In reply to a post by PCJM40:

Why do you always do this? you speak to a couple of people in your small bubble then quote that as the opinion of the majority of people in this country. Life is bigger than your bubble and opinions are more complicated than a single view.

It's not just his acquaintances, it's mine as well. It's also evidenced by the market over the years. There was even a TBB news article about it several years ago saying that the UK could be close to the top of the speed tables if everyone took the best speed package available to them. Then there are the several times when VM has shut lower tier packages and forcibly moved customers onto faster packages (at no cost).

Most people do not care about the technology involved. Most people do not (currently) need speeds beyond what FTTC can provide. A lot of people could probably still manage on a decent ADSL connection.

There is nothing that requires the speeds that an FTTP connection provides. All it does is reduce the wait times for large uploads and downloads and most people don't do that very often. The only real advantage of FTTP over FTTC is slightly increased reliability and - for the providers - reduced operating costs.

Edited by Andrue (Sun 25-Aug-24 08:04:44)

It's odd how some areas are chosen. Brackley is a fairly affluent area but VM have never installed their network here. We got FTTC fairly early on but still don't have Openreach FTTP except on the new housing estates. We do however have Swish and Gigaclear.

My theory on the FTTP 'delay' (it's supposedly coming before end of the year according to their last published list) is that FTTC has given adequate cover for most of the town and they don't think there will be much interest. However it's also true that some of the older housing estates don't have ducted cables so that might be a factor but it's a small proportion of properties by now.

It's simply they have a limited number of engineers in each region, and they have to do them in *some* order, so *someone* goes to the end of the list.

Anecdotally, when other FTTP providers arrive in an area, that can push it to the top of the Openreach list - because they don't want to lose customers. (Conversely, when the only option is Openreach copper, then people have nowhere to move to)

I don’t know if OR change their own rollout plans to counteract a competitors rollout , OR moving an area up its schedule to try and deny a competitor being the ‘first available’ advantage, in my opinion is not that likely as there is huge amount of work needed in advance, headend location and capacity, spine cabling , aggregation node provision etc , all that needs to be in place before a ‘local’ rollout can be considered, and that will be months if not years in the planning, procurement, and provision, but even if OR do this , its not ‘immoral’ or ‘sharp practice’ in fact it would be an abdication of their responsibility not to do that .

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

DLM was not a real problem for me.

Well lucky you then. Just because you didn't have a problem, don't assume that it's fine for everyone else.
Many people live a long way from a cabinet, and DLM sucks really badly for them...

Just wanted to second that, speaking as someone who suffered for years at the end of a long, rotten, mixed Cu/Al line that OR was never going to do anything about. The continual problems caused by DLM were the main reason I went to FTTP, even though it meant taking a punt on an unknown altnet that might go bust tomorrow. I only have 150/150, I don't need the speed, but by comparison the reliability is wonderful.

In reply to a post by jpm:

It's very convenient how Adrian always speaks to people just that week about broadband-related topics that seem to support his position. I work in the industry and I don't talk to people about internet connections outside of work at all.

I speak to people who don't agree with me as well, some i speak to one discord want something better than what they have, one use a mobile network, and certainly want something better, since it cuts out a fair bit. But they don't care what technology it is, as long as it works. There was talk of FTTP where they live, but nothing yet. They have FTTC available, but not great for the price.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Well lucky you then. Just because you didn't have a problem, don't assume that it's fine for everyone else.

Many people live a long way from a cabinet, and DLM sucks really badly for them.

Never said other people did not or don't have a problem, with FTTC and if FTTP is available and they want to move, then that should be up to them, not the shoving, pushing, forcing that we are getting
Fed up with companies, government and corporations pushing us to do things

FTTP is better because it's more reliable. Yes, Openreach is pumping a large amount of money into it - yes it's for commercial reasons, but it's not really about profit (if it was, they would have done it years ago). It's to prevent themselves from disappearing into irrelevance, with other newer networks being built.

You say it is more reliable, and maybe it is in the grand scheme of things, but people still have problems with it. Fibre can be damaged more easily, as I found out on the first couple of months with Zzoomm and someone decided to dig into the fibre. I know that can happen with copper, but copper don't carry as much data, so don't normally knock out a load of people's broadband at the same time. Granted, since they sorted that out, my service have been amazing.

But given that FTTP is being built, it makes no sense at all to be running a legacy copper network in parallel forever. It's perfectly reasonable IMO to expect people, gradually, to move across (as it becomes available, and as contracts come up for renewal). And it *does* ultimately benefit the consumer, to get a far more reliable network at a broadly similar price.

It is just the pushing and not giving people the choice or making it more difficult. One of my brothers have been pushed to Talk Talk, due to Shell being sold off to Octopus and then Octopus selling the broadband section to Talk Talk. He don;t really want to stay with Talk Talk, mainly because already they have put the price up, but trying to find another provider that makes it easy to get FTTC, no doubt we can phone them, but that seems to be the only way. Doing it online, they all want him to go toe FTTP. He lives in a flat that don't belong to him, so need to get permission, need to muck around with finding somewhere to put the ONT and that sort of thing, something else to find a socket for. He is older than me and all he wants is to be able to browse the net. He doesn't stream stuff, but I am trying to get him to do that, the only other thing he has connected is his Echo dot and his phone. He has a small mobile unit that he takes camping, so he can connect his tablet to the net, he is considering using that for the home, but he will need a Wi-fi dongle for the computer.

Some people just don't want the hassle. Now my other brother, well I think it was more his wife than him, anyway, they had FTTP installed and a 500Mb/s speed, before I did. He is saying about going to a slower speed since his wife have passed, but not done that yet.

Again you say about it being more reliable, but most people don't have a problem with FTTC, so to them FTTC is reliable.
I had problems, about 6 years ago, and that was Openreach network, but apart from that it was ok. I realise FTTP is more reliable in the long term, just stop pushing people to it as if that is their only option when it is not.
I know that in many places that is their only option, but not here yet

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Lucky you have the choice. No sign of FTTP in my parents neighbourhood, and FTTC/VDSL is “DIG” so no ducts to the houses. After 9th OR call-out my family have moved to Virgin Media cable ; coax but it works. Neighbourhood built 1970 to 1972 and no telegraph poles in most of town, everything underground.

Town is 130,000 people and CityFibre has some areas built but appears to have slowed.

It is bad when people don't have the choice, I agree with choice, both ways.

i see FTTP still have the problems that FTTC have, cars taking out cabinets.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/zzoomminherefordshir...

+1 to that. I'm about 750 metres away from the cabinet I was on, on a line that was still partly aluminium. Three days uptime for me was good. I always said that as soon as FTTP became available, I'd have it no matter what. When it 'arrived', I noticed that my FTTC spontaneously improved very noticeably, presumably as a result of less crosstalk as people moved away from FTTC but I went ahead with FTTP anyway and am very happy with the result.

cars taking out cabinets

No cabinets on FTTP