The man hours, not just economics, for FTTC roll-out vs FTTP roll-out dictate things too.

BT can "pass" more homes with fewer man hours than it would take for FTTP. So FTTC is the ideal catch-up method, given that the market was only opened in mid-2009.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

The analogy doesn't stand up to parallelism: Put 5 people in the house doing 40MPH, and you suddenly need a car capable of 200MPH???

The availability of such speeds helps make a market that just couldn't exist with slow speeds available. Internet-based backups, for example. Or the recent launch of Netflix.

Just wait until everyone in the family is streaming video, or watching a TV catch-up service - and you'll soon find a full FTTC connection.

i do understand what you are saying and yes in a family home then the extra speed could be useful, it was only a couple of days ago that a friend of mine decided to try netflix, was watching something and her daughter went on to the mac and started to download something, that was it Netflix lost it, but then most of the time she is lucky to get 2 megabits and she is one of the people that wants Fibre, that is if she don't move first.

It is ok people saying about all these services that is going to rely on fibre, like netflix and online back up, not that I would really use online back up. Back it up on a external hard drive, then even if a internet goes belly up, you still got it to hand. Anyway it is ok to say these services need fast speed, but who is going to pay for this fast speed and how long will it be before ISPs start charging the earth to access these high speeds?

Look at the service i get, proper unlimited use, no traffic management, so no worry about going over any limit. I watched a few things on netflix over the last couple of days and not have to worry about going over some limit or other.

Now If i went to fibre using the same company, I still pay more or less the same, but I get a limit of 15Gb data usage, ok I can use it unlimited off peak, but no point in that to be honest. If there was a way to download Netflix or other videos to the device that is being use then maybe that would work. It will also cost me £100 to be installed and stuck in a 12 month contract, then if I had to move within those 12 months I would still be liable for the contract and not able to take the service with me.

Not the ISps fault, because they are a small Isp they can't afford to do the deals that larger ISps do or will do with their free connections and so called unlimited which is not unlimited anyway.

also do we get the same problem as we do with ADSL when people do move house and find that their fibre is with a certain company and it takes ages to find out who the company is and weeks to sort it out?

Oh... and it isn't all about the speed - stability coms into it too. FTTC seems to be proving pretty stable (except for a few poor souls who aren't treated well enough IMHO) relative to ADSL2+; FTTP will be a huge leap forward on this front.

Maybe, not enough people have fibre at the moment to compare. FTTP is a pipe dream for most people, saying that FTTC is a pipe dream for many people as well.

The one thing I thought that fibre may have sorted is the need for line rental for a phone, so we are still being made to pay the full line rental even if we don't really need a phone and then you got ISPs like Talk Talk and Bt who force you to use their own phone service, just like fully unbundled LLU. No doubt Sky will do the same thing when they eventually get a fibre package.


i am in no rush, no doubt once fibre come here we will be bombarded with Talk Talk sales people and have loads of rubbish come through the door from Bt and Talk Talk. both companies I want to stay as far away from as possible.

So I will be staying as I am.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

I get 14meg throughput, but I really want about 20megabit throughput _consistent_. This would allow me to stream Netflix at high quality. At the moment I get high quality randomly through a programme, often its youtube quality then it gets better again. Maybe its netflix overload or ISP routing, but its annoying.

I used Netflix and even on my speed I get a pretty decent quality, a mate of mine who lives a lot closer to the exchange and is on the same cable and wireless network as me also tried it out and found the quality was good, he have around 15 megabits. He is pretty impressed with netflix, but then he is impressed about eveything

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Puts hand up, cancelled Sky Movies to use NetFlix. Yes not latest catalogue but at £5.99 versus the £16 + £10 of Sky and I don't have to put up with their scheduling, boxsets of series are available etc it is pretty good.

i don't have Sky or any other form of pay T.V, VOd is of interest and yes i have got a trial of netflix, and cancelled it on the same day, just in case I forget when the time comes.

It is ok, content needs to be sorted, documentaries are a bit naff to be honest, I don't think I will be throwing away my lovefilm subscription for a while.
i was thinking of maybe taking a payment holiday from lovefilm for a month and seeing what netflix is really like.


but I don't need 40 megabits to use netflix, if we could choose the speed we want and pay by speed it would be better, so having 20megabits instead of 40 would be cheaper.


I will be keeping lovefilm as I like my blue-ray, netflix will not even come close even on a decent connection.

An example is a single household with four members. One is playing OnLive which sucks a huge amount of bandwidth - at least 5Mbps (has been known to scale to around 15). Another is streaming YouTube HD. Another is downloading stuff on Bitorrent. Another person is watching iPlayer HD.

There you go - all 40Mbps soaked up.

My friend went from a 500Kbps connection to 40Mbps - when the latter speed was so slow he had no choice - his life literally changed with the increase.

Edited by deleted (Wed 11-Jan-12 12:16:31)

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

It is ok people saying about all these services that is going to rely on fibre, like netflix and online back up, not that I would really use online back up. Back it up on a external hard drive, then even if a internet goes belly up, you still got it to hand.

I feel a lot more comfortable using an online backup service as well as my NAS drive to backup my photos.

Lightning, fire, burglary are three things that spring to mind.

Well considering the government have just gone and passed to spend 32bn on some high speed railway surly the government could lend a hand to BT considering on the Conservatives web page says they support high speed internets.
mind you. the government always lies.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

According to the article I saw Netflix doesn't stream any higher than 5Mb/s.

Well then I need *stability* From my home, through my ISP, all the way to the source. To my PS3, which reported "High/HD" for only about 20% whilst watching a 45minute programme. On a 40" TV the lower quality streaming looks pretty awful to be honest.

Perhaps its netflix overload, and it will calm down after the first free month!

I think they are doing FTTH mainly for properties that connect directly to the exchange aren't they? i.e. no cabinet

I have already said I understand where people have a family it might be useful and of cause if you got a really low speed then it would be better. what I don't understand is people where only one person uses it like a mate of mine who gets 16Megabits and says he may go for Fibre if he gets it, I don't think he will for a while due to being so close to the exchange, mind you I still have my doubts that BT will deliver fibre here by the end of the year never mind in June.

If i could get 16megabits that would suit me fine, in fact 8 megabits would be nice, but i don't believe myself that i, noticed I said I will really need 40 Megabits.

A friend of mine have 2megabits, and wants to come more into the city so she can get a faster speed, she needs at least 4, but as she said what she needs more is reliability, something she don't have where she lives, we even got a pretty exensive router hoping that would help, but done nothing in fact it was worse.

so if she stayed where she is fibre would be useful, but even she don't see the need for 40 megabits and she have a daughter who uses the net a lot, she would also prefer to pay less for half that speed. the other problem is that he phone line is not with Bt and with a different company, so to get fibre and still keep her phone service she would have to go with one of the smaller ISps which sadly cost a bit more than the larger ISPs and when you are watching the pennies it all adds up