In reply to a post by Pheasant:

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Thankfully Virgin Media coax is everywhere...

Be interesting to see how long it stays operational for, before its finally supplanted by fibre.

They’ve recently laid fibre along the road here that already has HFC.

Are they switching to RFoG or FTTH?

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Be interesting to see how long it stays operational for, before its finally supplanted by fibre.

Yes, hopefully by 2030 according to talk on ISPreview, I assume as there is existing cabling, repair/replacement is no issue for wayleave permission.

In reply to a post by squarecrumpets:

They’ve recently laid fibre along the road here that already has HFC. Are they switching to RFoG or FTTH?

FTTP XGS-PON under what was called Project Mustang; and in theory to offer the same products as nexfibre areas. The RFoG is end of life. (You may have meant that with FTTH but some people use that to mean hyperoptic style dedicated line to block and then ethernet around block).

Phone and TV are all IP based products, so easy to carry over the different mediums for those that need the TV product.

Edited by jchamier (Sat 26-Apr-25 11:06:40)

Repair and/or replacement of existing VM cable plant ought to be generally covered under the terms of an existing wayleave. If Nexfibre want to come in then it may get potentially murkier...

Edited by Pheasant (Sat 26-Apr-25 11:19:04)

In reply to a post by jchamier:

(You may have meant that with FTTH but some people use that to mean hyperoptic style dedicated line to block and then ethernet around block).

I’ve always read FTTP and FTTH as synonymous/ interchangeable terms; simply substituting ’Premises’ for ‘Home’ in the acronym, but otherwise the same architecture.

The old now legacy Hyperoptic-style deployments, of an optical circuit to the ‘building block’ then structured cabling / copper data cabling (aka Cat5e) to the individual apartments within, I would see as coming under the umbrella of FTTB with ‘B’ standing for Building or perhaps Basement depending on the region / authorship.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Repair and/or replacement of existing VM cable plant ought to be generally covered under the terms of an existing wayleave. If Nexfibre want to come in then it may get potentially murkier...

That figures, but I don't think the shared ownership of VM & nexfibre would want to bother with both in one town, given the plan is that both will offer wholesale operations.

VM coax is all underground here, apart from the small (2ft high max) cabinets that are now full of rust and degrading after 30 years, causing issues in strong sunlight.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

I’ve always read FTTP and FTTH as synonymous/ interchangeable terms; simply substituting ’Premises’ for ‘Home’ in the acronym, but otherwise the same architecture.

Ok, makes sense. Neither term helps determine if its point-to-point (as in some countries?) or shared PON.

I would see as coming under the umbrella of FTTB with ‘B’ standing for Building or perhaps Basement depending on the region / authorship.

Gotcha!

In reply to a post by jchamier:

FTTP XGS-PON under what was called Project Mustang; and in theory to offer the same products as nexfibre areas. The RFoG is end of life. (You may have meant that with FTTH but some people use that to mean hyperoptic style dedicated line to block and then ethernet around block).

Phone and TV are all IP based products, so easy to carry over the different mediums for those that need the TV product.

No I meant RFoG where fibre runs to everyone's home and they get a box that converts fibre to co-axial. I wasn't aware it's end of life. That's great news.

In reply to a post by squarecrumpets:

No I meant RFoG where fibre runs to everyone's home and they get a box that converts fibre to co-axial. I wasn't aware it's end of life. That's great news.

"end of life" as in VM aren't installing any more. I believe because otherwise they could not offer TV to nexfibre areas; and the world is moving slowly to TCP/IP for TV. (e.g. Sky Stream, and Virgin's Stream offering).

RFoG seemed a good idea at the time, a way for cable companies to get physical fibre to properties while continuing to use the same broadband and TV standards their HFC plant is using and indeed the same CMTS chassis, but without substantial extra expense had some huge limitations.

Vanilla RFoG means no OFDMA on return path so no DoCSIS 3.1 upstream. The RFoG ONTs VM were using were restricted to 5-65 MHz return path and even with fibre between home and CMTS there was still the potential to pick up noise inside each home making it wise to avoid some of the spectrum. They ended up sharing about 150 Mbit/s of upstream capacity over 6 3.0 upstream channels on each upstream service group, less than the HFC network's 5 3.0 upstream channels, about 125 Mbit, and 10.4 MHz 3.1 OFDMA block, another 50-70.

VM had been using IPTV for a bunch of channels on the cable TV platform and were always going to move fully IPTV with multicast for what was broadcast at some point so not a major issue for them. Cable gateways may have multiple service flows on them with different quality of service and not a problem to have a best effort one for broadband, another that guarantees symmetrical 64 or 128 kbit for voice on demand and another that is prioritised over the broadband for IPTV.