Last time i checked, BT Wholesale tails are available nationwide, not just in certain regions. Syscomm and Fluidone, unlike Spectrum Internet for example, don't have their own LLU network so can offer their services nationwide subject to carrier availability (usually BT Wholesale).

However in the case of the gigabit services, its clearly Openreach who are dictating to the ISPs where they can sell their services, ie it appears just selected exchanges are enabled for Gigabit BTW based services.

So assuming not every FTTP live exchange is equipped for Gigabit FTTP, this begs the question (again) why on earth is the BT Wholesale checker showing Gigabit availability for many FTTP lines despite actual availability limited to just a very very small proportion of those lines? This clearly indicates the public and CP only availability checkers not being in sync with one another. I suspect BT/Openreach won't be too bothered about fixing this 'anomaly' since

a) nationwide FTTP availability is relatively small
b) Those seriously contemplating Gigabit FTTP will be an even smaller number since its a very niche product.

The main reason I am (or was!) interested in a Gigabit service from FluidOne was primarily to get signficantly better upload speeds, 30 Mbps isn't that fast when you have to upload a few TBs of data at once so 220 Mbps upload would have been useful. Oh well I guess Openreach have to protect their leased line revenue so can't imagine them offering symmetrical speeds on FTTP anytime soon (if ever)

Edited by deleted (Tue 01-Jan-19 12:34:02)

I wonder what happens when someone gets a FTTP service installed using the Gigabit voucher scheme. My understand is to qualify the service needs to be capable of achieving download speeds of 1 Gb without the need for additional equipment later.

Edited by deleted (Tue 01-Jan-19 12:47:42)

In reply to a post by dect:

I wonder what happens when someone gets a FTTP service installed using the Gigabit voucher scheme. My understand is to qualify the service needs to be capable of achieving download speeds of 1 Gb without the need for additional equipment later.

Mmmmm I think you're right...reading the T&C's of the GBVS:

In reference to gigabitvoucher.culture.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/GBVS-Benef...:

4. Connectivity Requirements
All connections supported by vouchers must fulfil BOTH of the following characteristics:
1. be capable of delivering broadband connectivity to your premises at or above 1Gbps upload
or download at the time of delivery of the connection without the need for future hardware
upgrades or modification (excluding CPE � it is not mandatory to deploy 1Gbps capable CPE
from the outset if this is not required to deliver service)
2. deliver a minimum of 100Mbit/s to your premises. The upgraded broadband service must
deliver a �step change� in service which, for the avoidance of doubt, is at least a doubling of
speeds compared to the service currently being consumed by you.

AFAIK to upgrade existing FTTP lines from 330 Mbps to 500 Mbps (and beyond) requires Openreach to upgrade the GPON hardware, hence the £500+ one-off costs. I wonder if this means Openreach make all GBVS funded FTTP lines 1 Gig ready from the outset in order to meet the above T&Cs?

Edited by deleted (Tue 01-Jan-19 13:16:46)

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

Last time i checked, BT Wholesale tails are available nationwide, not just in certain regions.

Correct, in fact they are the only operator to provide 100% coverage at the copper level.

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

Syscomm and Fluidone, unlike Spectrum Internet for example, don't have their own LLU network so can offer their services nationwide subject to carrier availability (usually BT Wholesale).

Actually, we are operating in this capacity. Watch this space

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

However in the case of the gigabit services, its clearly Openreach who are dictating to the ISPs where they can sell their services, ie it appears just selected exchanges are enabled for Gigabit BTW based services.

I've tried to labour this point in my previous posts.
Openreach have absolutely no restrictions on 500 & 1Gb availability, other than ECI.
The Wholesale restrictions are wholly in their own control and are temporary.

My comment about our geography was two-fold.
Where we are operating, we can provide all speeds and all options listed by OR (native and on demand).
Where we aren't operating and therefore typically relying on wholesale, we're limited by:
- Wholesale product availability (as discussed)
- Market A.
- Cost of delivery for 500Mb & 1Gb services.

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

The main reason I am (or was!) interested in a Gigabit service from FluidOne was primarily to get significantly better upload speeds, 30 Mbps isn't that fast when you have to upload a few TBs of data at once so 220 Mbps upload would have been useful. Oh well I guess Openreach have to protect their leased line revenue so can't imagine them offering symmetrical speeds on FTTP anytime soon (if ever)

Again, not an Openreach restriction.
If you were in say, Leamington Spa, and wanted 1Gb FTTP, we could provide it to you within a few weeks.
Don't expect it to be massively cheaper than 1Gb symmetrical EAD however.

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

AFAIK to upgrade existing FTTP lines from 330 Mbps to 500 Mbps (and beyond) requires Openreach to upgrade the GPON hardware, hence the £500+ one-off costs. I wonder if this means Openreach make all GBVS funded FTTP lines 1 Gig ready from the outset in order to meet the above T&Cs?

Again, as mentioned earlier, no XGPON is deployed today.
The existing equipment can handle it already.
The £500 is banked to pay for upgrades once required later.

Anything post start of the voucher scheme is being provided on 1Gb capiable FTTP head-ends to ensure compatibility.

In reply to a post by Blmcg:

Openreach have absolutely no restrictions on 500 & 1Gb availability, other than ECI.
The Wholesale restrictions are wholly in their own control and are temporary.

Thanks for the clarification. Once the temporary restrictions have been lifted by Wholesale, does that mean you (and other CPs) will be able to provision 1 Gig services nationwide as long as the public Wholesale checker shows availability? I guess the costs are going to be potentailly eye watering but hopefully they will come down over time.

Edited by deleted (Tue 01-Jan-19 13:44:30)

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

Thanks for the clarification. Once the temporary restrictions have been lifted by Wholesale, does that mean you (and other CPs) will be able to provision 1 Gig services nationwide as long as the public Wholesale checker shows availability? I guess the costs are going to be potentailly eye watering but hopefully they will come down over time.

That's the hope. We're working closely with them, as a valued partner, to push for greater availability.

Wholesale are very keen for adoption of the higher rate services, the forward vision has been there for some time.
Technically, A LOT of investment is being made to upgrade the WBC core for ultra-fast and 10Gb port availability/exchange backhaul are just a part of that.
Red tape wise, old blockers are being challenged and market regulation is still a big part of this but it's getting traction.

You're starting to see the same challenges that appeared in the early FTTC days.
Sudden jumps from ~20Mb tails (average 10 lets say) to 40Mb and then 80Mb meant it was a while before anyone was really ready to provide. (Just look at TT/Voda for FTTP & G.Fast as an example).
That was a 2x or 4x peak increase, what we're looking at here is a 10x increase on top of that!

The entry points for equipment and backhaul just jumped up a gear, whereas you could go a long way on 1Gb hardware for some time now. In a lot of cases that's going to be satisfied by an in-place upgrade, but a full refresh.

The challenge here of course is that this is an ultra-low margin industry, to the extremes of the budget operators where if a customer calls with a fault in their contract lifetime their entire contract is a loss, not a fractional "profit".

Somewhere in that profit money has to be found to fund the required upgrades or increased capacity rentals to enable these products.

So I imagine you can see why it's not surprising why availability is limited.

Hopefully they'll get shot of the ECI OLTs, or at very least relegate them to only serving ECI FTTC cabinets.

On what planet does it make sense having kit that has GE backhaul ports and 2.4Gb/port line cards to the access network? Crazy.

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

As things stand it�s FTTP lines with Huawei GPON hardware which show up as 1000/220 on the BT checker, the ECI based lines still show 330/50. Whether the ECI kit can be upgraded easily to support higher speeds I�ve no idea....

No idea if mine was upgraded or not but I only had 330/50 available until about 3 weeks ago and now I have 1000/220 showing up on the Openreach checker, so something changed here at least.

Edited by deleted (Wed 02-Jan-19 14:59:55)

There are only 150 properties on our estate with FTTP. Crazy really. Is it the developers or Openreach who decide what infrastructure to install? Think the reason they may have reverted to copper is due to poor uptake of FTTP due to the availability of VM.

Anyway, there are a couple of Openreach engineers living on the estate - I�ll see if I can ask them if they can get 1000/220 at home, as I know they get the fastest available connection for free as a perk of the job. Does a 1000 connection absolutely need an XGPON card in the headend or can it be delivered over a 2.5G fibre using existing ONT if there were sufficient capacity?