Discuss the "Fibre to the premises (FTTP) broadband explained" guide

neilmcl

brewerdave said:

matelodave said:

I've got the same a hybrid fibre/copper cable from the pole as JJ-Egan. Installed nearly four years ago.

The fibre is terminated in an OTU (Optical Terminal Unit) and provides broadband services and the copper pair provided phone service to the PSTN (Public Switch Telephone Network) in the normal way. 

About four months ago BT transferred the phone over to their Digita Voice network which is VoIP and disable the PSTN connection. My phone now plugs directly into the router rather than into the wall plate

How does that work with Sky or TalkTalk FTTP? The router that my s-i-l has from Sky on FTTP doesn't appear to have a "phone connection" socket.

Sounds like your SIL doesn't have the latest Sky SR203 hub, this has a socket for VOIP.

QrizB

matelodave said:

My BT Hub2 has a sticky label over the telepohone port and I assume that if required the phone port on the ONT could be enabled  to provide phone services.

My Voda router has two yellow RJ11 ports that look like they're meant to be used for connecting analogue phones to VOIP. Sadly there are no VOIP options in the setup menus and the router guide just marks tham "unused"

My old Draytek Vigor 2600-series had built-in support, and that was back in the ADSL1 days!

(For anyone who wants to fiddle about with VOIP, you can (or could) get a free VOIP number from Sipgate and the Grandstream Wave softphone works pretty well on Android.)

armith

One question about the guide, the bit that says: "If your home already supports FTTP, it just means you have the technology that supports 'ultrafast' speeds, but you're not limited to ultrafast packages only." - I'm currently stuck with 5 or 6 mb/s because I'm almost a mile from the cabinet. I can get Ultrafast, which seems to start at about 100mb/s - but I don't need it - I just need around 10 really. So, if I upgraded to FTTP for the minimum term, could I then switch back to a cheaper FTTC tariff but get (close to) the "headline" speeds of 38ish mb/s - or would this reversion put me back to 5 or 6?

JJ_Egan

Jenni_D said:

JJ_Egan said:

For what its worth as an early FTTP install i have .

FTTP 80/20 from BT  with non optical old style copper wire phone connection ( yes i know )

Old post I know, but I've only just seen it.

They lauded it to you as FTTP, yet it still uses copper for the last stretch? (So it's actually FTTC, or what BT used to market as Infinity 2?) 🙄

NO its FTTP   fibre to the home direct optical cable to an ONT box speed measured at 300 plus on day of install .

But

The phone line is copper wire from the pole  to the old BT box /

littleboo

armith said:

One question about the guide, the bit that says: "If your home already supports FTTP, it just means you have the technology that supports 'ultrafast' speeds, but you're not limited to ultrafast packages only." - I'm currently stuck with 5 or 6 mb/s because I'm almost a mile from the cabinet. I can get Ultrafast, which seems to start at about 100mb/s - but I don't need it - I just need around 10 really. So, if I upgraded to FTTP for the minimum term, could I then switch back to a cheaper FTTC tariff but get (close to) the "headline" speeds of 38ish mb/s - or would this reversion put me back to 5 or 6?

If you have full fibre and look at BT for example, you will see a number of packages from Full Fibre Essential to Full Fibre 900. Full Fibre 1 or Full Fibre Essential would suit you and you would get headline speeds

neilmcl

armith said:

One question about the guide, the bit that says: "If your home already supports FTTP, it just means you have the technology that supports 'ultrafast' speeds, but you're not limited to ultrafast packages only." - I'm currently stuck with 5 or 6 mb/s because I'm almost a mile from the cabinet. I can get Ultrafast, which seems to start at about 100mb/s - but I don't need it - I just need around 10 really. So, if I upgraded to FTTP for the minimum term, could I then switch back to a cheaper FTTC tariff but get (close to) the "headline" speeds of 38ish mb/s - or would this reversion put me back to 5 or 6?

Wholesale FTTP (from Openreach) comes in various speed offerings all the way from 40/10mb/s up to 1000/115mb/s so depending on which provider you're looking at they may have a product in a speed and budget that's suitable. Prices for FTTP will be coming down due the latest wholesale price offers to ISPs who take up the service.

The following is an example of the new wholesale pricing offer for ISPs:


Source: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/category/key_uk_isp_industry_developments

armith

Thanks for the replies - as you (both) say, there are numerous packages. In my case I can get Full Fibre Essential for £35ish (including 700 minutes - mobile signal at home not good enough to rely on) - but that's only showing as 6mb/s download. But for  £1 extra I can get a healthy 25mb/s down - perfect  But that's still > £10 a month more than I'm currently paying (including unlimited calls) for a service that would be > 25mb/s if only I could connect to the nice new cabinet they've installed 100 yards up the road.

Everything's a 2 year contract (understandably, it must be costing "them" a fortune to wire people like me to the fibre network) so, like you say, in 2 years time FTTP and FTTC might be pretty much on a par price-wise. I suppose the best way for now would be to sign up for FibreOne (£28.99 a month), get a mobile that does WiFi calling and use my £5 a month Lebara sim for outgoing calls (assuming Lebara support WiFi calling).

neilmcl

armith said:

Thanks for the replies - as you (both) say, there are numerous packages. In my case I can get Full Fibre Essential for £35ish (including 700 minutes - mobile signal at home not good enough to rely on) - but that's only showing as 6mb/s download. But for  £1 extra I can get a healthy 25mb/s down - perfect  But that's still > £10 a month more than I'm currently paying (including unlimited calls) for a service that would be > 25mb/s if only I could connect to the nice new cabinet they've installed 100 yards up the road.

Everything's a 2 year contract (understandably, it must be costing "them" a fortune to wire people like me to the fibre network) so, like you say, in 2 years time FTTP and FTTC might be pretty much on a par price-wise. I suppose the best way for now would be to sign up for FibreOne (£28.99 a month), get a mobile that does WiFi calling and use my £5 a month Lebara sim for outgoing calls (assuming Lebara support WiFi calling).

What providers have you been looking at?

What is the result of you using the BT Wholesale BB checker below?

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/AddressHome

armith

neilmcl said:

armith said:

Thanks for the replies - as you (both) say, there are numerous packages. In my case I can get Full Fibre Essential for £35ish (including 700 minutes - mobile signal at home not good enough to rely on) - but that's only showing as 6mb/s download. But for  £1 extra I can get a healthy 25mb/s down - perfect  But that's still > £10 a month more than I'm currently paying (including unlimited calls) for a service that would be > 25mb/s if only I could connect to the nice new cabinet they've installed 100 yards up the road.

Everything's a 2 year contract (understandably, it must be costing "them" a fortune to wire people like me to the fibre network) so, like you say, in 2 years time FTTP and FTTC might be pretty much on a par price-wise. I suppose the best way for now would be to sign up for FibreOne (£28.99 a month), get a mobile that does WiFi calling and use my £5 a month Lebara sim for outgoing calls (assuming Lebara support WiFi calling).

What providers have you been looking at?

What is the result of you using the BT Wholesale BB checker below?

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/AddressHome

Not a huge amount of FTTP choice here - Sky, TalkTalk and BT (and EE of course) - but nothing like Vodafone, A&A etc, although Zen shows as being OK - for a price!

BT Checker says I could get the full "Up to 1000" with FTTP. I'm connected to a cabinet a mile down the road - there is a new cabinet very close to our house - but I know I've no chance of getting swapped to that one. Downstream should be (VDSL Clean) 15.8 High to 9.1 Low. The Impacted range is only slightly below this (15.4 to 8.8). I sometimes get close to 9 on FTTC (with Now Broadband).

Thanks for the replies - I should really go with FTTP to improve things - but the cost is still nagging at me - if the price is about to plummet I am nervous about being on a contract that includes 3.9% + RPI - which could mean close to 10% price rise in the next few months.

neilmcl

armith said:

neilmcl said:

armith said:

Thanks for the replies - as you (both) say, there are numerous packages. In my case I can get Full Fibre Essential for £35ish (including 700 minutes - mobile signal at home not good enough to rely on) - but that's only showing as 6mb/s download. But for  £1 extra I can get a healthy 25mb/s down - perfect  But that's still > £10 a month more than I'm currently paying (including unlimited calls) for a service that would be > 25mb/s if only I could connect to the nice new cabinet they've installed 100 yards up the road.

Everything's a 2 year contract (understandably, it must be costing "them" a fortune to wire people like me to the fibre network) so, like you say, in 2 years time FTTP and FTTC might be pretty much on a par price-wise. I suppose the best way for now would be to sign up for FibreOne (£28.99 a month), get a mobile that does WiFi calling and use my £5 a month Lebara sim for outgoing calls (assuming Lebara support WiFi calling).

What providers have you been looking at?

What is the result of you using the BT Wholesale BB checker below?

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/AddressHome

Not a huge amount of FTTP choice here - Sky, TalkTalk and BT (and EE of course) - but nothing like Vodafone, A&A etc, although Zen shows as being OK - for a price!

BT Checker says I could get the full "Up to 1000" with FTTP. I'm connected to a cabinet a mile down the road - there is a new cabinet very close to our house - but I know I've no chance of getting swapped to that one. Downstream should be (VDSL Clean) 15.8 High to 9.1 Low. The Impacted range is only slightly below this (15.4 to 8.8). I sometimes get close to 9 on FTTC (with Now Broadband).

Thanks for the replies - I should really go with FTTP to improve things - but the cost is still nagging at me - if the price is about to plummet I am nervous about being on a contract that includes 3.9% + RPI - which could mean close to 10% price rise in the next few months.

What's your current package with Now Broadband? Is that speed you quoted based on connection speed or speed test via wifi?

I would try and make the most and improve what you're currently using first, eg, get the latest NTE5c master socket and Mk4 faceplate installed, get a better router (the latest Sky SR203 hub is much better and can be used with Now BB), replace the stock ADSL cable with a Cat5e VDSL cable, preferably one with RJ11 and RJ45 on either side, try connecting via 5Ghz rather than 2.4Ghz if your device supports it.

Do you have Virgin in your area?