80 vs 40?

2

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  • Mike_1101Mike_1101 Posts: 8,012
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    moox wrote: »
    It wouldn't take that long if we actually spent some money on it.

    It's possible that some places won't ever get it, but it shouldn't be fiendishly difficult for the vast majority of urban and rural places.

    The telephone was invented in 1876 and I can remember quite a few people who did not have one installed until well into the 1970s.

    I can also remember a BBC news report from the 1980s about a remote village in the Lake District being connected to mains electricity. The locals were not happy as they had spent thousands of pounds on a diesel generator a few months earlier. Norweb had told them there was no prospect of mains electricity for several years.
  • mooxmoox Posts: 18,880
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    Mike_1101 wrote: »
    The telephone was invented in 1876 and I can remember quite a few people who did not have one installed until well into the 1970s.

    I can also remember a BBC news report from the 1980s about a remote village in the Lake District being connected to mains electricity. The locals were not happy as they had spent thousands of pounds on a diesel generator a few months earlier. Norweb had told them there was no prospect of mains electricity for several years.

    But both of those cases required everything to be built from scratch - in the case of the telephone, you had to install poles, build exchanges, run trunks between exchanges, get employees to run it, etc.

    This time around everything else is in place, it's just a case of getting fibre to the houses. In the case of places that already have FTTC it should be even easier as you need to get fibre from the distribution point to the houses, which apparently BT designed the network with that in mind. Obviously it's not a trivial or cheap task, but it's not as difficult as starting entirely from scratch either.

    More recently it certainly didn't take the cable companies 50 years to build networks to cover the areas they chose to cover. 10 years maybe.
  • Mike_1101Mike_1101 Posts: 8,012
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    moox wrote: »
    But both of those cases required everything to be built from scratch - in the case of the telephone, you had to install poles, build exchanges, run trunks between exchanges, get employees to run it, etc.

    This time around everything else is in place, it's just a case of getting fibre to the houses. In the case of places that already have FTTC it should be even easier as you need to get fibre from the distribution point to the houses, which apparently BT designed the network with that in mind.

    Fibre connections to every household and business will require the whole local network infrastructure based on copper cables to be replaced. This will be a huge undertaking and take years. Does each individual house really need a fibre connection - what are they going to use all that capacity for?

    Some might, many won't and I can't see myself needing it.

    I would accept the logic of placing a cabinet to serve 3 or 4 overhead poles so that maybe 100 houses could share a fibre connection.
  • mooxmoox Posts: 18,880
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    Mike_1101 wrote: »
    Fibre connections to every household and business will require the whole local network infrastructure based on copper cables to be replaced. This will be a huge undertaking and take years. Does each individual house really need a fibre connection - what are they going to use all that capacity for?

    The point being that it is future proof. BT will struggle to do 100Mbit on FTTC for most people, let alone much more. FTTP will solve the distance issue once and for all.

    The BT FTTC design has already put much of the groundwork in place (pun not intended) - much more fibre than was necessary was installed, and can be used for FTTP later (hence why BT is dabbling with the idea of "FTTP on demand" where you can pay a proportionate share of the installation costs and get it before BT decides to do it). So a couple of hundred meters of fibre, maybe. FTTP doesn't require each house to have a dedicated fibre to the exchange, either - it can be split like cable TV networks are. So one fibre can serve up to 32 or 128 homes (I forget which, whatever PON can do these days).

    100Mbit is really not that much these days - our LANs operate at faster speeds. The point of an FTTP setup is not to provide stupid silly speeds now, but it certainly permits it. BT could offer 80Mbit or 800Mbit with ease.
    Mike_1101 wrote: »
    Some might, many won't and I can't see myself needing it.

    I would accept the logic of placing a cabinet to serve 3 or 4 overhead poles so that maybe 100 houses could share a fibre connection.

    Okay, you might not use it, but why should that mean no one should get it?

    I don't accept any solution that requires huge expense but retains pointless copper - FTTC equipment means expensive street cabinets, all consuming power, vulnerable to weather/vandalism/age. There's no reason not to spend a bit more and finish the job by installing fibre to the premises. Anything else is shortsighted. You don't work for BT, do you?

    The argument that "no one could ever need that much bandwidth" could have applied to ISDN in the 80s, ADSL in the 90s/2000s, and VDSL2 a few years ago. But, oddly enough, applications have been created that do need that much bandwidth.
  • Mike_1101Mike_1101 Posts: 8,012
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    moox wrote: »
    The point being that it is future proof. BT will struggle to do 100Mbit on FTTC for most people, let alone much more. FTTP will solve the distance issue once and for all.

    The BT FTTC design has already put much of the groundwork in place (pun not intended) - much more fibre than was necessary was installed, and can be used for FTTP later (hence why BT is dabbling with the idea of "FTTP on demand" where you can pay a proportionate share of the installation costs and get it before BT decides to do it). So a couple of hundred meters of fibre, maybe. FTTP doesn't require each house to have a dedicated fibre to the exchange, either - it can be split like cable TV networks are. So one fibre can serve up to 32 or 128 homes (I forget which, whatever PON can do these days).

    100Mbit is really not that much these days - our LANs operate at faster speeds. The point of an FTTP setup is not to provide stupid silly speeds now, but it certainly permits it. BT could offer 80Mbit or 800Mbit with ease.



    Okay, you might not use it, but why should that mean no one should get it?

    I don't accept any solution that requires huge expense but retains pointless copper - FTTC equipment means expensive street cabinets, all consuming power, vulnerable to weather/vandalism/age. There's no reason not to spend a bit more and finish the job by installing fibre to the premises. Anything else is shortsighted. You don't work for BT, do you?

    The argument that "no one could ever need that much bandwidth" could have applied to ISDN in the 80s, ADSL in the 90s/2000s, and VDSL2 a few years ago. But, oddly enough, applications have been created that do need that much bandwidth.

    I didn't actually say that.

    I said "Some might, many won't and I can't see myself needing it".

    If some people want that level of service and are willing to pay for it, that's fine by me.

    There is only one person in my house, I don't download huge amounts of HD video, use torrents or play computer games with high bandwith requirements. In my situation, how would I benefit.

    Of course, if Plusnet or some other company offered me a high speed fibre connection to my house at no extra cost to me, I would of course accept their offer.

    I can't see that happening for many years.
  • SteveMcKSteveMcK Posts: 5,457
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    moox wrote: »
    But both of those cases required everything to be built from scratch - in the case of the telephone, you had to install poles, build exchanges, run trunks between exchanges, get employees to run it, etc.

    This time around everything else is in place, it's just a case of getting fibre to the houses.
    Just?

    Many underground ducts are full, to run fibre means digging up streets to lay new ones, that's hugely expensive and disruptive. They can't replace copper with fibre until every last pair on a copper cable is unused, which will take decades.

    Don't forget that many of the copper pairs are used for non-domestic services, things like traffic lights, ATMs, burglar alarms, etc. Who's going to pay to have all of them converted to fibre, with the attendant need to add battery-backed mains or solar power, especially when they only require a few bits/s of connectivity anyway?
    t's not as difficult as starting entirely from scratch either.
    Yes, it is, pretty much.
    More recently it certainly didn't take the cable companies 50 years to build networks to cover the areas they chose to cover. 10 years maybe.
    That's because they chose to only cover the areas where it was easy & cheap!

    All that just for the < 10% or so of the population who actually care? Most people are fine with what they can get over copper. In any case, when the fibre arrives at your house, what then? Will you fit fibre cards to all your equipoment? I doubt it, that last 100m will be Ethernet or WiFi. If you can live with copper for that bit, why does it matter if there's another 500m of copper outside? :confused: FTTC works well, easily gives 50Mbit/s plus, and still keeps the monthly costs affordable.
  • IcaraaIcaraa Posts: 6,043
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    Mike_1101 wrote: »
    Fibre connections to every household and business will require the whole local network infrastructure based on copper cables to be replaced. This will be a huge undertaking and take years. Does each individual house really need a fibre connection - what are they going to use all that capacity for?

    Some might, many won't and I can't see myself needing it.

    I would accept the logic of placing a cabinet to serve 3 or 4 overhead poles so that maybe 100 houses could share a fibre connection.


    Openreach have said themselves the next thing will be Fibre to the Remote Node. The node could be each telephone pole or underground joint box. I don't think they'll go down the route of trying to serve multiple poles off one fibre manifold as they are already experimenting with having one on each pole.

    In fact I'm pretty sure this technology is actually in use it currently being installed (possibly in Cumbria if my memory is correct), but as part of BDUK for people too far from a fibre cabinet.
  • Glawster2002Glawster2002 Posts: 15,189
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    Icaraa wrote: »
    Openreach have said themselves the next thing will be Fibre to the Remote Node. The node could be each telephone pole or underground joint box. I don't think they'll go down the route of trying to serve multiple poles off one fibre manifold as they are already experimenting with having one on each pole.

    In fact I'm pretty sure this technology is actually in use it currently being installed (possibly in Cumbria if my memory is correct), but as part of BDUK for people too far from a fibre cabinet.

    This is what is behind BTs re-entry in to the wireless market.

    The next "big thing" is broadband access via 4G Small Cells technology, which is what your "Remote Node" is likely to be.

    A Small Cell device is tiny, it will easily fit in the palm of your hand. This means that, unlike a trafitional wireless mast, it doesn't need planning permission. It is designed to be attached to a telegraph pole, street lamp, or wall of a house, for example.

    So one scenario might well be fibre from the FTTC cabinet to a small cell device high up on a lamp post or telegrapgh pole in a street transmitting line-of-site to a number of Small Cell devices on the walls of houses with an ethernet or wireless connection to the router.

    Alcatel-Lucent recently demonstrated in a lab technology that allows up to 10 GBit/s over 30m of standard copper twisted pair, so to say twisted pair is now "pointless" isn't true.
  • d'@ved'@ve Posts: 45,452
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    Icaraa wrote: »
    Openreach have said themselves the next thing will be Fibre to the Remote Node. The node could be each telephone pole or underground joint box.

    Do you mean fibre to the DP?

    They have to do this already as part of a FTTP on Demand installation IIRC, so for the other half dozen or more homes connected to that DP, a FTTP on Demand installation should cost peanuts by comparison, especially in areas where like where I live all copper routes are via underground ducting in good condition anyway, so feeding fibre should be a doddle.

    I am surprised they haven't already, there would be plenty of takers round here (but not at current FTTP-on-Demand costs).
  • IcaraaIcaraa Posts: 6,043
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    d'@ve wrote: »
    Do you mean fibre to the DP?

    They have to do this already as part of a FTTP on Demand installation IIRC, so for the other half dozen or more homes connected to that DP, a FTTP on Demand installation should cost peanuts by comparison, especially in areas where like where I live all copper routes are via underground ducting in good condition anyway, so feeding fibre should be a doddle.

    I am surprised they haven't already, there would be plenty of takers round here (but not at current FTTP-on-Demand costs).

    BT arent calling it FTTdp although he's essentially that's what it is. They are calling it FTTRN because it won't always be to a DP.

    It wouldn't make FTTP a doddle though as FTTRN is essentially a small DSLAM on the DP, the rest is still copper and it is sending the signal as VDSL2. So you'd still need a separate fibre manifold to provide FTTP off the same pole.
    This is what is behind BTs re-entry in to the wireless market.

    The next "big thing" is broadband access via 4G Small Cells technology, which is what your "Remote Node" is likely to be.

    A Small Cell device is tiny, it will easily fit in the palm of your hand. This means that, unlike a trafitional wireless mast, it doesn't need planning permission. It is designed to be attached to a telegraph pole, street lamp, or wall of a house, for example.

    So one scenario might well be fibre from the FTTC cabinet to a small cell device high up on a lamp post or telegrapgh pole in a street transmitting line-of-site to a number of Small Cell devices on the walls of houses with an ethernet or wireless connection to the router.

    Alcatel-Lucent recently demonstrated in a lab technology that allows up to 10 GBit/s over 30m of standard copper twisted pair, so to say twisted pair is now "pointless" isn't true.

    What you're describing isn't what OR mean by FTTRN. FTTRN delivers broadband from a small DSLAM mounted on a telephone pole, side of building or in an underground jointbox. OR announced last week that FTTRN will be rolled out in Tech City in London to help with the problem of exchange only lines there.

    But yes I'm sure they will put small 4G transmitters on their telephone poles too but they'll come up with another name for that.
  • mooxmoox Posts: 18,880
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    SteveMcK wrote: »
    Just?

    Many underground ducts are full, to run fibre means digging up streets to lay new ones, that's hugely expensive and disruptive. They can't replace copper with fibre until every last pair on a copper cable is unused, which will take decades.

    So bringing fibre kilometres from the exchange or fibre headend to the fibre distribution point is easy and economical enough for BT to bother with, as is the fibre between that point and the FTTC cabinets, but the last couple of hundred metres is an insurmountable obstacle? Not sure about that one.

    Do you have a real statistic as to duct usage on BT's network? Or is it just something you've made up? As they'll certainly manage to find a way to run fibre when leased line customers or third parties want it.
    SteveMcK wrote: »
    Don't forget that many of the copper pairs are used for non-domestic services, things like traffic lights, ATMs, burglar alarms, etc. Who's going to pay to have all of them converted to fibre, with the attendant need to add battery-backed mains or solar power, especially when they only require a few bits/s of connectivity anyway?

    Who said copper had to go away? Move most connectivity to fibre, keep small amounts of copper for the stuff that must stay on copper. Burglar alarms are not a reason to limit the internet connectivity of millions of people who don't have RedCare and whose alarms could probably happily run off an FTTP ONT..

    As for battery backup - just about every FTTP ONT can accept a battery pack - and Openreach can supply this with their FTTP setup.
    SteveMcK wrote: »
    Yes, it is, pretty much

    Well, no, it isn't, because the FTTC rollout put much of the fibre in place. BT won't have to be running yet more fibre from the exchanges to build a PON network (and thus FTTP / FTTP on demand). They also don't have to buy land and build buildings for telephone exchanges, they don't need to install new poles, dig brand new trenches (mostly), they don't need to string fibre across the country to link all of the exchanges up. Putting in a couple of hundred metres of fibre to get it to the home is not in any way the same as building a brand new network.

    Since people are in love with the utterly backwards idea to do FTTdp, how do you propose they'll do that? By running much of the final couple of hundred of metres of fibre to the poles to connect to those stupid mini-DSLAMs.
    SteveMcK wrote: »
    That's because they chose to only cover the areas where it was easy & cheap!

    So start there first. Simple. No one is saying you have to start wiring up the Highlands and North Wales first.

    The cable rollout of the 90s is much more relevant than how long it took for people to get a telephone.
    SteveMcK wrote: »
    All that just for the < 10% or so of the population who actually care?

    World class shortsightedness. What happens when 100Mbit becomes old hat? Wait for BT to fudge around with FTTdp at yet more cost? Or just implement a proven technology that is ready for today's needs as well as the future?

    You're also assuming that it will cost nothing to maintain an ancient and further aging copper network.

    SteveMcK wrote: »
    All that just for the < 10% or so of the population who Most people are fine with what they can get over copper. In any case, when the fibre arrives at your house, what then? Will you fit fibre cards to all your equipoment? I doubt it, that last 100m will be Ethernet or WiFi.

    Well, no, because you don't need to. 1Gbps and 10Gbps are doable over copper over very small distances (not hundreds of metres). The problem is not on-premises connectivity.
    SteveMcK wrote: »
    If you can live with copper for that bit, why does it matter if there's another 500m of copper outside? :confused:

    Because 500m of copper won't provide for the future? We're already at the point where VDSL2 isn't cutting it for lots of people. I can't get the full 80Mbit (although with vectoring I might), and people further along my road can't get 30Mbit. So much for new technology. If only BT did on this road what they did on a different road in the village - FTTP - we could all have 330Mbit if we wanted, no distance issues, no line quality issues, no problem.

    All of the money we're wasting on FTTC and may well waste on FTTdp that could be spent on FTTP and doing it right first time.
    SteveMcK wrote: »
    FTTC works well, easily gives 50Mbit/s plus, and still keeps the monthly costs affordable.

    Gee, 50Mbit, wow, that'll keep us going into the 21st century. A whole *six* megabytes per second! Can I assume that you were decrying BT's ADSL rollout as 56k was usable for most people, the rest could use ISDN for that whopping 128k maximum speed? Or how about that new fangled digital switching when good old Strowger or crossbar is still servicable?

    I love the shortsightedness that some people on this forum are displaying. It's a shame that BT seems to be subscribing to the same theories, whereas other operators are pushing the boat out and preparing for the future. Undoubtedly BT will be wanting more taxpayer handouts when they realise that FTTC is a dead duck and they want to do that FTTP thing that they should have done years before.

    The bit I especially like about BT's shortsightedness is that they aren't even bothering to FTTP many new estates. One popped up across the road from me. BT went to the expense of digging up the road to run new copper, moving the pole that serves mine + other houses, and putting copper cabinets/cables into the estate. Why on earth did they not put fibre in while they were doing it - the copper and fibre would both need to run in the same direction toward the exchange and fibre distribution node anyway.
  • Mike_1101Mike_1101 Posts: 8,012
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    moox wrote: »
    .......Gee, 50Mbit, wow, that'll keep us going into the 21st century. A whole *six* megabytes per second!

    I love the shortsightedness that some people on this forum are displaying. It's a shame that BT seems to be subscribing to the same theories, whereas other operators are pushing the boat out and preparing for the future. Undoubtedly BT will be wanting more taxpayer handouts when they realise that FTTC is a dead duck and they want to do that FTTP thing that they should have done years before.

    The bit I especially like about BT's shortsightedness is that they aren't even bothering to FTTP many new estates. One popped up across the road from me. BT went to the expense of digging up the road to run new copper, moving the pole that serves mine + other houses, and putting copper cabinets/cables into the estate. Why on earth did they not put fibre in while they were doing it - the copper and fibre would both need to run in the same direction toward the exchange and fibre distribution node anyway.

    What you describe is not short sightedness but the fact that many people will never need or want the high speed services you describe.

    If you have a family or group of people in a house, each of whom is a heavy internet user - yes a fibre connection would probably be worthwhile.

    But if you have a single person or couple in a house and they are quite happy with a copper connection, what is the point? As I said before, I don't play games, use torrents or download huge amounts of HD video.

    The only device I connect to the internet is my computer, I will not be part of the "internet of things" as I don't like the idea of domestic appliances reporting my activities back to people I don't know and don't trust. But that is another discussion.....
  • mooxmoox Posts: 18,880
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    Mike_1101 wrote: »
    What you describe is not short sightedness but the fact that many people will never need or want the high speed services you describe.

    That's shortsightedness. Do you have a time machine and are able to predict the future?
    Mike_1101 wrote: »
    If you have a family or group of people in a house, each of whom is a heavy internet user - yes a fibre connection would probably be worthwhile.

    Or that individual bandwidth needs increase.
    Mike_1101 wrote: »
    But if you have a single person or couple in a house and they are quite happy with a copper connection, what is the point? As I said before, I don't play games, use torrents or download huge amounts of HD video.

    The only device I connect to the internet is my computer, I will not be part of the "internet of things" as I don't like the idea of domestic appliances reporting my activities back to people I don't know and don't trust. But that is another discussion.....

    That's your opinion. I don't think national infrastructure decisions should be taken on the basis of "I personally don't use it, so no one ever will, so we can cheap out on piss poor technology".
  • IcaraaIcaraa Posts: 6,043
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    moox wrote: »
    So bringing fibre kilometres from the exchange or fibre headend to the fibre distribution point is easy and economical enough for BT to bother with, as is the fibre between that point and the FTTC cabinets, but the last couple of hundred metres is an insurmountable obstacle? Not sure about that one.

    Do you have a real statistic as to duct usage on BT's network? Or is it just something you've made up? As they'll certainly manage to find a way to run fibre when leased line customers or third parties want it.



    Who said copper had to go away? Move most connectivity to fibre, keep small amounts of copper for the stuff that must stay on copper. Burglar alarms are not a reason to limit the internet connectivity of millions of people who don't have RedCare and whose alarms could probably happily run off an FTTP ONT..

    As for battery backup - just about every FTTP ONT can accept a battery pack - and Openreach can supply this with their FTTP setup.



    Well, no, it isn't, because the FTTC rollout put much of the fibre in place. BT won't have to be running yet more fibre from the exchanges to build a PON network (and thus FTTP / FTTP on demand). They also don't have to buy land and build buildings for telephone exchanges, they don't need to install new poles, dig brand new trenches (mostly), they don't need to string fibre across the country to link all of the exchanges up. Putting in a couple of hundred metres of fibre to get it to the home is not in any way the same as building a brand new network.

    Since people are in love with the utterly backwards idea to do FTTdp, how do you propose they'll do that? By running much of the final couple of hundred of metres of fibre to the poles to connect to those stupid mini-DSLAMs.



    So start there first. Simple. No one is saying you have to start wiring up the Highlands and North Wales first.

    The cable rollout of the 90s is much more relevant than how long it took for people to get a telephone.



    World class shortsightedness. What happens when 100Mbit becomes old hat? Wait for BT to fudge around with FTTdp at yet more cost? Or just implement a proven technology that is ready for today's needs as well as the future?

    You're also assuming that it will cost nothing to maintain an ancient and further aging copper network.




    Well, no, because you don't need to. 1Gbps and 10Gbps are doable over copper over very small distances (not hundreds of metres). The problem is not on-premises connectivity.



    Because 500m of copper won't provide for the future? We're already at the point where VDSL2 isn't cutting it for lots of people. I can't get the full 80Mbit (although with vectoring I might), and people further along my road can't get 30Mbit. So much for new technology. If only BT did on this road what they did on a different road in the village - FTTP - we could all have 330Mbit if we wanted, no distance issues, no line quality issues, no problem.

    Do you have any experience with BT's network though? He makes some good points. The network from the exchange to cabinet runs in thicker, deeper ducting that is generally accessed by manholes which are much more spacious than pavement joint boxes.

    The network from the cabinet to the house uses smaller ducts which can often be quite full, in rural areas there are long runs of overhead cable too. Then you have the estates built in the 70s and 80s that are fed by cables underground but not ducted (buries armoured cable).

    I agree with you though that FTTdp (FTTRN whatever they want to call it) is shortsighted

    On your point about new estates, that need regulating and is a stupid situation. Ofcom absolutely need to regulate that OR must install FTTP on new estates. While they're at it they should make sure ducting is installed for Virgin Media too in areas they operate. We've got the ridiculous situation round here of being a new estate at the end of a road that has Virgin Media but the new estate doesn't. The house was only built in 2011 by a major housebuilder!
  • Glawster2002Glawster2002 Posts: 15,189
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    moox wrote: »
    So bringing fibre kilometres from the exchange or fibre headend to the fibre distribution point is easy and economical enough for BT to bother with, as is the fibre between that point and the FTTC cabinets, but the last couple of hundred metres is an insurmountable obstacle? Not sure about that one.

    Because to run one fibre to a cabinet that can then be distributed to several hundred homes is cost effective. To then run in several hundred fibres to individual homes from that one cabinet would cost tens of thousands of pounds.

    When I first started wotking in the telecoms industry the company I work for were installing the first fibre point-to-point links between the BT exchanges, the trunk network.

    25 years later BT are on to the fourth generation of hardware between the exchanges but guess what? They are using exactly the same fibres we were using back then. The reason? Because laying fibre is very expensive, and very time consuming.
    moox wrote: »
    Well, no, it isn't, because the FTTC rollout put much of the fibre in place. BT won't have to be running yet more fibre from the exchanges to build a PON network (and thus FTTP / FTTP on demand). They also don't have to buy land and build buildings for telephone exchanges, they don't need to install new poles, dig brand new trenches (mostly), they don't need to string fibre across the country to link all of the exchanges up. Putting in a couple of hundred metres of fibre to get it to the home is not in any way the same as building a brand new network.

    Very true but if you have run in, spliced, and conectorised a fibre, as I have in the past, you will know it is as far from as simple and straightforward as you seem to believe it is.
    moox wrote: »
    Since people are in love with the utterly backwards idea to do FTTdp, how do you propose they'll do that? By running much of the final couple of hundred of metres of fibre to the poles to connect to those stupid mini-DSLAMs.

    That will be the same "backwards idea to do FTTdp" with those "stupid mini-DSLAMs" that have already shown in field trials in Europe and America that by using the new G.fast (fast = fast access to subscriber terminals) standard with vectoring 150 Mbit/s over 250 m are achievable. There aren't too many people in this country that live more than 250 m from their nearest telegraph pole.

    Alcatel-Lucent’s G.fast Vectoring Trial Wins Telecoms.com Award for Groundbreaking Technological Achievement in Fixed Ultra-Broadband
    moox wrote: »
    The cable rollout of the 90s is much more relevant than how long it took for people to get a telephone.

    And you should have heard all the complaints in the newspapers and to the cable providers because of all the disruption it caused, with whole streets being closed off for weeks at a time.
    moox wrote: »
    World class shortsightedness. What happens when 100Mbit becomes old hat? Wait for BT to fudge around with FTTdp at yet more cost? Or just implement a proven technology that is ready for today's needs as well as the future?

    If you live in a BT Infinity area you can order FTTP today, just give them a call. But are you prepared to pay the few thousand it will cost to install?

    People today expect everything for nothing. There's no money in FTTP for BT because there would be so little take up.

    Why do you thing BT are considered such a "rip off" for their broadband? And there is thread after thread on this on DS. It is because all the other providers under LLU have access to BTs infrastructure but none of the cost of providing it.
    moox wrote: »
    Well, no, because you don't need to. 1Gbps and 10Gbps are doable over copper over very small distances (not hundreds of metres). The problem is not on-premises connectivity.

    With new technology that is changing.
    moox wrote: »
    Because 500m of copper won't provide for the future? We're already at the point where VDSL2 isn't cutting it for lots of people. I can't get the full 80Mbit (although with vectoring I might), and people further along my road can't get 30Mbit. So much for new technology. If only BT did on this road what they did on a different road in the village - FTTP - we could all have 330Mbit if we wanted, no distance issues, no line quality issues, no problem.

    All of the money we're wasting on FTTC and may well waste on FTTdp that could be spent on FTTP and doing it right first time.

    See above.
    moox wrote: »
    Gee, 50Mbit, wow, that'll keep us going into the 21st century. A whole *six* megabytes per second! Can I assume that you were decrying BT's ADSL rollout as 56k was usable for most people, the rest could use ISDN for that whopping 128k maximum speed? Or how about that new fangled digital switching when good old Strowger or crossbar is still servicable?

    If you could have a 1 Gbit/s connection, how often do you think you would get a download speed of 100 Mbit/s, let alone 1 Gbit/s? All that happens is the bottleneck is moved back in to the network as the doewnload speed you will achieve is the speed of the slowest connection and an awful lot of the network globally is sub 100 Mbit/s. A lot of the world still runs on DS3 - 45 Mbit/s.
    moox wrote: »
    I love the shortsightedness that some people on this forum are displaying. It's a shame that BT seems to be subscribing to the same theories, whereas other operators are pushing the boat out and preparing for the future. Undoubtedly BT will be wanting more taxpayer handouts when they realise that FTTC is a dead duck and they want to do that FTTP thing that they should have done years before.

    It isn't "shortsightedness, it is an unserstanding of the realities of telecoms networks and what is achievable today.
    moox wrote: »
    The bit I especially like about BT's shortsightedness is that they aren't even bothering to FTTP many new estates. One popped up across the road from me. BT went to the expense of digging up the road to run new copper, moving the pole that serves mine + other houses, and putting copper cabinets/cables into the estate. Why on earth did they not put fibre in while they were doing it - the copper and fibre would both need to run in the same direction toward the exchange and fibre distribution node anyway.

    And if BT were to do that and charge, say, £200 a month for the service what do you think the take up rate will be? 1%? 2%? BT aren't a charity.
  • mooxmoox Posts: 18,880
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    Because to run one fibre to a cabinet that can then be distributed to several hundred homes is cost effective. To then run in several hundred fibres to individual homes from that one cabinet would cost tens of thousands of pounds.

    Again, when you have to do the silly FTTdp rubbish, you'll be running fibres to every pole anyway. You lose the cost effectiveness you preach while retaining the need to maintain an aging copper network.
    When I first started wotking in the telecoms industry the company I work for were installing the first fibre point-to-point links between the BT exchanges, the trunk network.

    25 years later BT are on to the fourth generation of hardware between the exchanges but guess what? They are using exactly the same fibres we were using back then. The reason? Because laying fibre is very expensive, and very time consuming.

    This says more about the longevity of an investment in FTTP than any downside, IMO - once the fibre is in the ground that's it, rather than all those FTTC or FTTdp modems and hardware which will probably be in landfill long before that.

    Meanwhile even today's GPON or 10GPON kit will be more than good enough for the future.
    Very true but if you have run in, spliced, and conectorised a fibre, as I have in the past, you will know it is as far from as simple and straightforward as you seem to believe it is.

    Which is why, then, that BT isn't doing FTTP at all anywhere. Not even on brownfield sites. The FTTP in my village must be a mirage. I suspect you are overegging it a bit.

    I'm sure the communities in Lancashire that have been using agricultural equipment to trench their fibre and then hiring someone with a bit of fibre expertise to do the fiddly splicing didn't manage it either. They've given themselves gigabit FTTP.
    That will be the same "backwards idea to do FTTdp" with those "stupid mini-DSLAMs" that have already shown in field trials in Europe and America that by using the new G.fast (fast = fast access to subscriber terminals) standard with vectoring 150 Mbit/s over 250 m are achievable. There aren't too many people in this country that live more than 250 m from their nearest telegraph pole.

    And you'll need:

    * power to the pole - BT can barely get the DNOs to give them power for FTTC cabinets, let alone thousands of poles. Unless they plan to try to shoot power down their shitty copper?
    * Ongoing power costs
    * Battery backup and maintenance
    * Thousands of mini DSLAMs
    * Ongoing maintenance costs and eventual replacement when those electronics have been baked enough by years of weathering, or become obsolete
    * fibre to the pole (!) - the bit you are trying so hard to suggest won't be workable for FTTP
    * yet more modems in houses which will become obsolete quickly

    Seems to me that once you've got the fibre as far as the pole, you might as well keep going into the house instead of having to go to all that effort and expense of buying, installing and powering millions of soon-to-be-obsolete DSLAMs.
    And you should have heard all the complaints in the newspapers and to the cable providers because of all the disruption it caused, with whole streets being closed off for weeks at a time.

    I don't remember the complaints about roads being closed in the places near me, when FTTP or FTTC was being installed, and in both cases requiring fibre to be brought in from the nearest headend (several miles away).
    If you live in a BT Infinity area you can order FTTP today, just give them a call. But are you prepared to pay the few thousand it will cost to install?

    People today expect everything for nothing. There's no money in FTTP for BT because there would be so little take up.

    Where BT/Openreach has deployed FTTP, the installation and rental costs are identical to FTTC (except for speeds above 80Mbit where the rental is obviously slightly higher). If I lived in the part of my village where BT FTTP exists, I could have 330Mbit at a very reasonable cost. http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/products/broadband/packages?fttp=yes although quite why they insist on a phone line and phone line rental is anyone's guess, as voice on FTTP is just a port on the ONT rather than a physical thing.

    Comparisons to leased lines are unhelpful as no one is talking about that.

    You're assuming that no one would take up FTTP if it was the only serious option. We're not trying to get everyone to buy leased lines. And judging by the cables poking out the top of the manifold on the pole, quite a few people have taken it up. As it's not as if they're stuck on crappy old FTTC, because quite rightly they didn't deploy both in the same place.
    Why do you thing BT are considered such a "rip off" for their broadband? And there is thread after thread on this on DS. It is because all the other providers under LLU have access to BTs infrastructure but none of the cost of providing it.

    I am not sure why you are whining about LLU operators. I am talking about BT's use of sponging off of BDUK funds to give us a service that might work okay for the short term, but will quickly become outdated. Where's the immediate upgrade path for FTTC that doesn't involve yet more substantial investment? There's vectoring but that does not solve line length issues. FTTdp seems to be it - but that has most of the costs of FTTP, if not more, with few of the benefits and several disadvantages.

    With new technology that is changing.

    See above.

    See above as to why FTTdp is rubbish.
    If you could have a 1 Gbit/s connection, how often do you think you would get a download speed of 100 Mbit/s, let alone 1 Gbit/s? All that happens is the bottleneck is moved back in to the network as the doewnload speed you will achieve is the speed of the slowest connection and an awful lot of the network globally is sub 100 Mbit/s. A lot of the world still runs on DS3 - 45 Mbit/s.

    Again, more shortsightedness. I think you'd be hard pressed to find an ISP that isn't looking at 10/40/100Gbit these days. Even the FTTC cabinets have more backhaul than 45Mbps going to them (I've heard both 1 and 10Gbit), and BT's FTTP offerings will sell you 160 or 330Mbps as a residential customer. Google Fibre, Hyperoptic and others will give you (contended) 1Gbps. Even Virgin is trying to do more with DOCSIS.

    No one is saying that BT needs to offer 10Gbps to the home tomorrow. The point is that we should be installing technology that can do it, when it ultimately becomes necessary. FTTC is not it, FTTdp is a total waste of time and effort, leaving FTTP.

    BT can still offer 80Mbps today on FTTP if it so desired. And it does.
    It isn't "shortsightedness, it is an unserstanding of the realities of telecoms networks and what is achievable today.

    I spend a lot of time in my day job understanding the realities of networks - my employer is a network equipment manufacturer and is also a major supplier to BT. Your opinion seems to be at odds with what they're thinking, and with what telcos around the world are thinking - and to an extent this includes BT, as they are at least doing small bits of FTTP. The entire point of FTTP is to provide something that's good now and will be good in the future with minimal work. FTTC, FTTdp, FTTtopofhouse, whatever, require massive investment and ongoing costs each time you move the fibre a bit closer. Why do this when it isn't futureproof?

    The shortsightedness and "that's alright it'll do for now" attitude of the UK telecoms industry is maddening. It looks like we'll be stuck on crappy FTTC, and inevitably behind carrier grade NAT as ISPs can't be bothered to enable IPv6 even though all of the equipment they've been using in their networks for years can take it - and on the consumer side, no one thought to mandate their router manufacturers to implement it and make it work.
    And if BT were to do that and charge, say, £200 a month for the service what do you think the take up rate will be? 1%? 2%? BT aren't a charity.

    Pricing is the same as FTTC for speeds up to 80Mbit. Take up seems fine.

    I get the impression that you don't realise that BT/Openreach are already doing FTTP for residential internet access - in place of FTTC. It's just not rolled out anywhere near as far as it should be. http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/pricing/loadProductPriceDetails.do?data=SjLGnN8O1mzybN7g39pZiNKvrleClYZjBLZ4w%2FibaalZ6rNZujnCs99NbIKJZPD9hXYmiijxH6wrCQm97GZMyQ%3D%3D
  • IcaraaIcaraa Posts: 6,043
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    moox wrote: »
    Again, when you have to do the silly FTTdp rubbish, you'll be running fibres to every pole anyway. You lose the cost effectiveness you preach while retaining the need to maintain an aging copper network.



    This says more about the longevity of an investment in FTTP than any downside, IMO - once the fibre is in the ground that's it, rather than all those FTTC or FTTdp modems and hardware which will probably be in landfill long before that.

    Meanwhile even today's GPON or 10GPON kit will be more than good enough for the future.



    Which is why, then, that BT isn't doing FTTP at all anywhere. Not even on brownfield sites. The FTTP in my village must be a mirage. I suspect you are overegging it a bit.

    I'm sure the communities in Lancashire that have been using agricultural equipment to trench their fibre and then hiring someone with a bit of fibre expertise to do the fiddly splicing didn't manage it either. They've given themselves gigabit FTTP.



    And you'll need:

    * power to the pole - BT can barely get the DNOs to give them power for FTTC cabinets, let alone thousands of poles. Unless they plan to try to shoot power down their shitty copper

    Yeah I think that's the plan, to power it down the copper line with the power source being in the customer's house.
  • littleboolittleboo Posts: 1,187
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    moox wrote: »
    Pricing is the same as FTTC for speeds up to 80Mbit. Take up seems fine.

    I get the impression that you don't realise that BT/Openreach are already doing FTTP for residential internet access - in place of FTTC. It's just not rolled out anywhere near as far as it should be. http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/pricing/loadProductPriceDetails.do?data=SjLGnN8O1mzybN7g39pZiNKvrleClYZjBLZ4w%2FibaalZ6rNZujnCs99NbIKJZPD9hXYmiijxH6wrCQm97GZMyQ%3D%3D

    And there lies a potential problem, if you roll out FTTP and the customers are only interested in 80Mb services, then your more costly infrastructure is not generating any more revenue than FTTC. Only time will tell if FTTC was short sighted or in fact the right strategic move. The cable companies attempted to cable up streets in the hope that customers would buy the service, and that didn't end well for them. I think FTTC covers about 19 or 20 million homes already, widespread FTTP would presumably have meant less bang per buck, ie less homes would have been in scope. I do think that new estates over a certain size should receive FTTP though.
  • Glawster2002Glawster2002 Posts: 15,189
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    moox wrote: »
    This says more about the longevity of an investment in FTTP than any downside, IMO - once the fibre is in the ground that's it, rather than all those FTTC or FTTdp modems and hardware which will probably be in landfill long before that.

    Meanwhile even today's GPON or 10GPON kit will be more than good enough for the future.

    No, it says more about how it is cheaper to buy more repeaters to cope with 30 year old fibre.compared to what you would need with modren fibre because of how expensive it is to run new fibre.

    If it isn't cost effective for BT to replace 30 year old trunk fibre which would be comparitively "easy" and that is "easy" very much in the loosest sense of the word, why would it suddenly be more cost effective to replace twisted pair with fibre in millions of homes?
    moox wrote: »
    I spend a lot of time in my day job understanding the realities of networks - my employer is a network equipment manufacturer and is also a major supplier to BT. Your opinion seems to be at odds with what they're thinking, and with what telcos around the world are thinking - and to an extent this includes BT, as they are at least doing small bits of FTTP. The entire point of FTTP is to provide something that's good now and will be good in the future with minimal work. FTTC, FTTdp, FTTtopofhouse, whatever, require massive investment and ongoing costs each time you move the fibre a bit closer. Why do this when it isn't futureproof?

    I also work for a network equipment manufacturer in product support and I have had BT as one of my customers for the last 25 years so I know exactly how the BT "mind" works, and that mind is very slow and uses tried and trusted technology that is nowhere near as "leading edge" as their marketing department would have everyone believe. I also wouldn't compare other network operators to BT for that very reason.

    As for the future, the future is wireless technology, both at home and on the move, and not FTTP.
  • zx50zx50 Posts: 91,227
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    Icaraa wrote: »
    I know, and by calling FTTC "fibre broadband" they've created loads of confusion and I have no idea how they'll market actual fibre broadband.

    I call it fibre because only a quarter of the line, from the house to the cabinet, is copper. I think it's okay to call it fibre because of this.
  • littleboolittleboo Posts: 1,187
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    zx50 wrote: »
    I call it fibre because only a quarter of the line, from the house to the cabinet, is copper. I think it's okay to call it fibre because of this.

    Virgin first coined the phrase Fibre Broadband for hybrid fibre networks and the ASA did not upheld complaints that the term inaccurate and hence the term has stuck with the introduction of FTTC.
  • d'@ved'@ve Posts: 45,452
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    As for the future, the future is wireless technology, both at home and on the move, and not FTTP.

    Not in my house it isn't.
    zx50 wrote: »
    I call it fibre because only a quarter of the line, from the house to the cabinet, is copper. I think it's okay to call it fibre because of this.

    Not really, calling it fibre is misleading, as many people on FTTC connections have slower connection speeds than many others on ADSL2 etc. Best to call it what it is, FTTC (and quicker to type, too!).
  • IcaraaIcaraa Posts: 6,043
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    d'@ve wrote: »
    Not in my house it isn't.



    Not really, calling it fibre is misleading, as many people on FTTC connections have slower connection speeds than many others on ADSL2 etc. Best to call it what it is, FTTC (and quicker to type, too!).

    It's definitely confusing. I've heard people say so many time "I thought fibre was supposed to be fast" and of course it would be if it was FTTP and that's what they think they have or are getting.
  • littleboolittleboo Posts: 1,187
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    Icaraa wrote: »
    It's definitely confusing. I've heard people say so many time "I thought fibre was supposed to be fast" and of course it would be if it was FTTP and that's what they think they have or are getting.

    I can understand how someone could be confused into thinking they were getting fibre to the premises, but in terms of speed, FTTC is fast compared to an average ADSL connection, so its hard to understand why they would comment that it isn't, unless their usage pattern didn't require the faster speeds that FTTC/FTTP provides in the first place. Your average joe doing a bit of web browsing, streaming and mail on a decent ADSL connection wouldn't see any benefit in FTTC or FTTP.
  • IcaraaIcaraa Posts: 6,043
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    littleboo wrote: »
    I can understand how someone could be confused into thinking they were getting fibre to the premises, but in terms of speed, FTTC is fast compared to an average ADSL connection, so its hard to understand why they would comment that it isn't, unless their usage pattern didn't require the faster speeds that FTTC/FTTP provides in the first place. Your average joe doing a bit of web browsing, streaming and mail on a decent ADSL connection wouldn't see any benefit in FTTC or FTTP.

    I'm talking about people who live a bit further away from the cabinet. They see Virgin Media advertising 120Mb and they are only getting 12Mb on FTTC but both are being advertised as "fibre broadband".
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