Only BT offer fibre to address

tastyhog · 23 September 2018 at 4:47AM

i'm due to sign a new (council housing) tenancy next week and will be moving in over the next couple of weeks, as the place needs some work etc it's not a new build or anything.

i'm with vodafone for fibre broadband at my current address and they don't cover where i'm moving to, so I can leave them for free, only have about 6 months remaining on the contract with them

At the new address on all the checkers it says fibre isn't available and only offer broadband at the normal slow speeds, up to 10mb or so, just standard broadband.

Then there's BT, who claim I can get up to 300mb albeit at a larger price, but their superfast 1 50mb is available at £29.99 and after cashback etc it's just over £11 a month for the first 12 months.

is this a dedicated BT fibre connection? FTTP? or is that only on the higher than 50mb speeds?

will I be locked in to BT for all eternity and only be able to use a BT FTTP service in the future or can I go back to getting service over a normal landline?

is there any benefit to going for this over a standard 'landline' connection, other than the higher speeds?

Neil_Jones · 23 September 2018 at 8:25AM

FTTP promises higher speeds than FTTC but attracts a higher price point as you'd expect, so it's probably FTTC.

The £30 probably includes line rental, calls and the internet as is per the norm these days but I'd be very surprised if its only BT you can get as all the other providers use a BT line anyway and if they can provide it there's no reason why anybody else on the same couldn't.

It's more likely the existing line is on another network, I had this when my fibre was up and I was with TalkTalk. SSE had the best go-to deal at the time but they decided they couldn't provide it to my address. After I went for the next best deal at Plusnet, SSE then decided they could supply it after all.

[Deleted User] · 23 September 2018 at 9:02AM

@tastyhog

There is a list of FTTP providers who will supply over BT Openreach FTTP https://www.homeandbusiness.openreach.co.uk/fibre-broadband/ultrafast-broadband/ultrafast-fibre-buy-it-now

Two companies missing from that list currently are Freeola and IDnet.

Also in the future Sky are going to offer it as well, but that is not currently available and they haven't given a date yet.

onomatopoeia99 · 23 September 2018 at 9:26AM

Can you go to https://www.dslchecker.bt.com/ and put in the new number and post the output?

That will tell us what wholesale services are available and therefor give a much clearer indication of your options for retail products.

tastyhog · 23 September 2018 at 9:43AM

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

Can you go to https://www.dslchecker.bt.com/ and put in the new number and post the output?

That will tell us what wholesale services are available and therefor give a much clearer indication of your options for retail products.

interesting, it only mentions FTTP and no FTTC so I presume this means that any fibre connection BT offer will be a FTTP connection, even on the 50mb one

iniltous · 23 September 2018 at 9:50AM

On FTTP you can have superfast speeds as well as ultrafast speeds , so 55Mb and 80Mb , but they may offer discounts on regular 50 and 80 Mb FTTC connections ,but as they have less competition when it comes to FTTP ( and that's not BT's fault, the competition currently chose not to get involved in FTTP) after the initial deal they may not offer a deal, but you could always move back to regular ADSL , 10Mb isn't terrible

onomatopoeia99 · 23 September 2018 at 10:40AM

Thanks for posting the output, makes it much easier to understand. Your situation is unusual having FTTP and ADSL available but not FTTC.

Don't have much to add to what iniltous has said above, basically BT are the only cheapo supplier that offers connections over FTTP as the likes of talktalk etc don't seem to want to. The ISP I use (A&A) offer FTTP but they are expensive and don't do "deals". If you go with BT you will be able to switch at the end of your minimum term but whether or not there will be cheap alternatives then is unknown. I don't know if you'll be able to go back to a copper connection from FTTP.

matelodave · 24 September 2018 at 1:47PM

Plusnet will offer FTTP but only to existing customers at the moment.

I'm hoping that by the time my 18 month FTTP contract with BT ends there will be a few more companies who are prepared to offer it.

FTTC isn't and will never be available where I live as it's not practical to implement it - the nearest enabled cabinet is three miles away.

I'm on 76mbit/s which is a significant improvement on the "just about 2mbit/s" that I got. on ADSL.

tastyhog · 25 September 2018 at 3:35PM

so I placed an order yesterday for the 50mb package, and BT confirm it will be a FTTP connection with an engineer needing to come and fit all the gubbins in the flat

but since ordering it the DSL checker site above now shows the top speeds to be 1000 download and 220 upload, is this something to do with the order I placed?

not that i'll ever need such a speed, but does that mean the line is pretty much completely future proof at this point, if or when they do release a 1gb product to consumers.

takman · 25 September 2018 at 3:50PM

tastyhog wrote: »

so I placed an order yesterday for the 50mb package, and BT confirm it will be a FTTP connection with an engineer needing to come and fit all the gubbins in the flat

but since ordering it the DSL checker site above now shows the top speeds to be 1000 download and 220 upload, is this something to do with the order I placed?

not that i'll ever need such a speed, but does that mean the line is pretty much completely future proof at this point, if or when they do release a 1gb product to consumers.

The physical fiber optic cable will be cable of speeds far higher than 1Gbps (it will just depend on the equipment installed at either end). So it's definitely very future proofed to have the cable already directly into your home because future upgrades won't required any digging.

iniltous · 25 September 2018 at 5:08PM

The checker used to show upto 330Mb on FTTP , that wasn't the theoretical max speed , just the top speed that was available at a wholesale level, it was upto providers if they wanted to retail it, OR/BTw now have made 1Gb available as the best speed on offer to providers and again it's upto them if they want to offer it 'retail' to end users.
The 330 to 1Gb change on the checker is just coincidence that it changed around the same time you ordered FTTP, it would have done that even if you didn't make an order

Only BT offer fibre to address

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