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

neilmcl

armith said:

Everything's a 2 year contract (understandably, it must be costing "them" a fortune to wire people like me to the fibre network

It's not costing the ISPs anything, the cost is Openreachs, and as you can see from the wholesale pricing structure above the cost to the ISP to connect you and provide the service won't be that high in comparison. For example, Sky will charge you £28 over 18 months for their Superfast service* whereas the cost to them, based on the above will be a little over £16 per month. You can see from that they have plenty of wiggle room.

*Sky currently have a deal on for Superfast for £26 plus a £100 voucher - https://www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/

armith

Hmmm,  BroadbandChoices tells me 8-14Mb/s down, 0.9-1.1 up on Sky Superfast, which is what I'm currently getting from Now - but clicking through it has a 50Mb/s minimum guarantee - so it must be FTTP. It is a general irritation on all the comparison sites that everything is described as "Fibre". What would be really good is if they had an option to just show FTTP. 

(the other question about Virgin - no chance here, ever!  )

Thank-you for the replies - and especially the heads-up on that Sky deal . I have (unintentionally) hi-jacked this thread and it's become quite specific - the original question I had was about the guide - whether I could go for FTTP, switch back to FTTC and, by this backdoor method, get close to the headline speeds on the FTTC offering - like NOW's 38Mb/s - would they ignore the Fibre they'd layed to my property and route me back through the old copper connection?

fyr

I'm currently on Three's mobile home broadband, which is miles faster than the 2-3mbps from my BT copper wires. GIGACLEAR has laid FTTP to our village; opening 18mths price is attractive, but big £hike£ after that. I presume if I signed up, there'd never been any competition, to keep prices competitive, once introductory period ends?

DanM1701

Silly question perhaps, but to get fibre optic cable to run directly to property I would need to pay openreach to dig up the footpath (there's a box with fibre cable right outside) and also dig up front garden to lay the cable, right? I am trying to get a quote from them but it hasn't exactly been easy to start the process.

molerat

DanM1701 said:

Silly question perhaps, but to get fibre optic cable to run directly to property I would need to pay openreach to dig up the footpath (there's a box with fibre cable right outside) and also dig up front garden to lay the cable, right? I am trying to get a quote from them but it hasn't exactly been easy to start the process.

You don't get Openreach to do anything, they are not customer facing.  You sign up to a deal with an ISP and they arrange everything, the cost of connection will vary across providers. Is FTTP actually available at your property, you would usually see traces of a narrow trench running along the front of the houses in a town ?  The big green box will likely be for FTTC and if it is that close to your property FTTP will likely offer little cost / benefit difference.

neilmcl

molerat said:

DanM1701 said:

Silly question perhaps, but to get fibre optic cable to run directly to property I would need to pay openreach to dig up the footpath (there's a box with fibre cable right outside) and also dig up front garden to lay the cable, right? I am trying to get a quote from them but it hasn't exactly been easy to start the process.

You don't get Openreach to do anything, they are not customer facing.  You sign up to a deal with an ISP and they arrange everything, the cost of connection will vary across providers. Is FTTP actually available at your property, you would usually see traces of a narrow trench running along the front of the houses in a town ?  The big green box will likely be for FTTC and if it is that close to your property FTTP will likely offer little cost / benefit difference.

Not unless it's be delivered overhead via the telephone pole.

JJ_Egan

All the FTTP area around me from the exchange are fed off the pole so far .

matelodave

Same here in rural Cambridgeshire but also  in several other places that are in the towns where I've seen FTTP services installed. 

In the end it's going to boil down to where and how it's deployed whether they need to dig up the street and your front garden or just string it from poles.

If your current service is delivered from poles then I'd guess it's more than likely that they'll also provide FTTP that way as well, using existing infrastructure as far as possible, rather than undertaking wholesale excavations.

neilmcl

JJ_Egan said:

All the FTTP area around me from the exchange are fed off the pole so far .

Same around here. It seems to be the method of choice for OR at the moment for existing properties.

Jenni_D

That can't happen here as all phone lines are fed through underground ducts. (It's only when you go out into the surrounding countryside that you find overhead lines - all lines in town are underground).