FTTP New Installation Process

[john7]

What package did you actually order?
[/quote]

Fiber Heroes 550 up and down no confusion as most non BT supplied fiber is both much faster and cheaper than BTs. There are so many of them I expect as with what started as many cable TV firms/providers which moved to cable internet, TV and phones and were all taken over in the end by Virgin

[Simon]

Apologies John, I had no idea about IDNet partnering with Fibre Heroes.  The only option I had with them was to go with Openreach, which seems to be a different set of packages. 

[Simon]

Well, every day is a school day!  It seems IDNet offer several different packages with different suppliers:

Fibre Heroes: https://www.idnet.com/fibreheroes-broadband.php

City Fibre: https://www.idnet.com/cityfibre-broadband.php

Openreach: https://www.idnet.com/openreach-broadband.php

And this appears to be a full list of pricing:

https://www.idnet.com/broadband-pricelist.php

[john7]

It would be interesting to know what the actual speeds users actually get. The impression I have with locally  from comments  Fiber Heroes (in local fourms) is though there speeds are better than BT no one gets the claimed upspeed. That appears to be the case whatever is the ISP. I find it unlikly any of the sellers of there products don't know this but all are passing on the over hyped upspeed claims including IDNet. Personally even knowing the actual speeds I would still use them. Non of which really fits in with the Ofcom saying customers should have honest expected speeds.

[Simon]

As I said before, I'm getting an average of 107/22 on a 115/20 connection, so that's pretty much as promised for my package.

[john7]

Indeed, it is the new comers hyping there products which are usually even in reality much faster and cheaper than the BT ones.

[nowster]

My parents are on the 55/10 product and it's reliably given that.

If OpenReach actually served my home address I'd get FTTP there instead of Virgin.

Sadly, whilst the altnet that seems to be going in is using NetOmnia for backhaul in reality it's building a 300Mbps max wireless-based final hop system... and they've taken about 18 months to do the build so far and are nowhere near completion.

[zappaDPJ]

For reference I'm on an UltraFast 100 (FTTP 115/20) package and get 109.23/19.33. Even though I've only be on it for 6 months it appears to be a legacy package judging by what's listed as available on IDNet's site. So I get what I pay for and the connection is pretty robust. The early morning disconnects appeared to have stopped at long last. My only real concern is the cost.

[Clive]

As I said before, I'm getting an average of 107/22 on a 115/20 connection, so that's pretty much as promised for my package.

I'm really surprised at such a low speed as the minimum I can get is 150.  For another fiver I can get 300.  Maximum is 1000 but I doubt I shall ever need that.

[Simon]

It's perfectly adequate for me, Clive.  I downloaded a 6Gb file in around 8 minutes the other night.  I've no need to spend more to get higher speeds. 

[Clive]

I feel compelled to double up to 300 when my renewal comes up.  Although I don't know why.   

[john7]

My main thing was up speed my son and I backup to each others networks each night but the main thing was loading photos on line used to take forever. I now can load a days images in a short time rather than having one (or two) cups of coffee. My regular speeds are 650 down and180 up. This was said to be 550 up and down so not perfect up but one hell of a lot better than the 10 before! Oddly I can see another IDNet user in my town is getting 450 both up and down on the thinkbroadband results page so its possible!

[armadillo]

My installation (Ultrafast 330 FTTP 330/50) is now complete.

Digging up the pavement did not disconnect my copper prematurely and it cleared the fibre blockage so they could pull fibre through my duct under the front garden.
Openreach scheduled and cancelled the appointment several times for the engineer to come and connect the fibre to the external box. Eventually, they arrived without an appointment and without warning.

But they were very helpful and made the connection.
They were dubious about whether my existing router (which I have had for 10 years) would work but it does.
All I had to do to transfer it from FTTC to FTTP was alter the login user and password. It picked everything else up automatically.

To summarise, the external fibre cable goes from the front of the house, over my garage roof, round the back and into my home office (ground floor).
My router connects there and the PC connects to the router via ethernet cable.

At the PC, I get 313mbps down and 52 up.

[Gary]

My installation (Ultrafast 330 FTTP 330/50) is now complete.

Digging up the pavement did not disconnect my copper prematurely and it cleared the fibre blockage so they could pull fibre through my duct under the front garden.
Openreach scheduled and cancelled the appointment several times for the engineer to come and connect the fibre to the external box. Eventually, they arrived without an appointment and without warning.

But they were very helpful and made the connection.
They were dubious about whether my existing router (which I have had for 10 years) would work but it does.
All I had to do to transfer it from FTTC to FTTP was alter the login user and password. It picked everything else up automatically.

To summarise, the external fibre cable goes from the front of the house, over my garage roof, round the back and into my home office (ground floor).
My router connects there and the PC connects to the router via ethernet cable.

At the PC, I get 313mbps down and 52 up.

When was the last time your router had a firmware update? A router is old at 5 years, and if it no longer gets security updates its putting your LAN at risk. Just a thought glad you got your fibre installed okay  Our village does not look like its ever getting Fibre so the idea to use 5G speeds is probably my only choice and one that I'm not keen on.

[armadillo]

When was the last time your router had a firmware update? A router is old at 5 years, and if it no longer gets security updates its putting your LAN at risk. Just a thought glad you got your fibre installed okay  Our village does not look like its ever getting Fibre so the idea to use 5G speeds is probably my only choice and one that I'm not keen on.

I don't remember when I last updated its firmware. I tend to avoid updates as I prefer to take the risk of a security failure rather than the risk of the firmware update turning it into a brick.

I sympathise with you on the unlikely installation of fibre in your village. I have a friend who lives in a village also unlikely ever to get fibre as it is several miles from an exchange...and it has no mobile signal. She gets a download of around 2Mbps.

[nowster]

I have a friend who lives in a village also unlikely ever to get fibre as it is several miles from an exchange...

That distance isn't a problem with fibre. My parents used to get 4Mbps on ADSL on a good day as the run from the exchange is about 4 miles. They now have rock solid 55/10 FTTP with the ability to order the 900Mbps service.

[Postal]

Perhaps a little bit of explanation about the FTTP supply might be helpful.  The roll-out of FTTP is an ongoing process and even at the end of the roll-out there will still be some properties not connected to fibre.  The government have defined a USO (Universal Service Obligation) - https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8146/ - which stipulates 10Mbps download and 1Mbps upload as the minimum acceptable connection at a cost of £45 per month or less.  The USO can be discharged by any means so that a mobile telephone signal or Starlink-type connection would be as acceptable as a ground based service.  If the area is not in the BT plan but an altnet supplier serves the area that then discharges the USO.  There is an excess charge get-out clause but for most people currently tied to things like a 4Mbps download then a faster connection in some form will be coming in the not too distant future.

In regard to BT connections (which includes all of the ISPs who buy capacity at wholesale from BT) the FTTP supply has no relation to the existing telephone exchange map.  There are fewer nodes for the FTTP system than there are for the old telephone-line connections with the fibre being supplied from head-end exchanges covering the area of a number of smaller, subordinate exchanges.  Where premises are supplied with FTTC through their existing phone line (sold by the ISPs with the weasel-word "fibre") then the fibre from the head-end exchange is already in existence and runs to the cabinet supplying the property.  The additional work required is to run fibre in parallel to the copper wire from the existing cabinet site to each of the premises served.  Altnets each have there own system with their own fibres installed from a node where the altnet has access to the internet spine through switches and splitters to each of the premises they serve running alongside any BT installation.  The farcical result of that is that in the areas where there is competition an ONT (Optic Network Termination) - the equivalent of the telephone master socket - needs to be supplied to each of the premises for each of the networks when that service is installed.  These are the demarcation point of the network and are the property of the network so cannot be removed unilaterally by the premises owner.  People switching networks and suppliers could end up with two or three ONTs on their internal wall.

In summary, even people who are a long way from any exchange and suffering low speeds have a right to be connected with a guarantee of 10Mbps download and 1Mbps upload.  If there are no published plans to achieve that connection they should use the USO process to start things moving.

[john7]

I think I have sorted my poor upspeed I changed the MTU to 1492 and up and down are now over 500Mb. Why something are crucial like that isn't in the setup information is beyond me.

[Simon]

Glad you got it sorted, John.

[nowster]

I think I have sorted my poor upspeed I changed the MTU to 1492 and up and down are now over 500Mb. Why something are crucial like that isn't in the setup information is beyond me.

The PPPoE connection needs to have an MTU of 1492 to allow for encapsulation overhead within the 1500 byte Ethernet frames. Most kit/software does this automatically.

[john7]

My router was just switched from the existing connection to the new one and it clearly needed changing.

[armadillo]

Perhaps a little bit of explanation.....

Brilliant post! Thank you for a clear and comprehensive explanation. I did not realise that the FTTP supply was so independent of the current exchange map.

Are the head-end exchanges separate from and different from the old telephone exchanges?

I suppose that the problem for people in villages like my friend's is that there are very few residents there and no existing fibre service at all. So there is a lot of cost and little profit for any provider in creating infrastructure.

The USO aspect is interesting. My friend is a technophobe, I might even say techno-hostile, so the USO process would have to depend on initiation by a more techno-receptive member of the village if there are any.

[armadillo]

That distance isn't a problem with fibre. My parents used to get 4Mbps on ADSL on a good day as the run from the exchange is about 4 miles. They now have rock solid 55/10 FTTP with the ability to order the 900Mbps service.

That is rather amazing - in a good way!

[Postal]

Are the head-end exchanges separate from and different from the old telephone exchanges?

As an amateur in these matters who has picked up what knowledge I have from various groups and forums (fora the pedantic) around the internet, AFAIK the head-end exchanges are normally existing exchanges as they already have most of the kit required.  There will be a lot of space in those buildings once the exiting copper-based infrastructure is no longer required so there may well be a business decision to move to different premises once the copper is done but that is many years away yet.

[Simon]

As an amateur in these matters who has picked up what knowledge I have from various groups and forums (fora the pedantic) around the internet, AFAIK the head-end exchanges are normally existing exchanges as they already have most of the kit required.  There will be a lot of space in those buildings once the exiting copper-based infrastructure is no longer required so there may well be a business decision to move to different premises once the copper is done but that is many years away yet.

Shouldn't that be fora for the pedantic?