What future for the local exchange?

When our FTTP network was being installed, one of the engineers remarked that our connection would be made to the spine cable some distance up the road from and before the exchange. I understood this to mean that our line would have no connection with the physical local exchange. If so, and as we will be on VOIP and could no doubt dump our local number in favour of one apparently from another geographical area, I wonder what now identifies our service with a particular location? Also, will the local exchange eventually wither and fade away?

Some smaller ones will do eventually, but it will be some time yet as they still house LLU equipment for other providers using the copper network.

One of my work mates had a team brief a few weeks back and one guy asked what is going to be done about the state of some exch MDFs and some manager told him nothing as they would all be gone by 2020 as we will have a full FTTP network ! LOL there are two chances of that happening , slim and none and slim has just left town .

Edited by MC31 (Sat 03-Sep-16 22:15:50)

Which raises the usual question, why aren't the LLU suppliers buying into the Openreach FTTP products ?

In reply to a post by sandcastle:

I wonder what now identifies our service with a particular location?

Nothing. If you have a VOIP number from the likes of Sipgate or Voipfone you can use it anywhere you can get an internet connection. Typically you can register an address in case you want to make a 999 call. I doubt the police will come knocking if you leave the receiver off the hook.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Which raises the usual question, why aren't the LLU suppliers buying into the Openreach FTTP products ?

They aren't available widely enough to make it worth the CableLink.

If/when Openreach pulls its finger out and gets some serious premises passed, which shock horror will have to be on its own tab, I imagine there will be more interest.

I think they now just about have the hang of using the existing ducts without managing to spend more per premises than Virgin are including civils so hopefully between new build properties and those blessed with brownfield there will be more retail interest generated.

In reply to a post by MC31:

One of my work mates had a team brief a few weeks back and one guy asked what is going to be done about the state of some exch MDFs and some manager told him nothing as they would all be gone by 2020 as we will have a full FTTP network ! LOL there are two chances of that happening , slim and none and slim has just left town .

Of course, its not going to be a full FTTP network but the days of the PSTN are numbered - and as others have said the smaller exchanges will eventually be closed.

BT recently said:

"Today, customers get a telephone line as a pre-requisite to having a broadband services. With single order broadband, customers will no longer get a telephony service with their line, they will get a physical line over which broadband is delivered. From 2018, we expect on the BT network that if the customer also wants a telephony service, there will be a pre-requisite of having a broadband line and that by 2022 we anticipate that the PSTN voice service will be withdrawn."

and ISDN etc. is due to be withdrawn by 2025..

So not enough customers passed for them to deem it worth their while.....

... and yet Openreach profess to be driven by their customers, the CP's.

Sounds like a classic Mexican stand off doesn't it.

Surely now is the time for them to dip their toes, get their processes and CS up to speed. An exchange down the road from me already has over a thousand properties which are FTTP only, with many more on the way, ( 5 thousand I hear ) With a little more 'keenness' from all involved who knows where we'd be already.

and ISDN etc. is due to be withdrawn by 2025..

Yaaaaay. I hate ISDN lines.

To put the question another way: Does BT's ONT have a unique address? Leading on from there: what does this aspect of one's identity look like? And is there any possibility of the ONT being hacked?

Sky have had the systems and processes in place for years.

Openreach seem happier to spend more on operational expense than capital, which is their call. Given the strategic decisions made with regards to FTTP earlier maybe safer to stick with the familiar unless necessary.

Sky are a TV company that offers broadband to improve retention rates. They have no motivation at all to push Openreach in this regard.

TalkTalk have a business model that leaves them disinclined to purchase FTTP. They are on life support and waiting for someone to buy them.

It is quite bizarre, though, that Openreach is portrayed as risk averse but is using bleeding edge technology in a bleeding edge manner with zero upgrade path for the foreseeable to save money. Infrastructure permitting PON from the big Huawei DSLAMs delivered on demand would've seemed a plan, assuming it's feasible and the monthly charge isn't ridiculous. Maintains usage of the investment placing the cabinet, carries no distance caveats, well proven, mass market technology.

In reply to a post by sandcastle:

To put the question another way: Does BT's ONT have a unique address? Leading on from there: what does this aspect of one's identity look like? And is there any possibility of the ONT being hacked?

Customers are mapped to their ISP via stacked VLANs. Telephony uses a dedicated VLAN on the service. Physical access is required to the ONT to carry out any attacks as its management plane is not reachable from the Internet.

You would need to steal its serial number, flash it onto your own ONT, then connect to the same port on the OLT, as the ONT is provisioned to a specific port.

In reply to a post by sandcastle:

To put the question another way: Does BT's ONT have a unique address? Leading on from there: what does this aspect of one's identity look like? And is there any possibility of the ONT being hacked?

AIUI BT use a Passive Optical Network where the same signal is split and sent to a number of receivers (ONT) which then just take the part they want. To do this they must have some sort of identifier. If you want to know more you could google for PON. I think for a hack you would need special hardware and the resources ofthe likes of GCHQ to defeat the encryption.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Which raises the usual question, why aren't the LLU suppliers buying into the Openreach FTTP products ?

They aren't available widely enough to make it worth the CableLink.

Haven't Openreach recently announced that they will offer CableLinks that carry both FTTC and FTTP traffic, rather than CPs needing dedicated FTTP CableLinks?