Finally getting Full Fibre broadband!

[Harrison]

It has been exactly the same here until now so you are not alone. I've got about 35-55Mbps on my existing connection since moving here in 2015. At my old address it maxxed out at the full 76Mbps.

They initially also only ran fibre to the new build estates here too. It was getting silly because new houses in the middle of nowhere had it, but older houses that needed it far more were stuck on copoer. And I agree with house building. It is completely crap and I would never buy one. It's also mad the prices they command. Often a 1/3 more expensive than far larger 1930s house in the area, and hardly any garden or parking space, plus as you say, so close together you can hear your neighbour doing everything.

Chuchester got a full fibre uograde about 4 years ago and that's only 4 miles from me. Buy living in a far more rural area I want expecting fibre any time soon, so was really surprised when they started digging our road up to install it this time last year. But then no idea when we could order it after work was finished. So big surprise when I discovered I could now order it. There was nothing through the door or from BT. I had to discover it by accident. At least that way not many know about it yet in my road so I could book it.

But if you think your situation is bad, consider this. My parents in the New Forest only had their local exchange and cabinet upgraded to FTTC last year! So only recently got 30Mbps. Before this they were on ADSL at 2Mbps and couldn't even stream Netflix or Youtube.

[Kin Hell]

I'm really tickled for you H. Enjoy it.

A good friend of mine lives close to the New Forest @ Holbury, just after the Hythe Bypass heading East. - He's in the same boat fella & he isn't a happy chappie being an I.T. Guru. He's got 10Gbit around his house!

[Stephen Coates]

Sounds good. We don't have fibre here yet, but it should be coming in the next couple of years.

Openreach recently had a big price cut on wholesale fibre which means, if you have the choice between fibre and VDSL, fibre may actually be cheaper (provided you have the same speed).

I've no doubt the 900Mbps will satisfy harrison. Won't be much use here yet as most of my network is 10/100 and 802.11G. Still, I would like to get fibre to replace the copper lines as a means of modernising, even if the speed is the same.

Funny story with my Dad recently. He has had ADSL for ages, but VDSL has been available for some time, Openreach fibre has recently been put in, and Cityfibre are digging up nearby streets. So, he telephoned Plusnet (who don't sell fibre, but do sell ""fibre"") to ask about upgrading. So they upgraded him to ""fibre"" aka VDSL.

Funnily enough, about a month later, Openreach put a stop sell on all copper products in that area, so had he waited a month, he wouldn't have been able to upgrade to VDSL; he would have had to have had fibre. I don't know how Plusnet would handle that given that they don't sell Fibre.

[Harrison]

Did you know that VDSL was a term made up by BT? And no one else uses it because it doesn't exist. I didn't realise that until recently. It's just known a FTTC everywhere else.

And it's always been a stop-gap because they only need to run the fibre to each cabinet. But that then means the main fibre lines are in place from the exchange as when they install the fibre in each road, they only need to run it to the cabinets already in place.

It has amazed me how they have managed to keep inventing solutions to get faster and faster bandwidth along copper wires. Moving from dialup to adsl using thr same copper wires was quite unbelievable at the time. But then to jump from 8Mb to 76Mb still on copper wires was even more so. But I think line noise that was pretty much the limit.

Openreach and BT now have the current plan to replace pretty much all copper lines with fibre by 2025, and then to shut down all traditional phone lines, so your Dad might be forced to upgrade to full fibre within the next 3 or so years.

I'm not sure how they will achieve this goal though as upgrading to full fibre is a pretty new thing for Openreach customers and it only gets installed if you order it. I've read that they have technology that can be installed to allow existing phones to work on fibre lines, so they might just convert the telegraph pole junctions and keep the copper to the houses that haven't upgraded.

With my upgrade I lose the copper wires and the therefore the existing phoneline, and have already received a VoIP BT phone Wythenshawe HD audio calling. It's a bit vague if I keep my existing phone number or be assigned a new one. I'm hoping I keep the same as it's easy to remember.

[Kin Hell]

Yes, not sure what the V bit refers to in VDSL.....

Virginal.... er.... Vulgar.... maybe viscopedic....

....Little Johnny puts hand up @ back of class....

It should have been a big fat C for me miss. - The V is for Vaginal.

[Kin Hell]

I just realised something H....

You're getting Overhead Fibre by the sounds of it. - They were on about this years ago & it looked doubtful they were ever going to use it.

[Harrison]

Well it's sort of overhead. As it's a 1930s house we have the phoneline underground until it reaches the telegraph poles outside the houses, then each pole has the wires overhead going to about 10 houses. So they have laid the fibre underground from the cabinet to the pole and it will just be overhead from the pole to the house.

It makes sense in terms of cost, because its far easier to run it overhead to the houses and then just in through the wall.

In Chichester they were completely underground, so far more effort and cost involved with the fibre laid underground needing an access hatch at the end if every property ready to them dig a trench to the door when someone ordered it.

Not sure how they will do full fibre for those living down country lanes where its all overhead on poles. Is it feasible to run fibre completely overhead on poles? Or will they be digging up those roads eventually too?