FTTP Providers

With FTTP coming at some point in the future (CBTs are installed etc). What are peoples thoughts on providers?

I am currently with Zen and the customer service has been great. Had some issues in the past that have been resolved and nothing that Zen could prevent and over the time speed as dropped due to cross talk etc.

Is there any difference between say BT and Zen with the line itself? Or is it purely around customer service?

Edited by Skilty (Tue 23-Mar-21 10:21:04)

There will be no difference with the fibre from the telephone exchange to your house. There could be a difference with the backhaul though.

Hi,
With FTTP it might be worth taking a look at this Openreach FTTP Providers

I can tell you that I spoke to Clive Selley (CEO of openreach) Last week about FTTP and he told me about plans in my area stating that they would be operational around September 2022 For the St Neots area as part of of the Fibre First program.

While speaking to various ISP's they did tell me that they aren't all available everywhere as they don't all have backhauls in all FTTP exchanges and FTTP locations so I would look around, I know if the prices drop I will either go for BT or TalkTalk as customer service is not really a concern for Full Fibre.
I say that as i already have it at another location (Gigabit symmetric for €20 a month with Orange and a 500Mbps down 50 up with SFR with sub 3ms latency) and there have never been issues and speeds have always been bang on 940 with the restrictions of gigabit ethernet and 500 on SFR so presuming that the backhauls don't have issues the only real issues could be the router, ONT or no service due to an incorrectly spliced cable which would be quick to resolve as its my understanding that TalkTalk have a great forum team that handle issues in less than half an hour.

I know I can't wait till i get off Virgin Media's appalling network thats congested to a point beyond belief with speeds slower than ADSL (10Mbps up and down if lucky) in my whole area.

Edited by RR_The_IT_Guy (Tue 23-Mar-21 19:20:38)

Cheers, I did think they would be much of a muchness and Zen would be using either BT or TalkTalk for backhaul from the exchange. No idea what backhaul I am currently on.

having said that the cost difference on further investigation is the same for the 300 package and £3 more for the 900. So I guess little point going with BT...

Yeah for that difference you might as well stay on ZEN as they are known for working well and solving any potential issues I mean for the first provider I would always try and get a decent provider as that's the point where there is the most to do and to co-ordinate and from my experience its best to do an upgrade then when or if it goes wrong (which with covid things are taking longer) your not stuck with nothing and trying to stand next to a window to get a signal.
I know that openreach are not finding area faults at the moment on FTTP as if one customer is on FTTP they only see one fault and not a min to declare a fault so when you join try and get your area or those on your CBT where the fibre is connected to to also upgrade as it will bring benefits to all.
I know I am on VM and when there is an area issue they never listen as I am one of two people that call as the rest of my area don't want to so they can't see the issue.
Hope you get what I mean, let me know.

In reply to a post by RR_The_IT_Guy:

I know that openreach are not finding area faults at the moment on FTTP as if one customer is on FTTP they only see one fault and not a min to declare a fault so when you join try and get your area or those on your CBT where the fibre is connected to to also upgrade as it will bring benefits to all.

I’m not really sure I follow what you’re saying here?

Sorry I was not clear I was referring to the diagnosing of area faults being a known issue due to a lack of consumers migrating to FTTP.

This happened near me an one of the FTTP areas where a openreach customer had a fault.
The customer was the only customer on the CBT in the whole area and the person kept getting various issues which took Openreach ages to diagnose as they did not think it was effecting all the customers on that CBT (as there were no others) which later in the year as more customers purchased FTTP services where they all experienced the same issue which openreach did not notice for months.


I was basically trying to say that as some streets are not interested in getting Openreach FTTP when its available as there might be CityFibre or Virgin Media customers which mean that when there are issues its taking longer to fix as they can't tell if an issue is local to one user or a wide issue effecting more than one user.

I hope you understand what I mean, I do appreciate that i was not very clear.

If not just let me know and I will answer as soon as possible.

So let me get this straight, your hypothesis (based on the hearsay of one single FTTP customer) is that the slow diagnosis of “area faults” on Openreach FTTP is somehow linked to the lack of folks migrating to FTTP.

....and due to this this apparently well known fact, this is then directly influencing potential customers NOT to choose an Openreach based FTTP service, but rather wait for the possibility of CityFibre to come along or to choose Virgin cable instead.

Is that correct?

No Not at all,
I used that single person as an example, I do know more but i was trying to say that if we all don't move over to FTTP services when theres a fault it does not get fixed aswell as if there are more customers on the service


If anything I would suggest against Virgin Media from mine and 40 Other people's experience with sub 30Mbps speeds its all good them being called ultrafast when they offer slow speeds than VDSL.

I was just saying that more people should move over when they can instead of waiting.


However If CityFibre was in the area I would choose that over openreach for the simple reason that I know there are some major advantages to using their network which openreach is simply unable to offer at the current time For example quicker upload speeds.

To summarise what i meant if less customers in an area join the network of choice VM Openreach or Cityfibre amongst others however I can only speak for VM and Openreach I know from first hand experience that when a single customer (me) has a fault and reports it and its a bigger fault affecting the area and only the guy next door as well calls up they just go there's no area fault when there actually is because the streets whatsapp group is going crazy with "I can't even load google" but none of them call so i was saying that if no one else is on a network its harder to find faults.

I will add to this later but i need to go for a few hours.

No need for further expansion. I’m a former customer of VM and their predecessors for probably 15 years. So am quite well aware of the score there. Virgin network issues (in particular franchise areas) are very well known and have been for eons.

Also I’m using Openreach based FTTP since 2019 so I’m well acquainted with service provider performance, issues and resolution and what physical fault resolution times are really like.

You may wish to familiarise yourself with Openreach network architecture and associated terminology; CBTs are the immediate connection point for an FTTP service from the premises. It’s quite normal for there to be a single customer on one. The number of connections on a single CBT is no indication of how wide the service takeup is in a locality. Aggregation nodes are another matter entirely, if you’re privy to that detail.

Fault resolution time on FTTP is down to the agreement you have with your SP. nothing to do with service takeup. Without knowing the exact nature of the fault it’s impossible to say whether it’s Openreach or the the service running on top.