Fibre v Coax

For anyone who's interested here are the stats for an FTTP v HFC connection from NW London.

FTTP - Community Fibre. Gig connection. Very lightly loaded.

--- www.bbc.net.uk ping statistics ---
29 packets transmitted, 29 received, 0% packet loss, time 35121ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1.461/2.315/2.768/0.249 ms

(The time is high as I'm using an Edgrouter which has very long latency period before it starts pinging)

Virgin Media - HDC. 108 Meg link - lightly loaded.

--- www.bbc.net.uk ping statistics ---
44 packets transmitted, 44 received, 0% packet loss, time 43170ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 13.475/15.214/22.678/2.223 ms

Kind of predictable slam dunk for CF. Virgin DOCSIS access tech. isn't really in the same ballpark.

What would be interesting is a comparison of Openreach FTTP vs CF - in the same approximate location - not John o' Groats vs London ...

Me Me! Yes, I am VERY Interested! Please Pardon my ignorance, where can I Buy some of that Community Fibre stuff, and how many arms and legs does it cost?

Location GU15

Former VM 100mbps sub 10ms to bbc.co.uk and easily usable video + audio chat with my Grandchildren and their parents. I was Happy as Larry except for the need to contact retentions every year and renegotiate the price. When they ran out of ideas, I emailed their CEO, asking why new subscribers are more important than old Loyal ones, his "assistant replied with a cookie-cutter answer to a totally different question. I cancelled.

Currently: 300+ ms "alleged" 30/4 mbps guaranteed??? from "NowBroadband & Calls only" version of NowTV (no, i do not have a set-top box, which confuses their support robot, just a Sky NR-801 toy stripped-down "modem"). Only suitable for text chat, audio IF it hasn't rained for a few days. Seriously, when the so-called modem stays up for more than a day or two without rebooting, the ground outside, and the damaged cabinet? have had a chance to dry out. Those reboots make it very difficult to use the TBB monitor as "our" IPV6 number often changes. Don't tell me we are now running out of IPV6 numbers? Surely not?

VM's DOCSIS may be a little less than perfect, but I for one miss it! It worked. Without all the faffing about needed with the Openreach/Sky alternative.

Is this CF thing available at my location? How can I find out?

Cheers & 73
Martin G8EAD

@Pheasant : Fair comment. What I can tell you from past experience is that their DOCSIS modem worked well enough.

Send me a box of "CF" and a one year subscription to VM and I will happily comparison test them for you 😉

Where in GU15 ?

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Kind of predictable slam dunk for CF. Virgin DOCSIS access tech. isn't really in the same ballpark.

What would be interesting is a comparison of Openreach FTTP vs CF - in the same approximate location - not John o' Groats vs London ...

Also a comparison to Virgin's FTTP would be cool

Thanks
Dan

Community Fibre are pretty much within the M25/London only (so far) that I'm aware of.

Sadly, as Pheasant says CF is only within Greater London.


It's worth looking on the TBB map and seeing what else is available. Most parts of the country are going to be waiting on the OR FTTP rollout.

In reply to a post by Martin_G8EAD:

@Pheasant : Fair comment. What I can tell you from past experience is that their DOCSIS modem worked well enough.

You'll be on the same Virgin Media network area as I am, linked to the Guildford head end. Given this was originally an NTL/CableTel area, I see quite a high take up of VM services, so I have assumed OR and any altnet will have us at the end of the queue.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

You'll be on the same Virgin Media network area as I am, linked to the Guildford head end. Given this was originally an NTL/CableTel area, I see quite a high take up of VM services, so I have assumed OR and any altnet will have us at the end of the queue.

I see the opposite. In an area where Openreach have lost business to Virgin Media then there's a very good business case for deploying FTTP to claw back customers and gain incremental revenue.

On the other hand, in the areas where Openreach has no competition, there's far less of a business case to install FTTP. In those areas, the people who will take up FTTP are exactly the same people who are already paying Openreach for their [censored] copper network. A few customers will upgrade to ultrafast when the opportunity arises, but the majority will take the cheapest 40/10 service - and be paying hardly any more than they did before.