How about laying your own fibre...

Interesting story in the BBC if you haven't seen it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8538286.stm

Note the farmer that laid cable just so they could connect to a Wireless Broadband deployment.

This may well become common place in rural areas.

We are currently doing something a little similar in our own network area. Our project is to connect up a small rural business park that could barely achieve any speed at all over adsl.

We have installed a 10km wireless link back to our main PoP in Gloucester and are fibering around the business park itself. The first link from the wireless receiving unit to the business park has involved 600m of trenching. We installed fibre tubes and then blew the fibre in (the blowing took all of 30 minutes!). The link is now operational and we have our first few customers connected (albeit over temporary wireless links around the park until we get the remainder of the fibre laid). The tenants are now enjoying speeds of around 16Mbps SYMMETRIC compared to the previous (if they were lucky) 500Kbps adsl service.

Do you have any idea on costs..

Id be really interested since if the fibre isn't that much .. (I am guessing its still more than copper) and blowing it in is quick then I am wondering how much FTTP would cost .. ?

It seems that in Basingstoke very few places have had to be dug up to put the Fibre upto the PCP at least because you can blow the fibre in I guess in most of the existing ducts.

The fibre itself is very cheap these days - as cheap as copper really.

For BT to install fibre, they first have to install a (micro)duct. Then they blow the fibre through that microduct. The fibre that is blown through has no real physical protection on it so needs to be blown into its own microduct. This is the same process we used.

The only significant cost is that of the digging. Having said that, I would imagine that installing the microducts into existing (old) ducts is not always that easy and thus not always that cheap.

BT Openreach charges (in its excess construction charges) £3.50 per metre to install the microduct and £4.00 per metre to blow the fibre - both of which really are a complete rip-off (the material cost of each is tens of pence per metre), but hey this is BT These are the charges we are having to pay to get a BT fibre installed at the moment into one of our areas.

Thanks..

I guess at a combined price (if you use BT's figures) then say 500m's from the PCP then even at £7 its £3500 !!! No wonder they don't want to do FTTP... Maybe they should get a contractor in with better rates.

I guess if they did want to cover a PCP area they could do it for less per m.
I am just wondering how FTTP is actually installed. Is there a fibre from each Cab ? or do they still have one fibre to a DP and then individual fibres from there... any ideas ?

http://it.tmcnet.com/topics/it/articles/65274-migrat...

Big fibre, split into individual ones for final run, i.e. FTTC means a cab is available for kit for a later move to FTTP

Thanks... Interesting article.

I forsee whats going to happen.

There will be 3 scenarios.

areas that get infrastructure via normal commercial rollouts.
areas that get subsidies via pity, rural areas since they making a lot of noise and getting publicity.
areas that are left behind which I expect will be various urban areas.

So basically it pays to get people to shout maybe ?
Or to have people willing to give money upfront.

I guess this is what drives business though.. i.e. demand.
If there is a good business case then you may well find a company thats interested.

I guess its such a shame that some of the smaller companies who can innovate and deliver (like Rutland from what I have seen) will not have the credit upfront to be able to build the infrastructure without having some or all the money upfront. Rural or Urban I guess.