Virgin's FTTP

Is Virgin's FTTP real FTTP or just a heated up hybrid cable system?

I'm seeing them cable up streets previously without Virgin. The roadworks sites mention "superfast fibre to the home expansion" however in some streets they are deploying in Openreach ducts (including the distribution point so no street cabinet as far as I can see).

Last time I asked about Virgin bargepoles were mentioned so maybe it doesn't matter how it works - or not....

Interested none the less.

In reply to a post by Woolwich:

Is Virgin's FTTP real FTTP or just a heated up hybrid cable system?

A bit of both as I understand it.

On the one hand, it's real FTTP in the sense that the fibre does run all the way to your home. Then there's a box on the wall which converts it to copper, which you could argue is no different from an ONT.

On the other hand, it's still running DOCSIS using radio-frequency-over-glass (RFoG). So it's just a bog standard cable TV system, modulated to go over fibres instead of coax, and converted back to coax at the very end.

Long term, this fibre infrastructure *could* be converted to XGS-PON or similar. But short to medium term, it's still a cable TV network with the same limitations.

In reply to a post by Woolwich:

Is Virgin's FTTP real FTTP or just a heated up hybrid cable system?

Have a search through for RFoG (Radio Frequency over Glass). Virgin Media use this to cable up new properties and it converts the signal back to coax at the home, so that VM can still sell the same TV 6 and Hub 3 / 4 / 5 cable modem / router, as they want to supply national services that don't depend on the physical wiring in the ground.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

But short to medium term, it's still a cable TV network with the same limitations.

There should be one advantage over the regular coax cable network, which is that the coax network is pretty sensitive to noise. If you lurk the virgin community forums, or have had virgin over coax yourself, you'll know that keeping signal levels from the street cabs in check is a delicate balancing act of changing the "tap" at the cab and installing attenuators at the client end, being outside of spec means random disconnections and that can be variable to weather and atmospheric conditions! The RFoG setup should be immune to all of that and be lower maintenance to VMO2 and a better end-user experience.

The biggest disadvantage of getting Virgin Media via RFoG is that you are still lumped with their CPEs, which are by all accounts complete trash.

Removing RF interference in the local segment is useful, but there's no way around their support.

In reply to a post by jpm:

The biggest disadvantage of getting Virgin Media via RFoG is that you are still lumped with their CPEs, which are by all accounts complete trash.

I see this often, but as a former VM user I have to say the equipment isn't that awful. Yes, the later hubs (3 & 4) are missing some basic functionality like changing the router's address and subnet, but for most users they are alright, and you still have the option of running in modem only mode. Their support is also pretty good once you get past level 1, it's just that getting past level 1 involves posting to the forum and waiting a long time, the on-ground techs are decent. The bigger problems are at the network layer (latency) and the way they take the p*ss out of their userbase with twice-a-year above-inflation price increases. Still, at least those increases gave some users like myself an out to a much cheaper altnet FTTP provider!

In reply to a post by phoenixw:

The bigger problems are at the network layer (latency) and the way they take the p*ss out of their userbase with twice-a-year above-inflation price increases.

and in coax areas the 30+ year decaying hardware, which means despite the on-the-ground techs doing everything they can you still get disconnections in hot summer days. Still waiting for a true FTTP ISP to arrive. The Hub 3 on 200Mbps service is pretty good in modem mode, you can essentially ignore it

Edited by jchamier (Mon 04-Jul-22 17:35:53)

In reply to a post by Woolwich:

Is Virgin's FTTP real FTTP or just a heated up hybrid cable system?

FTTP comes in many flavours. Virgins FTTP is real FTTP in as much as it's Fibre To The Property.

Currently their FTTP is almost exclusively RFOG (radio frequency over glass) which is a DOCSIS signal over the fibre.
They are in the process of upgrading that to XGS-PON but I'm unaware if much (or any) of it is actually live.

It's no less FTTP than Openreach's GPON is though. Both are full fibre, with a set amount of available bandwidth shared between a set amount of users.
That amount of bandwidth is the limiting factor, the exact same as with GPON.
It can be argued that GPON is better than RFOG but they are both very much FTTP. Just as you can argue that GPON isn't as good as point to point fibre.

In reply to a post by Woolwich:

Is Virgin's FTTP real FTTP or just a heated up hybrid cable system?

I'm seeing them cable up streets previously without Virgin. The roadworks sites mention "superfast fibre to the home expansion" however in some streets they are deploying in Openreach ducts (including the distribution point so no street cabinet as far as I can see).

Last time I asked about Virgin bargepoles were mentioned so maybe it doesn't matter how it works - or not....

Interested none the less.

Their long term game plan is to move to XGS-PON, but it’s only been trialled in a very limited fashion.

Project Lighting is all RFoG which although is technically fibre into the home (or actually outside wall) - there is still coax into the NTE/cable modem - isn’t really comparable to PON or point-to-point FTTP deployments because it is still architected on a TV distribution historic approach to carrying data traffic - ie. DOCSIS - rather than native data - ie xPON or Ethernet.

At some point VM02 will transition from RFOG to XGS-PON - quite possibly running both simultaneously on the local segment.

Edited by Pheasant (Mon 04-Jul-22 22:09:46)

In reply to a post by candlerb:

But short to medium term, it's still a cable TV network with the same limitations.

I had a scan of Wikipedia for DOCIS and first impressions were it is capable of faster symmetric connections than Virgin offer.

But no matter, I'm sticking to my slow FTTC, no chance of taking VIrgin. Not so much the dangers warned of here (of which I already heeded when getting a new service at the office.) I need a fixed IP and a decent upload. As far as I can see their business service gets me a fixed IP but its only ever a 60 MB upload, even on the gigabit connection. That's £60 + VAT which is not really competitive nowadays. Unless you have no choice. I don't. But I choose not to!