How long will ADSL last?

Obviously only applies to exchanges that have fibre, but with the push now towards fibre products and more exchanges having fibre, how long before adsl2+ stops getting offered by ISPs and before the adsl signal gets "switched off" simliar to how the onld 20CN was?

Edited by bobble_bob (Wed 17-Sep-14 08:33:50)

There are plenty of exchanges still only on 20CN, so that hasn't been "switched off" yet...

Oh yea i get that, but those that are 21CN enabled have been. Just wonder when the same will happen with 21CN and fibre

Ten years or more

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Ten years or more

At least ...

Friends are on an exchange with less than 50 customers - business and residential together. They have ADSL Max ... with no plans to put in ADSL2+ or VDSL2 as in most cases there would be no improvement. They are a mixture of EO lines and those fed from cabinets housing just 2, 3 or 4 lines with cabinets to premises lines of 2km. FTTP would be extortionately expensive. So, unless something else comes along, they are stuck.

Cannot see it myself. It needs everyone to be able to have a fibre connection on an exchange - which is light years away

I'm sure that somewhere down the line, the smallest exchanges will go FTTP+FVA, with head-end based in a remote exchange. Then the exchange building can be closed, as it is no longer needed.

There was a trial of a fibre-only exchange at Deddington. The copper remains there for now, but I'm sure this is the way ahead. So many small exchanges (which probably only house a remote concentrator for voice, rather than a full exchange) only exist because of the distance limitations of copper.

But the act of getting rid of copper entirely has to be notified in advance (I think at least 5 years) so that LLU operators get a chance to plan ahead.

And who will pick up the cost of installing 10km fibre runs - underground, to supply just one or two customers?

Never, while there is a need for broadband for some the only option will be adsl. Unless of course some new technology comes out that bypasses the need for any kind of telephone line.

WiFi in my opinion will slowly creep in as the standard however Openreach will do their best to deter this.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Ten years or more

I think ADSL 20CN will be retired soon in five years time. I don't think it will be ten years or more. All ADSL 20CN will move onto ADSL2+ 21CN.

20CN has a shorter life span, but question was ADSL2+.

WiFi - only has a short range and its 2.4GHz spectrum is unmanaged and already difficult to use in urban/busy areas. So not sure how Wi-Fi will become a dominant access tech.

Even the trumpeted mythical 5G if ever deployed on 700MHz will not cope with the data needs of 2020 upwards for millions of homes.

At the end of the day, a mixture of technologies may be the solution, but some old tech will continue to live for a long time.

I didn't say it would happen *everywhere*.

When it happens at any one location, the cost of running fibre will be partially offset by the reduced copper maintenance cost, the reduced rates/power etc from stopping the exchange, and either the reduced rental from the exchange building/land or the capital gained by selling it off.

If it happens in the next 5 years, the fibre could be run overhead, after the planning rules were relaxed.

It just becomes another item to consider when factoring profit, loss & RoI. If the numbers look good in a particular village, they'll start doing it.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

20CN has a shorter life span, but question was ADSL2+.

On the other hand, since FTTC can be used on BT-Only IPstream exchanges, BT might just tell people who are fed up with 8 meg to order FTTC and never bother upgrading the exchange to WBC. These are the small, rural exchanges, of course, FTTC via council funding.

There are at least 500, perhaps a 1,000, exchanges at which selling the exchange with planning permission to build a house in its place would generate sufficient money to install a cabinet with a remote concentrator, perhaps with a remote switch. Whether this includes a DSLAM for any variant of ADSL or VDSL would depend upon public funding commitments, but it is hard to see anyone making money out of providing broadband at exchanges with < 200 lines without some form of cross-subsidy.

However, there is a significant regulatory issue. Would BT be permitted to sell exchange buildings, replacing them with concentrators, as this would, in effect, rule out any possibility of LLU competition? Combining exchanges is ok when distances are short enough but my exchange (with 75 lines) is at least 6 miles from its nearest neighbour. LLU entry is never going to happen, but making it impossible could be construed as anti-competitive behaviour. So, in practice you need a regulatory compact by which small exchanges are explicitly subject to separate rules.

They might, but people will moan and not upgrade due to the price differences

Losing ADSL* support from the exchange would, theoretically, allow the VDSL2 power masks on the cabinets to be improved, giving everyone (especially at longer range) an improved speed.

I guess there is a point when the good of the many outweighs the moans of a few...

Does BT even own the buildings? Thought many were just on long term leases.

It will not, however benefit those with VERY long lines.

Neighbours of friends have a line that is something like 4km from the cabinet which itself is 3km from the exchange.The cabinet serves probably less than 5 lines. So, the cabinet is never going to get a VDSL/FTTC upgrade, making it a fibre aggregation point is unlikely too and even if then did putting in 3km of fibre for 5 potential customers and then several km for each is expensive especially as it is underground. At least with basic ADSLmax they have a service.

Edited by MHC (Wed 17-Sep-14 18:20:38)

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Does BT even own the buildings? Thought many were just on long term leases.

They DID ... however back in around 2001 they sold and leased back a large number of buildings for around £2.5bn. There are complex parts to the agreement to allow BT to reacquire the buildings at certain times and the new "owners" cannot sell without BT agreement.

Eeeee. It started well afore 2001 milad!

In the North West my wife spent many years from 1966 GPO >> BT buying buildings and land for expansion, then a complete change of tack to sell and lease-back. It may have been ongoing or completed in 2001 I grant you. She retired well before then.

How did you work that one out?

Broadband served from a cabinet will always have a shorter length than from the exchange, unless openreach do something weird like replace a close exchange with a distant cabinet. Then again openreach are known to do such weird things to save some pennies.

The main reason why really long FTTC lines are bad now is that most if not all of their usable FTTC frequency is wiped out by adsl power cutback.

Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 17-Sep-14 18:02:46)

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

How did you work that one out?

Isn't he simply saying that a cabinet with 5 lines is unlikely to get a fibre upgrade?

There was a big spin-off in 2000 through a company called Telereal (now Telereal Trillium) for BT property including exchanges, offices, etc. Telereal manages the property but does not own all of it. I suspect that it had no interest in small rural exchanges - the ones I was referring to, so that most of those will remain as BT property. If BT were paying rent for such exchanges the management would feel much greater pressure to get rid of them.

Suppose that the land and building potential is worth £40-50K. With current commercial rent yields that is ~£2.5K per year plus upkeep and operating expenses. That absorbs more than 20% of what Openreach can charge in basic annual line rental for an exchange with 200 phone lines without any contribution to the copper loop. Anyone would want to get rid of the property if they were allowed to.

In reply to a post by bobble_bob:

Obviously only applies to exchanges that have fibre, but with the push now towards fibre products and more exchanges having fibre, how long before adsl2+ stops getting offered by ISPs and before the adsl signal gets "switched off" simliar to how the onld 20CN was?

Simple: It will last until BT Wholesale provides the next generation of broadband services (E.g. ADSL2+ or likely FTTC) at each exchange .

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

How did you work that one out?

Isn't he simply saying that a cabinet with 5 lines is unlikely to get a fibre upgrade?

Yes, and also that VDSL will not provide a service on a 4km line even without and power restrictions. Well, it might, but the speeds with probably be sub-1Mbps!

my point is a 4km line from the exchange with the cabinet at 500m becomes a 3.5km line.

So the question I put to you which is better.

4km on adsl
3.5km on vdsl with no power cutback
?

In that case 4km on ADSL.

And the LLU operators also turn off their kit currently around 9 million lines

But OR's point is there would never be a return of the investment of an FTTC cabinet, so they won't do it. Five lines max?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

But OR's point is there would never be a return of the investment of an FTTC cabinet, so they won't do it. Five lines max?

BT has deemed lots of exchanges and cabinets as not economically viable for upgrade, hence the council and BDUK funding to plug the gaps.

There is deeming, and then there is a five-line cabinet 3km from the exchange, with at least one of those lines going 4km from the cabinet to the premises.

The only way that is getting anything is if it gets a housing estate gets sited close to it .

why is that?

I am not arguing the lack of a business case but more about the technical capabilities, even in heavy city areas we not going to see adsl moved to cabinets. So the power cutback is always going to exist for the forseeable future.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

BT has deemed lots of exchanges and cabinets as not economically viable for upgrade, hence the council and BDUK funding to plug the gaps.

Rest assured there are still lots of cabinets which are being excluded and in effect abandoned by BT/BDUK and not upgraded; so that's still lots of gaps.

...and we not talking about ones with 5 lines on them either.

Like mine with 200 odd subscribers on it. (I'm 7 miles from a city centre not half way up a mountain either)
Like the village I know elsewhere in the home counties of 100 residents where the exchange is 4+ miles away and the cabinet is 2 miles away on a main road. They get 0.5Mbps at the moment and all look forward with interest how exactly they are going to get the 2Mbps by 2017 they are promised.

I've seen cabinets upgraded in North Yorkshire, as part of BDUK, with only 40, 50, 60 properties attached. And ones as high as 400 & 500.

The FTTRN trial in NY will apparently have 20 properties attached.

In reply to a post by MHC:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Does BT even own the buildings? Thought many were just on long term leases.

They DID ... however back in around 2001 they sold and leased back a large number of buildings for around £2.5bn. There are complex parts to the agreement to allow BT to reacquire the buildings at certain times and the new "owners" cannot sell without BT agreement.

This is all out of date now. Monterey owned the buildings up until about a year and a half ago. BT then bought Monterey and renamed it BT Facilities Services (BTFS).

Therefore, BT do indeed own all of their exchanges again.

...and how long will IPSs which don't offer fibre last, particularly as the rollout of fibre continues across BT's exchanges? One of the services I manage used to be on a Demon ADSL connection but when fibre came along they couldn't offer fibre and still don't.

Nobody has posted on the Demon forum here for over a year.

Isn't Demon C & W? Aka Vodafone.

It is indeed.

a while, ADSL can be sold really cheap, sky give it free to sports subscribers currently, and many areas have no FTTC/cable. There is even still dialup isps around.

Yes, but most ISPs which originally did dialup now offer ADSL and also FTTC. Demon has got stuck at ADSL and proudly boasts of speeds up to 19Mbps. It's all a little bit behind the times.