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Ofcom does something useful

Discussion in 'Technology Advice' started by Anon04576, Feb 25, 2018.

  1. Anon04576
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    Anon04576 Well-Known Member

    Seems Ofcom has potentially opened the market for future fibre providers.

    BT must make it easier for rival internet providers to use its telegraph poles, telecoms regulator Ofcom says.

    Ofcom has published a list of new measures to make it cheaper for companies to install ultrafast full fibre broadband infrastructure.

    Connecting homes directly to the fibre network delivers much faster internet speeds than copper cables.

    Rivals Talk Talk and Hyperoptic welcomed the announcement. BT said it was "considering the implications".

    What are the new measures?
    Ofcom says full fibre internet is currently available to 3% of UK homes and offices. It hopes to see 6 million buildings connected by 2020.

    It said BT must make it easier for rivals to install fibre on its telegraph poles and in its underground tunnels.

    It wants a clearer map of where there is capacity on the telegraph poles and in the tunnels for rivals to do so.

    Ofcom suggested streets could be connected to full fibre in "hours" rather than days, as companies would no longer have to dig up roads to lay fibre.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43168564
  2. graham59
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    graham59 Banned

    Haha... already have BT 'full fibre' 50 megs from the telegraph post 15 yards from my back door. ... Must be one of the lucky 3%, especially as I live in a village. :p

    Huh... I'm assuming we've already paid for those telegraph poles from when BT was government-owned anyway. :erm:
  3. Anon04576
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    Anon04576 Well-Known Member

    Yea a bit of a monopoly which needs to getting rid of.

    Are you sure that is full fibre?

    Im on copper wire from the telegraph pole to the house which isnt full fibre and I get 75 meg. The speed is determined by the distance from those green BT cabinets not the pole.

    Full fibre would be fibre right up to your front door (fibre probably wouldn’t be delivered from the air but from the ground).

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_x
  4. graham59
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    graham59 Banned

    Yes, it is their (now second) fastest fibre broadband. Big thick cable direct from the telegraph pole. They don't do underground cable here.
  5. Anon04576
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    Anon04576 Well-Known Member

    Ahh right. I was under the impression that full fibre (right up to the premises) would be speeds closer to 1GB (gigabyte).
  6. graham59
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    graham59 Banned

    Nope. I believe 50 megs has so far been about as good as it gets for domestic premises. When tested, mine usually delivers 35-40.

    I have recently been offered 100megs by them recently, but what I have is fine (including their 'Superhub' for wi-fi distribution, etc. ).
  7. graham59
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    graham59 Banned

    Just done a speedtest for you ... better than I thought actually. lol :) This is through wi-fi to my laptop too... not direct-wired from the hub .

    .
    DSC_0391 small.jpg
  8. Anon04576
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    Anon04576 Well-Known Member

    Yes comparable to what Im getting. I think after I was with BT just over a year they did a free upgrade from what was originally 40 odd meg then they updated their kit and I got 50 odd meg and then the upgrade to 70 odd meg which is/was their Infinity 1 package.
  9. graham59
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    graham59 Banned

    Aaah...probably what I have also then. Happy with them so far, after about 15 months. :like:
  10. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Very few people have FTTP (Fibre To The Premises) and it would allow Gigabit speeds and faster, more than 20 times what you are getting (or at least contracted for), BT don't offer that speed yet.

    We have synchronous FTTP in the office 100 megabit and we can saturate that with just the overnight backup, indeed I just wrote a sync program that can saturate that bandwidth as well, spent a lot of time adding various types of throttling over the last week or so :)

    At 71 mbps there is a fair chance that you do have their FTTP offering but I would be surprised, how is your router connected, what type of cable connects it to the outside world?
    • Like Like x 1
  11. graham59
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    graham59 Banned

    Look... it's a private house, not an office. FTTP ? Did I say that is what I have ? Whatever. :rolleyes:
  12. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Eh?

    I expressed doubt about something technical and asked you a question because I thought you might well have their FTTP offering.
    Last edited: Feb 26, 2018
    • Agree Agree x 1
  13. graham59
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    graham59 Banned

    Express away.

    Write a full technical report if it makes you feel better. It isn't a blinkin competition. I have BT Fibre Broadband,and the above test result is the sort of speeds it delivers to MY house, today. Anything else you need to know ?
  14. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    I have Fibre broadband, the bit between me and where the Fibre terminates is copper and that affects the quality of broadband that I get, if I had fibre to the premises then the length of the copper would not matter but I don't have FTTP I just have Fibre provided through Sky who run on BT's infrastructure like everyone else apart from Virgin who own their own cable and offer much higher speeds.

    Domestic FTTP is rare you might have it and it would be interesting if you did because the extent to which your connection speed can be upgraded in the future would be far greater, hence it would be informative for everyone to clarify exactly what kind of termination you have for your connection i.e. what kind of cable came into your router, that is why I asked.

    You can go off in a huff if you like.
    • Informative Informative x 1
  15. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    You did, you said "Full Fibre" which implied FTTP.
    • Agree Agree x 1
  16. Markham
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    Markham Guest

    Malta (and Gozo) are currently being cabled-up for fibre and parts of the country are live. When we lived in Sliema, we had FTTP and that terminated in a small (fag packet sized) interfacing device which was connected to the router via a short length of Ethernet cable (CAT 5?). In addition to wifi and four computer ports, the router had connections for TV, printer and hard drives.
  17. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    With FTTP CAT 5 would be limiting, I would hope that most ISP's would install CAT 6 these days for future proofing but I expect the likes of Sky would put in the cheapest thing they can.

    FTTP is long overdue BT wanted to fully cable the entire country back in the 1980s but were prevented from doing so by Thatcher, had they been allowed to do it we would have been far ahead of anyone else in the world.
    • Informative Informative x 1
  18. graham59
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    graham59 Banned

    This is mine... plus the big BT Superhub, of course. A wire the thickness of a TV aerial comes through the outside wall, directly from the telegraph pole (which also appears to be used as a BT free wi-fi hotspot, BTFon, or whatever it's called):

    .
    DSC_0393.jpg
  19. Markham
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    Markham Guest

    The length of CAT 5 cable (if indeed it was CAT 5) was about 6 inches! Our setup was remarkably similar to that shown in Graham's photo with the FTTP terminal being to the right of the router.
  20. oss
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    oss Somewhere Staff Member

    Yeah that looks like you do have FTTP, very nice!
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