Aluminium v copper

Does anyone have any specific information on the xDSL performance of aluminium compared to copper? I'm particular curious about how it will impact FTTC.

It will be even worse when handling VDSL2

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

It will be even worse when handling VDSL2

You mean lag further behind? Yes, I can see that since it uses higher frequencies. How would you classify FTTC for the typical aluminium user, then? Pointless? A bit better? A lot better? Significant improvement?

I'm wondering because I've seen a few comments recently from people who seem to think that FTTC is an irrelevance for those on aluminium lines and that seems a very negative view to me.

At the very worst it would at least remove the E side amount of wiring, so give an improvement at least.

Not seen enough actual lines to make a real comment, beyond the HF performance issue.

Irrelevant no - an improvement, but not as big as the copper counterparts.

OK, to give some idea .......
850m 0.5 copper, got 40m sync.
710m 0.5 ali, got 17m sync.

how do you even know you are on copper or alu?

You don't. Some lines will have a mix, some none, some all the way.

I have worked on 700M of well maintained ali with cable duct share in an amateur hams house - got full 40/10 - then off patch got 15meg on 200M of ali. The condition of the line is very important, while the minimum speed is 15M and BT use 2week trained unskilled engineers to install this stuff you will end up with such huge variances.
If you do receive poor speeds raise a boost fault (if BT) and hope they send you a proper engineer.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

I'm wondering because I've seen a few comments recently from people who seem to think that FTTC is an irrelevance for those on aluminium lines and that seems a very negative view to me.

A lot of Basingstoke is on Ali, but the FTTC forum is full of Basingstoke people praising FTTC (where fitted) or annoyed it not yet in their area. Colleagues at work on ADSL2+ in Bstoke find they're getting significantly less than expected, so FTTC is worthwhile.

To be honest two weeks of training for fitting a service specific faceplate is plenty of time.