Could FTTC prove to be a mistake ?
 

Reading this article and this article do you think Openreach have been a little shortsighted with its FTTC decision ?

It seems more and more stories are popping up of FTTH trials like this for instance.

Liberty Global are also spending considerable amounts of money on network upgrades and expansion and they already offer greater download speeds than BT with DOCSIS 3.1 expected to arrive at some stage in the future.

Re: Could FTTC prove to be a mistake ?
 

FTTC is a perfectly good "stepping stone" technology for the UK phone network. Remember most copper phone lines haven't been upgraded (or even inspected) since they were first put in. The FTTC work is running fibre (and more importantly ducting) out to local Cabinets/Nodes.

If Openreach decide to go FTTH in the future then rolling out FTTC will have made that job much, much easier. Openreach have to take a much wider view than Virgin Media and Sky when it comes to services roll-out, due to the universal service obligation.

Re: Could FTTC prove to be a mistake ?
 

Short sighted? Not really. 80Mb will be sufficient for most light users for ages to come and building out from zero to a network footprint 33% larger than VM's in the space of a few years was never going to happen with FTTH.

I'd rather have 80Mb now and FTTH in 10 years than 6Mb now and FTTH in 8 years.

Re: Could FTTC prove to be a mistake ?
 

^ What they said.

The UK phone system has been in place for decades. It would be madness to try and tear it up and rebuild it in one massive job. Especially when for the last few years IIRC all the infrastructure would have to go underground, which would mean totally rebuilding a lot of rural installations from the ground up (my folks' place is fed from two miles of overhead line).

Re: Could FTTC prove to be a mistake ?
 

Nope. Overhead plant is allowed.

Re: Could FTTC prove to be a mistake ?
 

Has it changed recently? Either way, FTTC is still a massive upgrade of the infrastructure, especially in villages like ours with no cabinets at all.

Re: Could FTTC prove to be a mistake ?
 

The USO applies to a single copper line costing a maximum of £3,400. Nothing at all to do with fibre.

---------- Post added at 00:10 ---------- Previous post was at 00:05 ----------

How exactly do you think the e-sides got to the PCPs without ducting?

The work Openreach did was unblocking existing ducts and deploying new ducts to connect the new cabinet with the PCP. They weren't running miles of new ducting out to cabinets.

The total spend on FTTC doesn't make FTTP much easier, Openreach did FTTC at a bargain basement £80-90 per home passed thanks to being able to use so much existing infrastructure.

They still aren't planning FTTP as their next step, it'll be FTTdp, DSLAMs on top of poles or at the end of streets. The deployment of FTTC will save them about £600 million on the cost of FTTdp, or if you like considerably less than 10%, to their commercial areas. To be honest the saving will probably be more like 2.5% - 5%. Getting fibre to PCPs is easy, hence why they were able to cover 18 million homes spending less than £1.5 billion.

Fun fact - VM spend more per home passed upgrading their existing network in 3-4 years than BT spent on this 'massive' infrastructure upgrade per home passed.

If I order FTTP on demand the fibre isn't coming from the cabinet, it's coming from an aggregation node nearly a mile away.

---------- Post added at 00:13 ---------- Previous post was at 00:10 ----------

If you are fed from a distant cabinet you aren't getting a new one. The upgrade to you will be worth precisely nothing if FTTC is deployed.

That's the wonders of this massive upgrade of the infrastructure, if you're fed from a cabinet in the next village FTTC is worthless to you.

If you're fed directly from the exchange and it's close you may get a cabinet deployed just outside the exchange.

You may even receive FTTP - as densely packed villages and urban areas should have from the start if BT weren't more interested in spending money on football rights than their network. Anything you get will be largely funded by the tax payer, naturally.

---------- Post added at 00:18 ---------- Previous post was at 00:13 ----------

Openreach know they were shortsighted running with FTTC and so little FTTP. They have already been thoroughly shown up by the BT TV Multiroom product requiring 34Mb, putting it out of reach of 25% of the BT Infinity customer base as their super whizzy fast broadband isn't fast enough.

They won't do a thing about it until it starts hurting their pocket. The barn door is open and the competition are beginning to take a look around it.

Re: Could FTTC prove to be a mistake ?
 

Competition is good for the consumer :)

Re: Could FTTC prove to be a mistake ?
 

The line I was describing wasn't supplied from a cabinet in the next village, its a direct exchange line running two miles overhead. The local BDUK/Superfast Cymru rollout is seeing brand new ducting and new cabinets going in, many in areas where there are no cabinets at present.

FTTH is of course the best technology available, but your not going to be able to rip out 40+ years worth of copper infrastructure overnight. As you mention FTTC work is clearing old ducting and installing new one, so that fibre that would be running your FTTH could easily run through it.

Re: Could FTTC prove to be a mistake ?
 

How do you plan on the FTTH/P getting to the home? See the Milton Keynes rollout for the fun they had there, with pre-existing ducting.

No-one is talking about ripping out the copper and that would be impossible.

Where is the cabinet going in? There have, as yet, been exactly no cases of new cabinets being put anywhere besides directly outside of exchanges. FTTRN has been mooted but not deployed as yet.

If you receive a new cabinet outside the exchange FTTC will give you quite literally nothing as VDSL performs worse at that distance than ADSL.

Re: Could FTTC prove to be a mistake ?
 

One's gone in to the centre of Gwyddelwern (green cab, 240v warning sticker, air vents, signs of the ducting to it having been rebuilt). The exchange is about 3 miles away.

And there's space for one marked out in Bala town centre (not near the exchange), which is having tubing put in for the new fibre ducts (along with my village 5 miles away on a different exchange) at the moment.

I would supply streetview links, but as these are recent developments and streetview in these areas is about four years old there's not much point. I might take some pics next time I'm in the areas concerned.

Re: Could FTTC prove to be a mistake ?
 

Bit more info from York FTTP venture

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php...rogresses.html

Re: Could FTTC prove to be a mistake ?
 

I'm referring to new PCPs, not new FTTC cabinets. There have been a few cases of SCPs being converted to PCPs but no totally new PCPs beyond conversion of exchange-only lines.

I'm aware of new FTTC cabinets, I'm typing this through one, they are planned to be within 50m of existing PCPs, maxing out at 100m.

If you have any cases of completely new PCP being built alongside new FTTC cabinet that'd be more interesting.

Re: Could FTTC prove to be a mistake ?
 

I've just been to properly inspect the fibre works in Bala (next town along the road from mine) and to see these markings (in the attached pics)

Now there isn't a cabinet anywhere nearby that I know of, and from what I gather the exchange building is a fair way further on down the high street.

If my guessing is correct, then there'll be a new duct from the grey concrete covers, under the road, to where the new cab will be installed.

I could be wrong of course...

Re: Could FTTC prove to be a mistake ?
 

You need ducts to get copper from new cabinet to old one. Do you have a street name for these works?

Bala is getting a new street cabinet outside the exchange:

O S PLAS YR ACRE, STREET SIDE DSLAM CAB NMCKXF, TEGID STREET, BALA, LL23 7EN

This probably isn't what you are referring to though.