In reply to a post by LakesGeek:

Hope it takes off eventually - at work for example (a smallish business that can't really afford a leased line) they're a long way from the cabinet and get a predicted speed that is not much more than ADSL. Going by the TBB article they'd only have to pay £500-1500 one time fee for FTTPoD to fix that.

As Ignitionnet says, this is about the only viable usage scenario for the current FTTPoD wholesale product. If you had higher FTTC speeds available, a two line bonded FTTC product may be more cost-effective.

As well as the one-off fee, which is going to be nearer £1000 at the bottom end (I think the lowest tier is £700 plus VAT) and probably more like £2000-2500 for the line lengths at which FTTPoD is most worthwhile, the ISP commits to three years of the 330/30 FTTP product at, from memory, £37/month (I can't remember whether that includes VAT or not). You've obviously got the ISP's charges for backhaul, Internet connectivity, customer service and profit to add to this. I can't see the monthly cost to the customer being much under £100.

You can't take any other speed than 330/30 on FTTPoD at present.

Of course, these charges are small change compared to a leased line.


I believe FTTPoD is only currently available in a handful of exchange areas, though it will hopefully become widely available in due course.

I see, interesting.

It's a shame, that. Thankfully we're predicted to be ok at home because quite frankly we're lucky

Looking at the predicted speeds on BT Wholesale Checker for various addresses around here, you do have to be quite lucky to get anything decent. Cabinet to premises copper runs are often quite long, it seems (or don't appear long on the map but get really slow rates on the checker, probably meaning the copper meanders up and down a long street somewhere) so for a lot of people and businesses FTTC will barely have any benefit. For instance the wholesale checker here at work predicts a painful 19.3 down and 1.3 up, which if true, blows away any hope we had of an affordable internet connection suitable for things like cloud backups which we were hoping to get into. I'm not sure they'll even commission it at less than 20?

I was hoping they'd at least offer the same FTTC services over a FTTP line (if you've paid for the fiber run, surely it doesn't cost BT or the ISP any more, and the only difference would be that it's like having a cabinet outside your building), but I guess it's not that simple right now. It's probably a matter of OFCOM needing to kick some backsides as per usual

You can have FTTC at slow predicted speeds. Some ISPs won't allow you to order if the predicted downstream speed is less than 15 Mbit/s, but most can be persuaded to order at any speed that is stable.

The FTTC speed tiers are available on ordinary FTTP at the same price and 12 month minimum commitment as FTTC. FTTPoD is 330/30 Mbit/s only for a 36 month minimum, presumably as a contribution towards the capital costs of installation.


Bonding two 19.3/1.3 Mbit/s FTTC lines would provide a much more usable connection than the ADSL2+ you are likely using now at work, especially as the checker tends to be a little pessimistic about speeds. If you have two voice lines you can use for such a connection, it's worth investigating when FTTC is available. AAISP have bonded connections as part of their regular portfolio.