Confused About The BT Fibre Optic To The Box Plan

[xAmritx]

Basically as most of you know BT are investing a lot of money (billions) into laying out fibre optics. Rather than digging up the ground they are laying it in the sewer system up to the green boxes (being replaced by some bigger boxes) on streets. From the boxes down your streets and to your home they are still using the old copper wiring.
Ok now virgin on the other hand have got fibre optic to the exchange NOT to the green boxes. The rest is thick coax cables going to the green box and then thinner cables to the homes.
What I don’t get is that how are virgin still able to deploy 50mb with only fibre to the exchange and BT only being able to do 40mb!!!!
So while BT are having an ‘e-rubbishrubbishrubbishrubbish’ on their new (but yet so rubbish push into keeping up with the 20th century let alone the 21st) bandwidth capabilities, Virgin are experimenting with fibre to the home and deploying 100mb!
BT have owned the entire network since 1980 (I think) and are all over the UK, renting out their network to other provides too. Their revenue this year was approx 800million. They must be able to afford the investment of putting in the extra miles up to the homes!! Or at least coax the last mile if fibre is too much. If they could broadband would not only be reliable but also cheaper do to more fierce competition with its rival Virgin.

[Jay]

its only early days so 40Mb to start is pretty good! also there is a 10Mbps upload speed on those lines kills the shoddy 1.5Mbps on the 50Mbps VM lines (although some places says only 2Mbps upload.. confused)

VM's network has a pretty decent download network but the part that provides the upload its old and outdated.

I think the speed is more to do with the fact that BT only have so much bandwidth to give.

[Lucio]

I'm inclined to agree with Jay, the upload speeds are likely being capped to ensure that a) they meet them and b) they can continue to meet them even if most of the people in the area take up the new services being offered.

I'm hoping that our area will get it's upgrades through sooner rather than later, sitting 8 miles from the exchange and in a block of flats that isn't wired for cable means this is my best shot at getting decent broadband!

[peterb]

Virgin re able to 'Cherry pick' the most profitable areas (try getting Virgin outside the centres of population) so their return on investment is higher. Neither do virgin have to provide emergency communications facilities. You can still plug a standard telephone into a BT line and it is powered from the exchange - AFIK, that is still a requirement - so if BT ran fibre to the house, the NTE has to have a maintained power supply - by putting fibre to the box, the last bit of the loop still provides for a line powered device to be connected.

[james_d]

VM has coax to the premises, BT are utilising the existing twisted pair network.

Coax has always been significantly better than TP for bandwidth, and it's no different now. Unless someone comes along and does fibre to the premises, cable is going to have the edge.

[mehmeh]

Virgin are able to 'Cherry pick' the most profitable areas...

Its also well established in allot of these areas that the network is overloaded. While Virgin may quote 50Mb speeds, the real question is how many see the claimed speeds?

I agree with you, this has been a longtime coming with BT and still doesnt bring us upto a level with many of our European neighbours. Its a good start tho. The network has been neglected for decades, but hopefully its not too late to save it! Hopefully we'll see these 10Mb upload speeds too. I dont really care whether it takes me 20seconds or 30seconds to download so many megabytes. 100Mb this and that is to sell broadband to idiots who have no grasp on the fact iplayer or ebay can only deliver information as fast as their servers allow...

To go Off topic slightly.. Will these new BT upgrades work in combination with LLU and ADSL1, eg just boasting everyones current speeds. Or is this going to be a new standard, ADSL3 or whatever with BT acting as a reseller?

[oolon]

I'm inclined to agree with Jay, the upload speeds are likely being capped to ensure that a) they meet them and b) they can continue to meet them even if most of the people in the area take up the new services being offered.

Also BT does want to cannibalize its other business, selling leased lines (with good uplinks) to companies, either point to point or internet terminated. More companies would just switch to using public offering, for web serving and employee VPN.

[malfunction]

AFAIK BT are planning on rolling out fibre to the premises at some point and already have it built into some new developments

[aidanjt]

Yeah, getting FttC rolled out will make it much easier to extend the service to FttP in the future, since all the hard work is already done.

[watercooled]

I've seen a few BT Openreach vans in my street lately near the masts and cabinets. Not sure if it had anything to do with 21CN but it could be. Saying that why would they need to go near a mast - cabinet to mast is a twisted pair bundle still isn't it? I didn't pay much attention to what they were doing though. According to SamKnows my local exchange is 21CN enabled.

[Funkstar]

FTTC is seperate from 21CN.

21CN is happening regardless of anything else. Most of that is a back end infrastructure re-design. FTTC is taking much of the exchange equipment and moving it closer to you, so the copper is shorter and connection rates are potentially a lot higher. If it wasn't for 21CN, the FTTC program probably would be possible.

If they were messing about with the masts then they could have been doing anything. A mast might be getting replaced becasue it is rotten or damaged, they could be adding new lines, replacing lines....

[watercooled]

Sorry - midnight posting again I didn't pay much attention to the title or OP and assumed it was about 21CN (despite the title clearly saying FTTC). the mast is still the same like I said I don't know what they were doing. The cabinet is one end of the street and the mast is about halfway down and there were people at both ends.

[handscombmp]

I've seen a few BT Openreach vans in my street lately near the masts and cabinets.

I've had a couple of them round my way and i couldn't help but ask one of they guys and he said they were replacing the cables.

[BigFatCat]

I'd take any improvement on my 1.5Mb service, given that Virgin have no provision for cable where I live.

[watercooled]

I've had a couple of them round my way and i couldn't help but ask one of they guys and he said they were replacing the cables.

That would make sense. Maybe they are replacing some older cables with thicker ones or something to allow the higher bandwidths - to reduce attenuation.

[Funkstar]

That would make sense. Maybe they are replacing some older cables with thicker ones or something to allow the higher bandwidths - to reduce attenuation.

Or they were just shot after being in place for several decades