No not superfast - just that LTE has not been judged as approved for State Aid funding which the USO could be classed as (next march who knows)

The trouble is that currently Ofcom do not consider coverage from 4G Broadband in their analysis of broadband availability, just because EE / BT say they can cover 450k properties with a compliant service, why is it not validated the same as DSL? What about Three, they also offer a USO compliant service, surely there would be overlap with EE but also unique properties covered as well. VF could in a heart beat offer a compliant service etc etc.

A 4G service is compliant with the USO specification, but Ofcom have to make their position clear - at the moment its cowboy territory - you have suppliers in wales charging £800 on a voucher for a 4G Antenna install, suppliers in England charging £300-600 often with voucher and EE themselves charging £99 for the only MNO approved solution, that's insane & bad value for government to allow that to continue.

USO is unlikely to be state funding classified, hence the on demand and levy to fund it rather than BDUK money etc

The issues around silly pricing to exploit vouchers is something I have mentioned in face to face meetings

An important point, the 10 and 1 figures are sync/connection speeds, and not sure what a 4G modem connecting at 11 Mbps down and 1.2 Mbps up actually produces in terms of TCP/IP throughput

The throughput of a 4G Modem is dictated by the RSRP and SINR (& RSRQ but less relevant)

The point is that you wouldn't see throughput of 11Mbps and 1.2Mbps if the parameter threshold is -105dBm using 1800MHz, you'll be seeing closer to 25-30Mbps D/L and 10-15Mbps U/L

Its only when you get to fringe cell edge that you'll see the SINR deteriorate (& the upload will disappear) then as you approach -115 -120dBm RSRP the D/L will tail away.

If you were on 800MHz you'd be lucky to see 12-15Mbps D/L & 1-2Mbps U/L - at least on EE's limited 800MHz spectrum

In reply to a post by TechServ:

The point is that you wouldn't see throughput of 11Mbps and 1.2Mbps if the parameter threshold is -105dBm using 1800MHz, you'll be seeing closer to 25-30Mbps D/L and 10-15Mbps U/L

But if there are 10 similar active users on the same cell and frequency, presumably they'll get <3Mbps usable throughput each?

Hence I don't think the concept of "sync speed" is particularly useful in the context of wireless delivery of USO. With FTTC or ADSL, even if you get only 10M sync speed, at least it's a dedicated point-to-point link to the DSLAM.

Aside: I'm old enough to have worked with 10baseT ethernet hubs (and 10base2). An ethernet hub is like wireless: only one device can talk at a time. Out of your 10M raw bit rate, the effective usable throughput was about 4M once overhead like collision detection was taken into account. And that 4M was shared between all the devices on the LAN.

I still have a couple of 3com hubs in the garage if anyone wants them

I agree that 4G is the most likely technology for BT to use to fulfil most of the USO requests,

This may work in some rural areas, but quite a many USO lines are and will be in city centres (the urban EO line problem). 4G fails to deliver in these areas because of population density. This has already been demonstrated in London with Relish. They are unable to provide anything resembling USO quality at evening peak times. There are just too many users within the cell tower area competing for the same bandwidth.

And of course as you mention, the proposed USO data cap (100G?) is borderline ridiculous and this would most likely be the woe in any mobile networks. Download a couple of games, OS updates to your ipads, iphones and computers and watch an episode or two of something on Netflix and you are done for that month.

Many urban/city centre lines already get over 10Mb on ADSL.
The fact they are EO and FTTC hasn't come won't matter if they are above the USO.

Not all urban/city centres struggle with the very low 4G speeds you describe either.
I get over 100Mb down at peak in Edinburgh City Centre.

I don't know how that would work anyway.
Does the guy on the thread before this who has 330/50Mb FTTP qualify for the USO? His peak time speeds are below 5Mb.

Your last paragraph Andrew has become even more true today, with EE launching a 500Gb per month package - see this thread for cross-reference: http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/mobilebroadband/t/4...

Of course, it's still a hefty price tag for the data (500Gb is £100 per month) - but the price of 4G data in terms of "pence per gigabyte" is gradually coming down (that 500Gb package is cheapest, at 20p per 1Gb, so best value if you know you're going to need it) - hopefully that trend continues, if it does then 4G could become a more viable alternative (if the cells aren't oversubscribed of course, which would diminish speeds).

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by TechServ:

The point is that you wouldn't see throughput of 11Mbps and 1.2Mbps if the parameter threshold is -105dBm using 1800MHz, you'll be seeing closer to 25-30Mbps D/L and 10-15Mbps U/L

But if there are 10 similar active users on the same cell and frequency, presumably they'll get <3Mbps usable throughput each?

No that is not the case , the backhaul is contested, just as the backhaul of a FTTC cab is shared between active users, but the EE 4G Broadband Service is (as BT Group have stated) using additional spectrum capacity not used by Mobile UE Devices.

Individual 4G Broadband connections vary between 20 & 120Mbps DL but their average peak time throughput is around 33Mbps DL (previously sold as upto 60Mbps).

LTE its not single talker like an 10BaseT Hub - EE use Frequency Division Duplex on their LTE Spectrum - same as VDSL - the maximum possible throughput is down to Spectral Efficiency, sharing the available resource between UE Devices - With MiMo and MuMiMo even greater efficient use of spectrum is possible, maximising throughput.

Many urban/city centre lines already get over 10Mb on ADSL.
The fact they are EO and FTTC hasn't come won't matter if they are above the USO.

Not all urban/city centres struggle with the very low 4G speeds you describe either.
I get over 100Mb down at peak in Edinburgh City Centre.

Does any EO line (= ADSL) actually go over the 1Mbps upload requirement? I guess it would be theoretically possible, but this would require some tinkering and also an optimal and very short connection?

The problem with low 4G speeds is not everywhere but it seems to concentrate in areas with low ADSL speeds and no fibre services. My particular area in London is one of these (slowly improving, though). ADSL speeds are in the range of 2-3 Mbps. Relish offers an unlimited 4G service and speed drops to 2-8Mbps at evening peaks.

My mobile operator of course does not offer unlimited service and I can get 50Mbps using that, but my allowance would be used in about 20 minutes of 4K streaming, which does not make it fit for purpose as ADSL replacement. A major OSX update would already be over the limit.

In reply to a post by hvis42:

Does any EO line (= ADSL) actually go over the 1Mbps upload requirement? I guess it would be theoretically possible, but this would require some tinkering and also an optimal and very short connection?

Tens of thousands. Being EO on ADSL2/2+ is no different from going via a cabinet (PCP). It's simply a question of the distance to the premises.


I'm 2.1 miles by the connection route from my exchange and got 5Mbps/1,100kbps.

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 20-Sep-18 10:54:22)