BT Infinity & FTTx Discussion

I have a question.

Is there ANY real world difference between BT/Sky/Plusnet/Vodaphone etc etc? As far as I’m aware they ALL use the exact same cable and infrastructure - so which bit is different hardware(Other than customer service a price).

Do you get the EXACT same speed no matter who you go with?
 
It's more accurate to say that everything is different except for the last bit where your house is connected. Sky and Vodafone don't resell a BT internet service, they pay Openreach to provide an FTTC or FTTP connection from their network to your house. All the backhaul, peering links etc. are totally under the control of the respective ISPs.

You could have evening congestion for example (and Vodafone FTTC suffered from this a few years ago) that your neighbour on a different ISP but still using an Openreach service wouldn't be affected by.
 
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Caged said:
It's more accurate to say that everything is different except for the last bit where your house is connected. Sky and Vodafone don't resell a BT internet service, they pay Openreach to provide an FTTC or FTTP connection from their network to your house. All the backhaul, peering links etc. are totally under the control of the respective ISPs.

You could have evening congestion for example (and Vodafone FTTC suffered from this a few years ago) that your neighbour on a different ISP but still using an Openreach service wouldn't be affected by.
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Ahh ok. So when quoted slightly different speeds from an ISP it probably is accurate that one might be faster than the other.
 
I got a bunch of Openreach emails today for a few addresses in the town I was tracking with the "we've reviewed our build plans and currently we can't deliver full fibre" messages. They've done half the town already and the build is continuing, so I'm fairly sure this email is being sent when addresses are shifted around on a database.
 
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Caged said:
I got a bunch of Openreach emails today for a few addresses in the town I was tracking with the "we've reviewed our build plans and currently we can't deliver full fibre" messages. They've done half the town already and the build is continuing, so I'm fairly sure this email is being sent when addresses are shifted around on a database.
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I got the same in the Bedfordshire Biggleswade area! gutted, but I live in a small village on the outskirts so I was very sceptical if I would get it or not. I believe that the village only had FTTC 5 years ago.

Has anyone here had FTTP installed in a village outside a main town? (2 miles or so)
 
FishThrower said:
I got the same in the Bedfordshire Biggleswade area! gutted, but I live in a small village on the outskirts so I was very sceptical if I would get it or not. I believe that the village only had FTTC 5 years ago.

Has anyone here had FTTP installed in a village outside a main town? (2 miles or so)
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I had a BT flyer through the post today about FTTP as it happens (hence why I'm in this thread) so logged into my BT account to check and they are seemingly offering me up to 900Mb. I hope it's not an error. I'm currently on 80Mb FTTC.

I'm in a pretty small village and about 3 miles away from the nearest town which is why it seemed odd to me. Although I am about 300m from the main exchange.

Weirdly I had an Openreach engineer here a few weeks ago and I casually asked him if he had any idea about FTTP around here and he didn't.
 
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Hmmm no news at all where I am....town of around 15,000 and have virgin media but no signs of fttp, openreach just says "Build not announced" so assuming I have years to wait if ever? No idea why we are being left out...
 
Does anyone know when BT Openreach roll out FTTP.. do they use the existing fibre cabling that goes to the green cabinet, and then spur this off to a Connectorised Block Terminal? And then the houses connects to this?

Just trying to work out if they need dig up miles of road to lay new fibre from the CBT to the exchange , or if they use existing fibre cabling that’s already in the ground for FTTC. If they use existing cabling, then I am more hopeful getting FTTP to the village I live in!
 
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FTTP is served from aggregation nodes which are nearly always in chambers underground. The existing FTTC cabinet will be served from this same aggregation node, but there's no guarantees that it's nearby.
 
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FishThrower said:
Just trying to work out if they need dig up miles of road to lay new fibre from the CBT to the exchange , or if they use existing fibre cabling that’s already in the ground for FTTC. If they use existing cabling, then I am more hopeful getting FTTP to the village I live in!
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For the most part, underground cables run through existing ducts. You’ll probably not even see them do, it if the ducts are not blocked they’ll be in and out in a matter of hours.

Sure some bits need to be dig up, but that is the minority.
 
Does anyone have any first hand experience on the FTTP Openreach ISPs below? I'm moving from Virgin and have these available to me, with Netomnia installing by the end of next year, which I'll ultimately move to. I predominantly online game so more bothered with latency, but speed is handy when downloading the games/updates.
  • Shell - 944/110 -£40.99/18 mths
  • TalkTalk - 944/91 - £49/18 mths
  • Vodafone - 910/105 - £49/24 mths
  • Plusnet - 900/115 - £41.99/24 mths
  • Cuckoo - 900/115 - £54.99/12 mths
  • Zen - 900/100 - £55/18 mths
  • Sky - 900/100 - £58/18 mths
 
I'm on Voda FTTP although on the 500Mbps package and I get 520/72 on speed tests. Response times to the Internet are under 10ms and download speeds can touch 60MB/s.

I've moved between Voda and Plusnet pretty much my entire ADSL/VDSL life and would say Voda just pips Plusnet on sustained download speeds when I've compared my previous 80/20 FTTC connections.
 
jonnymc4 said:
I've put in a request for availability, see what they say.
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Unfortunately they've responded saying I can't get Aquiss:

Thank you for your enquiry into our FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) services.​
​
I have carried out a check against the address you supplied, however, sadly, our FTTP services are not yet available in your area, but as soon as Openreach deploy upgrades locally, you will be able to take advantage of one of our FTTP packages.​
​
To register for updates and find out more about the Openreach FTTP rollout in your area, you can visit:​
​
If you would like us to keep checking for FTTP availability on your behalf, this is something we do offer for free. Simply reply back to this email and this can be setup for you. You can always ask us to stop checking at anytime.​
​
If you have any further questions, just drop us a reply. We would more than happy to advise.​
​
Kind Regards,​
​
Martin Pitt​
Managing Director​
 
jonnymc4 said:
Unfortunately they've responded saying I can't get Aquiss:

Thank you for your enquiry into our FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) services.​
​
I have carried out a check against the address you supplied, however, sadly, our FTTP services are not yet available in your area, but as soon as Openreach deploy upgrades locally, you will be able to take advantage of one of our FTTP packages.​
​
To register for updates and find out more about the Openreach FTTP rollout in your area, you can visit:​
​
If you would like us to keep checking for FTTP availability on your behalf, this is something we do offer for free. Simply reply back to this email and this can be setup for you. You can always ask us to stop checking at anytime.​
​
If you have any further questions, just drop us a reply. We would more than happy to advise.​
​
Kind Regards,​
​
Martin Pitt​
Managing Director​
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That is surprising as they should be able to supply if the others can, possibly ask them about it and say talktalk etc can supply it.
 
I signed up for updates a while back to find out when I can get FTTH - at the time the fibre checker site was saying it was due at some point before Dec 2026 - got all excited yesterday when I saw an email with the subject "Your Ultrafast Full Fibre Update", only to read this:

We’re getting in touch to update you on our Ultrafast Full Fibre build. We’ve reviewed our build plans, and currently we can’t deliver Full Fibre to XXXX.

There are lots of reasons for why our plans change - from engineering hazards to access permits. We review our build plans regularly as circumstances change. We hope this is just a temporary setback and that we can bring XXXX back into our Full Fibre build plans in the future.

We'll keep you updated and let you know immediately if anything changes.
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Grr... I could understand if I lived in the middle of nowhere, but I'm in the middle of a busy residential area and it's available literally around the corner :mad:
 
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Well that didn't last long... I'm no longer the only customer on my GPON CBT grrrr :D . My neighbour had hers fitted today, while I was at work.

However... Openreach didn't fit an external CSP outside her place, just ran the black optical cable from the CBT, straight through her door frame into the property... That's surely a bit wrong isn't it?
 
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