Two of my local splitters (each with a 4 tray SASA, so 128 homes on each splitter) are completely full. Uptake in parts of my village must exceed 75%.

The 100,000 homes passed figure from Openreach is complete nonsense. Most of these cannot order FTTP due to a wide range of factors (including the commercial rollout not being complete!). You've also got MDUs included when Openreach does not seem to provide a FTTP solution for MDUs.

Developers don't decide whether to put in fibre or copper, unless they are paying for it. Openreach plans the network for them. Some new local developments in Milton Keynes are not coming pre-wired for FTTP and Openreach is only putting in a copper network. This is despite the new developments being built in pre-existing FTTP areas.

Only one main ISP is offering FTTP, BT Retail. This is the biggest hurdle. A lot of people have bundled TV, phone, broadband packages with the likes of Sky and TT who will not provide FTTP. There is nothing anyone can do to force the likes of Sky and TT to take it up and offer it to their customers. Similarly, Plusnet have said they have no short or medium term plans to launch FTTP as a commercial product.

As for FVA, I don't see the point in it. The wholesale cost is higher than copper and there are issues with it.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

I'd have to say, as it stands at the present, that lack of availability is due to lack of orders. Those involved in it's supply are not going to invest in anything until they can see that they will get a fairly quick return of investment.

For starters, let's see the other two main ISP's, Sky and TT, offer a product and push for it's sale. That should speed up it's implementation.

Perhaps deploying it in areas where the ADSL is poor and there's no cable would help with the uptake somewhat. The uptake in MK has, from what I've been told, been pretty good.

Sticking it where it's cheap to deploy, areas with decent ADSL close to the exchange, inevitably brings lower take up.

Unsure that Sky/TT offering a product would speed implementation. If anything surely BT would rather like to keep as much of the FTTP as possible Openreach<>BT Wholesale<>BT Retail? Vertical integration seems to bring more interest in the products from incumbents.

In any case, speaking with a BSkyB bod FTTP is on their near-term roadmap. Thanks largely to the taxpayer in Cornwall and BDUK deployments alongside vouchers for FTTPoD it's about at that stage where it's worthwhile for them.

Some are incentivising fibre deployment by allowing telecomms companies to retire copper once they've deployed fibre to a premises.

In the case of Japan they split the infrastructure side of the telecomms company completely out of the group, and eventually took away the ability from the telco to sell retail products at all. This would actually have a lot of potential, as companies can no longer do 'interesting' accounting to subsidise retail operations through other sections of the company. It puts an instant end to accusations of margin squeeze.

Another option is requiring operators to unbundle the dark fibre they own between exchanges, again as done in Japan. This offers potential when competitors can build out from these fibre trunk routes.

More use of poles rather than ducts can be good, though I think the government have taken care of this.

Requiring all new build housing to be FTTP works well. I think this is probably best done by local councils as part of planning applications.

We have a couple of new large estate's either being built or planned, but no FTTP. New builds over a certain size should be FTTP.

which is available almost nowhere and in weird areas.

Gigaclear want 30% before they start work.

FTTP is more attractive to those in rural areas, even there there is probably only about 10% who would take it up immediately and a further 20% who are persuadable.

Our local Gigaclear project was reported in the local paper as being a £2m project to provide a service to almost 2,000 premises. The Gigaclear cable comes as far as a pot on a properties boundary.

yeah bit gigaclear its different maths.

They have no existing infrastructure and as such no existing income/assets.

BT on the other hand factor in things like reduced repairs/maintenance, existing ducts/poles can be used and existing customers already on the books easier to market the service to. Plus an eventuial possible sell off, of the copper if they can get round the regulatory issues involving that.

In reply to a post by kitcat:

Zarjaz actually does the instals so should have a good idea of take up.

If more providers offer a full Voice and BB service over FTTP then more builders may provide it, however it appears at present that only BT Retail do both so there is no choice if you are an FTTP only site..

If Openreach didn't charge basically as much for a voice VLAN on a pre-existing fibre line as they do for WLR 3 rental perhaps more providers would take an interest. The Openreach pricing model for FTTP is based around people keeping existing copper lines rather than replacing them. As it is providers are waiting for more FTTP-only sites to appear though trials have been done and products ready to go, more the support and CRM sides that are the rub. Sky and TalkTalk were relatively late to the FTTC game, they were hardly going to rush to deliver to <100,000 premises via FTTP. Had Openreach delivered the alluded to 20-25% of their NGA rollout as FTTP no question there would be far more products available.

Quite amusing to note that Swisscom actually give a reduction on pricing of FTTP if taken without a fixed line; Openreach charge extra, describing FTTP taken with a copper line as a 'transition' product ensuring no ISP can drop the voice aspect and deliver just data to a customer to decide themselves which VoIP provider to use.

Zarjaz can only speak for the installs in his area. In many areas where the ADSL sucks people have torn BT's arm off for NGA, whatever the flavour. Indeed if anything they lost a trick, had they deployed to more of those areas they may well have won BTWholesale and Retail business back from unbundled providers.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

yeah bit gigaclear its different maths.

They have no existing infrastructure and as such no existing income/assets.

BT on the other hand factor in things like reduced repairs/maintenance, existing ducts/poles can be used and existing customers already on the books easier to market the service to. Plus an eventuial possible sell off, of the copper if they can get round the regulatory issues involving that.

But sometimes existing "stuff" works against you.
It's far easy to start with a clean sheet (Gigaclear) than have to work round existing assets (BT) which have to be kept in operation meanwhile.

This is why houses are often knocked down and re-built - far cheaper than trying to refurbish them and you get a modern design rather than an old one shoe-horned into being modern.
This is sometimes why firms seek to move to greenfield/new sites - far easier than trying to convert existing buildings into what is now required.

The wayleave and community negotiation of these can be a big factor too, that and someone local keen to push the demand schemes and pester people to fill in paper work.