take the risk, as they are desperate for *any* customers they can pick up)

In reply to a post by candlerb:

You are absolutely correct. And hence it's not in Openreach's interest to provide a low-cost, consumer-grade service which appeals to such a tiny minority.

So why do the developers of PON technology focus now on symmetric...? Its not as if the UK is early to the game, many other countries have symmetric 1 Gbps.

Aside: other big consumers of upload bandwidth are people running torrent sites and the like. By keeping the upload speeds low in relation to download, this limits the amount of bandwidth such users can consume whilst leaving products as "unlimited", i.e. without having to apply data caps or fair usage policies to residential broadband lines.

Surely this is where the separation of network provider and ISP is important, as Cityfibre, and hopefully Nexfibre (eventually) will both show. You can then have a symmetric upto 10Gbps network provider, and different ISPs can offer different products, with higher pricing for symmetric. It shouldn't be the network provider's job to deny symmetric products to the ISPs to sell to the end customer.

We had symmetric for years on dial up and ISDN, and we were forced into asymmetric with DSL... surely if the technology can now do it, the network shouldn't be the limitation. The end user product should be.

It's entirely a business decision, not a technical one.

Anyway, as the thread said, this is crystal ball gazing, and my crystal ball could be wrong. There are many different tiers of XGS-PON in the SIN document, although as I understand, only 3300/330 and 3300/3300 are in the pilot.

My crystal ball says that the 3300/330 XGS-PON tier needs to be more expensive than 1000/220 GPON (since it's higher at both download and upload), which means it needs to be more than £77.70+VAT. However it could be cheaper than 1000/1000 at £103.60+VAT

The 3300/3300 tier needs to be more expensive than the 1000/1000 tier, and therefore needs to be more than £103.60+VAT.

We won't be seeing any Openreach roll-out of XGS-PON at least until 2030 - mark my word!

Edited by adslmax (Sun 31-May-26 19:06:28)

My point isn't that. My point is that the amount of users is so small that will hammer it to any 'uneconomic' rate that it isn't worth changing the design and appeal of the entire openreach stack.

Are you aware just how cheap bandwidth is btw? he.net does 40gbit/sec (symmetrical) of internet transit for... $1600/month. This would probably cover a lot of altnets _entire_ transit needs. Even in this world where there are users that are hammering download/upload of an entire XGS-PON segment they are 'only' costing you $400/month.

This isn't like it was in the early 2000s when a handful of users maxing out a 2mbit/sec DSL connection (whcih was very easy to do) would bring down an entire exchange backhaul.

Regarding torrent sites, that isn't really true either. The upstream is sitting there idle - even if they hammer it uploading files consumer ISPs are so downlink heavy that is effectively wasted bandwidth being used. Also, again, you will have serious problems trying to saturate 10gibt/sec upload on torrent sites. There just isn't enough people downloading to achieve that for a significant amount of time (in relation to other seeds).

In reply to a post by candlerb:

It's entirely a business decision, not a technical one.

Anyway, as the thread said, this is crystal ball gazing, and my crystal ball could be wrong. There are many different tiers of XGS-PON in the SIN document, although as I understand, only 3300/330 and 3300/3300 are in the pilot.

2.5gbit and 8.5gbit tiers are being piloted - https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2026/03/new-uk....


Also pliot price was released for other tiers

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/pilot-pricing-fo...

Edited by Taras (Sun 31-May-26 19:23:03)

You may be wrong. 😂🤭😂

In reply to a post by Taras:

You may be wrong. 😂🤭😂

I could be. lol but I stand my word!

In reply to a post by jchamier:

We had symmetric for years on dial up and ISDN, and we were forced into asymmetric with DSL... surely if the technology can now do it, the network shouldn't be the limitation. The end user product should be.

Exactly. Asymmetric was a historical aberration to squeeze a better customer experience out of DSL by making it ADSL.With fibre there is little need for this and to the extent that asymmetric limitations remain in the fibre network this would be better dealt with as asymmetric contention ratios rather than asymmetric speeds.

In reply to a post by mr_mojo:

Are you aware just how cheap bandwidth is btw? he.net does 40gbit/sec (symmetrical) of internet transit for... $1600/month. This would probably cover a lot of altnets _entire_ transit needs. Even in this world where there are users that are hammering download/upload of an entire XGS-PON segment they are 'only' costing you $400/month.

Conversely, if they get rid of that one user (or handful of users), they can reduce the price by $4/month across 100 other users. The ISP business is cut-throat and works on wafer-thin margins.

And whilst the transit is cheap, the costs of high-speed router ports and IXP ports are significant. Having to upgrade from 40G to 100G because of a handful of users is going to cost you a lot.

In reply to a post by DFScale:

In reply to a post by jchamier:

We had symmetric for years on dial up and ISDN, and we were forced into asymmetric with DSL... surely if the technology can now do it, the network shouldn't be the limitation. The end user product should be.

Exactly. Asymmetric was a historical aberration to squeeze a better customer experience out of DSL by making it ADSL.With fibre there is little need for this and to the extent that asymmetric limitations remain in the fibre network this would be better dealt with as asymmetric contention ratios rather than asymmetric speeds.

Just remember that xdsl did have upload limitations and that with the uk rollout of fttp, involved a castrated eci olt upload was an issue. So along with the 2.5/1.25 limit on gpon, OR kept with asymmetrical speeds

with xgs-pon those limits should not be there

In reply to a post by Taras:

2.5gbit and 8.5gbit tiers are being piloted - https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2026/03/new-uk....

Ah yes. Also the full set of possible speed tiers are in STIN 1007 v1.1 linked from https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2025/12/openre....

I note that none of the tiers have an upstream prioritized rate of more than 110 Mbps, and only two legacy products (1000/220 and 500/165) have a downstream prioritized rate above 110 Mbps. This implies they're maintaining the option of a split of 64:1 on XGS-PON.

Shame there's no 300/300 or 500/500. Any tier of interest to me is likely to be more expensive than the 500/165 tier at £71.23+VAT wholesale. (That tier currently retails at £162.24 inc VAT per month from Cerberus, with a £594 activation fee)

They proabably are gonna keep 1gbit users and below on gpon. Which makes sense!

also

In reply to a post by candlerb:

(That tier currently retails at £162.24 inc VAT per month from Cerberus, with a £594 activation fee)

i never understood the install charge expect to disuade people from buying said product. For those who don't know there is no different ont, no difference to install ..... Zero, nada - its just the flipping same.

Edited by Taras (Mon 01-Jun-26 14:32:12)

In reply to a post by Taras:

i never understood the install charge expect to disuade people from buying said product. For those who don't know there is no different ont, no difference to install ..... Zero, nada - its just the flipping same.

Cerberus is good ISP as I used to be with them for SoGfast 330/50 but for any FTTP their pricing is way too expensive. I got FTTP with Olilo ISP for 900/110.

I know Aquiss do have 6 months half price for 6 months for Full Fibre 900/110 but Olilo is the best deal than Aquiss but same speed, same highest customer service, same latency. No difference.

Olilo 900/110 @ 12 months £36.99 = £443.88 (migrate or cease line £0.00)
Aquiss 900/110 @ 6 months £27.50 = £165.00 then 6 months £55.00 = £330 Total £495 (migrate free but cease they charged you £45 (just beware!) as you end up paying total bill £540 if you wish to cease FTTP!

Edited by adslmax (Mon 01-Jun-26 15:15:00)

In reply to a post by Taras:

i never understood the install charge expect to disuade people from buying said product. For those who don't know there is no different ont, no difference to install ..... Zero, nada - its just the flipping same.

The £500+VAT install charge was originally from Openreach, and it was mooted at the time that it was to do with subsidising a future upgrade to XGS-PON, or for GPON splitting these "high bandwidth" lines.

On 1 Apr 2025, Openreach dropped the install fee on 1000/220 and 500/165 to the same as all other FTTP products, but Cerberus still has not. Either Cerberus or BT Wholesale are pocketing the ~£400 difference now - if they sell any at all, that is.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Olilo 900/110 @ 12 months £36.99 = £443.88 (migrate or cease line £0.00)

Source? Their website is showing me £46 per month for a 12 month contract at 900/110 on Openreach.

On Freedom Fibre it's £36 per month, and on Cityfibre or MS3 it's £39 per month.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by Taras:

i never understood the install charge expect to disuade people from buying said product. For those who don't know there is no different ont, no difference to install ..... Zero, nada - its just the flipping same.

The £500+VAT install charge was originally from Openreach, and it was mooted at the time that it was to do with subsidising a future upgrade to XGS-PON, or for GPON splitting these "high bandwidth" lines.

Thankies for proding dat brain cell of mine, yeah it was xgs-pon, which of coursehas been delayed like a slow escaping fart

In reply to a post by candlerb:

On 1 Apr 2025, Openreach dropped the install fee on 1000/220 and 500/165 to the same as all other FTTP products, but Cerberus still has not. Either Cerberus or BT Wholesale are pocketing the ~£400 difference now - if they sell any at all, that is.

ooo I didn't know they had dropped the charge down to normal install pricing.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Source? Their website is showing me £46 per month for a 12 month contract at 900/110 on Openreach.

No it still £36.99 a month https://consumer.olilo.co.uk/ click on Openreach product

Feast
15+ devices
900/110
£36.99/month

Prices include VAT
One-time setup fee:£0 (Free installation)

Grr, that's because I'd clicked on "Techie" rather than "Consumer".

That totally puts me off Olilo.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Grr, that's because I'd clicked on "Techie" rather than "Consumer".

That totally puts me off Olilo.

Yeah Olilo have two different Prosumer or Consumer! You pay more on Prosumer (including free static ip address)

This is why I went to consumer as the speed is fine for my need. Why pay more on Prosumer.

My service are reliable with Olilo with no downtime, no packet loss!
IPv6 https://pic.nperf.com/r/3646121447905467-0pHvzrLN.png
IPv4 https://pic.nperf.com/r/3646121917414448-1RCTbWLJ.png

Edited by adslmax (Mon 01-Jun-26 17:57:00)

OK so it's £38.99 per month for "consumer" if you take the static IP option (£2), or £46 per month for "prosumer" with static IP as standard, both at 900/110.

But I can't find anywhere that describes the difference between these two levels. Both have 9am-5pm support.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

OK so it's £38.99 per month for "consumer" if you take the static IP option (£2), or £46 per month for "prosumer" with static IP as standard, both at 900/110.

But I can't find anywhere that describes the difference between these two levels. Both have 9am-5pm support.

Consumer speeds top out at 1Gbps, while Prosumer supports faster multi-gig speeds.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

OK so it's £38.99 per month for "consumer" if you take the static IP option (£2), or £46 per month for "prosumer" with static IP as standard, both at 900/110.

But I can't find anywhere that describes the difference between these two levels. Both have 9am-5pm support.

"Consumer" uses APFN's IP network (via Openreach, CityFibre, etc.) whereas "Prosumer" uses Olilo's own network.

In reply to a post by behuk:

"Consumer" uses APFN's IP network (via Openreach, CityFibre, etc.) whereas "Prosumer" uses Olilo's own network.

Yeah I remember they told me this. I try to find it but you got it first here.

Yes but it's basically impossible to hammer a XGS-PON connection, my point was to illustrate that even if they did it would be virtually impossible to cause any significant cost on the ISP.

Think about it - a 2TB SSD drive costs about £200. You can fill that in about 30 mins on 8gbit/sec. So you'd have to spend thousands a DAY just buying SSDs to keep hammering it.

You'd need probably 10+ HDDs simultaneously being filled to even saturate the connection (cos the IO speed is so poor in comparison to the network connection).

Btw, linx port charges are even cheaper than he.net. https://www.linx.net/services/service-fees/ - less than £5k/month for 400gbit/sec ethernet.

In reply to a post by mr_mojo:

Yes but it's basically impossible to hammer a XGS-PON connection, my point was to illustrate that even if they did it would be virtually impossible to cause any significant cost on the ISP.

Think about it - a 2TB SSD drive costs about £200. You can fill that in about 30 mins on 8gbit/sec. So you'd have to spend thousands a DAY just buying SSDs to keep hammering it.

Indeed, and that's why ISPs don't care about bandwidth in the DOWNLOAD direction. You can only download so much video or games before you have to watch it / play it. Giving someone a faster download speed means they'll download the same amount of data, but in a shorter time.

But there are ways you can use continuous bandwidth in the UPLOAD direction: torrent sharing sites being a main example. If you accidentally (or intentionally) leave your computer serving torrents, then people all over the world will be pulling data from you 24x7.

This is one reason why consumer broadband services cap the upload speeds - so they can provide "unlimited" services without usage caps or FUPs. Someone filling a link outbound at 100Mbps causes much less damage than someone filling a link outbound at 1Gbps.

Again, this is outdated. You'll find it's impossible to saturate a 10gbit/sec uplink with (even) public torrent sites these days - there just isn't enough downloaders on the other side.

And as I said, this upstream is going to waste otherwise - all their links are symmetrical and highly highly downlink focussed, so adding say 400gbit/sec of upload demand doesn't touch anything.

I do agree this is more of a problem on GPON, but we're talking about XGS-PON here.

In reply to a post by mr_mojo:

Think about it - a 2TB SSD drive costs about £200. You can fill that in about 30 mins on 8gbit/sec.

You may find that dram buffers (or lack of) and constant writes causes that 30 minutes being a lot longer..

Given the natures of the internet you also may find some of your assumption wrong.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by mr_mojo:

I don't think there are many users downloading and uploading 8K videos.

You are absolutely correct. And hence it's not in Openreach's interest to provide a low-cost, consumer-grade service which appeals to such a tiny minority.

Aside: other big consumers of upload bandwidth are people running torrent sites and the like. By keeping the upload speeds low in relation to download, this limits the amount of bandwidth such users can consume whilst leaving products as "unlimited", i.e. without having to apply data caps or fair usage policies to residential broadband lines. (The altnets who offer symmetric services are happy to take the risk, as they are desperate for *any* customers they can pick up)

There's no risk here. Congestion on local networks is possible if unlikely, but bandwidth costs in terms of reaching external networks isn't an issue. Heavy upload users are strongly diluted by the rest of the customer base and the downstream direction is still, heavily, dominant.

It's actually quite odd that you're talking about offering symmetrical as being desperation when on XGSPON it's the standard worldwide and even GPON saw a bunch of symmetric tiers. Are Verizon, AT&T, etc desperate for any customers they can pick up?

Openreach charge a ton for higher upload GPON stuff purely to deter businesses from using it instead of DIA. The XGSPON trial they are refusing to sign up premises that are business on Ordinance Survey instead of using pricing as a deterrent. Openreach want business from Sky, Vodafone, etc. Those two are perfectly relaxed with offering symmetric as they know it won't impact their costs. They are, after all, the ones paying the bills for the capacity after it leaves the Openreach PON.

Openreach aren't the standard. Their upload speeds are disproportionate to download on PON. Their level of asymmetry is the exception, not the rule in competitive markets. There's no technical or business justification besides to protect DIA revenue. It's certainly nothing to do with their retail customers being scared of less asymmetry costing them money: besides BT Group they have been steadily losing lines to the, minimal, wholesale competition.

With streaming, etc, P2P has considerably reduced as a proportion of traffic. No consumer broadband ISP is contemplating having to upgrade core or edge hardware to accommodate upstream usage. Many forbid use of their services for hosting high traffic public servers, that's pretty standard and doesn't impact offering unlimited products.

Waiting for it myself, as CityFibre wont fix a slow upload issue on my circuit. (Nokia ONT). (cant exceed 170mbit on older network stacks due to ONT side packet ordering issues).
Openreach circuit migration will probably be finalised this summer.

my first stab at actual pricing isp pricing

As vm-o2 biz has now done a 2gbit up/down product we probably can start to guess sensible pricing for or based products

Symetrical speeds
2.5gbit biz -£110 ex vat
3.3gbit £150 ex vat
5.5 gbit £180 ex vat
8.5gbit £250 ex vat (maybe 300)

i think the 2.5gbit tier will see a business and consumer pricing options so £110 ex vat for biz and around £90 inc vat for consumer

the 250 upload will probably be around 60 to 70 and 500 around £70-80

I can see the 1.8gbit gpon product going to 50 to 60.

These are the cheapest prices i expect initally. I would love the 2.5gbit symetrical consumer to be 65ish but i just can't see or doing it but that depends on the alt.nets. would they really push 2gbits into the 40s or 35+

Are you predicting the wholesale price from OR to SP, or the final package price from SP to end user?

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Are you predicting the wholesale price from OR to SP, or the final package price from SP to end user?

sp, i expect to be wrong 😂. but i do expect the 2.5gbit pricing to be competitive, as there has been a huge drop in the 1.8gbit pricing

replying to my own post - as you do..

obviously the vm price of 83 was ex vat but also the headline 83 is 2000/200. So you have add on another 10 ex vat to the price for symetrical speeds.

for a business £120ish inc vat for 2gbits updown is very good .

CityFibre price their 2.5Gb service at a level where ISPs can retail it for £50+VAT, double that to have to deal with Virgin's offshored support and a network that still doesn't talk IPv6 is not great. I suspect they'll get customers where the alternative is a leased line and the business doesn't need the SLA.

sla is where it costs. Some need that and some don't.

I do we are in for some shocks in pricing but the higher end speeds being £££

In reply to a post by Jabes:

So who has their crystal ball under control?

I wonder how long it will be before the Openreach XGS-PON trial concludes; what that will mean for a roll-out; how rapid it will be; and how expensive faster circuits will end up being

Any predictions?

From ISPR news today…

EE UK Set to Expand Availability of 2.3Gbps and 8Gbps Broadband Pilot

I saw 2 adtran SDX6330 combo OLTs in a headend cluster recently. Mind you , it was just 2 out of 19 in the cluster and there were multiple clusters in the site, but it was a surprise

Looking through recent announcements, it's easy to see why many conclude Openreach is on the verge of launching XGS-PON nationally. We've seen:
- The Exchange Exit Programme ramping up, reducing the exchange estate from roughly 5,500 locations down to around 1,100 priority sites.
- Pilot wholesale pricing published for the 3.3Gbps tier.
- STIN1007 specifications outlining future 5.5Gbps and 8.5Gbps speed tiers.
- EE expanding its trial footprint for 2.3Gbps and 8Gbps tiers.

On paper, Openreach looks ready and their groundwork largely complete. However, I'm surprised none of the discussion looks at the other major bottlenecks "behind Openreach", and where we really need to be asking questions:

1. BTWholesale
BT Wholesale continues to be fat, lethargic dinosaur moving at glacial pace regarding multi-gigabit product support. Many CPs rely on BTW, but until they do something about upgrading their archaic PPP-only handoff and faster backhaul, all this XGS-PON goodness is basically unavailable to a large part of the market. They haven't even enabled 1800gbps support, let alone XGS-PON!

2. CPE devices and PPPoE
Most PPP stacks are single threaded and very old codebases - none of which have been updated to a modern spec. While there are some ways, for example using VPP to do so, this is not something a simple ISP router can use, and there are very few (if any) ASICs accelerating PPP. A PPP connection is fine for most of todays devices up to around 1.2-2gbps. But any faster the weedy CPUs in ISP routers simply can't keep up with the PPP tunnel. So without a wholesale shift to MAP-T (like Sky) or IPoE (aka DHCP as used by most altnets and TT), then PPP users simply won't see the speeds advertised.

3. Backhaul
This is twofold, first the backhaul from the exchanges to ISP handovers needs significant speed upgrades (also related to BT Wholesale), but also the 100gbps cable links announced by Openreach are a bit slow to get to market, and needed to make it cost effective for LLUs and Wholesale.

4. LLU mystery and Openreach Handover Points
But the most puzzling thing to me, is with the Exchange Exit Programme, it offfers a strategic opening for LLU providers (e.g. TT, Zen, Sky etc). In an XGS-PON world, one would expect LLU providers to completely saturate the remaining ~1,100 OHPs (The exchanges that will remain after most of the ~5,500 exchanges close) and beef up the back haul, provide the IPoE and fix all the issues in one fell swoop. Zen for example, with their Fibre Hub and their LLU presence currently makes it a bit of a nobrainer to do this, and I really wonder why they aren't, while they doggedly stick to the PPP model.

Even during the transition, it's not hard for Openreach to offer one of their many backhaul products (EBD, DFX or an innovative 'Stretch Cable Link' I think they should introduce), whereby LLU's have the equipment in the OHP, but OR offer a cable link from the old Exchange marked for shutdown back to the OHP that will eventually be the main exchange.

Either way, why have LLU players been so slow to establish a presence across these remaining OHPs? Is the capital expenditure for nationwide backhaul to 1,100 sites simply too high? Zen are already in ~700 exchanges, so ~1100 isn't a big shift... Are providers content to be passive resellers?

Until backhaul capacity scales, CPE issues are addressed, I fear XGS-PON via OR will remain a niche product rather than a ubiquitous reality.

But I definitely want to see these hard questions asked and answered, because at face value, Openreach (for once) itself doesn't seem to be the problem. And likewise I would like more transparency as to which ISP is using which aggregator and backhaul provider.

Presumably there is an equivalent upgrade project for Nokia OLTs taking place or are they concentrating on getting Adtran kit in for XGS?

There will be around 959 target “enduring” sites in the latest issue v29 of the exit programme spreadsheet. See: openreach.co.uk/cpportal/products/the-all-ip-programme/exchange-exit-programme

It will nevertheless be interesting to watch the progression to XGS in Openreach land now that the bulk of the FTTP build has been done.

In reply to a post by zzing123:

- EE expanding its trial footprint for 2.3Gbps and 8Gbps tiers.

AFAICS, the announcement *doesn't* extend the trial footprint.

Rather, the initial trial was "by invitation only" and then closed. They have now re-opened it so that anyone in the footprint can place an upgrade order, using the standard ordering process. But the actual footprint is unchanged, AFAICS: it's the same exchange areas.

In reply to a post by zzing123:

Until backhaul capacity scales, CPE issues are addressed, I fear XGS-PON via OR will remain a niche product rather than a ubiquitous reality.

Sadly, I expect it to remain a niche product indefinitely. The elephant in the room is price, and we have no idea what the final price will be. OR has existing 1G/1G and 1000/220 products which are already priced way out of reach. They could reduce them today, but they choose not to.

Techie nerds like us have a warped view of the marketplace. Even amongst existing OR FTTP users, the vast majority take 80/20. It's all they need and want, and that's where OR make their money.

We can all imagine the joy of going from 1000/110 to 8500/850. But if it turns out it will cost (let's say) £50 per month extra, then I suspect most of those will melt away.

Fundamentally, OR won't want to do anything that will destroy the existing market share of altnets, as strengthening their monopoly position will result in increased regulation.

All the other things you mention are also basically to do with money. Cablelinks will be upgraded when there is demand. Zen will connect to more OHPs when there is sufficient demand at those OHPs to make it economically beneficial. Creating either a 10G-capable PPPoE router or an IPoE product is just a case of time and money. None of these things are worth doing if it only benefits a small number of customers, and those customers are not prepared to pay a sufficient premium to give a meaningful return.

EDIT: The positive side is that consumer brand EE is driving the trial. They *did* make 1.8G affordable (even though it's really just the existing 1G GPON product with a faster line profile). Maybe there is hope that higher speeds will be priced somewhat affordably. We'll see.

I would expect BT Wholesale to drag their feet though, as they have for 1.8G, so that it can become mainly an EE premium offering.

Edited by candlerb (Sat 25-Jul-26 14:16:48)

Nokia FWLT E combo cards. Seen a couple of shelves with these fitted , but that's pretty insignificant even in my area

Yeah. It’s just the next step along the slow and steady path, with EE opening their ordering process to ‘everyone’ (still in the designated Guildford OHP ‘exchange’ area) from ‘selected accounts by special application’. So not quite Everyone, Everywhere …just yet, only EinG 😂

Otherwise it’s all but certain that EE will initially be the only service provider for a while to offer these XGS tiers eventually nationally. They’ve trodden this path before with the > 1Gbps tiers on GPON and likely to be until there’s an actual and affordable “plumbling” to provide an affordable backhaul solution to other service providers.

Could be a while then….

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

There will be around 959 target “enduring” sites in the latest issue v29 of the exit programme spreadsheet. See: openreach.co.uk/cpportal/products/the-all-ip-programme/exchange-exit-programme

Good catch! So even fewer!

In reply to a post by candlerb:

AFAICS, the announcement *doesn't* extend the trial footprint.

I think you're right - I just think they've made it available to everyone on that one live exchange that's participating rather than just those who were alert enough to the trial offer.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Sadly, I expect it to remain a niche product indefinitely. The elephant in the room is price, and we have no idea what the final price will be. OR has existing 1G/1G and 1000/220 products which are already priced way out of reach. They could reduce them today, but they choose not to.

Techie nerds like us have a warped view of the marketplace. Even amongst existing OR FTTP users, the vast majority take 80/20. It's all they need and want, and that's where OR make their money.

We can all imagine the joy of going from 1000/110 to 8500/850. But if it turns out it will cost (let's say) £50 per month extra, then I suspect most of those will melt away.

Fundamentally, OR won't want to do anything that will destroy the existing market share of altnets, as strengthening their monopoly position will result in increased regulation.

Idk. The counterfactual to this is Alison Kirkby openly says (I paraphrase) "We don't mind losing a bit of market share so we can be competitive". Clearly BT want to be one of the big players, but not the dominant player, and there's a fair bit of gamesmanship going on with Yodafone, Sky and VMO2.

Which will come first, the chicken or the egg. Same with the first to trigger the domino effect of the altnet consolidation.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

All the other things you mention are also basically to do with money. Cablelinks will be upgraded when there is demand. Zen will connect to more OHPs when there is sufficient demand at those OHPs to make it economically beneficial. Creating either a 10G-capable PPPoE router or an IPoE product is just a case of time and money. None of these things are worth doing if it only benefits a small number of customers, and those customers are not prepared to pay a sufficient premium to give a meaningful return.

While yes it obviously involves some money, this still doesn't make sense. If BT are spending £25B on FTTP for Openreach to upgrade to FTTP, then what's a further £1-2B for BTWholesale upgrade the backhaul so you can actually use the stuff? It's not a question of GPON vs XGS-PON, as even under GPON the tech isn't maximised.

I think the CP's and LLU providers have a fair bit to answer for as they've not really invested really anything other than maybe a LINX port from 10GbE to 100GbE which from an ops point of view is 'cost of business'. I think if CP's want to ride the FTTP wave, they need to be a bit more agile and cough up a bit more on backhaul too. Transit bandwidth doesn't actually cost very much, so its not a question of prohibitive amounts of money, although BT-backed backhaul is of course overpriced but that's a different matter. I strongly believe someone, somewhere is asleep at the wheel.

But given how competitive CP's are, it seems weird someone hasn't put some chips on the table.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

EDIT: The positive side is that consumer brand EE is driving the trial. They *did* make 1.8G affordable (even though it's really just the existing 1G GPON product with a faster line profile). Maybe there is hope that higher speeds will be priced somewhat affordably. We'll see.

I would expect BT Wholesale to drag their feet though, as they have for 1.8G, so that it can become mainly an EE premium offering.

With the trial I do want to know how they sorted the backhaul issues and why EE seem to be able to do the trial while other ISPs can't... it's a bit of a black box.

IDK, I just think it's worth some more connected people poking around a bit what's going on.

Thanks. 🙏 How much of an (engineering) big deal is it for Openreach to be able to offer 100G Cablelinks? Pretty straightforward or are further chassis / card upgrades needed beyond the optics?

From an installation point of view I don't see an issue. It's just an internal fibre cable and an SFP each end.
It must be a commercial /operational readiness issue . I presume they will make it available once they are in a position to do a commercial launch.of XGSPON services

Yeah didn’t think there was anything particularly technically onerous, just thought the relevant cards may need an upgrade to support a 40/100G QSFP+ ports in lieu of the older 10G capable SFP+ ports though those higher speeds ports may be already be present, on these XGS capable chassis just not populated.

Strange they won’t launch these 100G Cablelinks until 2027…though that’s clearly a commercial / ordering decision rather than anything engineering / technical holding them back. Conversely there must be nothing stopping them from bringing that date forward if desired.

https://www.al-enterprise.com/-/media/assets/interne...

pdf for the xgs combo cards.

Cabling wise for the cable links won't be problem, but more the "switching" hardware and how much they want to charge OR.

note: used switching because didn't know a better word for it.

its the 2027 timeframe that has kicked the xgs pon rollout into the long grass. its a mess

Yeah my question was about the uplink side of the chassis that hosts the incoming 100G Cablelinks from the service provider backhaul.

I believe the term you’re looking for is “aggregation” rather than “switching” per se.

Here is the uplink side of an SDX 6330 chassis - these will uplink into a series of aggregation switches provided by Openreach where those mythical future 100G Cablelinks will terminate.

Edited by Pheasant (Sat 25-Jul-26 18:49:38)

In reply to a post by zzing123:

With the trial I do want to know how they sorted the backhaul issues and why EE seem to be able to do the trial while other ISPs can't... it's a bit of a black box.

IDK, I just think it's worth some more connected people poking around a bit what's going on.

We all have to remember that BT Group are insanely “conservative” when it comes to introducing new into their FTTP ecosystem. They don’t play fast and they don’t play loose.

Thus the early trial was essentially a very limited number of “hand picked” EE customers in the service area. Strictly only residential premises were allowed and the tiers that were tested were still asymmetric - so my guess is that was done quite deliberately so that they could gauge and measure exactly what effect that would have on provisioned backhaul amongst other things.

This next stage of the trial will now open this up to more subscribers - possibly also business customers and possibly a symmetric tier!! Oooh 😂 But we’re still a way off from getting full national open availability - even just with EE!!

In reply to a post by zzing123:

While yes it obviously involves some money, this still doesn't make sense. If BT are spending £25B on FTTP for Openreach to upgrade to FTTP, then what's a further £1-2B for BTWholesale upgrade the backhaul so you can actually use the stuff? It's not a question of GPON vs XGS-PON, as even under GPON the tech isn't maximised.

Have you seen any direct evidence that the BT Wholesale network, or indeed any other backhaul network, is currently under-provisioned or over-utilized?

The failure to provide 1.8G backhaul was not about lack of capacity, it was to keep 1.8G more "exclusive" to EE. Although Openreach cannot be partisan, it appears that BT Wholesale can.

If users do upgrade from 1G to 10G XGS-PON services, they're unlikely to download any more - they'll just do it faster. Statistical multiplexing across those users will spread the load. In any case, I'd guess it's well under 5% of the customer base who would upgrade to such speeds.

In reply to a post by Taras:

its the 2027 timeframe that has kicked the xgs pon rollout into the long grass. its a mess

I’d argue that they’re simply not in any hurry whatsoever and ultimately their focus and priorities lie elsewhere. If there was a really pressing business case or competitive threat, then there would be a more concerted effort and faster pace of introduction.

But there simply isn’t one.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

I’d argue that they’re simply not in any hurry whatsoever and ultimately their focus and priorities lie elsewhere. If there was a really pressing business case or competitive threat, then there would be a more concerted effort and faster pace of introduction.

But there simply isn’t one.

i think its some what conjuncture atm as to why its a 2027 release. but its a disjointed mess with combo pon being there for at least a year.... Regarless of regulation, loosing so many fttp lines to the competition will hurt them as it will give others a chance to build further than they may have..

its a mess what ever way you look at it - even if it wasn't one of their own design/making

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Have you seen any direct evidence that the BT Wholesale network, or indeed any other backhaul network, is currently under-provisioned or over-utilized?

No. And I wasn't insinuating there wasn't. I think it's equipment, configuration and as you said, 'shady business' related, not physical fibre related with backhaul. Most (though def not all) exchanges are on-net with other providers, and if LLU providers wanted to use dark fibre, there's probably competition beyond Openreach for backhaul. Even if it was a OR DFX product, just one pair can still handle 64ch DWDM which is a tonne of bandwidth and unless I'm very much mistaken, nothing stops one non-BT operator sharing another operator's independent backhaul even within an exchange.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

The failure to provide 1.8G backhaul was not about lack of capacity, it was to keep 1.8G more "exclusive" to EE. Although Openreach cannot be partisan, it appears that BT Wholesale can.

Yes BTW isn't subject to the same regulation. Stinks I know. But conversely, all the more reason for LLU operators to pick up the slack and give them a bloody nose for being such fools.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

If users do upgrade from 1G to 10G XGS-PON services, they're unlikely to download any more - they'll just do it faster. Statistical multiplexing across those users will spread the load. In any case, I'd guess it's well under 5% of the customer base who would upgrade to such speeds.

With 99% of users who are just buying 'WiFi' from an ISP, for sure. That said, my Mum is a proper silver surfer and a real data hog with about 500GB monthly usage lol.

The point about speeds is not whether a large number would immediately upgrade and hammer the lines, but what it enables and how the mindset changes. Some event then triggers a cascade and you see a huge flock of people change behaviour. There are quite a few external drivers such as OSA, VPN usage, a realisation the cloud is anything but cheap, secure or good and also a huge boom in homelabs. The seeds are there, the reason not quite yet.

I still vividly remember the screams from ISPs when BBC launched iPlayer and groans about Netflix's bandwidth usage but all this just caused a behavioural shift in ISPs to suck it up and deal with it. I believe the same is true with FTTP and 10gbps era of home broadband.

In reply to a post by Taras:

its a disjointed mess with combo pon being there for at least a year....

Combo PON will be there forever (well, 20 years or more). GPON and XGS-PON are designed to coexist; there's no way they're going to go round the 90%+ of people who are happy with GPON speeds and replace their ONTs with XGS-PON for no reason.

In reply to a post by Taras:

Regarless of regulation, loosing so many fttp lines to the competition will hurt them as it will give others a chance to build further than they may have..

The competitors must be permitted some proportion of customers to prove "the market is working". Weakening regulation is more important to OR than losing a small amount of market share.

If OR ends up with only 70% of the market, and the altnets are scrapping between themselves for the other 30%, OR is still in a commanding position.

And ultimately, if OR is allowed to charge a market rate for PIA, it will be taking revenue from the altnets too, because they are mostly piggy-backing on OR infrastructure.

In reply to a post by zzing123:

Some event then triggers a cascade and you see a huge flock of people change behaviour. There are quite a few external drivers such as OSA, VPN usage, a realisation the cloud is anything but cheap, secure or good and also a huge boom in homelabs.

I see the opposite. Years ago, there were electronics and radio enthusiasts, with high street shops like Tandy and Maplin selling components and a wide range of magazines with hobby electronics and computing projects.

These days, people mainly buy ready-made stuff, whether it be electronics or software. They want to play games, not write them. They want to stream video, not build their own media server.

In reply to a post by zzing123:

I still vividly remember the screams from ISPs when BBC launched iPlayer and groans about Netflix's bandwidth usage but all this just caused a behavioural shift in ISPs to suck it up and deal with it. I believe the same is true with FTTP and 10gbps era of home broadband.

But that's in the opposite direction. Netflix driving improved broadband speeds was one thing. 10G broadband speeds driving some sort of "new Netflix" is just speculation.

Apart from a few techno-nerds, I don't see any pent-up demand for 10G services, nor some magic capability that this would unlock for the mass market. The "new Netflix" which requires 10G speeds has to come first.

In any case, if you want 10G today, you can have it. Just buy a leased line. Or stick your own server in a data centre. It costs significant money, and only those people who genuinely need it are prepared to pay.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by Taras:

its a disjointed mess with combo pon being there for at least a year....

Combo PON will be there forever (well, 20 years or more). GPON and XGS-PON are designed to coexist; there's no way they're going to go round the 90%+ of people who are happy with GPON speeds and replace their ONTs with XGS-PON for no reason.

Yeah combo pon is gonna be there for quite a while, suspect we will see 50/28/10 combo pon arrive in the 30s for OR. Combo pon as you say will be there for an age, because partly we will see many say 150mbits is fine for me and as you know network traffic is very bursty.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by Taras:

Regarless of regulation, loosing so many fttp lines to the competition will hurt them as it will give others a chance to build further than they may have..

The competitors must be permitted some proportion of customers to prove "the market is working". Weakening regulation is more important to OR than losing a small amount of market share.

But that can be a dangerous game to play for any company, altnet or OR. Because they at the mercy of the current day politics at westminster.
There is a general consenious from politicians and economist that a market with many players both playing the price setter and also price takers is a good thing. We are in an olygopoloy of sorts with internet providers .......

In reply to a post by candlerb:

If OR ends up with only 70% of the market, and the altnets are scrapping between themselves for the other 30%, OR is still in a commanding position.

Obviously we know that or has a lower limit to what they can substain. And we aren't privvy to that figure.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

And ultimately, if OR is allowed to charge a market rate for PIA, it will be taking revenue from the altnets too, because they are mostly piggy-backing on OR infrastructure.

alt nets will piggy back and use max contention for as long they exist(or allowed to). the OR-Altnet thing is a good thing on paper, as long as we don't see major overlap (which has happened in some places but that was to be expected)

In reply to a post by Taras:

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

I’d argue that they’re simply not in any hurry whatsoever and ultimately their focus and priorities lie elsewhere. If there was a really pressing business case or competitive threat, then there would be a more concerted effort and faster pace of introduction.

But there simply isn’t one.

i think its some what conjuncture atm as to why its a 2027 release. but its a disjointed mess with combo pon being there for at least a year.... Regarless of regulation, loosing so many fttp lines to the competition will hurt them as it will give others a chance to build further than they may have..

its a mess what ever way you look at it - even if it wasn't one of their own design/making

Disjointed mess is possibly a bit hyperbolic. As a performant and stable operational FTTP network I would rate Openreach much higher than many AltNets that simply carry their own traffic and have no need to consider wholesale customers or SMP scrutiny.

The concept of “combo PON” in and of itself I wouldn’t describe as a mess either. It’s an enabler (as is passive WDM) to be able to run multiple generations of technology simultaneously over the same fibre asset.

As you say it’s probable that the concept will in future be extended to the next generations of PON. It’s enable progression without a disruptive big bang approach to migrations. So really the opposite of mess.

As I’ve said above, in terms of timeline, there’s clearly no urgency or hurry from Openreach to immediately jump to XGS. There are far more pressing programmes of change with operational and business precedence over this. A slow burn, methodical, fully tested trial and expansion is way more preferable than a rushed or botched implementation that could destabilise literally millions of subscribers.

I don't really buy into the various moaning about PPPoE. ISPs aren't using it because they don't know about any alternative, it's because the alternatives come with their own issues around establishing connections to other users on the same subnets, mobility of a static IP across network areas, load balancing between gateways etc. The performance of PPPoE is not an issue for any BNG or CPE hardware that has the hardware in place to handle it, where it runs at wire speed.

If my ISP-provided Technicolor router pushed 5Gbps PPPoE with no issues, and then I swapped to a £500 Ubiquiti box and it pegged one core while topping out at 2Gbps, it's unclear why I am supposed to be upset with my ISP.

In reply to a post by jpm:

I swapped to a £500 Ubiquiti box and it pegged one core while topping out at 2Gbps, it's unclear why I am supposed to be upset with my ISP.

jpm, theres always will be some one out there who would do that and then complain ..........

I do remember the moaning with PPP and certain Ubiquiti routers a few years ago when they released a raft of new models, but as sometime happens with them the software on release was “sub-par”. As I recall it took them a while to release an upgrade which addressed the issue.