BT Openreach – No Plans for ADSL2 Broadband from Street Cabinets

Last year BTOpenreach revealed an interesting new technology that would have enabled them to deploy ADSL2+ (up to 20Mbps) broadband directly from FTTC street cabinets instead of telephone exchanges (here), which could push faster speeds to the most remote premises. But sadly there are no plans to deploy it.

The current Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL2) service can deliver a peak speed of up to 80Mbps, but you have to live less than 150-200 metres from your local street cabinet in order to stand a chance of receiving that and the speed drops away to just a few Megabits at the extreme reaches of 2000 metres (assuming it even works at all at that range, experiences vary).

By comparison ADSL2+, which is a much slower service and one that is also distance limited by the length of copper wire, can reach premises that reside around 6km away (speeds at that range can struggle to deliver 1-2Mbps). However, unlike VDSL2, the ADSL2+ service is normally delivered from a telephone exchange that is often much further away from you than the local street cabinets.

As such a cabinet based ADSL2+ solution might have provided extended reach beyond what is possible with VDSL2 (FTTC), which could get closer to homes by cutting out the long run from an exchange. But this is more geared towards meeting the 2Mbps for all Universal Service Commitment (USC) than the Government’s “superfast” (24Mbps+) target.

Unfortunately a spokesperson for Openreach has confirmed to ISPreview.co.uk that the operator still has no current plans to deploy cabinet based ADSL2+, although they do claim to have looked at it closely and will continue to consider it as part of their broadband solutions toolkit.

The news is hardly surprising given Openreach’s focus on future 500Mbps G.fast technology (this may also find its way into some already cramped cabinets) and the Government’s increasing moves towards pushing subsidised Satellite technology as a solution for the most remote communities. In the end there wouldn’t have been much call for an intermediary fix like this, although plans can change and the option is still open.