In reply to a post by AndyHCZ:

I just don't really see the value of FoD for residential users at the current pricing, particularly if you have FTTC and live close to the cabinet.

As the need for faster speeds develops, there will be new and improved technologies. Copper still has a useful life and won't be retired any time soon.

There's an Ofcom document kicking around somewhere where they looked at all the possible technologies and where they might get us if they lived up to their promises. I seem to recall it concluding that 90% of telephone lines would support 500Mb/s and over 50% would be at least 1Gb/s or something bizarre like that.

Edit: http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/t...

I over egged it a bit. It reckons 99% should get at least 50Mb/s and 95% should get at least 100Mb/s

Edited by Andrue (Mon 26-Jan-15 16:06:24)

Does PlusNet actually resell TalkTalk products?

AAISP certainly do, but did not think PlusNet did

I was being sarcastic to adslmax

No doubt he'll try and get a quotation though.

I wonder how long it will be until Openreach upgrade the copper lines to fibre or at least some other higher quality line.. even ethernet would be better. Though I'm not sure phyically if ethernet is too big to have one per household.

Removing the copper is problematic due to 999 needing to work in power cut. A battery backup is supplied for fibre voice access if ordered on a FTTP line.

Over 160,000 lines are FTTP based already, though the copper is usually still available for the above reason and that many people seem to like it, e.g. free broadband from people like Sky/TalkTalk

Ethernet over copper needs powered repeaters. As standard it has a 100 metre limit.

Fibre to the Distribution point via g.fast is likely to be next step as that can provide 100mbits plus to most people on a DP

It's interesting seeing the distribution of our UK technology as compared to the US. The US has fallen majorly behind in high speed internet coverage, even commented on by President Obama recently. Two of the big providers have been named as being the ones holding back progress (CenturyLink was one, I forget the other).

But with Google's Fibre becoming a presense in major towns there, suddenly CenturyLink is also providing Fibre. I've noticed that when fibre is mentioned in the US it seems to be FTTH. I know my friend currently as DSL, and will be ordering fibre in mid-2015. It's just amazing though how fast CenturyLink went from having little fibre presense to now jumping straight to FTTH. I would have thought a FTTC technology would have been more appropriate for the US because of the larger geography. Unless of course doing the work is cheaper in cost compared to UK?

I think because the US is so massive, they've been doing it in chunks - almost like they're not even considering the coverage of the whole country. The funding and/or organisation of the "chunks" (i.e. built-up areas) has also been very different to the UK's way of doing things so far... or at least up to the stage we finally reached a few years ago when individual counties started realising they had to work together and sort something out, and at a similar time, very rural parts of the country doing things on a smaller scale.

I've not got a good knowledge of the US "ducting" system at all (as should be apparent from me referring to it as that) but you've got to consider they've had cable TV to a considerable percent of urban areas for decades now [citation needed, etc.]. There was also an electricity supplier who, implausibly, built fibre into (and/or with) its supply grid. I don't mean literally "into" of course, I mean they either did it all at once, or used an existing system of their own physical poles/holes/ducts to run the fibre through. That eliminates the delays which OR encounter with booking, and then waiting for, both the power companies and civil works to dig up roads and install new ducts, unblock old ones, etc.

The USA and The UK: Different

Edited by deleted (Tue 27-Jan-15 00:25:07)

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Removing the copper is problematic due to 999 needing to work in power cut. A battery backup is supplied for fibre voice access if ordered on a FTTP line.

How much does that battery cost if ordered? thinking ahead here for when/if they get around to finish of our FTTP install

Thanks

Paul

Edited by PaulKirby (Tue 27-Jan-15 01:32:03)