FTTP vs FTTC and peak time throttling

Hi. First post for a while.

I used to be quite clued in on all this stuff, pre-fibre, but now I'm very rusty, so I'm after some general wisdom, please.

Once upon a time, there were 2 types of ISP: one would charge more and give you unfettered access to bandwidth; and one would be cheaper and implement peak period throttling. This was because Linx data pipes were expensive, and it was cheaper to share them among more customers. I've always gone for "unlimited" DSL, O2, then Sky, then Zen. I'm currently getting 48Mbps down, with no noticeable slowdown at peak periods.

Fast forward, and a guy from Trooli comes knocking at my door. He's selling FTTP, new to our semi-rural area (Dorset). Now, I'm interested, because I know we'll have to go FTTP eventually, and, well, who doesn't want faster internet?

But my question is (eventually): never mind the headline connection speed at the premises (150M/500M/900M/2G), what sort of minimum speeds would I expect when all of their customers are streaming and downloading in the evenings, or is that not a thing anymore?

Edited by YammerUK (Thu 29-Aug-24 08:23:52)

FTTP is a shared system, I think it is shared between 32 houses, that is Openreach, so altnets share between less. Will it make a difference to you? No, that was one of my worried before I went to FTTP.

I can't remember the amount of bandwidth that is shared, but the chance of it getting saturated is pretty slim unless every one of those 32 properties use the full bandwidth they can at the same time, and that is not going to happen. I would not worry about it, been there, done that.

That's great information, thanks.

I see what you're saying about premises sharing connection equipment, similar to FTTC premises sharing an exchange DSL board. But what about the ISP end?

In the old days, you were limited by the amount of bandwidth the ISP could allocate per customer at peak periods, not the connection speed to the local exchange. So, it didn't matter what your headline "speed" was, you'd get throttled further down the line between the ISP and the LINX.

It's not a thing, you don't need to be concerned by it. Some ISPs will have minimum speed guarantees listed along with the headline package but I can't imagine a small provider like Trooli has enough customers for capacity problems to creep in.

Bandwidth is essentially unlimited these days; London is one of the cheapest places in the world to buy Internet transit.

Very large providers don't peer at the LINX (or equivalent exchange points like LONAP) - they have dedicated private peering links between themselves, which are as large as needed.

For smaller providers peering at exchange points, they just pay for whatever port size they need. Most providers are not going to be choking here, although a badly-run network which has not done its capacity planning properly might do.

Is Trooli a well-run network or a badly-run network? Who knows. They might simply buy blended transit from an upstream provider, and the question then becomes whether *that* is a well-run or badly-run network.

One thing that's important to understand is that on a retail-only altnet you have no choice of provider: you get whatever service they provide. For comparison: if you had a connection via a wholesale network like Openreach or Cityfibre, you get a range of ISPs who compete on price and service, and you can easily switch between them. (Well, perhaps not *easily* in the case of Cityfibre, but that's a different story).

A few days ago Trooli announced a wholesale partnership with Zen - so there may be *some* choice of ISP on their network forthcoming, albeit probably not immediately.

Otherwise, if you're considering the Trooli retail offering, check whether the service meets your needs. Do you know or care what CGNAT is, or static IP, or IPv6? If you don't, then their service may be fine for general browsing and downloading. If you do, then check more carefully what service they provide. In any case, check what the contract terms are. Check whether there is compensation in the case of an extended outage.

If reliability is important, you could always keep the FTTC connection running in parallel with Trooli for a period of time, until you're sure it's good enough to terminate the FTTC.

In reply to a post by YammerUK:

That's great information, thanks.

I see what you're saying about premises sharing connection equipment, similar to FTTC premises sharing an exchange DSL board. But what about the ISP end?

In the old days, you were limited by the amount of bandwidth the ISP could allocate per customer at peak periods, not the connection speed to the local exchange. So, it didn't matter what your headline "speed" was, you'd get throttled further down the line between the ISP and the LINX.

His information was wrong about Openreach sharing more than altnets, their ratio is as low as it gets, but broadly okay. There was actually a lot more sharing of bandwidth on his beloved FTTC where 300+ homes could share a gigabit than there is on full fibre where the most homes sharing is 128 and they share about 8.5 Gbit. The lower standard it's about 2.5 Gbit between 30-32 homes.

ISPs aren't the bottleneck anymore. Advertising and regulatory changes force them to advertise the average speed during peak times. If you aren't getting full speed at peak times there's a problem somewhere.

Just FYI the old school issues were when everyone besides the cable company was paying BT Wholesale for bandwidth from the exchanges to the ISP. That cost a massive amount and was why some throttled. They were paying seven figures a year for less than a gigabit of capacity. Ouch!

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

FTTP is a shared system, I think it is shared between 32 houses, that is Openreach, so altnets share between less. Will it make a difference to you? No, that was one of my worried before I went to FTTP.

I can't remember the amount of bandwidth that is shared, but the chance of it getting saturated is pretty slim unless every one of those 32 properties use the full bandwidth they can at the same time, and that is not going to happen. I would not worry about it, been there, done that.

Perhaps you can provide evidence of this .
As the OP is asking about a particular Alt Net , then referencing OR serves what purpose ?, apart from your almost pathological need to denigrate them

Don't forget the OP is currently on FTTC. Which is Openreach from the premises to the exchange. Backhaul may be BT Wholesale or Zen itself.

I think the comparison is valid.

Where's the denigration of OR in the post? Or do you have a "pathological need to denigrate" him?

In reply to a post by pluralist:

Don't forget the OP is currently on FTTC. Which is Openreach from the premises to the exchange. Backhaul may be BT Wholesale or Zen itself.

I think the comparison is valid.

Good for you , you can think what you like .

Where's the denigration of OR in the post? Or do you have a "pathological need to denigrate" him?

I underlined the part in question ( perhaps you missed it ) but for clarity ‘so alt nets share between less ‘ , a poorly constructed sentence but the meaning is clear , that Alt Nets use a ‘better’ splitter ratio that OR’s 32/1 , and as splitters are built from -3dB 1-2 ‘splits’ , 1 to 2 , 2 to 4 , 4 to 8 , 8 to 16 and 16 to 32 etc, it follows it would have to be a split of , 2 ,4 , 8 or 16 , the poster gives no citation to support this assertion that Alt Nets use a better ratio, it’s simply more of their jaundiced view that in comparison to Alt Nets , OR must be worse , perhaps some do use a different split ratio , for all the ( especially on here ) wet dreams about XG-PON and XGSPON, it can ( by design) use a much larger split ratio of 1-128 , some Alt Nets may even be point to point , but that’s not what that particular poster claimed, if they had posted ‘Alt Nets may share between less ‘ still a terrible sentence, but one I wouldn’t have commented on.

As far as myself having a pathological need to denigrate him , it’s the first and only time I’ve referred to that poster in any of my contributions , for you to deny that they comment continually and negatively about OR , ( and BT ) even in cases like this where the subject wasn’t even OR in the first place, would be laughable

Edited by Iniltous (Thu 29-Aug-24 14:36:48)

In reply to a post by pluralist:

Don't forget the OP is currently on FTTC. Which is Openreach from the premises to the exchange. Backhaul may be BT Wholesale or Zen itself.

True, but that has what to do with PON split ratios?

In reply to a post by pluralist:

I think the comparison is valid.

Where's the denigration of OR in the post? Or do you have a "pathological need to denigrate" him?

The comparison was wrong, no altnet has a lower split ratio than Openreach's standard one or a more conservative capacity planning criteria. Given the OP doesn't have Openreach available to them it was also irrelevant. The split is less important than capacity planning criteria and ease of upgrade.

I rarely agree with Initious but the pathological need to denigrate Openreach is an ongoing theme in the man's posting, right down to the inane nicknames he uses for Openreach et al. I can't say I'm surprised if there's sensitivity and that's without being able to read whatever nonsense is written in The Park.