In reply to a post by seb:

If only we could consign all those people to run their own forums and not countries, problem solved

🤣

Yes, I'd say there is something misleading or logically wrong about this quote.

Stream and download as much as you like, with a dedicated fibre connection direct to your home

When it says "Stream and download as much as you like" it implies more towards having an unlimited bandwidth and it has nothing to do with whether we have a dedicated fibre connection or not.

Mostly all packages nowadays whether copper, hybrid or wireless has unlimited bandwidth. So by this logic we can all download and stream as much as we like, we don't exactly need full fibre for that!

BT should be conveying the actual benefits of a full fibre connection and from a marketing point of view, this slogan or quote is somewhat weak as it doesn't really convince the consumer why they should switch.

A better slogan or quote would've been "Stream and download worry-free from disruptions with a dedicated fibre optic connection direct to your home".
There should be a compelling case and a better advertisement to convince the consumer why they should switch to Full Fibre. For example a quicker, lower latency or reliable connection (no drop-outs) in the middle of your online gaming or let's just say during your live video streaming so you can have a frustration-free experience. No more freezing and buffering issues to worry about ever again!

I'd say the most important reasons for wanting Full Fibre are having a more reliable internet connection that doesn't drop out, having faster symmetrical download speeds and having lower latency are the strongest reasons for wanting a dedicated fibre connection.

Not many people are informed of these benefits, most layman users will say, "Oh I'm happy with FTTC, what's the need for FTTP"? "I can still download and stream as much as I like with FTTC"! That dedicated fibre connection should be followed with an explanation of its actual benefits and this slogan/quotation doesn't do that.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Yes, I'd say there is something misleading or logically wrong about this quote.

Stream and download as much as you like, with a dedicated fibre connection direct to your home

When it says "Stream and download as much as you like" it implies more towards having an unlimited bandwidth

To be more accurate, it implies unlimited *usage*. (Bandwidth ~= speed; whichever package you buy, the bandwidth is limited). But you're right, an FTTC connection also allows you to use it "as much as you like", from most ISPs anyway.

However, this is just marketing blurb. People don't care about the technical details. To get someone to buy something, you have to make them excited about it.

(Or in the case of Fibre Priority exchanges, you stop them from being able to buy the other thing)

In reply to a post by seb:

Quite. But the point is marketing language has just overtaken things..
"AirFiber" is the worst

I understand what you are getting at,

In reply to a post by seb:

And just about no one outside of tech knows what VDSL is.. FTTC they MAY have heard of

Very high-speed digital subscriber line, try saying that when you had a few.
a lot of people think FTTC is fibre and that is the reason why some are not interested in updating, Blame Ofcom and Openreach

Very high-speed digital subscriber line

VHS-DSL? Not as good as BetaMax-DSL but people will buy it anyway

I see this morning that BT have managed to get a Sky advert banned relating to Wifi although I still think the main broadband providers can say virtually anything without penalty these days as we have had so many years of the ASA/OFCOM allowing it.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

To be more accurate, it implies unlimited *usage*. (Bandwidth ~= speed; whichever package you buy, the bandwidth is limited). But you're right, an FTTC connection also allows you to use it "as much as you like", from most ISPs anyway.

I remember the days of traffic management and limits on how much you can use. Metronet was one that their basic tariff gave you so much data, and then you pay extra for anything you use above. i liked Metronet, in the day it was a good system that worked fine for me, these days it would not work.

However, this is just marketing blurb. People don't care about the technical details. To get someone to buy something, you have to make them excited about it.

The problem is there is not much to be excited about broadband wise these days unless you really had awful speeds and updating to Fibre will make things better.

When saw ZZoomm laying Fibre down the cycle path a couple of years ago I was excited, thinking great faster internet, but after I got thinking about things, I changed my view to I can do everything I need to do with what I have, so why the need to change.

(Or in the case of Fibre Priority exchanges, you stop them from being able to buy the other thing)

That happens a lot in this country, look at loyalty cards, we are not getting enough people using them, so we will link our offers with them, so if people want the offers they have to get the card. Microsoft with Windows 10, we will force people to update from Windows 7 and 8.
With Fibre in places which are not a Fibre Priority exchange, let make FTTC more expensive and FTTP cheaper.
We are being manipulated and people just allow it to happen.

In reply to a post by ian72:

Very high-speed digital subscriber line

VHS-DSL? Not as good as BetaMax-DSL but people will buy it anyway

Don't forget the Video 2000 format as well

In reply to a post by seb:

Statistical contention? A gig shared over a 10G port is better than a gig over a 2.4G port even if each customer has the same amount of capacity on the connection.

Depends.. if the 2.5G is hardly used it may be faster than the 10G which may be more heavily used. It's about the user experience rather than the contention ratio or pipe size. Agreed that 2x1G users on 1G shared is bad, 20x1G users on 10G is way way nicer (even 200x1G users on 10G is probably great mostly)


Always going to be exceptions however as a general rule even if you provision the same amount of capacity per customer or indeed a fair bit less on a bigger pipe you're going to be good. The basic premise is that there it's far less likely there will be say 10 of 100 users maxing out than 1 of 10 users maxing out.

200 x 1G users on 10G is a pretty common thing and works fine. By the time certain operators have collected traffic from a daisy chain of exchanges they're going to be right up there.

User experience is of course key. No visible contention is the aim for most. At the PON / cable segment provision enough for average peak usage + the maximum burst a single customer can draw is a regularly used planning model, and is where the Openreach 1.8 Gbit product over GPON may work.

Folks only use about 5 Mbit/s per household at peak, still. That's over full fibre. It's rising but that rate of increase has slowed.