BT.net and FTTPoD

Apologies for a maybe FAQ question. My client is currently on VDSL2+ and is ~1.4km from the cabinet getting ~18Mbps down and 1MBps upstream. Kind of as expected but they rent out some space and their client wants to use VOIP and the current link is not cutting it.

They have a very adhoc network at the moment with NINE lines coming into the complex, two of which are VDSL2+ and the rest are ADSL. We're slowly rationalising this with Point-to-Point bridges.

All the above are with BT so they had a visit from OpenReach (not very successful!) and recently a BT sales rep.

The rep is recommending installation of 30Mbps/30Mbps BT.Net service which would of course solve that VOIP upload speed problem but two alarm bells are ringing. Firstly the cost of £550 per month seems high and secondly that 30Mbps downstream is only x2 faster than the existing VDSL2 link which is costing something like £80/month. I'm aware that "Leased lines" don't have contention but considering the number of users and the loads they put on the link, my gut instinct is that it's over-specified.

I'm also confused by the prices quoted by the rep as they don't correlate at all with the indicative prices on this page:

https://business.bt.com/products/broadband/bt-leased...

If he was suggesting 100Mbps for £467 then I'd say they should go for it - esp. as he said they could overcome the cancellation of those nine existing contracts which is not an insignificant amount.

A dedicated connection will have to be installed and Openreach are booked in for a survey. The BT rep said that BT would absorb £2,800 of the installation cost (hmm BT & Openreach still too cosy?) which will make a huge difference - my client would pay the difference if installation is more.

Am I right in inferring that a Openreach would be installing a dedicated fibre connection in order to install BT.Net leased line?

If they are installing a dedicated fibre link, do BT have none-leased options available? Is this FTTPoD?

I also note the recent price cuts on fibre installation - have these reached the sales channels yet or are they "Coming soon"?

Apologies for brain-dumping on you but desperately seeking some clarity here that we're not getting from BT.

Thanks in advance, Rob.

If you're going down the leased line route, then it might be worth getting quotes from a number of providers.

We were quoted around £400 for 200Mbps at our office, that was using Virgin as a provider and they also covered the first £10,000 of ECC.

That said, the quote you get will really come down to location I would imagine.

Upload of 1 Mbps should be sufficient for VOIP - at least it was on my adsl 2+ line many moons ago with Skype and Vodafone SureSignal thingy.

Thanks for the indicative pricing. We used to use VM for our 10Mbps leased line back in 2005. Worked very well and I use them at home.

My gut instinct is that £550 for just 30Mbps down is overpriced and I'm equally not convinced they merit a leased line.

No matter what service one ends up with, I assume Openreach install the same cabling? So if we can get a price for that, we could approach other providers.

The sticking point may well be getting out of those 9 existing contracts...

Yes it would be if nothing else was going across there. They are making sales calls (Cisco resellers) so the quality has to be top-notch. I could try QoS on the Draytek router but I'm not playing with much bandwidth to start with. They are actually using VOIP across their VPN to the corporate office which is compounding the problem.

VoIP can use lots of data if uncompressed, but clear good quality is available with as small a connection as 128 Kbps per call.

Suspect your problem is that the connections are being shared so other activity is impacting. If cost is the issue, test the VoIP on one of the lines outside of office hours i.e. when nothing else going on and if works well for the number of calls you need to support then just order another VDSL2 connection.

If the operation is a call centre that needs leased line reliability then remember BT are not the old people who can sell you a leased line.

FoD is not a leased line, if the BT Rep cannot explain this simple distinction then you have a sales person who may be selling for sales sake rather than what is best for you. Leased lines carry bandwidth guarnatees e.g. the 30/30 is probably not shared with anyone else.

Leased lines are invariably fibre based, but bundles of copper pairs can be used too.

if you have not committed to the BT service yet, then time to get a second quote and discuss options with people like AAISP, Zen Internet, IDNet and a myriad of others.

If you get 30 Mbps symmetric and the problem with VOIP is down to other peoples usage you may still have that problem e.g. someone downloading at 30 Mbps will interfere with a VOIP call, unless the hardware you are using prioritises VoIP i.e. has Quality of Service controls built in, hence why a dedicated VoIP connection is preferable if you have say 10 to 20 people who are on the phone at the same time.

So get a VDSL2 connection that only has the VoIP handsets on it, cost is minimal

The cabling may be the same it may not all depends on what is actually specified e.g. is it 30 Mbps over a 100 Mbps bearer or a 1 Gbps bearer.