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Anyone know of the best site to find xgn-pon upgrade rollout timescales?

bodgeup

Member
I've been trying the usuals like better Internet dashboard, think broadband et etc but my postcode never shows any good news lol. I'm so jealous of people in the postcode lottery winning areas with xgn-pon from virgin or even luckier in an altnet area.. For me I so want the symmetrical bandwidth speeds! Granted I've been lucky enough to have had HFC 1gig for some years now but boy does having 104meg it is now for upload suck lol.

How have others been able to find out there xgn-pon upgrades are on there way to areas?

Anyway thanks in advance for any pointers that could help my situation,

On a side note is the symmetrical addon only for xgn-pon customers or is it also available for HFC customers? I ask as my VM account page has been prompting me to upgrade my broadband speed for an extra £4 a month down from £6 but typically the buttons go nowhere lol.
 
Nexfibre do show a rough idea of upcoming planned areas on their website. But generally speaking if you already have VM Services you’re probably not going to be very high on the priority list and may be waiting years yet. They still primarily have a focus on expanding into new areas rather than upgrading existing ones.

The current HFC setup won’t allow for gigabit uploads without doing some work and investment, and they won’t be performing upgrades to it when full fibre will be replacing it at some point in the future. So no there won’t be the option to upgrade to symmetrical speeds on your current cable connection.

The somewhat recent 100MB upload boost was already quite slow to roll out nationwide and that was a much easier upgrade to implement. So for gigabit - no chance.
 
I live in a heavily populated HFC area, Nex are here doing infill and are putting in cabinets where its 100% covered by HFC. I am going to ask them what they are doing tomorrow to see if they are overbuilding VM. This is Colchester. I cant see why they have put in that many PoP and main cabs in areas where HFC is so heavily rolled out.
 
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I live in a heavily populated HFC area, Nex are here doing infill and are putting in cabinets where its 100% covered by HFC. I am going to ask them what they are doing tomorrow to see if they are overbuilding VM. This is Colchester. I cant see why they have put in that many PoP and main cabs in areas where HFC is so heavily rolled out.
They did the same thing in Wolves, though they have been sitting there for such a long time where I'm not sure if they forgot about them
 
VM originally claimed they were going to upgrade their entire network to XGS-PON by 2028, but it looks like that may now be delayed.

Meanwhile, Openreach still seem to be more or less on target for 85% UK FTTP coverage by Dec 2026, meaning VM will have some catching up to do.

Of course, at that point you're comparing OR GPON to VM XGS-PON. For a relatively small number of users, the availability of symmetric speeds (at additional cost) may swing them back to VM. OR can trivially deploy XGS-PON alongside GPON whenever they want though.
 
Looks like that delay isnt necessarily the hard part (the cabling), but just a billing issue.
 
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Tons of roadworks indicate when the upgrade is being made possible. They're hard to miss, lots of new cabinets appear. It's not a single work on a road they blitz areas and cover them with works building new cabinets, connecting them to the existing network and carrying out any repairs.

There's no indication of timing of release beyond that, obviously, it'll be after the network has been built. If you've no new cabinets next to the old ones you don't have the network in place.

No-one on HFC has yet been able to move to XGSPON so no-one has any route to tell you when it's been done.

As has been mentioned to you a number of times on VM's community forum symmetrical is not available on HFC. You can't get it 'on demand' even if you've been a customer for 25 years and are worried about losing confidence. If you want symmetrical and it's available elsewhere go elsewhere :)
 
Did you read the answers to your other questions posted elsewhere? You asked a few on things from DoCSIS 3.1 upgrades to leased lines to roadworks references to claiming to need 'synchronous', I presume you meant symmetrical, service to effectively work from home as an 'IT Engineer'.

Pretty much anything you asked on the other place may be answered in more depth here. The timescales for the XGSPON overbuild are kept pretty close to VM's chest but the rest is pretty generic stuff.

If I may ask you a question: what are the tasks you need symmetrical to work effectively in and how have you been able to work given you've had asymmetric services for 20+ years and upload only reached three figures last year?
 
I live in a heavily populated HFC area, Nex are here doing infill and are putting in cabinets where its 100% covered by HFC. I am going to ask them what they are doing tomorrow to see if they are overbuilding VM. This is Colchester. I cant see why they have put in that many PoP and main cabs in areas where HFC is so heavily rolled out.
As discussed elsewhere the streetworks between VM and Nexfibre are getting crossed at times. Not surprising given it's the same contractors doing the build for the same people: Nexfibre are contracting VM who contract others to do the work.

Nexfibre are not overbuilding VM. Mustang is a separate project however there's tons of overlap between them to the point where Nexfibre are filling in the gaps in VM HFC coverage with their XGSPON, right down to using the VM ducts to get to the streets.

Nexfibre are passing areas VM don't: the Nexfibre results don't include anything VM have passed with cable. For now at least.
 
As discussed elsewhere the streetworks between VM and Nexfibre are getting crossed at times. Not surprising given it's the same contractors doing the build for the same people: Nexfibre are contracting VM who contract others to do the work.

Nexfibre are not overbuilding VM. Mustang is a separate project however there's tons of overlap between them to the point where Nexfibre are filling in the gaps in VM HFC coverage with their XGSPON, right down to using the VM ducts to get to the streets.

Nexfibre are passing areas VM don't: the Nexfibre results don't include anything VM have passed with cable. For now at least.
JSYK, Nex have hit my area with a storm and they are rapidly laying ducts and blowing straws already, every day more permits popup for Nex and they are completing work very fast, deffo wasnt permits mixed up. They are clearly working in tandem though as VM are putting in 'repairs' and nex are putting in 'straws' and 'duct' work.
 
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They're pulling ropes, not straws :)
 
JSYK, Nex have hit my area with a storm and they are rapidly laying ducts and blowing straws already, every day more permits popup for Nex and they are completing work very fast, deffo wasnt permits mixed up. They are clearly working in tandem though as VM are putting in 'repairs' and nex are putting in 'straws' and 'duct' work.
VM repairing duct so that Nexfibre can use it for PIA. Absolutely. Nexfibre are using VM ducts to build to new areas. They are not doing the Mustang overbuild: that's VMO2 and, soon, the NetCo they are creating.

Whose name is on the streetworks for all the new cabinets next to existing ones? VM repair duct for Nexfibre to use, if they need to bypass VM duct Nexfibre build new duct. They are extending out from existing VM network.

Seen Nexfibre repairing Openreach network too.
 
Just been out and asked them and yeah they are overlaying entirely, using PIA and Poles where they can’t get to with digging. But they said within 3 months all of Colchester will be overlaid.

When I asked who are they working for they said they are told virgin but nex manage it.

Entire of Colchester now has nex permits up. I am very glad I now know for sure they are overlaying.
 
Just been out and asked them and yeah they are overlaying entirely, using PIA and Poles where they can’t get to with digging. But they said within 3 months all of Colchester will be overlaid.

When I asked who are they working for they said they are told virgin but nex manage it.

Entire of Colchester now has nex permits up. I am very glad I now know for sure they are overlaying.
Hey Josh,

That isn't XGSPON overbuild. It's new build. Overbuild looks like this - note the quantity of streetworks and the type.
 

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Hey Josh,

That isn't XGSPON overbuild. It's new build. Overbuild looks like this - note the quantity of streetworks and the type.
I’ll hope for the best and keep going and finding them to ask what they are doing, the fact they have put a cab slam in the middle of the city where there is no new build is interesting if they are not overbuilding, don’t you think?

The permit was under nex but the contractors said virgin, also interesting, but maybe due to using the OR ducts?
 
Virgin Media are responsible for the Nexfibre build. It says Virgin Media on the PDAs the build teams are using as they are working for Virgin Media. Nexfibre contracted out the build to Virgin Media as they already had the civils infrastructure in place to build from Project Lightning. VM build it and hand it over to Nexfibre turnkey. This isn't a secret, it's on Nexfibre's website and Liberty Global's.

Nexfibre have overbuilt VM HFC to exactly zero homes in the UK and exactly nowhere has the overbuild that has happened looked anything like the permits currently open in Colchester.

VM use of Openreach duct pre-dates Nexfibre. There are all-VM Lightning builds using PIA to reduce costs. It's often the same contractors doing the work regardless of whose name is on the permit.

Nexfibre are not VM. They are siblings. For VM to use Nexfibre for their Mustang upgrade would make no sense. That would mean a third party paying VM to upgrade VM's network when VM already have budget approved and getting the benefit of super cheap XGSPON rollout leaving VM with the leftover HFC. Given VM are floating their network as a separate entity and selling shares in it leaving it hugely devalued would be an odd choice.

The Colchester permits look exactly like Nexfibre infill elsewhere in the country and cabinets apart from the smallest L4s don't need to be anywhere near the properties they serve: Colchester is being infilled both south and north of the centre and there are more reasons for cabinets to be placed than just to connect fibre runs directly to homes. Backhauling OLTs and organisation of fibre runs being two. The OLTs don't go directly back to VM hubs they go to hardware in cabinets out in the field.

I'll stop responding at this point. You are determined Nexfibre are overbuilding the existing VM HFC and have no reason to believe a word I write here or on Discord so I'm wasting your time reading and mine writing anymore 😊
 
The plan is that the fibre overbuild by Mustang plus the existing DOCSIS networks will be managed by NetCo, which is wholly owned by VMO2. I'm not expecting wholesale agreements with ISPs to use NetCo's network to be in place until 2025 at least. As an aside, VM hasn't even managed to migrate any of its own customers to XGS-PON yet.
 
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