Anyone got FTTP broadband from BT?

[ian]

With so few locations rolled out with FTTP broadband (fibre all the way to your door), I'm struggling to find any physical reviews by consumers. Anyone here using it? What are your thoughts.

I live in a remote(ish) area and have suffered from 4Mbps for many years. I knew fibre was coming, but was just expecting FTTC (76Mbps), but they are offering FTTP too, with free install, result. That will give a crazy 330Mbps.

Annoying thing I've found through research is that BT still require you to have a land line, even though FTTP uses fibre, not copper

 

[monaghan]

Sounds good, I originally heard that FTTP was just for newbuilds, guess they may have sufficient trained engineers to run and terminate fibre now so offering it wider. We have 2 FTTC lines but no option for FTTP yet :-(

Please do post a review when you get on-line. What are they charging and are there any of those silly usage caps they put in the small print?

 

[ian]

Our development is around 10 years old and wasn't setup for anything. We've struggled by on 1-4Mbps for a long time, and because of some strong 'influence', the council are helping to fund the fibre roll-out. Just didn't expect it to include FTTP.

The price I believe is £50/mth for FTTP and £16.99/mth line rental (on a redundant line I won't use - daft).

Not aware of any caps, but this is BT we are talking about, so most websites are probably blocked and they will have hidden limits. I don't currently use them, which makes having to switch a little harder to stomach!

 

[anthony]

As someone who has been in the fibre industry for 32 years, it is mildly annoying to see the marketing ploy played so often, the belief that 'fibre optic broadband' really means a fibre goes into your home (FTTH), when in fact it stops at the node or DP at best. It has skewed customer expectation a hell of a lot.

Unless you live in one of the areas specifically targeted for FTTH (see City Fibre's Gpon plans for York new build mixes and other cities as an example), then you'll always get the final drop over copper/coax. There just isn't the influx of cash to pay for the civils to give everyone fibre, nor the take-up in reality. On top of that, rolling out a GPON network is very expensive anyway, some of the Juniper cards i have been developing linkup cables for recently cost $100k+ a go, you can go through a shed load of cash for quite small network runs.

The reality is, if you're in an area like a Virginmedia install, with the final drops run in coax, you get 100Meg, that more than satisfies a house with four adults in it. BT will probably hit you with a £1200-£3000 bill for a direct fibre on a domestic run (if the local network allows), but you'll still be limited, not by the fibre itself, but the hardware feeding your property.

Believe me, if FTTH was really FTTH as the ads suggest, i'd be typing this post from a condo in the caribbean, not a dining room at the back of the house!

 

[ian]

Understand that anthony, so maybe you can confirm what I believe to be correct, which is that we are being offered 330Mbps via FTTP, which is not only installed as far as the cabinet, but to the terminal box on the front of the house. From there, I don't know if the final link inside (maybe the internal wiring) is copper, or whether they continue the fibre run, but surely this is still true FTTP?

If you are doubting the services being offered are Infinity 1, 2, 3 and 4, maybe I can provide you with a postcode to check yourself and confirm? From what I've seen of those that had access early, they are achieving those speeds; and this is in rural England.

 

[monaghan]

As someone who has been in the fibre industry for 32 years, it is mildly annoying to see the marketing ploy played so often, the belief that 'fibre optic broadband' really means a fibre goes into your home (FTTH), when in fact it stops at the node or DP at best. It has skewed customer expectation a hell of a lot.

I remember trying to ask CableTel how they were going to terminate the fibre network at my house back in 1994 when they first destroyed the street running cable ducting. Fortunately they didn't call my bluff and offer to install fibre as there'd have been no way I could have afforded suitable kit back in those days

Back on topic, the original FTTP install was suggested to be to a splice chamber on the outside of the property, I can't remember whether there was to be a short tail to run into the house or whether the fibre termination was to be in the outside box.

It might be worth asking the council to define what they are funding as it may not be the same as a generic non-funded BT rollout.

As for line rental, then I'd guess they will have a hybrid cable to provide both a fibre and a few copper pairs, but either way you are renting the cable running to your property and then paying for whatever services you choose to run over it, that's the business model. If you had cable then you'd still be paying a line rent.

 

[ian]

Well, it transpired in the end that only a certain part of the development were being offered FTTP free of charge as they were linked to a fibre connection covering a neighbouring village that is too far from the exchange to have anything but FTTP.

A friend of mine living in said area is now enjoying 305Mbps of the advertised 330Mbps FTTP service; just a shame most of his wifi devices are b/g so cannot reach such speeds!

I in the end had to settle for FTTC, but at 76Mbps, of which I'm achieving bang on this with no line issues, is perfectly fine for me, and a huge difference from 4Mbps I've had for 8 years here!

 

[monaghan]

I went from 2Mb cable to 5Mb ADSL and then 40Mb FTTC and upgraded to 80 as soon as the exchange was updated.

We now have 2 80Mb lines, 1 for work and 1 cheapo unlimited usage which works fine for the kids, no more nagging from me when they watch youtube all day in the holidays and I can flip the proxy settings so my non-time sensitive downloads use the cheapo service.

Did they give a reason for 305Mb on a 330Mb circuit, is this lost in the fibre to copper conversion at the premises?

 

[ian]

Did they give a reason for 305Mb on a 330Mb circuit, is this lost in the fibre to copper conversion at the premises?

No, I suspect it may just have been the line settling, or possibly the network cables used, I've not checked since but based on what others have said, they are achieving the full 330! I'm going to continue pursuing the relevant parties here to roll it out to us all, as I WANT it

 

[monaghan]

When you get it rolled out to the sticks, put in a word for us lot in the towns who are stuck on FTTC and will get left behind

 

[ian]

When you get it rolled out to the sticks, put in a word for us lot in the towns who are stuck on FTTC and will get left behind

Will make a nice change!

 

[ian]

Anthony is correct with his comments about cable providers advertising fibre. Their product is Fibre to the node and then copper beyond. It's not even fibre to your local cable cabinet. I believe my Virgin Media connection is copper RG11 from the road to the outside of the house and then copper RG6 or equivalent WF100 or similar beyond. They can get away with calling it fibre because it's much more fibre than ADSL which is completely copper based. FTTC is VDSL2 I believe.

This is true, but FTTP is fibre all the way, with the exception of an Ethernet cable for the final run between modem and router, but that is beyond the point they count, so is 100% fibre. FTTC of course isn't, just to the cabinet.

 

[ian]

Yes. It's traditional cable broadband that is fibre to a node but can still be advertised as fibre. Full fibre is the FTTH/P and FTTP on Demand products from OpenReach. Google "FTTP on demand prices" for OpenReach wholesale prices related to connection and distance from cabinet.

Oh I know, it is eye watering, but considered additional value to a property, might be a worth while investment, but it is muted that FTTC is due a speed increase soon, so might wait a while. In a 12 month contract now, but it is peanuts relatively speaking and always handy to have a backup Internet connection

 

[ian]

It is actually possible to bond multiple FTTC lines. I'm aware of an ADSL24 customer who has done it using a RouterBoard router. The FTTP on Demand prices are eye watering and I've just read that new orders for the product have been suspended. It was something I'd looked at given I would qualify for the connection voucher but I believe there is a multi year commitment to having it as well.

It's 18 months for those that have ordered around here, and that was in the last few days, but I'd imagine exceptions were being made if indeed suspended due to requirement. I've considered bonding FTTC lines but in reality, at the moment, 76Mbps is more than enough for surfing and fast downloads/uploads.

 

[monaghan]

I've considered bonding FTTC lines but in reality, at the moment, 76Mbps is more than enough for surfing and fast downloads/uploads.

I find that the other end is often the problem, it takes ages to download an ISO from Microsoft despite the high speed FTTC connection, other less popular sites will download much faster though, so it really depends on what you are doing and what's at the other end.