In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

1) G.fast upgrades on bduk funded cabs are NOT done using public funds, ie BT/Openreach fund g.fast upgrades 100% themselves irrespective of how the vdsl cabinet was funded in the first place.

Sure the pod itself is all private money, but they are making use of power and fibre from the VDSL twin to add it, and there in lies the problem. These are a significant proportion of the cost of a VDSL twin and by piggy backing off them they are receiving an indirect subsidy that is very likely illegal under EU state aid rules.

So using the above logic, I guess my FTTPoD install is also �illegal�? Reason being the aggregation node for the fibre was built earlier using bduk money to serve cabs around NSICL exchange, all bduk funded <rolls eyes>.

Absolutely 100% sure on that. They did a few exchanges of which Meadow Well was one as a sort of trial and then stalled for more than a year saying it was not viable for a full roll out based on the low take up. So yes the full roll out started later but the trial was definitely late 90's. I knew someone who had it and I left that job before 2000 started.

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

So using the above logic, I guess my FTTPoD install is also �illegal�? Reason being the aggregation node for the fibre was built earlier using bduk money to serve cabs around NSICL exchange, all bduk funded <rolls eyes>.

Potentially yes. On the other hand BDUK was not 100% funding and the aggregation nodes could easily all have been paid for by BT/Openreach, with subsidies for individual cabinets. Then again there are undisclosed issues with the R100 contract in Scotland with a different supplier and Openreach, which could easily revolve around Openreach using previously state subsidized fibre optic infrastructure in the new bid. As I recall the Scottish government spent a lot of money paying for fibre links to be laid to the islands. If Openreach are being sniffy about letting other people use them that could be the cause of the hold up/litigation.

The whole thing is admittedly something of a minefield, but state aid rules are pretty strict. Of course the commission likely have their attention else where at the minute.

If memory serves I got ADSL towards the end of 1999 as part of a teleworking trial with my then employer.We were, at that time, using ISDN30e and with ADSL working out a cheaper option, the company was keen to see how well it worked.