Openreach Extend UK Pilot of 1.2Gbps and 1.8Gbps FTTP Broadband
Network access provider Openreach (BT) has announced that their ongoing broadband ISP pilot of faster Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) download speeds – 1.2Gbps and 1.8Gbps (both offer 120Mbps upstream) – has been extended to run for several more months and is also being expanded into more exchanges.
The original pilot started on 1st December 2022 (here) and was due to run until 31st March 2023, after which it was likely that the first retail broadband ISPs might introduce their packages. The service will also be accompanied by two new optical modems (ONT / ONU) – the Nokia G-010G-T and ADTRAN SDX 611Q (pictured), both with 2.5Gbps LAN / Ethernet ports.
Openreach has now extended the pilot to run until 31st July 2023, which partly reflects the fact that they’re also expanding its availability from the Swansea (Wales) exchange to both Swansea and Ipswich (Suffolk) exchanges. The change also helps Openreach to “scale-up operations and supply chain in preparation for launch” and will make the pilot more accessible to ISPs and thus consumers (usually on an invite-only basis).
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On top of that, the revised pilot pricing will, from 1st April 2023, be updated to reflect Openreach’s new Equinox 2 Price Discounts. Broadband ISPs that have signed-up to Equinox 2 and who achieve the Equinox 2 targets will thus receive the discounts, which could, for example, drop the monthly 1.2Gbps rental from £34.90 +vat to £22.30 and drop the 1.8Gbps rental from £39.90 to just £29.30.
Remember, the above reflects wholesale pricing, which means that they don’t account for all the extra costs that an ISP must add (e.g. 20% VAT, services, network capacity, profit margin etc.). Retail prices for consumers will of course be much higher than this.
As before, the challenge here is that Openreach’s network is still using a Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) platform, which places limitations on how fast their packages can go before capacity becomes an issue. The GPON standard supports a capacity on each trunk line of up to 2.5Gbps downstream and 1.24Gbps upstream, which needs to be shared between several premises.
At present the fastest FTTP download tier available to consumers on their network is 1Gbps (115Mbps upload, rising to 220Mbps for business lines) and those GPON limitations are the main reason why Openreach may not wish to push uploads beyond what already exists. The operator does have a plan to adopt 10Gbps capable XGS-PON technology, but they’ve yet to set a solid timetable for that.
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In terms of ISP support. At present, the only provider that we’ve seen with a related package in development is BT, although we’d fully expect all the usual suspects to be gearing up for a similar launch. But almost all of them will also need to introduce a new broadband router with 2.5Gbps Ethernet ports in order to handle the new tiers properly.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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More and more in the US are being offered up to 10GB, Asian countries already have those speeds and I think higher. And here in good ol Blighjty we have… 1.8gbps. I do hope we actually get to 5GB at some point.
The vast majority of people don’t need more than a Gb/s even businesses, so it’s hardly surprising that this isn’t widely available yet.
Welcome to the world of Openreach Pilot. Where you look like you are doing something, but in reality you are years away from doing it. And all because they carried on deploying GPON instead of XGS-PON like ALTNETS, that they worry about capacity like in the story. While Bt have to migrate onto XGS-PON, the ALTNETS already there. Cue the BT / Openreach fan boys please….(Ex-Telecom Engineer step forward)…
Getting fibre to as many premises as possible is far more important than the maximum download speed. The PON can be upgraded relatively easily after that. Few residential users in the UK will have 10 Gbps ethernet.
Yawn time Winston.
Once again BT deploying the wrong tech just like history (ECI cabs for FTTC, preferring FTTC to FTTP until they were forced to go FTTP + others). They only would upgrade (and another delay to existing users) BECAUSE the ALTNETS were clever enough to choose the right tech. You can bet your life, if they can squeeze a trial then a pilot in for that, they will. Any excuse to delay doing anything.
Look at that pathetic upstream on a package that size. Most ALTNETS are symmetric. I’ll take an ALTNET like Netomnia over BT any day.
Me,
Actually in the USA 1 gbit is considered a luxury. Most people in USA are in the same position as the UK, if not slower. Yes there are plenty of faster services in more developed areas but not all can get it. Just like the UK.
I doubt there would be that many people who need 10Gb/s, most don’t even need 1GB/s The problem with Openreach network is that they have done it on the cheap, both FTTC and FTTP, with the lack of symmetrical connections.
I uploaded a load of stuff a couple of days ago, and it took a long time on 9Mb/s, now if my FTTC connection had symmetrical connection it would have gone faster. Found out yesterday that there is no technical reason not to have symmetrical on FTTC, just Openreach not spending the money.
Openreach FTTP is no better.
Anyway, looking at the prices of high speed broadband in this country, how much do you think 10Gb/s would cost us? Our local Altnet has a 2Gb/s package and that costs £65 a month, it was £99. Makes me wonder how they can lower the cost so much as this is a permanent price now, so maybe they were overcharging in the first place, or they can’t get enough people on their network.
The ONTs look very industrial.
@Me
Most people will stop at 1Gbps – after all if you need to download more than 390GB an HOUR then you really do need to look at your habits – and this from someone who can do 390GB an hour and was sad enough to actually measure the throughput 😀
LOL typical plus net punter – wants 2GB for £23,99 a month for life…
YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!!
So suck it up and PAY FOR IT!
Cityfibre and Vodafone have told me I should be able to try 10g/10g come july
@K it’s very misleading to compare the 2 countries because the UK has a much higher population density, even the most remote areas can be the average deployment in the US where there is a much higher % of rural population
Tim Pool spoke about this on his podcast that it almost took 6 digits to get multi gig connection to his complex in West Virginia precisely because they had to dig from several miles away
Phil,
Nice to have a sensible conversation, thanks. I completed a computer course in september and my lecturer told us that in USA they were years behind us for that very reason and the UK was actually faster on average because most people in USA were rural compared to the UK.
If you don’t want to compare it with US for demographic reasons, try Italy…
never had tiered speeds before, they were introduced with FTTH and only between 1G/300M, 1G/500M, 1G/1G, 2.5G/1G, 10G/2G… there’s also another ISP doing 5G/700M as their sole tier for 19.99€ a month.
The USA market is nothing like the UK market. Nearly everyone there has access to cable, however most of the time it’s cable work a very restricted return path so low upload speeds.
Most of those companies can’t replace with full fibre they have to go all in on the next generation of cable and some are upgrading already.
There are some small altnets though these are geographically limited.
The phone companies barely reach more people than the cable companies and are very slowly upgrading to full fibre but it is happening.
The two largest cable companies in the USA, Spectrum and Comcast are both all in on coax for the next generation. Altice are overbuilding most of their New York / New Jersey cable with fibre.
AT&T continue to roll out fibre in the areas where they are incumbent, and have XGSPON available in some, working on the rest.
Same story with Frontier.
Verizon are slowly but surely realising what a bad idea paying for the tunable optics in NGPON2 OLTs and ONUs was.
So not a lot in common with the UK market. Check https://www.dslreports.com for more.
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2023/03/openreach-extend-uk-pilot-of-1-2gbps-and-1-8gbps-fttp-broadband.html#comment-277493
Yeah probably not the smartest move slagging your own employer’s customers off in public. Most of us aren’t anonymous.
@haha, Are you getting at me being a typical plusnet user? I think you have me wrong, what I was on about was it would be nice to have an upload speed the same as my download speed on FTTC, I have said before and I still say it, I don’t need supaduper high speed broadband, UI presume you mean 2Gb/s, not GB and no I am not looking to get it for £23.99 a month. Would I turn it down for that price? no, not really, but then very few people would.
My broadband works fine for most part, I did have a bit of a slow down a few weeks ago for some reason, but it is fine now, all I said was I would not mind a faster upload speed to the 36Mb/s I get on download.
Have checked a few Swansea addresses and can’t see any being offered 2.5 Gb/s on both the BT Wholesale and Openreach checker, so how do customers order it?
* 1.8 Gb/s
It’s a pilot not a released product, Will. It will not appear on availability checkers until the actual product is good to go and can be ordered through the regular APIs and process.
Openreach will have told their customers, the CPs like BT Wholesale, Sky, TalkTalk, that they have x spots in the pilot and then they will set about either directly or through their own wholesale customers in the case of Wholesale recruiting people to join the pilot.
Invite only, not order through a checker just yet.
It’s a pilot, this is not yet generally available to consumers. Pilots usually equal invite-only basis for customer trials.
Got it. Thank you, both.
Be interesting to see how BT and others market this as aside from downloading enormous amounts of content of dubious heritage most folks aren’t even going to touch the sides of a 100 Mbps connection let along a 1800 Mbps one for 95%+ of the time – which is why offering such packages over GPON can work.
Big vanity tier. Nothing wrong with that: some will want it. Good to see Openreach offering one to compete with VM’s history of vanity tiers even if the upload is laughable, without the excuse that the network was originally built to carry analogue cable TV.
Incoming 2.2 Gbps down, 100 Mbps up tier from VMO2 in t-minus…
By 2028 VM will leave BT in the dust as fully XGS-PON and symmetric. That is the date they have publicly stated that all their FTTP network will have been deployed. They started in 2021. Openreach will still be having trials and pilots at that stage…..
I mostly agree, but I’d say there is also a legitimate use case for larger download speeds; games. 100+ GB games are fairly normal now, and if people want to pay extra for the luxury of waiting half the time, as far as I am concerned, go for it.
The point is, sure, a lot of people don’t “need” these speeds, but it’s sure nice to have them!
“By 2028 VM will leave BT in the dust”
Hahahahahahaaha, sorry, Hahahahahahaha. That really made me laugh.
The stuff Openreach are installing is capable of supporting both. On the same module at the same time if that’s what you want.
There remain huge supply chain issues with optics at the moment. It’s delaying VMO2’s plans, I fully imagine CityFibre’s original ambitions have been slowed down.
Openreach will be at least all XGSPON by 2028. Potentially more, depending on what the market demands though I’m not convinced the mass market will need more than the 5 Gbps XGSPON allows companies to sell as a main-ish stream product.
Absolutely, M. Such things are that 5% I mention in ‘most folks aren’t even going to touch the sides of a 100 Mbps connection let along a 1800 Mbps one for 95%+ of the time’.
Not essential but multigig is very, very nice to have, which is why I do.
I don’t know, I admit that trying to wait for a 25gig PS4 update can be frustrating on my 70meg broadband connection, frankly a 300-500meg service would be adequate enough for this.
Sure, it’ll be great when 1gig is the defacto standard, but frankly that’s really the realm of 3D AI generated ‘adult’ 8K UHD VR goggles territory!
No Aled, it’s the “downloading FS2020 in a decent amount of time” reality – although MS’s servers on that system are slow – I get about 135Mbps on that download – which is great but no where near the 1000.
Ex Telecom Engineer – you may laugh, but the ALTNETS are having a bigger laugh back at BT/Openreach’s current deployed strategy. They now have to upgrade at cost again whereas the ALNETS had the sense to deploy the right tech and showed BT / Openreach up good and proper.
BT / Openreach might have a great core network but when it gets to the customer end – it’s always been a lazy half hearted approach. If it was just left to Openreach / BT everyone would still be trying to get an upgrade from ADSL to FTTC!!!! Obviously, I’m ignoring the Thatcher years where she prevented any hope of doing fibre under different management back then and agree that was wrong – but they had years since her to do something….
Ex Telecom Engineer:
– Until recently VM were light years ahead of BT for residential broadband in areas that were not over utilised. Their speeds were way ahead of BT’s and it was only when Openreach EVENTUALLY got their finger out and started deploying FTTP (albeit with GPON) that they were faster. Not saying VM are perfect, far, far from it.
VM won’t be wimps when it comes to symmetric on their new XGS-PON though; then Openreach will start to feel the heat once again…
Yeah, this is a torrent connection.
Many web/content servers struggle to fully utilise more than 100mbps and those who can… Well how many 4k streams can you possibly watch at once?
I’ve no doubt the use case will arrive eventually but it only exists for those looking to build giant collections of high bitrate video files in 2023 and there is nothing obvious that I can see that will require such high bandwidth internet in the near future.
Nice to have and gigabit internet should be considered a sort of basic standard eventually which will necessitate Openreach upgrading to XGS-PON but today, right now… it isn’t a priority since it isn’t needed.
Ian, what a silly statement, talk about unconscious bias!
People who WFH may work in media and be uploading large media files, or people working in similar areas. Multiple people at home with cloud backups and things syncing to cloud storage. Even people streaming their own Plex library for private use and don’t wish to transcode content. So many scenarios for you to write off just because YOU don’t have a need. Or are you an employee for a telecoms provider that simply doesn’t like symmetric generous uploads? Because rightly or wrongly that’s how you come across.
“At present, the only provider that we’ve seen with a related package in development is BT,”
Do you have more information on this?
All I can tell you is that it’s definitely written on the plan I’ve seen, but no details on price or exact launch date.
What is the target market that needs 1.8Gbps downstream but can put up with a paltry 120Mbps upload? Is BT trying to emulate Virgin Media?
Indeed the upload speed, one area where many people would notice a benefit because it is already artificially capped low, is kept the same. Doesn’t make much sense, except of course if you are trying to protect other parts of your business. If BT are happy to contend the download share so much, then not offering much higher on the upload speed is nothing to do with capacity concerns with the PON.
To be fair, outside the confines of these pages, you’ll find that upload speeds aren’t much of a talking point for most regular consumers as there aren’t many situations that would demand it to be faster than that.
Haha, good one.
As long as BT doesn’t make it slower when they release a new faster option, I think they’re still one rung above … for now.
‘To be fair, outside the confines of these pages, you’ll find that upload speeds aren’t much of a talking point for most regular consumers as there aren’t many situations that would demand it to be faster than that.’
It’s long been one of those things that’s a good, and expensive, not gimmicky, marketing campaign away from becoming a thing. See if CityFibre want to take it on when they’ve more coverage, or VMO2 once their overlay network is more built out.
We’ve seen OS and phones syncing to the cloud. People using cloud as backup locations. Future cloud recording from IPTV style devices. Higher upstream supports more devices and users using it in a household. Many more new apps will come along so the lack of upstream is no way future proofing and even hampering some people right now.
If ALTNETS can do it, no excuse for BT other than them not wanting to do it.
The 120 Mb/s uplink is a bit of a joke.
It’s pathetic. Nothing else. They charge more than ALTNETS and still don’t want to provide the tech.
I don’t understand the upload. It’s usually at this point that someone chimes in shouting about leased lines, as if having symmetric speed is the only reason to get a leased line (it isn’t, other reasons include an SLA and 1:1 contention and managed equipment). If many of the altnets (I’d like to say all, but I can’t back that up with proof) offer symmetric then why does Openreach not? Doesn’t make sense to me. Then again, I haven’t had an openreach connection since 2015 now and i’m not likely to ever again either.
I assume this is costing them more? I also assume this might be why I have just been asked to pay an extra £60 a month on my Leased line :/
Nothing to do with leased lines.
These are nearly always on a fixed price for the duration of the contract. Any price rise written in.
So no need to take a break from working the phones at BT to cease trading on the side line business and go insolvent due to price rise. Much like the leased line in question it probably doesn’t exist.
Not in my experience @Haha. The price of an EAD / DIA service is fixed for the full term of your agreement.
Who is your provider? What is the term duration?
Oh but it does Pablo – Annoyingly now it does! and as for terms – nope – never been told by e-mail phone OR the actual contract I signed. I was led to believe the price I paid was fixed -after all the reasons for the price rise do not apply to me – Maintenance? okay they can’t tell me how.. Voice services? I am pure data!
@Pheasant Daisy Comms – 36 months – Was told today they would let me off a price rise for the rest of year 1 (I am 6 months in and paid up front for 12 months) but then years 2 and 3 would be with the 13.4% increase – which is about 49 a month + VAT for me
I am waiting to hear what they want to do.
“Much like the leased line in question it probably doesn’t exist.”
And yet here is my last invoice – paid up until October 2023.. And yes it really IS MINE!
Sucks huh :/ ?
https://ibb.co/825S7JK
Sorry forgot to add!
I had paid another month and a half before that – total for the year is £4445.54 – happy to produce the rest of the amount in a separate invoice if “Pablo” Wants me to 🙂
And yes I know another “speedtest from the internet” that I just happened to do right here and right now – but no doubt will be told it’s fake 🙂
Daisy don’t do FTTP they do g.fast and Ethernet – even when alt nets are present – so , is it just pure magic!? or it is the TRUTH! 🙂
https://ibb.co/PWNYcMT
I stand corrected they DO do FTTP!
What’s that? Ah yes they only do BT based FTTP so 1000/115
https://daisycomms.co.uk/solution/ultrafast-fibre-broadband/
Anything above that is Ethernet – even when Cityfibre are around – and even then it’s £98 a month + VAT – so the maths and the speeds support my claim
Once AND for all!
K. So why always the screenshots of speed tests? They can all be shared in a few ways with one click: way easier than screenshot and upload to an image hosting site. What extra information are you thinking people will find?
I’m not sure what the bill screen is supposed to tell me besides that it was apparently generated in October and covers usage of something in September. If there were any details there it’d be proof of something. It doesn’t state who it was from or what it was for. Redaction would’ve been easy.
I also don’t understand why that was your last bill. You should still be getting bills generated even if they are being paid by credit already on the account. There will just be zero owing. This is how billing systems work.
However obviously given you were speed testing right there and then all those posts and, I guess, many others, should have come from a private Daisy account as opposed to, say, some random VPN, TOR exit node or whatever. Given you’ve told us all what you were using it’s in no way private information that you were using it if you were.
Mark?
Your comment about the bill is bizarre. I’ve never heard of prepay DIA let alone peacemeal prepay where you pay for a few weeks then you pay for the next year of a 36 month contract.
The 36 months will be their contract with Openreach, too. This is a 36 month fixed term contract with credit checking carried out in advance not a gas card on a prepayment meter. You don’t load it up for a month and a half then top up the rest of the year. I have never heard of this being a thing.
I guess lastly the amount you claimed to pay for the year, 12 monthly payments, isn’t divisible by 12.
@haha this make no sense….
You’re paying 12 months in advance on a 36 month agreement. Why precisely? The normal billing cycle is monthly in advance. Unless there is some huge discount Daisy are offering you, why would you agree to this?
If this was agreed in any case, the billing cycle would not revert as hoc to month to month.
Also you should have a service level agreement including in the contract. If you don’t you should ask it from your account manager.
Who is your account manager there?
‘The normal billing cycle is monthly in advance.’
True. How come the bill is in arrears?
That’s a phone/mixed services bill from the place you worked at before BT, isn’t it?
With FTTP build going on at present, and Openreach indicating a future plan to switch to XGS-PON, if there are no (publicised) details of this yet, what does this upgrade/switch involve? I’m think of any sites that already have FTTP available after the point they make a solid decision?
I’m just wondering, how would this affect those locations that are already marginally commercially viable for FTTP and reliant on government funding? Is this likely to create yet another divide?
It means months / years of trials by Openreach first then eventually you get it. Meanwhile those that are lucky to have an ALTNET march on with symmetric way before Openreach customers do.
Thanks for the sarcasm @anonymous, i was however asking a genuine question…
Most of the time the move to XGSPON is plugging an SFP module into a chassis and plugging the right connector into that module.
Can also be done depending what Openreach bought by just entering the commands to turn the XGSPON on as the optics in the existing module can do both.
For those complaining about the upload – you can order a 10Gbits EAD if you like. This is why the uplink speeds with OR are much slower – conflicts with OR’s other products that they make a tidy profit with.
and why would I want to when an ALTNET does 10gbps symmetric if I really wanted? 1gbps symmetric enough for me. Don’t need Openreach local network at all.
A good regulator with gumption could clamp down on Openreach (OK, may require gov to make some changes to enable them). If the ALTNETS can do it and ultimately VM when they go XGS-PON, then BT simply have no excuse they holding people to ransom and holding back the UK.
If the altnets: alternative networks, can do it and VMO2 will be soon, though they haven’t announced any of the products they’re selling on the full fibre network yet then it it’s something people want they’ll buy it from elsewhere, they’ll make loads of money, and Openreach will be left on catch up.
Don’t recall demands for laws that Openreach must match VM when VM had 350, Openreach 80 Mbit FTTC: why now?
If there’s this huge demand that’s not getting filled a company other than Openreach will fill it. That’s the free market working. May as well go back to British Telecom if every innovation these other networks release Openreach have to copy.
Interesting my FTTP service originates from EAIPS, but on an older Huawei OLT.
No doubt this will be offered to those PONs sitting on later Nokia and ADTRAN OLTs
Who need Openreach? Sooner the better we get better 6G after 5G rollout. Trust me 6G will be overall winner and will hand down beating Openreach.
Openreach is dead in the water for me!
“6G will be overall winner and will hand down beating Openreach.”
Clearly you don’t understand the bandwidth limitations of 5G and the range/atmospheric constraints as you increase frequencies into the higher mmWave band. To get sufficient range, many 6G applications will be supplied via the current 5G frequencies. 6G bandwidths utilising the higher EHF Frequencies are limited by line of sight, atmospherics and even movement, so they’ll only ever be useful as a WiFi type solution for areas like stadiums, shopping centers, train stations, etc.
https://www.androidauthority.com/what-is-5g-mmwave-933631/
lol! If you have EE 5g they limit your speed to a max of 100meg on most contracts. Even though its not much faster than 4g usually.
Phil, this really doesn’t add anything to the discussion.
They are all fighting in the inner urban landscape against each other, yet we have sizable populations in my area with no single decent service
In the late noughties here in NZ our broadband infrastructure was an embarrassing joke, our then National (conservative) led government decided to invest in the country (rather than the party’s donors, chums and cronies as your so called “Conservatives” do) with the ‘Ultra-Fast Broadband Initiative’ creating a majority publicly owned FTTP network which now reaches over 80% of the population.
Ultimately it will reach 87%+ of the population with the remaining largely rural severed via ultra fast wireless connections including 5g.
Our copper network is now being decommissioned and the FTTP network is being upgraded to XGS-PON.
The UK has fallen well behind even its far flung former colonies…
New Zealand has a population just over 5 Million, the North West of England alone has a population of over 7 Million. Across England far more people have access to FTTP than New Zealand, so the UK isn’t behind. As far as XGS-PON, 10G isn’t needed and the business case for many companies using it, is to increase the number of properties connected on a single Fibre, rather than offering faster services. Since more properties have access to FTTP in the UK, I’d suggest New Zealand is lagging behind. Come back when you have a population of around 69 Million and I might agree with you.
do you only come here to ridicule us? go back to 4chan.
Awesome. Given New Zealand has a population density of 18 people per square kilometre should be easy for the UK with ours of 281.
You weren’t seriously citing absolute numbers when talking about an infrastructure project were you?.
“Awesome. Given New Zealand has a population density of 18 people per square kilometre should be easy for the UK with ours of 281.”
Not sure if you’re directing that at me, but New zealand is slightly bigger than the UK. The North Island is the most populated with just over 4 Million people. Apparently the most densely populated area is Auckland with around 1.65 Million people; Auckland city has the bulk of the Auckland population with around 1.5 Million people. Throw in Christchurch, Wellington, plus surrounding urban areas and you’re likely around 80% of the population. Basically New Zealand have Fibred out three cities and surrounding urban areas, with less total combined population than various individual regions in England.
Makes your 18 people per square kilometre comparison meaningless. It’s pretty clear New Zealand have a much easier task of rolling out FTTP than the UK, and much less Network core capacity needs, that’s the reality.
So the NZ UFB rollout started in some of the easy bit. The cities. It was costing at current exchange rates about £1850 per premises passed. They are now at £750 across phase 1 – the first 75%. UK costs for this for Openreach in the £300-£400 range.
Phase 2 of this ‘easy’ rollout, moving from 75% to 85% coverage is budgetex to cost for:
‘… 203,000 premises across the country.
The second stage of the UFB construction will begin in July this year, and is expected to be completed by the end of 2024 at a cost of between NZ$370 million and NZ$410 million for the communal network, plus an additional cost of NZ$1,500 to NZ$1,700 for connecting each individual premises.’
So that’s on average a grand per premises passed to get the CBT or MDU node and splitter installed, and £1800 per premises connected.
To reach 85% of the population.
Easy. The Point Topic data reckons Openreach won’t even be significantly off at all above £500 per premises passed in the 75-85% with connection costs standard.
Quoting the cost of premises past, relative to the UK, doesn’t take account of everything in New Zealand being more expensive; Apparently the cost of living is 42.6% more expensive and wages are nearly double the UK average, so it stands to reason building infrastructure will cost more. The New Zealand minimum wage is $22.70 per hour and the average New Zealand wage is “NZ$61,828 per year”. Clearly it’s going to cost more to instal FTTP in New Zealand, that doesn’t mean it’s harder to instal there than the UK. NZ has a much lower population and more of the population is concentrated in Urban areas, clearly the FTTP rollout, in the UK, is far more difficult and the cost per premise passed is irrelevant.
Cool. Now convert those numbers to Sterling and compare with the average UK full time wage.
Wait.
‘clearly the FTTP rollout, in the UK, is far more difficult and the cost per premise passed is irrelevant.’
I look forward to reading about ‘difficulty’ in ISP results rather than cost per premises passed.
They’re proxies for each other. The more difficult it is the longer it takes, the longer it takes the more it costs. Investors couldn’t care less how ‘difficult’ something is they care what it’ll cost and what the benefits will be.
On the money point again adjusting for purchasing power parity NZ is about 20% wealthier per person.
It would’ve been far easier to accept you’re wrong and if you’re bored look into why. Chances are the UK has more reusable infrastructure and, once you leave the very middle of urban areas, homes are more sparsely laid out in NZ as there’s so much more space relative to people, which goes some way towards explaining those enormous install costs.
Or just try and find a reason why you just can’t be wrong and, failing that, make the ridiculous comment that, even though it costs far less here adjusting for income, purchasing power, whatever, it’s just *harder*.
XGSPON is just a simple case of plugging in new head end and an ONT swap out. Most people don’t even want 1gig yet so why waste the money on XGSPON equipment that will just sit there unused to it’s full potential when the money can be spent on building more network. Upgrade headends to XGSPON in a few years when it’s cheaper and more people will want it
The reason for moving to XGS-PON is that GPON offers 2.5Gbps down/1.25Gbps up shared between *ALL* users on the same OLT port. On a full Openreach deployment that is ~30 users. If everyone decided to watch a 4k stream at once there is going to be problems. With XGS-PON that is 10Gbps up/down shared between everyone.
Frankly, I don’t think that moving from GPON to XGS-PON is a sensible idea. Personally, I would move to 25G-PON which is a shared 25Gbps up/down. At the 30 users per port that Openreach targets that is a very lightly oversubscribed symmetrical 1Gbps service, or a reasonable oversubscribed 2.5Gbps service. That basically rivals the service that point to point providers such as B4RN and WightFibre can offer. Though they can easily offer symmetrical 10Gbps that is uncontended in the access layer to every subscriber.
25GPON ONTs last I saw were rack mounted and are definitely very expensive. Probably not idea for mass market just yet.
‘If everyone decided to watch a 4k stream at once there is going to be problems’
30 * 25 = 750 Mb/s. Seems okay. For broadcast 30 * 40 = 1.2 Gbit/s. Plenty left for the normal average peak use per household of about 2 Mbit/s if on TalkTalk and 4-5 Mbit/s on one of the heavier usage ISPs.
As of right now Nokia 25GPON ONTs are rack mounted. Might mess a wall up trying to attach one of those to it.
I’ve no idea what Ogi is paying for those they have but an going to speculate it’s more than the sub £75 retail cost of XGSPON ONTs.
CityFibre move to XGSPON they’re increasing the customers sharing the capacity and will reduce it again when justified. This is standard XGSPON overbuild throughout the world, moving to 1:64 split thanks to higher launch power and sensitivity.
No-one is going to spend on 30 rack mounted ONTs and expensive Nokia optics so that PONs running at a few hundred megabits a second most of the time have 19 Gbit/s spare 95% of the time instead of 1.
The Ogi use of 25GPON is for businesses. XGSPON has plenty of capacity, even selling 2,4,5 Gbit/s, for average folks because most people just don’t use that much.
I don’t even have FTTP yet I still have FFTC still with speeds of 34mb download and only 4mb upload and that’s the best BT can do the now for my area but they say FFTP is on its way to my area just still waiting on it tho and I can’t even get any other service provider as in virgin media either
I don’t even have FTTP yet I still have FTTC still with speeds of 34mb download and only 4mb upload and that’s the best BT can do the now for my area but they say FFTP is on its way to my area just still waiting on it tho and I can’t even get any other service provider as in virgin media either
My biggest beef with OpenReach is that I can’t get to the 1000/1000 kinda service that cityfibre can offer. Right now with the same tech (albeit their are moving to xgspon sooner).
I went for 500/70 — the 500 is enough, but could really do with 500/500. It’s only short burts, but can be useful when working as a sw engineer and having to upload containers, or do some kind of backup.
it’s the one reason I’m hoping to switch to cityfibre once they offer service (building now, but BT got here first jan 2023)