Why didn't BT / Openreach keep developing their VDSL2 technology in the UK?
- Thread starter g67575
- Start date
No *announced* plan - an area not on that map don't mean no FTTP until after 2026. My town wasn't on there until two months ago, and now it's in the purple phase.
There's a lot of revisiting of new build estates that is happening that won't be shown on that map either.
There's a lot of revisiting of new build estates that is happening that won't be shown on that map either.
For many years, neither Openreach, nor the government spent money /time on improving VDSL2 or FTTP, it had nothing to do with being committed to FTTP deployments.
Openreach trailed vectoring and G.Fast in a few areas, but that was it.
The government just waited and did nothing, the only thing that happened is that the Superfast coverage gradually crept up. Local councils seemed largely satisfied, as long as this percentage was increasing each year (even as crosstalk was decreasing speeds for many, as more signed up to use FTTC).
Focusing on the technical aspects a bit more, it's clear that the upgrades to a VDSL2 17mhz spectrum were not a particularly efficient or useful for many, but they would have been, if rolled out combined with vectoring. The trouble with the higher frequency signals on this profile, is that they travel poorly over distance, leading to more line errors and only small-moderate improvements in line speed (I've tested this myself, I only get downstream line errors (CRC) when the higher frequencies are enabled on my VDSL2 modem.
So, any further profile upgrades beyond 17a, are contingent on vectoring support for all cabinets, in my view. The higher frequency bands just wouldn't work well over distance, without this technology.
Openreach trailed vectoring and G.Fast in a few areas, but that was it.
The government just waited and did nothing, the only thing that happened is that the Superfast coverage gradually crept up. Local councils seemed largely satisfied, as long as this percentage was increasing each year (even as crosstalk was decreasing speeds for many, as more signed up to use FTTC).
Focusing on the technical aspects a bit more, it's clear that the upgrades to a VDSL2 17mhz spectrum were not a particularly efficient or useful for many, but they would have been, if rolled out combined with vectoring. The trouble with the higher frequency signals on this profile, is that they travel poorly over distance, leading to more line errors and only small-moderate improvements in line speed (I've tested this myself, I only get downstream line errors (CRC) when the higher frequencies are enabled on my VDSL2 modem.
So, any further profile upgrades beyond 17a, are contingent on vectoring support for all cabinets, in my view. The higher frequency bands just wouldn't work well over distance, without this technology.
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You're going to have to define what "for many years" means, because the FTTC commercial build was happening roughly between 2010-2016, G.fast became a standard in 2015 and started to be deployed in 2017 before the obvious conclusion was drawn and the focus was switched to Fibre First in 2018. Any firmware improvements to FTTC (3dB target, enabling G.INP) have been done already on cabinets that support it.
I'm wondering when you think the time was right to spend money on line cards that can do profile 35b, or modules for enabling vectoring on Huawei cabinets to support what was considered since 2018 to be a dead end technology.
I understand that you would like a faster connection and aren't on any FTTP rollout plans currently, but I think you're wrong to try and paint it as a big policy failure to stop spending money on copper access technology.
I can criticise a lot of things about the way the UK has approached a broadband rollout, mainly around how long it took to switch focus to FTTP, and how hands-off the government has been, but I'd draw a line at wanting public funds to be spent tweaking FTTC after 2017.
I'm wondering when you think the time was right to spend money on line cards that can do profile 35b, or modules for enabling vectoring on Huawei cabinets to support what was considered since 2018 to be a dead end technology.
I understand that you would like a faster connection and aren't on any FTTP rollout plans currently, but I think you're wrong to try and paint it as a big policy failure to stop spending money on copper access technology.
I can criticise a lot of things about the way the UK has approached a broadband rollout, mainly around how long it took to switch focus to FTTP, and how hands-off the government has been, but I'd draw a line at wanting public funds to be spent tweaking FTTC after 2017.
I regard April 2012 as the point when the last upgrade to VDSL2 occurred (profile 17a) in the UK, thats what I mean by 'For many years'. From 2012-2013 onwards (Edited) Vectoring (tested by Openreach and confirmed working by this point) and cabinet upgrades (to support vectoring, where required) could have been rolled out.
Link about vectoring tests completed in 2012 on VDSL2 profile 17a, here:
https://www.nokia.com/blog/vdsl2-vectoring-delivers-its-promise/
But the problem from this point, was that the government did nothing / took no interest (sorry to repeat, but it's true).
Link about vectoring tests completed in 2012 on VDSL2 profile 17a, here:
https://www.nokia.com/blog/vdsl2-vectoring-delivers-its-promise/
But the problem from this point, was that the government did nothing / took no interest (sorry to repeat, but it's true).
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