Register (or login) on our website and you will not see this ad.
|
|
Hi @ajd1
We were connected to Full Fibre aka FibreHeros just over a year ago. In our case the fibre is installed by OR, but arranged by Fibre Heroes who have an initial one year exclusivity deal. Fibre hero’s don’t deal with end users and you get a choice of about 6 ISPs. I opted for IDnet as they were the only ones I had heard of and they also give proper static IP4 address and proper IP6 network. Now the exclusivity period is ended we also get the choice of BT and the other OR networks. I think councils are making the arrangements so it may be worth asking them. I’m very pleased with IdNet, my neighbour went with BeFibre and less so.
No idea who told you this but it is most definitely not true.
Fibre Heroes installed the fibre, not Openreach. They may have used Openreach duct and poles. They may even have used the same subcontractors as Openreach, but Openreach do not install fibre for Alt-Nets.
There is no exclusivity period on Fibre Heroes network. They own it and will always own it unless they sell their network or merge with another network. This fibre will never be available to all Openreach based providers. It connects to completely different equipment that Openreach fibre connects to.
If BT becomes available to order in your street then it means that Openreach must have installed their own fibre, their own CBT's, their own splitters with the fibre terminating on an Openreach OLT in an Openreach exchange.
Such a scenario has never been and will never be.
|
|
|
I think you're a little more optimistic than me about just how long it will take OR to upgrade their network to match the newer altnet deployments. My guess is that it will be a significant time before they get close the current offerings being offered by the current generation of altnets.
For the vast majority of "normal" people (i.e. people not members of this forum), 80/20 is plenty of Internet. 1000/110 is way more than they either need or want.
At some time in the future when that changes, and a significant number of people want faster speeds than 1G (or 1.8G), then Openreach will upgrade, and that will be an easy change as it's just adding equipment in the head-end exchange. They could even leapfrog the altnets.
In the mean time: those who are lucky enough to have altnet coverage are free to choose it, if the combination of features suits them. That's not just speed, but price, reliability, customer service, IPv6, static IP, CGNAT etc.
Personally I'd take 300/50 from a reliable ISP over Openreach with static v4+v6, rather than 10G from an altnet at the same price, if that meant I was behind a CGNAT, dynamic IP and no IPv6, and a network that goes down for hours at a time. Speed isn't everything.
Meanwhile, Openreach are happy that a small proportion of really heavy Internet users are going to altnets, leaving the more profitable normal customers on their network.
|
|
|
|
Just to add to the discussion, we have just had a small housing development approved which is some 30 metres away (7 houses). I understand all new developments must have fibre to the home. I suspect we may be activated when they are given the proximity as I suspect they will be using the same infrastructure?
|
|
Register (or login) on our website and you will not see this ad.
|
|
|
I think you're a little more optimistic than me about just how long it will take OR to upgrade their network to match the newer altnet deployments. My guess is that it will be a significant time before they get close the current offerings being offered by the current generation of altnets.
For the vast majority of "normal" people (i.e. people not members of this forum), 80/20 is plenty of Internet. 1000/110 is way more than they either need or want.
At some time in the future when that changes, and a significant number of people want faster speeds than 1G (or 1.8G), then Openreach will upgrade, and that will be an easy change as it's just adding equipment in the head-end exchange. They could even leapfrog the altnets.
In the mean time: those who are lucky enough to have altnet coverage are free to choose it, if the combination of features suits them. That's not just speed, but price, reliability, customer service, IPv6, static IP, CGNAT etc.
Personally I'd take 300/50 from a reliable ISP over Openreach with static v4+v6, rather than 10G from an altnet at the same price, if that meant I was behind a CGNAT, dynamic IP and no IPv6, and a network that goes down for hours at a time. Speed isn't everything.
Meanwhile, Openreach are happy that a small proportion of really heavy Internet users are going to altnets, leaving the more profitable normal customers on their network.
At the moment i am on G.fast 240/40 will upgraded to FTTP 550/75 soon when FTTP go live.
|
|
|
Just to add to the discussion, we have just had a small housing development approved which is some 30 metres away (7 houses). I understand all new developments must have fibre to the home. I suspect we may be activated when they are given the proximity as I suspect they will be using the same infrastructure?
I can't speak with more than just a bit of anecdotal evidence, but around 3 years ago, half a dozen new houses built opposite my parents' home in their very rural Yorkshire village. They have historically poor wired connectivity and use a rural, distributed mesh service that was installed around 10 years ago.
The new houses were installed with fibre, as were others further up the village. As I understand it, the ones opposite were done by an altnet, but the ones in the village were Openreach. Either way, that service has not been made available to as much as a single house beyond the newly installed provision. Even though my parents live right opposite the new houses, they are not interested in discussing further connectivity. Whether or not this changes in the future is unknown, but right now their address on OR's checker gives a resounding "no, get stuffed".
Obviously, you may have more luck (and I hope you do!) but I wouldn't assume anything...
|
|
|
|
New sites are offered FTTP by Openreach, the overwhelming majority take it , some may chose to use an Alt Net or their own ‘in house’ network, but as far retro building existing copper pair areas with FTTP in the adjoining areas , newsites is a different program and budget, retro build has its own programs and budget , so a new site with FTTP makes no difference to the retro rollout for the rest of the surrounding area.
|
|
|
Would you take "up to" 80/20 OR over an altnet? OR have not rolled out to a fair amount of areas where altnets exist.
I think CityFibre could do with getting a better ISP portfolio, when it became available for me I was surprised how barren the ISP list is in terms of the existing players. However I later found out some of it was because of how my property was initially categorised so there is a few more on there now. As an example Zen and Vodafone dont do MDU orders that have no existing wayleave agreement (4 month lead time).
|
|
|
Would you take "up to" 80/20 OR over an altnet? OR have not rolled out to a fair amount of areas where altnets exist.
I would. I value the choice of ISP. 40 on an 80/20 was well adequate for our usage. 30 from an altnet would have been OK, but misconfigured CGNAT with the wireless ISP was a pain. Do I want to do captchas EVERY ****** TIME I use google?
The only reason I took FTTP at 160 rather than 80 is because it was the same price as the wireless I had.
|
|
|
Would you take "up to" 80/20 OR over an altnet? OR have not rolled out to a fair amount of areas where altnets exist.
I would. I value the choice of ISP. 40 on an 80/20 was well adequate for our usage. 30 from an altnet would have been OK, but misconfigured CGNAT with the wireless ISP was a pain. Do I want to do captchas EVERY ****** TIME I use google?
The only reason I took FTTP at 160 rather than 80 is because it was the same price as the wireless I had.
Yeah I have stayed away from the likes of hey broadband lol, but there is also more established ISPs available on CityFibre.
|
|
|
I would. I value the choice of ISP. 40 on an 80/20 was well adequate for our usage. 30 from an altnet would have been OK, but misconfigured CGNAT with the wireless ISP was a pain. Do I want to do captchas EVERY ****** TIME I use google?
The only reason I took FTTP at 160 rather than 80 is because it was the same price as the wireless I had.
Interesting. CGNAT aside, I wouldn't entertain this. We're stuck on 35/5 right now (end of the wire VDSL) and OR passed our street by because the ducting wasn't in the best condition and they couldn't be bothered to do any digging or even put up a couple of extra poles (the houses are fed 75% by poles anyway), which has left us stuck for almost 5 years since they originally began rolling out around this area. What really hurt was when the put a business fibre connection up the street to the local farm / business park that went right across the pole serving my house, but two years later they are still to follow that up with any residential service.
Fortunately, we're getting a single-provider altnet (Netomnia / Youfibre) who have, since January, dug a few holes and have cleared out the blocked OR ducts. They are are now mid-install (area activation next month apparently!). In an ideal world, I'd prefer a service with multiple ISP offerings (and I suspect this will come in time, especially with the rumoured Brsk merger), but right now I'm very much in an "any port in a storm" mindset when it comes to getting out of our current bandwidth hole. Fortunately, Youfibre do at least offer a static IPv4 for £5/mo - expensive, but as you say, CGNAT has quite a few drawbacks.
As for reliability - it remains to be seen, but they seem to be doing something right. I suspect the early weeks might be a bit lumpy as this is a brand new deployment into this whole area, so I'm expecting a few hiccups here and there while the network is still being extensively worked on, but I go into it with my eyes open. I probably won't even cancel the old service for the first couple of months to see how things settle down. ([censored] internet better than no internet at all!)
Edited by daern (Mon 22-Apr-24 09:37:10)
|
|
|
Pages in this thread: 
Print Thread
j0hn83
