At present Vodafone UK already sell ultrafast and gigabit speed broadband services to homes via CityFibre’s new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network, but they’ve today announced that their partnership is being extended to harness CF’s Ethernet infrastructure too (i.e. more leased line style options for businesses).
The catch is that this will initially only be available in 12 of CityFibre’s UK towns and cities, including Cambridge, Coventry and Peterborough, with Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Huddersfield, Leeds, Leicester, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Portsmouth and Southend-on-Sea to follow “over the next few months.”
Apparently, Vodafone’s new Ethernet Services will thus offer businesses of all sizes their own secure, private data network connection, enabling multiple sites to be linked together. The agreement offers customers a low-cost service with faster data speeds in a choice of bandwidth packages, including 1Gbps and 100Mbps options. But no 10Gbps solution, yet.
Vishal Dixit, Vodafone UK Strategy and Wholesale Director, said:
“We already have an extremely successful partnership with CityFibre, so we’re delighted to be able to extend this to include Ethernet Services. It’s never been more important to ensure our business customers have as much choice as possible, as well as the high-speed and high-quality data service they need to run their business successfully.”
End.
I hope that photo isn’t indicative of how cityfibre install it in pavements!
Yep. Langley Green for one.
It is, though those are only the plastic tubes which I assume they blow the fibre through later.
Geez, wouldn’t last 5 minutes in my neck of the woods.
Unless people randomly dig a foot into the footway it should be fine. The picture is work in progress, the straws aren’t just left on the surface.
Unfortunately they are not all as deep as you infer. The cut channels for the micro duct from the grass verge to toby box to be less than two inches.
The main duct (usually a pair) are laid 30cms down side by side and the distribution micro duct laid on top between them. When the micro duct is fanned out to the premises it is just below the pavement surface and then the pavement reinstated.
Cityfibre has been doing work where I live, absolute mess around here and they leave everything undone for weeks then come back to it and there is ramps all over the place because they dug trenches on every street and digging up grass not even cleaning up and leaving cables everywhere.
Still covered. Openreach and Virgin Media use 250-350 mm cover in footways and obviously will have swept tees where the duct goes closer to the surface. The straws are still covered and if pavement work is done, say dropping a kerb, they are lowered to preserve cover.
They aren’t deep but then unlike gas they aren’t explosive, unlike electricity they can’t shock you and unlike water they can’t flood, so are not just allowed but expected to be at that depth.
Does this mean in the future they’ll be able to provide 10gbps services?
Yes. The picture shows the micro duct laid from the small “toby” box at the side of each premise back to the splitter location. The fibre is then fed through this and through the micro duct to the house on installation.
The speed product depends on what’s at each end of the fibre and yes services up to 10Gbs are possible.
The issue here is laying the micro duct so close to the surface of the payment may exposes the micro duct to any pavement work or damage.
There’s a difference between and internet and Ethernet connection. 10gb Ethernet has been about for donkeys years (I’ve installed plenty). 100gb Ethernet has been about for a while, take up is gradually increasing. 200gb and 400gb Ethernet are the next step.
Openreach already sell 10Gb Ethernet to pretty much anywhere in the country.
What use is 400gb, what can harness
that power apart from big/massive Servers and a business premises
with lots of Computers
and the need for WiFi too?
You answered your own question. Ethernet is a business, not consumer product.
Wish they would extend there work to actually suppling a service in areas that already have FTTP