UK and France access to fibre network

DaJgm1992

In a very small French village we have been offered FTTC fibre. In the UK, in a major city, on a main road, we’re still waiting to hear if Open Reach can provide it. Meanwhile, our broadband speeds get slower and slower as different providers keep swapping the cables in the nearest cabinet. Progress huh?

DullGreyGuy

DaJgm1992 said:

In a very small French village we have been offered FTTC fibre. In the UK, in a major city, on a main road, we’re still waiting to hear if Open Reach can provide it. Meanwhile, our broadband speeds get slower and slower as different providers keep swapping the cables in the nearest cabinet. Progress huh?

Why can't you get FTTC in a major city in the UK?

Living in the capital city in the UK, and near the centre of it too, we could get 5mb/s internet connection and no FTTC because our connection wasnt via a C but copper all the way directly to the exchange. Thankfully being in the capital there are other options like Hyperoptic that dont use the phone line infrastructure and so could still get 1gb/s just with a different company. 

Living in a small town/large village previously in the UK we had FTTC

booneruk

Do all small French villages have FTTC? 

I can get FTTP (rather than FTTC) if I want it. When I moved into my flat a couple of decades ago, I could get a maximum of 512kbs broadband, now that's up to 1Gb/s. 2000 times!

Your post feels a little "grass is greener". Also, things are much worse in the USA

booneruk

In addition to above, there's the term 'broadband notspot' to describe areas that have poor or no broadband provision. 

A few years old, but still interesting: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/uk-broadband-speeds-hot-spots-and-not-spots/ It doesn't seem that bad after a few random searches.

littleboo

Do you mean FTTC, or do you really mean FTTP? For FTTP, Openreach alone have covered 13.5 million homes and are increasing at 1 million per quarter. Then there are the Altnets and VM on top of that. So yes, masses of progress, just not your house. And plenty of small villages in the UK also have FTTP, its not unique to France

iniltous

DaJgm1992 said:

In a very small French village we have been offered FTTC fibre. In the UK, in a major city, on a main road, we’re still waiting to hear if Open Reach can provide it. Meanwhile, our broadband speeds get slower and slower as different providers keep swapping the cables in the nearest cabinet. Progress huh?

Do you mean you can get FTTP , if it’s FTTC then that’s been pretty much available by Openreach everywhere for many years , if it’s FTTP ( the only way your incredulity would make sense ) no doubt there will be many small villages in the UK with FTTP and many in France without , and the regulatory environment may well be very much different to

matelodave

We live in a small linear hamlet of 100 houses (pop 200+) on the "wrong" side of the river Great Ouse in Cambridgeshire and have had FTTP for the past five years and BT Digital Voice or its equivalent for the past three. 

We managed to get it by lobbying Cambridge County Council under their Rural Broadband initiative call Connecting Cambridgeshire. It took a lot of hard work but it paid off.

Interestingly the much bigger village/town (pop 9k+) around 3 miles away only got FTTP about 18 months ago and its still not available in every street. I know several people who cant get FTTP yet, although most of them can get FTTC up to around 80mbit/s

I've no doubt that the city of ELY (pop 19k+) around nine miles away has had it for some time but I don't know when it actually arrived or how good the coverage is

Rodders53

iniltous said: if it’s FTTC then that’s been pretty much available by Openreach everywhere for many years

except where the cable is direct to Exchange or where FTTC Cabinets are full and OR can't or won't upgrade the FTTC capacity to add more users.

Many major cities have alternatives though...  Virgin cable etc.,.

OP @DaJgm1992 needs to state which City they are in and what the BT Wholesale checker reports for their address:
https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/AddressHome

Currently in my village, FTTC is 'available' at my address:  but it has been 'unavailable' in the past due to the Cabinet 1 I'm on being full --- the Exchange is in the next village so ADSL2+ is virtually useless at up to 1 Mbit/s.  Nor is the area a priority for FTTP (although I think some of the new housing developments in the village have got it), including some at the bottom of the lane I live on.

iniltous

The majority of E/O distribution points ( DP’s ) are very close to the exchange so get pretty decent ( for ADSL ) speeds of 17-20Mb , if a FTTC ‘cabinet’ is waiting list , then natural ‘churn’ will probably release ports ( people moving , using mobile only , death etc ) , OR are a business, spending money providing more capacity to FTTC would be ridiculous , the fact is the overwhelming majority of the population have had access to FTTC for years and years 

Martin_the_Unjust

In my small English village I have FTTP. I suspect the OP has a particular axe to grind.

400ixl

France is a far more geographically spread country than the UK so the provisions are different. It will eaqually have the same random hot and cold spots for services as the UK does.

Unfortunately it is a case of waiting for someone (may not be OpenReach) to get to where you are. 

Ofcom's spring update came out yesterday. One article on it is at https://www.techtimes.com/articles/304006/20240425/80-uk-homes-now-gigabit-capable-broadband.htm