Broadband switch and "fibre". What are BT playing at?

neilmcl

Snowclock said:

littleboo said:

Snowclock said:

littleboo said:

As the table shows, you have FTTC available, not FTTP

...which is bad news. It's a little confusing, though, because it says "FTTP on demand" is marked as "available"?

FTTP OD is a different product. You pay for the construction charges to get the fibre to your door.  You pay the construction charges to get the fibre to your door. Only a few ISP's offer FTTP OD

Thanks.

I guess we're probably talking £ hundreds, if nobody else has got it close by.

More like £ thousands. It can be prohibitively expensive and only really aimed at businesses.

nick74

I looked into the cost of getting FTTP OD for a former employer who was thinking of expanding onto a new site in a rural area. BT said they would have needed to do a full site survey to give a definite quote, but ISTR they said the ball park cost started from £10k minimum if the installation was easy, to £40k+ if it wasn't..

JenB79

Snowclock said:

littleboo said:

Snowclock said:

littleboo said:

As the table shows, you have FTTC available, not FTTP

...which is bad news. It's a little confusing, though, because it says "FTTP on demand" is marked as "available"?

FTTP OD is a different product. You pay for the construction charges to get the fibre to your door.  You pay the construction charges to get the fibre to your door. Only a few ISP's offer FTTP OD

Thanks.

I guess we're probably talking £ hundreds, if nobody else has got it close by.

Often 5 figure sums but it can be had for less than £10k if you're quite close to the fibre aggregation node (which serves both FTTC cabinets and FTTP lines). I had FTTPoD installed in 2017 and paid £3700, but in those days costs were based on construction bands A-G, with A being the cheapest. Mine was Band D, where the aggregation node was roughly 800 metres away from my home.

TBH if you're already connected to a FTTC cabinet and you're not too far away from the aggregation node, then there's a good chance you'll eventually get native FTTP one day. According to Openreach, 96% of FTTC lines are within 2km of their nearest fibre aggregation node, I suspect it will be the remaining 4% who might struggle to get FTTP.

iniltous

Snowclock said:

iniltous said:

What does this wholesale checker site return for your address ( as you are not yet and may not ever be a BT customer , use your address rather than phone number  )
This checker uses VDSL as the indicator of FTTC ( fibre to the cabinet ) so if you had used this before making any order you would see what ‘products’ are available , all mainstream providers use the term ‘fibre’ when it’s fibre to the cab, ( including Virgin Media with their hybrid fibre/copper network ) ISP tend to use terms like ‘full fibre’ , or Hyperfast, for FTTP ( fibre to the premises ) , as you admit , you should have probably have asked , or done some research, especially as you know there were going to be issues, no one takes an order for FTTP before the infrastructure is close to the curtilage of the property.
FWIW, BT has no more or less influence on Openreach than anyone else, and using inaccurate terms like BT/OR simply add to the confusion over who does what, they are functionally separate company’s,   it’s OR that provide the network, copper or fibre, not BT.
You don’t say what sort of broadband you have ( presumably exchange based ADSL ) so an upgrade to FTTC may be worthwhile, from a speed point of view, but obviously will still be using the copper cable to your home that you suspect is a fault liability 

Here we go. Good or bad?...I suspect, bad.

Considering the very low exchange based ADSL speeds for your location, the jump to FTTC , predicted at 32Mb to 46Mb , then the improvement is very good …TBH, there is very little difference in price between ADSL and VDSL/FTTC , so personally I would upgrade ASAP….if the copper cable to your home is problematic, that will still be the case.
Its up to you which broadband provider you go for , all will provide very similar speeds to each other, as the FTTC equipment and ‘line’ are the same regardless of who you go for, ( belonging to OR ) the only difference is the router the ISP supply, 

Richard_T_

My basic understanding is that in the next few years openreach will be turning off the copper network and everyone will have to go to FTTP

there's a site here that lists plans https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/where-when-building-ultrafast-full-fibre-broadband

Chino

Richard_T_ said:

My basic understanding is that in the next few years openreach will be turning off the copper network and everyone will have to go to FTTP

From the link you posted:

At Openreach, we've recently announced an ambition to reach 25 million homes and businesses by December 2026, if the right investment conditions are in place.

So it's unlikely that the majority of the population will be going to FTTP within the next ten years, if ever.

Richard_T_

more here on the analogue copper switch off due in 2025 :   https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58233420

Although for everyone, 2025 is too long to wait for real fibre, so its either an openreach fttp/vdsl solution, or if available cable ( ie virgin) an alt-net or even a 5g home router.

 For Snowclock the best option appears to be fttp or wait until  2025 which isnt that practical

littleboo

Copper network retirement and the PSTN switch off are not inextricably linked. An analogue phone connection can be replaced by a VOIP service over an an existing FTTC connection without anyone noticing.

phillw

littleboo said:

Copper network retirement and the PSTN switch off are not inextricably linked. An analogue phone connection can be replaced by a VOIP service over an an existing FTTC connection without anyone noticing.

AFAIK they are withdrawing FTTC and replacing it with SoGEA (Single Order Generic Ethernet Access) in 2025, but this appears to only affect their network up to the cabinet and not the last mile.

Some kind of wireless broadband might be a better option (5g, satellite, microwave, etc)...