Looking ahead to VDSL2

[jezuk1]

According to the BT checker, "FTTC" is available for my number in March 2013. I have some major concerns about switching away from ADSL2+ LLU (which I must admit has been the most reliable and best connectivity experience I've ever seen in my life). Will it be possible to take up idnet VDSL2 without using any BT equipment? I do not want to be subjected to the BT DLM again (I've been there in the past and I will avoid that system as much as I can) - what options will there be in this case?  Will o2wholesale/Be be providing the same quality of LLU service in the VDSL department any time soon? I literally can't stand the thought of being subjected to that 'all seeing eye' (DLM) again. What are the solutions available if/when VDSL2 arrives on my copper pair?

[Steve]

FTTC runs only on BT Openreach equipment, there is currently no LLU equivalent. VDSL seems a mature,stable product, the DLM is non aggressive IMO with profiles 88.8% of sync. The advantage of VDSL is that the copper wire length is generally much shorter as it only runs to your local cabinet where fibre takes over. This fact reduces the chances of noise/interference affection your connection.

You can say get FTTC with Sky and other LLU providers but the hand off occurs after the cabinet so in terms of local performance they should all be the same. I've not any updates from Be* but I suspect their implementation would be no different than say Sky's.

[andrue]

According to the BT checker, "FTTC" is available for my number in March 2013. I have some major concerns about switching away from ADSL2+ LLU (which I must admit has been the most reliable and best connectivity experience I've ever seen in my life). Will it be possible to take up idnet VDSL2 without using any BT equipment?

No. Everyone except Virgin, KCom and a handful of rurals have to use BT equipment. BT own the cabinets.

I do not want to be subjected to the BT DLM again (I've been there in the past and I will avoid that system as much as I can)

You're worrying needlessly The DLM is much improved on WB(M)C which FTTC uses. It responds to improvements quite quickly and has a much finer granularity.

- what options will there be in this case?

Sky and Talk Talk are using BT's GEA service so will not have a DLM.

Will o2wholesale/Be be providing the same quality of LLU service in the VDSL department any time soon?

Doubtful. I used to be a member of Be and I still visit their forums. As far as their own customers are concerned they aren't even talking about dates yet. I think it'll be at least a year before they have an FTTC offering. If ever.

I literally can't stand the thought of being subjected to that 'all seeing eye' (DLM) again.

To be honest I think you're being a bit silly there. The DLM was never that bad. It could be a bit slow to react to line improvements and sometimes things got stuck but tens of millions of people had a perfectly satisfactory connection using it. Anyway as I've said above - it's much improved now and everyone seems very impressed with it.

[mervl]

I endorse all Andrue's comments. Having a noisy line I suffered on ADSL (both on Wholesale and LLU connections) both with disconnects and variable speeds - and the corresponding impact of the DLM (which improved considerably over time anyway). With VDSL my line and speeds are completely stable, and usually close to the full line profile at 88.6% of the attainable rate - such that there's only been one reconnect by the system at the cab DSLAM in the last twelve months, and the profiling hasn't changed at all. The only material change has been that interleaving was introduced by DLM on my line, which has a poor local loop from the cab and high attenuation, and was therefore necessary and expected, but it took one month from connection, and is at a low level. My latency is therefore a poor 8ms to the cab and 16ms indicated by traceroute and TBBQM, consistently. Apart from that the estimate was that (due to my distances from the exchange on ADSL and cab on VDSL) I would get a x8 increase in upload sync, and it's actually higher nearer x10, matched by a comparable increase in actual throughputs, with a similar increase in actual upload throughputs. But if you have no use for the extra speed then why pay the extra for it?

Perhaps one other matter to consider is that with higher speeds and lower latency on the local loop (as the copper lengths are often shortened considerably) the quality of the backhaul and ISP network might also be more noticeable than the effect of the DLM.

[MisterW]

According to the BT checker, "FTTC" is available for my number in March 2013.

I wouldn't get too excited about that. The end of quarter dates March,June,Sept & Dec are quite often just 'holding' dates and as they approach will get put back to the next quarter.

[jezuk1]

Thanks for the information, it has eased my worries about going back to the BT kit when the time comes. I don't really need the downstream speed at the moment, I'm fortunate enough to get rather good ADSL2+ speeds on my line however the enormous boost to upstream is worth having.

How is contention effected at the road-side? Is there enough backhaul to the exchange from the street cabinet for it all to be applied in one big go at the exchange itself, or do people get unlucky if they are connected to a particularly heavily used cabinet?

[jezuk1]

I wouldn't get too excited about that.  The end of quarter dates March,June,Sept & Dec are quite often just 'holding' dates and as they approach will get put back to the next quarter.

Yes, I can imagine things being somewhat delayed beyond original estimates. 

[andrue]

How is contention effected at the road-side? Is there enough backhaul to the exchange from the street cabinet for it all to be applied in one big go at the exchange itself, or do people get unlucky if they are connected to a particularly heavily used cabinet?

I think it's a non-issue. I remember some discussions about this in the early days and I think it was said that BT guarantee there will be no contention between end-user and exchange. I particularly recall that each cab is connected with multi-core fibre and that each cab initially has a single lit fibre which provides 1Gb/s. If they have additional cores available at that bandwidth I can well believe that BT would guarantee that. Unlike the rest of the network it should be pretty simple to keep pace with cabinet usage because it's not really a network.

It's also worth noting that they will soon be offering FTTP to anyone that wants it so again it suggests that each cab has a lot of backhaul.

FYI:

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/t/3995151-fttc-cab-connections.html

[jezuk1]

Thanks again. Well it all seems very respectable. I'll wait and see when the green cabinet appears in my street and then have a chat with Idnet about upgrading. As mentioned, I'm not holding my breath about March, although I'm not in a hurry anyhow 

[mervl]

It was just over 3 months from the date the new cabinet appeared (near the existing one) when I was able to order the service, which seems pretty normal - assuming they don't have problems getting an electricity supply or the supply ducts are broken and need replacing.

[andrue]

It was just over 3 months from the date the new cabinet appeared (near the existing one) when I was able to order the service, which seems pretty normal - assuming they don't have problems getting an electricity supply or the supply ducts are broken and need replacing.

I think mine appeared in December and went live at the very end of March. In the last week of March the estimate changed from 'by end of March 2012' to 'by end of June 2012' but it went live in early April anyway. So yes treat any date you get from BT as vague and uncertain

Oh and don't always trust the checker. In late December just before Christmas the checker showed mine as live for half a day:

http://www.idnetters.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,27920.msg660962.html#msg660962