I have Virgin cable available and have looked occasionally at their broadband packages but it seems poor value with slow upload speeds and many reports of peak time congestion. I pay £27 pm for Plusnet FTTC and get 80/20 with low latency. With Virgin that would get me the bottom Vivid 50 tier with a 5 Mbps upload. Even the top Vivid 200/300 tiers only have 20 Mbps upload. If I went for FTTP it would be to get higher upload speeds (e.g. 50Mbps) and low latency.

http://www.virginmedia.com/shop/broadband/speeds.html

Edited by brookheather (Wed 14-Mar-18 20:16:47)

In reply to a post by RIO_Colm:

It's easy to be critical of Cerberus or indeed any of the FTTPoD suppliers or reseller, but they are having to deal with a lot of change at the BT end right now.

I just want to say: I have no criticism of Cerberus at all. Their service so far - pre-order and very early order stages - has been first class. They've answered questions promptly and clearly, and at the moment they are chasing BT/Openreach daily (who have not yet acknowledged the order)

No, certainly not to my knowledge. All Leased Line installations are (in theory) subject to Excess Construction Charges, and surveys for same have always been free of charge.

Technically, the survey is only carried out when you place the actual order, and is required to give you a committed as opposed to an indicative price.

You have the contractual right to cancel the order at that stage as you cannot logically enter into a contract where the terms of the contract are unknown up front.

Please check if your client has actually had an installation survey done, or have they just received a quote from BT (sounds more like the latter unless you have actually placed the order).

Quotes are typically given for 1, 3 or 5 year periods, and it is common that 3 / 5 year contract periods will be lower monthly cost (but longer term revenue for the provider) and that they will bundle the installation cost into the quote - in effect just using some of the real long term discount to pay off the install costs in 36 or 60 months. Just a clever sales trick really.

That quote will be marked somewhere as 'subject to survey' which as where a field surveyor from BT or Virgin go and work out how much extra you will be charged to run the actual fibre. Think of the install; charge as being the activation fee to commission the circuit, and the ECCs as the physical costs of supply of the fibre, ductwork, road closures and digs, holes in walls etc.

Edited by deleted (Wed 14-Mar-18 20:51:51)

Thanks, let me know if you have any other questions

That is understood and apologies if I mistakenly implied that you were being critical - which was never my intention.

I kind of sit between clients on one side and the main ISPs like Cerberus on the other and I can full understand just how frustrating this whole process is for most people.

It is only human that we expect the ISPs to be highly knowledgeable and to get everything right, and to show frustration when they don't get the message right for whatever reason.

As a reseller, knowing this stuff is my day job, and I am constantly talking to our ISP partners like Cerberus, our local SuperFastEssex team and DCMS / Local Government about funding options, and also to BT when required. And googling the living daylights out of everything I cannot understand to boot!

I know more than most, but still nowhere near enough, but what I do see is that the whole FTTPoD space is still very immature and rapidly evolving. Even the experts like Cerberus are running to keep up - and I speak to them almost daily.

The main advantage of this forum is that we have an avenue to communicate and share knowledge & experience. If we keep doing that - then we should come out the other side relatively unscathed.

Edited by deleted (Wed 14-Mar-18 20:53:10)

Please check if your client has actually had an installation survey done, or have they just received a quote from BT (sounds more like the latter unless you have actually placed the order).

The survey has definitely been done as I went over to meet the Openreach engineer Had a look at his plans and discussed the potential installation. Even have the Openreach project code. Measured up the road, checked two-way lights could be used, took pictures etc. Next step he said was for a project manager to put the final costs together.

My client did sign something but as you say, you can't be expected to enter into a contract until all the costs are known.

Think of the install; charge as being the activation fee to commission the circuit, and the ECCs as the physical costs of supply of the fibre, ductwork, road closures and digs, holes in walls etc.

Understood - it's Openreach who have incured the costs of the survey, not BT and they'll get the work no matter which ISP my client goes with. And it's pretty much going to happen assuming something unexpected doesn't turn up when the project manager looks into it, i.e. the install costs will be acceptable and the monthly price is within budget.

If this goes ahead, I've got a fun intra-building networking job with my electrician friend. Bit of UBNT bridging here, some underground cabling there and a medley of access points.

I have Virgin cable available and have looked occasionally at their broadband packages but it seems poor value with slow upload speeds]

I get 200Mbps+ consistently and I'm in a dense population area inc. a lot of terraced housing, i.e. potentially lots of contention. To be honest, at that speed, contention is a non-issue. I get phone, basic TV & 220Mbps internet for £50/month. Worth the extra £20 for me for the speed of internet as I work from home a lot and of course, I'm getting basic TV and a rather nice Tivo box as well. I've been with NTL and then Virgin for 15 years and the service has been rock solid - touch wood. The new Superhub 3 is a pretty decent Wi-Fi device as well.

The upload speed could do with a bit of a tweak maybe but I get 16Mbps upload. Here's a test I've just done now at 22:20:

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/a32ef5ea-cd56-4...

and many reports of peak time congestion

As I said, never noticed it myself.

I pay £27 pm for Plusnet FTTC and get 80/20 with low latency. With Virgin that would get me the bottom Vivid 50 tier with a 5 Mbps upload.

Yes probably doesn't compare when you're in the lucky situation of being so close to the cabinet (which you must be to get 80Mbps). Many people aren't so lucky and if they have cable, the price markup for more speed is worth paying for.

Even the top Vivid 200/300 tiers only have 20 Mbps upload

Indeed but honestly, that's never been a problem *and* I run a small development web server over it. Uploading is still a small percentage of the overall data.

Latency over the Virgin network has always been excellent. I only tend to see <10ms ping times over leased lines.

And not a few years ago, people would have killed for 20Mbps upload! But yes, FTTP will be an obvious competitor for Virgin but at the moment FTTP prices from Zen are more than Virgin albeit with a higher upload speed - £52 for 150/30 and £77 for 300/50. And you don't get TV and Tivo for that price.

Edited by deleted (Wed 14-Mar-18 22:35:18)

In reply to a post by RIO_Colm:

Think of the install; charge as being the activation fee to commission the circuit, and the ECCs as the physical costs of supply of the fibre, ductwork, road closures and digs, holes in walls etc.

This may well apply to the installs under the new pricing but under the old FTTPoD pricing structure, ECCs were classed as unforeseen charges (hence the name excess construction charges) and didn't apply to the vast majority of orders after the survey. There's a guy (mumba) on the Cerberus order thread who had 18 blocked ducts during his FTTPoD install and Openreach charged him zero in ECCs. Though I don't think blocked ducts will show up at the survey stage, its only once OR start test rodding ducts they come to light.

Edited by deleted (Thu 15-Mar-18 05:04:56)

Hi

What I don't understand is why OpenReach are passing on what seemingly is the full cost of installation, and I suspect the pricing includes a profit and contingency for them as well. Once installed does the customer own that fibre? No, it's an asset of OpenReach, and a freely obtained one at that. For £39K I'd also expect some shares in the company, as essentially that is what we are doing, investing into OpenReach.

We can get a telephone line installed for a few hundred pounds no matter where we live or how far from the exchange, is fibre really that much more expensive?

As for properties passed and discounts, essentially that's nothing but snake oil as there appears to be no way of utilising that discount,as people aren't told of the properties passed to knock on the door and get them on board, and it takes just one to drop out for the whole discount to be removed, why not just remove £700 for each one that drops out if OpenReach were serious about it? Obviously they are not.

Something needs to be done about OpenReach, they are making healthy profits and making a few people rich, whilst our telephone and data network creeks on old POTs.

Regards

Phil