Government to pledge £400m to push for full fibre UK network

[HEXUS]

Broadband companies are expected to at least match the funding amount in investments.

Read more.

[Rebo00]

Do we really need FTTP?
Seems like a waste of money to me

[Webber3215]

I'm getting my new 1Gbps connection soon, going to be so much better than BT's connection which they still refuse to upgrade to Infinity or anything remotely close. Also their hubs are the worst things ever.

[virtuo]

Do we really need FTTP?
Seems like a waste of money to me

No, but I do want it.

So they are saying £400mil will get FTTP to 2 million premises, £200 each? I'd pay that.

What's worrying is the £700m they are investing in 5G - who needs that when 4G is still blowing some ADSL/Fibre lines out of the water?

[Ttaskmaster]

Do we really need FTTP?
Seems like a waste of money to me

Do you really need internet at all?
BT don't seem to think so, but will still charge you a fortune for the privilege...

Government - 2 million homes get FTTP at around 1Gbps.
BT investing £6bn to give 12 million homes speeds over 300Mbps by 2020.
Virgin Media targeting another 2 million for FTTP.

Yeah, right... They can't even keep within 4 years of their confirmed date for getting me something faster than 0.7Mbps!!!
Guess I'm in one of the 9 million homes that doesn't matter, or is just too close to the exchange...

[8bit]

Tremendous, now we can be spied on and hacked even faster than we are now.

[LSG501]

So lets get this straight... the government is now paying to do the work of a privately owned company, a company that once was owned by the government and sold off so they didn't have to pay for this type of investment.... all while ofcom (pointless company as it won't do whats needed) allows them to get away with not investing (fast enough) in infrastructure improvements but can afford to spend £12.5 BILLION buying a mobile phone company (when they sold off O2....) and about another BILLION on BT Sport etc.....

Thats 13.5 BILLION they could have used on investing on the infrastructure instead.... without the need to increase the cost of line rental even if we don't use any of their new purchases.

Having said that... without getting on top of the costs of truly unlimited/unrestricted internet connections all the speed means nothing if you can only get a small download allowance at a reasonable price.

[Guy]

Do we really need FTTP?
Seems like a waste of money to me

Yes! It would be nice if we could actually future proof ourselves for once. Rather than going for the cheapest possible solution as a sticking plaster for now and worrying about the rest later.

In the space of 5 years or so, the demand for bandwidth has increased massively. VOD, streaming, cloud services etc have become the mainstream.

[Macman]

Tremendous, now we can be spied on and hacked even faster than we are now.

Might get it FASTER... doesn't nesc mean they will get through it faster.

Will only increase backlog at GCHQ HQ lol.

[Ncc-1709]

The engineers finished upgrading our village 4 weeks ago... before we can use it, a safety inspector needs to ok it, which is expected to take 6 WEEKS ??
and were being told it will only give us 65/10 not the full 300 we were promised when they started 2 year ago...

[Andy14]

Tremendous, now we can be spied on and hacked even faster than we are now.

Got to love people.... Once these services are available you aren't forced to pay for them, but they are there for those that see the value. There's still nothing stopping you from disconnecting the internet and walking around with a tin hat on.

[zaph0d]

Do we really need FTTP?
Seems like a waste of money to me

Do we need full fibre right now? not really, is it a worthwhile investment for the future? very much so. Fibre is able to be upgraded to far higher data speeds than is currently state-of-the-art making it a lot more futureproof than trying to squeeze the last few mbit/s from (technologically) ancient copper/aluminium lines.

[Andy14]

For once I agree with BT's way of doing things, rather than the governments FTTP. Can't believe I just said that.

I live in a small block of flats, as millions of others do in London. In order to put Fibre into blocks of flats it's a big job, there's a lot of work, mess and when it's done it will be unsightly and presented in the wrong place. Nowhere near the PC / something that can make use of the 1 Gb/s available.

So that would then need Ethernet cabling installing in the flat OR relying on Wireless (which would be a great way to ruin a fantastic product).

Using G.FAST we can get a big boost from where we currently are but without needing to install anything other than a different router in the flat. Unfortunately, as I currently only achieve 55 on Infinity 2, I suspect I wouldn't be getting the full 300.

Fibre is the long-term and the best solution. But they need a better delivery method for rolling into blocks of flats. Perhaps a sub-station buried outside and then the last few yards is over copper..?

[Platinum]

Do we really need FTTP?
Seems like a waste of money to me

Some of us do, I am on fibre and max out at 18mb down and 1mb up, at least with FTTP it would sort out the piss poor connection from the cabinet to my house.

[Dashers]

For once I agree with BT's way of doing things, rather than the governments FTTP. Can't believe I just said that.

I live in a small block of flats, as millions of others do in London. In order to put Fibre into blocks of flats it's a big job, there's a lot of work, mess and when it's done it will be unsightly and presented in the wrong place. Nowhere near the PC / something that can make use of the 1 Gb/s available.

So that would then need Ethernet cabling installing in the flat OR relying on Wireless (which would be a great way to ruin a fantastic product).

Using G.FAST we can get a big boost from where we currently are but without needing to install anything other than a different router in the flat. Unfortunately, as I currently only achieve 55 on Infinity 2, I suspect I wouldn't be getting the full 300.

Fibre is the long-term and the best solution. But they need a better delivery method for rolling into blocks of flats. Perhaps a sub-station buried outside and then the last few yards is over copper..?

FTTP should be no different internally than twisted pair. It terminates at an entry point, where you plonk your modem and do the rest over Ethernet. Cat5e will happily do 1gbps over 100m, Cat6a will do 10gbps over 100m.

As to whether we need FTTP. We didn't need anything more than dial-up, until somebody wanted to start pushing pictures over the web too. Then we were fine with 512Kbps, but then somebody had the bright idea of pushing video. Soon people will be wanting to stream multiple 4K channels to different devices, then your 60Mbps is going to look a bit tight.

I think el reg covered the idea of scrapping terrestrial TV and delivering it all over IP, freeing up the spectrum for faster mobile broadband.

[mikeo]

Suspect I'll still be one of "the few" that missout. Can't see them replacing some 5Km of copper, to service a handful of rural properties!