BT to roll-out faster broadband

[Willow]

About bloody time!

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8081226.stm

 

BT Broadband is boosting the speeds of millions of its customers to up to 20 megabits per second at no extra cost.

 

The rollout is part of the firm's planned upgrade of lines to so-called ADSL2+ technology.

 

The firm said the rollout would start with 40% of the UK this summer and reach 55% of customers by March 2010.

Existing customers will have to sign a new 12-month contract to get the boost, while throttling of video streams in peak hours for some customers remains.

 

Earlier this week BT was criticised when it was revealed it cut the speed of customers on its cheapest broadband package to below 1Mbps in peak hours when using services like the iPlayer and YouTube.

 

That so-called traffic management will remain in place with the new speeds.

 

Download caps for the cheapest two packages, of 10 gigabytes and 20 gigabytes, will also continue, the firm said.

 

In a statement, Gavin Patterson, chief executive officer, BT Retail, said: "Unlike other providers, BT is upgrading customers to 20Mb/s for free. High-speed broadband provides a faster and more reliable service that will transform the way we live, work, learn and play."

 

BT said it was starting trials of its fibre optic 40Mbps service in Whitchurch, South Wales and Muswell Hill, London this summer, with the aim of offering these speeds to 40% of the country in the future.

 

The speed boost to 20Mbps is less than the firm's originally stated aims of offering up to 24Mbps.

 

On its website, BT says in tests "we've found that only a tiny number of customers can actually get 24Mb".

[Dave]

How about upgrades to help the hundreds of thousands who can barely get broadband worthy of the name or are stuck on dial-up rather than people who are close enough to the exchange to already get 8Mb?

[davy_fulla]

I worked for BT for 9yrs as a network planner.  There was talk of this just before I left back in October.  The thing is they'll be enabling exchanges with ADSL2+ but most customers will get nowhere near that speed.  The problem is the copper network of cables is basically dropping to bits.  In lot of places the cables aren't even copper but are made from aluminium conductors which have been in place since the 1970s when copper prices went sky high.  Even customers with a perfect copper line will still be dictated by their distance from the exchange.

 

The network has been patched up for too long when we were always pushing for cable renewals only to be told the money wasn't there to do the work.  Another issue is the amount of DACS units (a line sharing device used in areas where there isn't enough capacity) in the network which broadband just won't work through.  It'll cost millions to get rid of these.

 

It might seem a step in the right direction but I'll not be getting excited until they announce fibre to the home (FTTH) being rolled out across the country.  That's way off yet!

[davy_fulla]

How about upgrades to help the hundreds of thousands who can barely get broadband worthy of the name or are stuck on dial-up rather than people who are close enough to the exchange to already get 8Mb?

 

You just reminded me there Dave about the office I was based in at Whickham telephone exchange.  Our computers were actually in the same building as the ADSL racks (about 15m away) and we only got 5.5Mb.  Awesome!

[Dave]

FTTC is the answer, surely? In terms of cost feasibilty versus results.

 

PS - I'd kill for 5.5Mb.

[davy_fulla]

FTTC is the answer, surely? In terms of cost feasibilty versus results.

 

FTTC would be a hell of a lot cheaper as the distances would be shorter and the fibre could be provided in existing ducts without having to dig as many roads up.  My mate who still works as a planner has been doing a project looking at cabinets in the region to look at the possibility of providing FTTC.  The problem is always going to be the D side from the cab to the end user though.  There has been so much under investment in this part of the network that any gains made to the cabinet would be wiped out further down the line.

 

The same mate btw has handed his notice in and is off to Saudi next month planning FTTH.  Bloody Saudi is gonna have a network to leave ours standing.

[davy_fulla]

FTTC is the answer, surely? In terms of cost feasibilty versus results.

 

PS - I'd kill for 5.5Mb.

 

We used to ring technical support man and they would try to blame the distance from the exchange.  They didn't know what to say when I said I was sitting in the exchange

[Dave]

FTTC is the answer, surely? In terms of cost feasibilty versus results.

 

FTTC would be a hell of a lot cheaper as the distances would be shorter and the fibre could be provided in existing ducts without having to dig as many roads up. My mate who still works as a planner has been doing a project looking at cabinets in the region to look at the possibility of providing FTTC. The problem is always going to be the D side from the cab to the end user though. There has been so much under investment in this part of the network that any gains made to the cabinet would be wiped out further down the line.

 

The same mate btw has handed his notice in and is off to Saudi next month planning FTTH. Bloody Saudi is gonna have a network to leave ours standing.

 

What's the maximum distance anyone is from their local cabinet though? Can't be more than a mile, which instantly puts everyone within reach of decent ADSL2+, right?

[davy_fulla]

Depends which exchange your fed off.  Urban exchanges fair enough but in rural areas a sizeable proportion of customers I surveyed lines for were miles from the cab.  I surveyed one line off Otterburn exchange where the customer was 11km from the cab.  Aside from the distances though, even if you were a few hundred yards from the cab a crap quality D side feed would instantly wipe out the gain you had made from the exchange to the cab.

[Adam]

BT are hopeless I used to be throttled to 2meg, im now with sky getting 5meg. They really need to put in fiber optics.

[Dave]

Depends which exchange your fed off.  Urban exchanges fair enough but in rural areas a sizeable proportion of customers I surveyed lines for were miles from the cab.  I surveyed one line off Otterburn exchange where the customer was 11km from the cab.  Aside from the distances though, even if you were a few hundred yards from the cab a crap quality D side feed would instantly wipe out the gain you had made from the exchange to the cab.

 

11km from the cab?! How far were they from the exchange?

 

My point though was that if you're looking at balancing costs against benefits, surely FTTC is the best bet. Many people will get much better results than direct from the exchange, and then money can be spend upgrading the very bad areas seperately.

 

What are your thoughts on the new USO? Should have made it 5Mb IMO.

[davy_fulla]

Depends which exchange your fed off.  Urban exchanges fair enough but in rural areas a sizeable proportion of customers I surveyed lines for were miles from the cab.  I surveyed one line off Otterburn exchange where the customer was 11km from the cab.  Aside from the distances though, even if you were a few hundred yards from the cab a crap quality D side feed would instantly wipe out the gain you had made from the exchange to the cab.

 

 

11km from the cab?! How far were they from the exchange?

 

My point though was that if you're looking at balancing costs against benefits, surely FTTC is the best bet. Many people will get much better results than direct from the exchange, and then money can be spend upgrading the very bad areas seperately.

 

What are your thoughts on the new USO? Should have made it 5Mb IMO.

 

It was something daft like 15km from the cab.  The longest line I've ever heard of was 22km from the exchange.  I know these are extreme cases but (especially in the area I worked) line lengths of 9km+ were not uncommon.  Yeh I see what you're saying in that a lot of people will get a better connection but it's going to mean doing all this work and spending all this money just to provide FTTH at a later date.  The money would be much better spent just getting straight on with FTTH IMHO.  The UK will get left behind if we don't get moving sharpish.  This new network in Saudi is gonna be such an asset to an already ambitious country.

 

In answer to the new USO question - never heard anything about that Dave.  Have you got a link?  I'm assuming it's for 2Mb access?

[brummie]

I live on a housing estate that was built 7 years ago.

 

When it was built, NTL as it was held the franchise for the local cable. NTL at that precise point was teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, so didn't have the money to actually use their franchise holder powers and put cable in.

 

BT in their wisdom then put TPON fibre in for the phone network, thus leaving the entire estate with absolutely no access to broadband whatsoever.

 

We moved in a few years ago, when the long campaign for a copper overlay (basically sticking copper alongside the fibre) had been won (MrSaffron at adsl-guide.org.uk is a prince amongst men, incidentally), and the conversion process was underway. After six absolutely excruciating months on dial up, our line was done.

 

I get about 3.5Mb at best, I'm about 3 miles from the exchange as the crow flies, obviously don't know the line length.

 

I suspect no amount of ADSL2+ nonsense is going to increase my broadband speed. The easiest way for me to do that is probably going to be to move to a Virgin cable area and get cable.

 

Pathetic.

 

Oh, unless the fibre was actually left in when they overlaid the copper, and that gives us some kind of advantage in the future.

[Dave]

I'd kill for 3.5Mb too. I'm on about 0.3Mb normally, stretching to 0.5Mb in the dead of night. I've seen that MrSaffron on there, seems to have a lot of respect in the industry. I've signed up on their new website logging 'notspots' where broadband is shit or not available at all. It fucks me off when all the investment is made in urban areas where the locals can already get speeds way in excess of the UK average, but they do it where it makes the most money of course.

 

davy: http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/3939-budget-announces-2mbps-uso.html

 

2Mb for all by 2012. Presumably they'll have to employ some wireless gubbins to make that work, but as I said earlier by that time 2Mb will be far too slow for many things. It's already the minimum standard IMO for things like iPlayer, online gaming and downloading files which are getting bigger and bigger. Still, it's better than 0.3Mb...

[Adam]

0.3mb Dave, thats shit.

[brummie]

0.3mb?

 

Jesus, Dave, where do you live? 1996?

[Dave]

0.3mb?

 

Jesus, Dave, where do you live? 1996?

 

No more than 20mins from the centre of Leeds. Ludicrous isn't it. Having said that, BT were adamant we couldn't get it at all.

[Adam]

Ah Yorkshire, the land that time forgot

[Stifler]

Isn't the North East being left out of this though?

[tgarve]

how do u find that speed sufficient to run the site all the time dave?

[Decky]

Dave, BT told me I could only get 0.5mbps, I went with Tiscali later as it was cheaper, the day they activated it I got 1.5mbps.

 

BT are shit, but Tiscali are aswell as they are quite slow some times. About 90% of the time im 1.5 with Tiscali though which beats being 0.5 90% of the time with BT (the 10% being lower)

[2sheds]

FTTC is the answer, surely? In terms of cost feasibilty versus results.

 

FTTC would be a hell of a lot cheaper as the distances would be shorter and the fibre could be provided in existing ducts without having to dig as many roads up.  My mate who still works as a planner has been doing a project looking at cabinets in the region to look at the possibility of providing FTTC.  The problem is always going to be the D side from the cab to the end user though.  There has been so much under investment in this part of the network that any gains made to the cabinet would be wiped out further down the line.

Extending a fibre link to a DP from a cabinet isn't that big a problem tho. Most are fed by ducts and very few have cable DIG.

After that a co-ax drop wire should be able to get you a good speed. I was working on half a Gig thru co-ax 8 years ago as an engineer.

[Tooj]

0.3mb?

 

Jesus, Dave, where do you live? 1996?

 

[davy_fulla]

FTTC is the answer, surely? In terms of cost feasibilty versus results.

 

FTTC would be a hell of a lot cheaper as the distances would be shorter and the fibre could be provided in existing ducts without having to dig as many roads up.  My mate who still works as a planner has been doing a project looking at cabinets in the region to look at the possibility of providing FTTC.  The problem is always going to be the D side from the cab to the end user though.  There has been so much under investment in this part of the network that any gains made to the cabinet would be wiped out further down the line.

Extending a fibre link to a DP from a cabinet isn't that big a problem tho. Most are fed by ducts and very few have cable DIG.

After that a co-ax drop wire should be able to get you a good speed. I was working on half a Gig thru co-ax 8 years ago as an engineer.

 

You'd be amazed at the amount of DIG out there, again dependant on area.  I'd say 80% of the jobs in my work patch involved providing duct although we were generally limited to providing no more than 30m at a time.  Most of the (pre-1990s) housing estates round here are DIG.  The foot paths are like patchwork quilts where boxes have been dropped in and 3 or 4m of duct provided to apply a sticky plaster to the network.  Almost all rural routes are composed of DIG cable in varying proportions.

 

Even already ducted routes can pose problems though as ducts are often congested or old earthenware type ducts have collapsed and so require a new duct provision.

 

A co-ax dropwire shouldn't make too much difference as it only represents the last 20 or so metres on what could be a run of several miles.  If the signal is already poor from the exchange to the DP then sticking a bit of co-ax on the end wouldn't make any difference.

 

Edit: After re-reading your post I think you mean fibre to the DP then co-ax dropwire.  I thought you meant co-ax on the end of the copper/aluminium pair

[Dokko]

My BT line keeps dropping out all the time, fuking annoying as fuk, Davy, what are the chances of getting it replaced by BT?