FTTP on Demand

[Pheasant Surprise]

I started off contacting the BT Community Fibre (or whatever they're called) team thinking they'd at the least show if we could get it installed (our line is 2.5km long but the distribution point is located about 1.2km from the exchange; we've had numerous promises that we can already get FTTC faster than ADSL2 at the farm but they're seeing the DP on the line tests giving a false reading) but the team there appears small (possibly only 1 person working part time), they email a date and half hour slot which they'll ring me in and if they fail to get through repeat the following week. Won't let me ring back, don't really respond to emails, typical BT really.

Due to the complexities of our site though I'm not expecting a feasible proposal from any of them, just trying to establish if they could actually get it here at the moment. I've got a few other options to chase down too but they're all more complicated than this one which doesn't fill me with hope really.

Yeah that sounds very much like BT Group.

I’ll keep you updated how I get on with Cerberus Networks. They only have to deal with the wholesale side of BT Group, so will see what happens.

I can’t seem to escape BT, even though I ditched the copper line they’ve ended up buying EE. At least they haven’t completely ruined them (yet).

 

[foxbox]

Yeah that sounds very much like BT Group.

I’ll keep you updated how I get on with Cerberus Networks. They only have to deal with the wholesale side of BT Group, so will see what happens.

I can’t seem to escape BT, even though I ditched the copper line they’ve ended up buying EE. At least they haven’t completely ruined them (yet).

Give it time, but with EE having a 4G option at not silly money maybe (as in almost certainly) they see that as far more preferable than fannying about installing FTTP all over the countryside.

 

[foxbox]

Personally I think there should be a minimum service standard; say 20mb/s. Anyone not getting that should be provided with whatever service they are getting for free (no line rental, BB cost, phone cost etc) by Openreach (as the network owner) until the minimum service standard is reached. I think it'd focus their minds a bit and maybe encourage them to offer sensible upgrades to people, even if those upgrades ended up being 4G solutions or whatever.

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

We're being quoted over £50k (excluding vouchers) to connect 5 businesses and about a dozen residential properties at the moment; I don't believe they can do it for that (as they're lying workshy gits) but we'll see. No way we're paying that figure anyway but thought we may as well chase down the different options before complaining to our equally useless MP.

Have you got the land / wayleaves to dig your own fibre in? At £50K you have other options I’d reckon. I’ve laid several single mode fibre at my place and you can run 10gbit links for 40km on run of the mill active Ethernet gear which costs next to nothing these days. Even preterminated armoured fibre isn’t really that dear.

 

[Steevo]

Start a TFF broadband movement. 10,000 farmers all terminate their BT wayleaves via the collective with the requirement for BT to commit to provide fibre to all premises before reinstatement of BT apparatus.

A land agent could have some fun if they fancied the hassle of running it!

 

[foxbox]

Have you got the land / wayleaves to dig your own fibre in? At £50K you have other options I’d reckon. I’ve laid several single mode fibre at my place and you can run 10gbit links for 40km on run of the mill active Ethernet gear which costs next to nothing these days. Even preterminated armoured fibre isn’t really that dear.

We own to within half a mile of the village, tenants on the rest unless we're talking about the road verge which the poles currently stand on. If we ever reach a conclusion with the enquiry I'll start looking at stuff like this instead!

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

251 ms 48.33 Mb/s 9.30 Mb/s

Expecting a different result? Tell us
BT

For comparison on a hot Friday afternoon the other side of the company that delivers broadband using 4G mobile towers....

Going back to ‘superfast’ copper/FTTC here would be a huge mistake. The only hope for anything better is complete fibre to the door or 5G....

Just looked again into latest rural radio/WiFi style broadband offerings. Got a quote here for 15 Mbps up/down symmetric, 300 GB per month for £29 per month inc. or pay 1 year up front for £319 inc. One off £175 activation. Speed boost (where available) is £5 / 5Mbps. Business plans with fixed IP and more data available too.

 

[joe soapy]

People have to learn to cooperate for their own benefit, the wireless links are so powerfull now and cheap.
a 2 step doglegg should do all but the most difficult

 

[foxbox]

For comparison on a hot Friday afternoon the other side of the company that delivers broadband using 4G mobile towers....

View attachment 690418

Going back to ‘superfast’ copper/FTTC here would be a huge mistake. The only hope for anything better is complete fibre to the door or 5G....

Just looked again into latest rural radio/WiFi style broadband offerings. Got a quote here for 15 Mbps up/down symmetric, 300 GB per month for £29 per month inc. or pay 1 year up front for £319 inc. One off £175 activation. Speed boost (where available) is £5 / 5Mbps. Business plans with fixed IP and more data available too.

How does that compare with the EE 4G offerings?

https://shop.ee.co.uk/dongles/pay-monthly-mobile-broadband/4gee-router/details

£45 per month for 100Gb; appears average download speed is only 31mb/s so nothing like FTTP though.

 

[foxbox]

People have to learn to cooperate for their own benefit, the wireless links are so powerfull now and cheap.
a 2 step doglegg should do all but the most difficult

So how would this work in practice? I've got a house in the local village but not line of sight to the farm 2 miles away. If I could manage this (pole on chimney pot for example) would I get extra lines installed to the village house then use a wireless link to connect to the farm? We've currently got 2 copper lines for broadband to the farm so I'd be looking to replicate that

 

[joe soapy]

So how would this work in practice? I've got a house in the local village but not line of sight to the farm 2 miles away. If I could manage this (pole on chimney pot for example) would I get extra lines installed to the village house then use a wireless link to connect to the farm? We've currently got 2 copper lines for broadband to the farm so I'd be looking to replicate that

THATS WHAT I AM LEAD TO BELIEVE, looking at some now at £30 per end to connect a farm house .
it helps that we have a good network engineer in the family

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

How does that compare with the EE 4G offerings?

https://shop.ee.co.uk/dongles/pay-monthly-mobile-broadband/4gee-router/details

£45 per month for 100Gb; appears average download speed is only 31mb/s so nothing like FTTP though.

I posted my EE speed test results above. Download around 60Mbps and upload around 40 Mbps. Have been using them for over 4 years now. I’ve got my 4G setup well sussed and lucky enough to have what would appear a decent mast nearby.

The current realistic current offering from EE is 200GB for £60 inc per month. You can do that on contract or rolling 30 days , if the latter you have to buy their stupid router and chuck it in the bin (or eBay).

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

So how would this work in practice? I've got a house in the local village but not line of sight to the farm 2 miles away. If I could manage this (pole on chimney pot for example) would I get extra lines installed to the village house then use a wireless link to connect to the farm? We've currently got 2 copper lines for broadband to the farm so I'd be looking to replicate that

You really need to get high man
Wireless works best when the antennas are well clear off the deck and you have line of sight.

Wireless has come a long way in recent years. There’s some very good and relatively cheap license free point-2-point wireless gear available now. I posted about this new MikroTik wireless paired dish setup above but that only does around a mile at full chat (2 Gbps). I’d also have a look at the Ubiquiti gear, especially the airFiber and airMax ranges. They have some really amazing stuff for not a lot of money.

These guys are relatively local to me are large distributors for both Ubiquiti and MikroTik amongst others. They would be useful to speak with if you are thinking of going wireless for the last mile or so.

https://linitx.com/

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

A pair of these @foxbox with decent small dish antennas (you can choose size/gain) would do you right for your village to farm link.

https://linitx.com/product/ubiquiti-airfiber-5xhd-wisp-ptp-point-to-point-link-1gbps-af-5xhd/15252

https://dl.ubnt.com/datasheets/airfiber/airFiber_5XHD_DS.pdf

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Initial estimate received today via email. This is an estimate only and is subject to having a paid survey completed to finalise an actual build cost.

The build cost is exclusive of any applicable DCMS Gigabit voucher rebates, which again may or may not be successful once applied for.

 

[foxbox]

Initial estimate received today via email. This is an estimate only and is subject to having a paid survey completed to finalise an actual build cost.

The build cost is exclusive of any applicable DCMS Gigabit voucher rebates, which again may or may not be successful once applied for.

View attachment 691652

Are you surprised one way or the other by that? And are you tempted to pursue it further?

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Are you surprised one way or the other by that? And are you tempted to pursue it further?

Lets put it this way, I knew it wasn't going to be cheap!

I spoke to the Cerberus Networks chap about it after I had received this "EBC" (Estimated Build Charge) and he said, basically BT cost it as a paper based exercise, roughly on a distance basis to the fibre point of presence and my place. He said in their experience of FTTP on Demand they have found that BT costs generally reduce, typically substantially from EBC to Confirmed Build Charge (CBC) once the survey is complete. He said they have had quotes from £25K reduce to £4K. This could of course just be a sales gimmick to lure me in. I've got no real comparators to gauge if this is true or not. Maybe time for some research.

My gamble is the £250 survey charge to find out what the CBC will be! If the CBC comes back better than expected, and I'm fairly certain I can qualify for a £3K grant to offset the install costs I may just go for it.

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Some interesting posts and install quotes in this thread:

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/4586020-fttpod-unreal-pricing.html?vc=1

Edit: a better followup thread with pre and post survery pricing. V. interesting...

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/f/4595298-fttpod-desktop-quotes-and-final-prices.html

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

I started off contacting the BT Community Fibre (or whatever they're called) team thinking they'd at the least show if we could get it installed (our line is 2.5km long but the distribution point is located about 1.2km from the exchange; we've had numerous promises that we can already get FTTC faster than ADSL2 at the farm but they're seeing the DP on the line tests giving a false reading) but the team there appears small (possibly only 1 person working part time), they email a date and half hour slot which they'll ring me in and if they fail to get through repeat the following week. Won't let me ring back, don't really respond to emails, typical BT really.

Due to the complexities of our site though I'm not expecting a feasible proposal from any of them, just trying to establish if they could actually get it here at the moment. I've got a few other options to chase down too but they're all more complicated than this one which doesn't fill me with hope really.

Is this the scheme you're waiting to get definitive pricing for @foxbox Openreach Community Fibre Partnerships ?

Appears its a completely different group or team within OR than what deal with the FTTP on Demand stuff. The latter face off to the ISP which are requesting FTTPoD connections from customers.

It may be worth your while to at least get an initial desktop quote done for FTTPoD from an ISP like Cerberus. If you went ahead with the final proposed costs, you would be tied into a 12-month minimum term contract. However after the 12 months is up your connection is regraded to an ordinary FTTP service (as you've clearly got the fibre there). That opens up a lot cheaper pricing as other fibre ISP can then offer you their services.

The other option is to bite the bullet and get a dedicated leased line. Although this too is a fibre connection it is quite a different thing altogether to FTTP or FTTPoD which by their nature are split/shared from the exchange.

If you were to get a quote on a 100Mbs or 1 Gbps leased line - the monthly costs will be much higher than FTTP (as you will have a proper dedicated/non-shared line with a service level agreement) - but you could then share it out or do with it as you wish. Effectively be your own ISP. I expect this is what the OR CFP stuff is about, but they roll it together to provide the leased line and do your private fibre install along the roadside verge/poles etc.

 

[foxbox]

It is the Openreach Community Fibre Partnership, yes. I've discussed leased lines with other providers before and the costs become prohibitive quite quickly, hence exploring other routes. Through the CFP we could connect 6 rural businesses and around 20 houses in the village that we'd come past during the install. Really frustratingly I live on the road with these houses on but the addresses they're proposing to connect stop 2 short of my house on my side of the road, despite going past my house by around 100 yds on the other! I'm still discussing this with them at the moment as it'd be bloody annoying to get FTTP at my work, for most of my neighbours to have it too but not me...

At present the CFP costings are based upon them doing everything; until I get a final cost and breakdown though I don't know what we could or couldn't do to help them. At present the aerial section of our copper wire has roughly 4 faults per premises per year so you'd think the opportunity to replace it would also save them some money in the longer term. We'll see where we get to, as I've said though it's a slow, painful process. I'll certainly look at the likes of Cerberus too though, thank you, thanks for the suggestion.