Running fibre - FTTPod lline to house - experience/advice?
Discussion
I'm moving to a house, apparently with old copper broadband running at 2-4mbps (20th century here I come!).
I understand that there's an option to have fibre to my door and then to buy a high-speed service on top.
So far I've discovered that Openreach will do a survey for £250+VAT to tell me the cost and then it could be 6-12 months wait. Cost suggestions seem to be in the £5-10K range.There's also a gov rebate of £1500 per house if I get some neighbours on side (and apparently I only need two of us for that).
If other options (cellular wifi hotspot or what's already available - old copper broadband) don't work out this may be my only option.
Any advice or suggestions welcomed
Thanks
I understand that there's an option to have fibre to my door and then to buy a high-speed service on top.
So far I've discovered that Openreach will do a survey for £250+VAT to tell me the cost and then it could be 6-12 months wait. Cost suggestions seem to be in the £5-10K range.There's also a gov rebate of £1500 per house if I get some neighbours on side (and apparently I only need two of us for that).
If other options (cellular wifi hotspot or what's already available - old copper broadband) don't work out this may be my only option.
Any advice or suggestions welcomed
Thanks
Apparently Ofcom is taking a hard look at BT in this area for providing horrendous quotes and elsewhere I have seen complaints that they were refusing to reduce them even if there were neighbouring properties which could have shared the cost. Essentially everyone else would get free connection at the expense of the first installation.
This in today's Telegraph (paywall)
This in today's Telegraph (paywall)
Dogwatch said:
Apparently Ofcom is taking a hard look at BT in this area for providing horrendous quotes and elsewhere I have seen complaints that they were refusing to reduce them even if there were neighbouring properties which could have shared the cost. Essentially everyone else would get free connection at the expense of the first installation.
This in today's Telegraph (paywall)
Thanks. Exactly, I pay and 6 other houses piggy-back off of my cable!This in today's Telegraph (paywall)
FlossyThePig said:
Ah, thanks. Now that’s interesting, I’d forgotten this. What’s odd though is that all the offers for my “new” address quote really low numbers. How the hell can they quote these knowing about the gov/Ofcom’ s ruling. I’ve read of people paying £10k or more for FTTPoD and the neighbours getting the mail shot saying “fibre now in your area” before they’ve even gone live.
I’m in a similar situation but am having a private leased line survey as it’s free (having placed an order which will get cancelled if there’s any excess). I had this done 5 years ago, was quoted £112k excess but the guys at BT providing the quote reckoned things had improved since then.
I have tried speaking to neighbours to explore FTTPoD to unlock funding but they simply baulk at having to pay £100/month for the first year. I’ll be damned if I literally need to pay their bills for them to unlock the funding so I’m gonna go down the LL route first and see what happens.
Still think it’s gonna be a crazy install charges either way.
I’m in a similar situation but am having a private leased line survey as it’s free (having placed an order which will get cancelled if there’s any excess). I had this done 5 years ago, was quoted £112k excess but the guys at BT providing the quote reckoned things had improved since then.
I have tried speaking to neighbours to explore FTTPoD to unlock funding but they simply baulk at having to pay £100/month for the first year. I’ll be damned if I literally need to pay their bills for them to unlock the funding so I’m gonna go down the LL route first and see what happens.
Still think it’s gonna be a crazy install charges either way.
I had FTTPoD installed recently. Took almost a year and cost around £25k.
Currently with Cerberus Networks (dealing with BT to get FTTPoD doesn’t work) at £120/mth for a 300/30 service (12ms ping) but will probably flip to BT (half the price) when out of contract. It’ll still be Openreach doing the install so get ready for bursts of activity followed by long periods of delay when nobody will be willing/able to tell you what’ll happen next or when.
Now it’s in the service is great but there are a couple of things to consider:
1; make sure your internal networking is up to scratch. WiFi can be seriously limiting. We have the majority of devices on wired Ethernet and multiple handling WiFi (to limit the number of devices connected to each and maximise signal strength). Even then wireless devices tend to be around 30meg (which is fast enough f)r what they’re used for).
2: unless you have lots of devices needing high speed connections at the same time I question whether the faster 900Meg services are worth it. I often see times when throughput seems to be limited by the server you’re connecting to.
Other options I looked into were a leased line. Install costs would have been much lower but monthlies higher (£600 iirc) for a 30meg service (non-contended). 4g/satellite both seemed to have unreliable performance (speed and latency) and usually capped downloads.
The cost was obviously significant but I take the view that I was in a position to get it done and if others it passes can benefit then that’s fine with me. It was however slightly galling paying for Openreach’s infrastructure when the customer experience was really poor. The individual engineers were good, but the company...
Currently with Cerberus Networks (dealing with BT to get FTTPoD doesn’t work) at £120/mth for a 300/30 service (12ms ping) but will probably flip to BT (half the price) when out of contract. It’ll still be Openreach doing the install so get ready for bursts of activity followed by long periods of delay when nobody will be willing/able to tell you what’ll happen next or when.
Now it’s in the service is great but there are a couple of things to consider:
1; make sure your internal networking is up to scratch. WiFi can be seriously limiting. We have the majority of devices on wired Ethernet and multiple handling WiFi (to limit the number of devices connected to each and maximise signal strength). Even then wireless devices tend to be around 30meg (which is fast enough f)r what they’re used for).
2: unless you have lots of devices needing high speed connections at the same time I question whether the faster 900Meg services are worth it. I often see times when throughput seems to be limited by the server you’re connecting to.
Other options I looked into were a leased line. Install costs would have been much lower but monthlies higher (£600 iirc) for a 30meg service (non-contended). 4g/satellite both seemed to have unreliable performance (speed and latency) and usually capped downloads.
The cost was obviously significant but I take the view that I was in a position to get it done and if others it passes can benefit then that’s fine with me. It was however slightly galling paying for Openreach’s infrastructure when the customer experience was really poor. The individual engineers were good, but the company...
theboss said:
I’m in a similar situation but am having a private leased line survey as it’s free (having placed an order which will get cancelled if there’s any excess). I had this done 5 years ago, was quoted £112k excess but the guys at BT providing the quote reckoned things had improved since then.
Thanks, can you describe the difference between FTTPod and LL for me please?FTTP 'broadband' is an asymmetric service, faster down than up, typically 100-300 meg down and 30-40 meg up. It can be faster but the upload speed is limited to reduce its attractiveness to businesses hosting services. It's also part of an aggregated service in the exchange - so if everybody downloaded a 200TB file at the same time then the speed could slow to a crawl like all other broadband connections, depending on the available bandwidth.
Leased line is the same physical connection - fibre to the premises but it's usually symmetric, so same speed up and down, usually comes with an SLA and is often sold as a package with a professional router (Cisco for example) and a backup line using ADLS or FTTC if it's available. It will be monitored by the provider who ought to be telling you there's an issue before you notice it. It's also guaranteed bandwidth, you should get your 100meg or 500meg 24/7 regardless of what your neighbours do.
I also wonder what people need so much bandwidth for. If you get a good connection from the likes of Zen Internet then 60-70 meg down and 12-15 meg up is usually sufficient for a couple of people to be working from home, Zoom/Webex calls with great quality, Office 365, video streaming from Netflix at 4k at the same time etc. It's better to look at the quality of the back end network than the headline speed. This is where Virgin media fall down, conning people they have the fastest line at 200 meg when in fact they struggle with the trunk bandwidth at peak times and BT have huge reserves of bandwidth and the fastest links. But then you have to deal with BT which sort of spoils it ! But Zen will give similar performance to BT, with a few ms and same bandwidth.
Leased line is the same physical connection - fibre to the premises but it's usually symmetric, so same speed up and down, usually comes with an SLA and is often sold as a package with a professional router (Cisco for example) and a backup line using ADLS or FTTC if it's available. It will be monitored by the provider who ought to be telling you there's an issue before you notice it. It's also guaranteed bandwidth, you should get your 100meg or 500meg 24/7 regardless of what your neighbours do.
I also wonder what people need so much bandwidth for. If you get a good connection from the likes of Zen Internet then 60-70 meg down and 12-15 meg up is usually sufficient for a couple of people to be working from home, Zoom/Webex calls with great quality, Office 365, video streaming from Netflix at 4k at the same time etc. It's better to look at the quality of the back end network than the headline speed. This is where Virgin media fall down, conning people they have the fastest line at 200 meg when in fact they struggle with the trunk bandwidth at peak times and BT have huge reserves of bandwidth and the fastest links. But then you have to deal with BT which sort of spoils it ! But Zen will give similar performance to BT, with a few ms and same bandwidth.
seveb said:
I also wonder what people need so much bandwidth for. If you get a good connection from the likes of Zen Internet then 60-70 meg down and 12-15 meg up is usually sufficient for a couple of people to be working from home, Zoom/Webex calls with great quality, Office 365, video streaming from Netflix at 4k at the same time etc. It's better to look at the quality of the back end network than the headline speed. This is where Virgin media fall down, conning people they have the fastest line at 200 meg when in fact they struggle with the trunk bandwidth at peak times and BT have huge reserves of bandwidth and the fastest links. But then you have to deal with BT which sort of spoils it ! But Zen will give similar performance to BT, with a few ms and same bandwidth.
Agree re VIrgin. And also that you don't need a lot of bandwidth. My concern - and this could mean pulling out of the house purchase - is that basic copper ar 2-6mbps, and needing the obvious email, web and video streaming, as I work from home professionally, won't do.I may well go the 4G celluar wifi hub route the way its going.
AMG Merc said:
Thanks, can you describe the difference between FTTPod and LL for me please?
Largely covered by seveb above, with the addition that a leased line is a dedicated fibre back to a fibre distribution point on BT's network rather than FTTP which connects you to shared infrastructure at a street cabinet level. Essentially you're better connected to the core network and avoid broadband infrastructure shared with other consumers or businesses.If I get a leased line, it can't be re-purposed as a FTTP connection, only a leased line, and will cost £400-600 a month forever instead of £60/month for a FTTP service.
As stated though, you benefit from no contention, symmetric bandwidth (1Gbps in both directions) and business class SLA.
In my case either option will almost certainly come with a prohibitive construction charge, as in many tens of thousands. If I could get either with a £10k construction charge I would rip their hand off. More than that and I may as well focus on moving house instead.
AMG Merc said:
£25k? Crazy. I wonder why so much.
Literally weeks of work involved when you add up the number of people they had working on it and the time spent. Highways work, directional drilling kit needed, etc. I don't know how much of it could have been cheaper, but it certainly kept a few people employed for a while.LooneyTunes said:
Literally weeks of work involved when you add up the number of people they had working on it and the time spent. Highways work, directional drilling kit needed, etc. I don't know how much of it could have been cheaper, but it certainly kept a few people employed for a while.
My last survey at £112k involved digging along 1km of road (which had only just been fully resurfaced 
) and a further 1km across private land.I don't think that much as changed sadly. If it has, I'd have noticed the work taking place. I'll find out next week as the bloke is coming to do the survey so I'll pick his brains on the matter. I don't believe FTTPoD would be much better for this location but it costs £250 to survey and I have to get my neighbours agreement to access any grants.
They’ve got some new techniques for slit trenching in verges and directional drilling along/under roads (part of ours was done that way and you’d never know they’d been there). A lot goes overhead strung from poles as well now. Might make a dent in the price but isn’t going to take £100k down to £100...
AMG Merc said:
Agree re VIrgin. And also that you don't need a lot of bandwidth. My concern - and this could mean pulling out of the house purchase - is that basic copper ar 2-6mbps, and needing the obvious email, web and video streaming, as I work from home professionally, won't do.
I may well go the 4G celluar wifi hub route the way its going.
I agree, 6meg is useless to anybody these days other than my mum. And she's 75 and doesn't know what streaming is and doesn't want to know.I may well go the 4G celluar wifi hub route the way its going.
You need a 30 meg down / 8 meg up service with round trip times of < 25 ms to London as an absolute minimum.
Because rural, we got loads of fibre draped between poles up to our house for free, which is great. However, the incompetence of the communication between OpenReach and BT, and the delays this caused, was shocking. If I'd have had to have dropped a few tens of thousands for that experience, I think I might have had a sense of humour failure.
Edited by ATG on Saturday 17th October 02:04
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