Posted: 13th Jun, 2009 By: MarkJ
Broadband ISP PlusNet has become the latest provider to announce its involvement with next month’s first trials of BT's next generation Fibre to the Cabinet ( FTTC ) up to 40Mbps broadband technology. The move is perhaps unsurprising given that BT owns PlusNet, thus it makes sense for them to be involved.
The trial will run from 1st July 2009 for a period of up to 6 months from the BT exchanges at Muswell Hill (London) and, shortly afterwards, at Whitchurch (Cardiff). PlusNet will email the customers in those areas this week to invite them to take part if they wish, though not all will be eligible.
PlusNet on FTTC-Technology
First though, I’ll cover off a bit about the technology. With current ADSL and ADSL2+ technology the speed a customer can get is determined by the length of the phone line from exchange to their router. With these technologies the ADSL kit (DSLAM) is housed at the exchange. FTTC does something a little different, the DSLAM is located in the green street cabinet.
For most lines this reduces the length of the copper run from what can be several miles maybe less than one mile or even a few hundred yards. The journey back to the exchange from the cabinet rather than being voice and broadband over copper is split so that the voice remains on the copper but the broadband is over fibre.
FTTC also uses a different DSL technology - VDSL2. VDSL2 can offer much higher speeds than ADSL or ADSL2+. The initial trial will offer up to 40Mbps down and 2Mbps up (with an option available later in the trial for up to 5Mbps up). Like ADSL the speed will be rate adaptive based on the copper length and quality but the initial estimate is over 99% of lines should see at least 15Mbps. In practise we’ll have to see of course and the trial will help determine what speeds people will see.
For those that can and want to take part the service will initially be BT Installed. PlusNet will arrange a convenient time for an engineer visit who will replace the master phone socket and provide a VDSL2 modem (note: the modems are wired-only with one Ethernet port, so no Wi-Fi).