In reply to a post by shortshrift27:

And yet Hyperoptic gives me 1Gbps symmetrical for £60/month:

They don't use PON, but a point-to-point link to a building, then they share this within the building using Gigabit Ethernet. Quite different to the FTTP that Openreach and others are building.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by shortshrift27:

And yet Hyperoptic gives me 1Gbps symmetrical for £60/month:

They don't use PON, but a point-to-point link to a building, then they share this within the building using Gigabit Ethernet. Quite different to the FTTP that Openreach and others are building.

I know. But what does the consumer care about the underlying techology for the same level of service?

Hyperoptic (or perhaps an even more pertinent example, Gigaclear, who do use FTTP [edit: ... or Cityfibre/Vodafone, come to think of it]): "1Gbps symmetric is a regular service at a normalish price."

Comment above regarding BT 1Gbps symmetric: "Expect to pay a heavy premium."

Edited by shortshrift27 (Fri 18-Sep-20 19:39:30)

In reply to a post by shortshrift27:

I know. But what does the consumer care about the underlying techology for the same level of service?

Its not really the same. You get better (symmetric), because you live in a multiple dwelling unit (block of flats).

The PON networks the other companies are building are designed to cover larger distances. Hyperoptic doesn’t do individual homes.

Comment above regarding BT 1Gbps symmetric: "Expect to pay a heavy premium."

Yes comparing Openreach FTTP to Gigaclear, CityFibre, or FibreNation is more interesting - especially if symmetric is working for them.

Openreach either believe this will fail in the longer term, disappointed customers, or are protecting their leased line business.

Its all moot, I’m stuck with unreliable (disconnecting) Virgin Coax. Still better than FTTC.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by shortshrift27:

I know. But what does the consumer care about the underlying techology for the same level of service?

Its not really the same. You get better (symmetric), because you live in a multiple dwelling unit (block of flats).

The PON networks the other companies are building are designed to cover larger distances. Hyperoptic doesn’t do individual homes.

Comment above regarding BT 1Gbps symmetric: "Expect to pay a heavy premium."

Yes comparing Openreach FTTP to Gigaclear, CityFibre, or FibreNation is more interesting - especially if symmetric is working for them.

Openreach either believe this will fail in the longer term, disappointed customers, or are protecting their leased line business.

PON is a technology that is traditional “telco” model carrier friendly - based on the well worn asymmetric “consumptive” bandwidth model for small biz and residential internet usage, and a physical architecture that mirrored that commercial model.

On the other hand, non-telco startup competitors have no incumbent network infrastructure baggage. They can choose whatever they like and the trend in the last decade especially is toward the massive commoditisation of active optics / and (non-telco) networking gear and to extend the use of basically oversized LAN architectures adapted to suit the metro. In the main these sorts of architectures have always been inherently symmetric.

What we have further seen in this watershed year of global pandemic and widespread home / remote work is that the “consumptive” internet model is no longer the default rule. Extensive and long term home working, almost universal levels of multi-party video meetings and calls etc demands the LAN-isation of broadband.

Symmetric really is where the new ultra-high speed broadband game is now at. In this respect, PON up until the advent of XGS-PON, which is not yet deployed widely here is in a sense in catchup.

Cityfibre/Vodafone are using regular PON. They are simply oversubscribing the uplink more than the downlink, and counting on the fact that most people don't upload much.

This confirms that it's really a marketing, rather than technology, issue.

Coming up to ending my first 12 months with Cerberus and thinking about what to move to.

I need a static IP and IPv6 (work in IT from home) so that rules out a few ISPs. Happy to stay with Cerberus and they have a product called FTTP XL2 on their website showing as 450 down / 70 up. The nearest Openreach product to this is 550/75, so I'm guessing that is what Cerberus are selling. Is Cerberus speed restricting to 450/70 or is it just a case of advertising using average speeds? Just wanting to know to help compare like with like really. I noticed IDNet have a 550/75 with static IPs and IPv6 which is a bit cheaper and would be faster if 450/70 that Cerberus show is a hard cap they have applied.

In reply to a post by E300:

Coming up to ending my first 12 months with Cerberus and thinking about what to move to.

I need a static IP and IPv6 (work in IT from home) so that rules out a few ISPs. Happy to stay with Cerberus and they have a product called FTTP XL2 on their website showing as 450 down / 70 up. The nearest Openreach product to this is 550/75, so I'm guessing that is what Cerberus are selling. Is Cerberus speed restricting to 450/70 or is it just a case of advertising using average speeds? Just wanting to know to help compare like with like really. I noticed IDNet have a 550/75 with static IPs and IPv6 which is a bit cheaper and would be faster if 450/70 that Cerberus show is a hard cap they have applied.

I went for Cerberus 300/50, as that's the sweet spot in their pricing, and I don't think I'd really notice the difference if it were faster. It was convenient to keep my IP allocations, and I like to support them for the hassle they put up with for handling FTTPoD orders.

The flat-line speedtest results are 306-307 down and 51-52 up. The underlying Openreach product is 330/50 so it's possible they are rate limiting downstream at the BRAS, in which case they might do the same for 450. I don't think you'll really notice the difference between 450 and 550 though

Zen Business is £70 or £75+VAT for 500/70, depending on whether you take 12 or 24 month contract, plus a £40-£45 activation fee, meaning it's more or less the same price as Cerberus overall on a 12-month contract. Their 300/50 tier is significantly more expensive than Cerberus, but 900/100 is cheaper.

Zen Residential appear to have dropped the 150/30 and 330/50 tiers completely - it's now a choice of 100/20 (£39), 500/70 (£55) or 900/100 (£70), all including VAT. That makes it a cheaper option, if you're prepared to accept "residential" level of customer care and don't need a VAT invoice.

Edited by candlerb (Tue 06-Oct-20 18:03:19)

Thanks for the info, admittedly it is the faster upload speed that I'm after for work reasons, so not much of an issue they might be slowing down the underlying Openreach product, just a tad annoying if they are and I just wanted to try and compare with other ISP products like for like.

I'll probably stay with Cerberus as had no issues and hopefully it means my static IP addresses remain the same which avoids having to update things.

Thanks again.

Max throughput on any Openreach 330 FTTP line will be ~ 310 Mbps after overheads so I wouldn’t worry too much if customers aren’t seeing more than 307 Mbps on Cerberus.

In reply to a post by Highland76:

Max throughput on any Openreach 330 FTTP line will be ~ 310 Mbps after overheads so I wouldn’t worry too much if customers aren’t seeing more than 307 Mbps on Cerberus.

Indeed I was never able to achieve much more than 300 to 310 odd from memory.

What’s the basis for your overheads calculation can I ask? I would like to understand where I should reliably be on the 900/115 service.