In reply to a post by ian72:

The other big difficulty is getting the fibre itself into people's houses. That last few meters can cost a lot of money. Especially if you have to dig up an expensive driveway in order to lay the cable in.

It wouldn't be a bad thing for the cost and/or responsibility of routing those last few meters of FTTH cabling to be placed on the householder; particularly if they're being (often justifiably) persnickety/pernickety.

Depends on how much money is being talked about. The fact that it always seems to be a race to the lowest prices the majority of people will not pay extra for faster speeds.

My brother has just got FTTP to his house (a year later than expected). If I lived there I would have signed up for 330/30 (or whatever it is they currently sell it as). And he went for 40/10 because "he doesn't need anything more". And most of the country are the same - move away from boards like this and most people don't see any benefit in faster speeds and certainly wouldn't pay a big premium to get them.

As far as I am concerned hopefully BT will start doing FTTPoD again soon and start offering it in my area. If it isn't exorbitant and doesn't have a 3 year minimum contract then I would sign up.

On the other hand, the installation of FTTP to a home or office, and to a lesser degree FTTC, is an amenity that adds measurably to the asset value, and thus saleability of a premises.

IIRC, installing fibre to the home was shown to add a few percentage points (~4%) to the property value. Andrew has probably covered this in an earlier TBB news bulletin. That added amenity value is surely true for rented premises as well.

Arguably BT / and or the taxpayer should be recompensed by the home-owner or landlord for investing that way in their property.

WIth some jiggery-pokery in the costings - and the insistence of using "approved contractors only" - it would be a very easy way of recouping most or even all of the installation costs for bringing fibre to a premises.

I too would sign up to FTTPoD if the prices aren't ridiculous.

I would assume that FTTPoD can be scaled so in the future a gigabit would easily be obtainable?

And the reality is that premiums like this only exist when something is in short supply, once a good proportion can get it you do not get the premium.

It would be a very tough sale in areas with native FTTP from Openreach, to charge per metre for the final drop to the property. Things seem different with Gigaclear, because there is no USO perception on them so people are happy to pay a contractor if they have a long front garden or DIY the final fibre drop, also Gigaclear place a final pot at the property boundary, with Openreach it may actually be across the other side of a public road.

Remember people used to Openreach (or in their mind BT pricing) being uniform and would be an uproar if the terraced house with no garden paid £99 for final FTTP connection, but a house that just happens to have a 30 foot drive had to pay £300.

Native GEA-FTTP carries a £99+VAT install now, engineer visit for FTTC is same price. 18 month contracts on FTTP mean providers spread this over the longer term.

Where people have had alternate wireless charging £150 for a visit to fit antenna and cover hardware costs people do think twice before laying out the money, so a variable FTTP install fee will not go down well. Fibre on Demand is a slightly different scenario since people know they are paying for more than just the final drop.

FTTPoD is GPON based and Gigabit possible if you accept high contention over the GPON segment.

Those are nominal Openreach charges. The charges are peanuts and probably don't even cover the truck-roll and bureaucratic paperwork, never mind the labour costs. The plumber charges us £60 before he's even knocked on our door!

If FTTP roll-out is to be truly revenue-raising - the install cost for that final drop would have to be at least one magnitude larger. Perhaps in the low thousands of pounds per premises, with typical means-tested subsidies for low-income households.

We certainly would be willing, if not necessarily "happy" (!) to pay £3,000 for FTTP to be brought to this suburban house; in the knowledge that £3,000 would be added in amenity value to its market price.

Such a programme of rolling-out FTTP could also stimulate community involvement. The public loves to engage in fund-raisers to fulfil that perception of civic duty. Something that foolishly is missing in the political arena today. People want to play their part.

Though these sorts of programmes would be so much easier for a government-entity to do, rather than the private sector.

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BTW it's curious how this debate always opens up a division that pits the urban-ites against the rural-ites. Can we just agree that any commodity or service that is rationed by price or availability should, first and foremost, bring benefit to the largest number of people at the lowest cost. That's before we even contemplate delivering to those expensive and isolated outliers in rural districts. That's the rule of thumb applied in every other field of provision from healthcare, to education, to highways and transport, policing, and so on.

Edited by deleted (Mon 27-Jul-15 13:38:12)

If willing to pay that price then you are a candidate for Fibre on Demand once they start to take new orders again then.

Unfortunately millions upon millions do not have £3k available or willing/able to add it to their mortgage costs.

I'm also wondering if having FTTP available would increase property value by £3K over having FTTC. I guess there are parts of the country it might but in my experience most people buying houses wouldn't pay £3K more to get FTTP over FTTC (and many don't even check broadband before they buy).

I've seen the surveys, and the majority are based on the difference between ADSL/ADSL2+ and FTTP, not many (well none I can recall reading and I read a lot more than goes into the news) went from the position of people already able to get a 30 to 40 Mbps type service.

Now if a property is struggling on dodgy 6 to 8 Mbps FTTC then maybe there might a premium if FTTH available.

I wonder what the premium would be for a flat that has both Openreach FTTP and Hyperoptic Gigabit as an option e.g. http://www.getlivinglondon.com/