Would you pay for a full fibre connection?

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  • Openreach, newly hived off from BT, recently launched a consultation into accessing whether there would be demand if it launched a widespread roll out of FTTP (Fibre to the home) service. The BBC article about it is here.

    It says that it has reduced the costs of rolling out FTTP services by half and it could roll out FTTP to ten million homes and business' by the mid 2020s. There is a Fibre On Demand product offered by Openreach now, but none of the main broadband companies have shown much interest in this product due to the high costs involved.

    The current Fibre On Demand product costs thousands, which is why there is so little interest, but even if the product was a lot cheaper, would there be any interest? Virgin Media already have a 300mb service which they can easily bump the speeds up, if they so choose, although of course that is irrelevant for those outside a cable area.

    If you had the opportunity to have a full fibre connection installed directly into your home, would you want it? More to the point, would you pay for it and how much? £200, £300, £500, £1000??

  • We're going to get one because our DSL line has more or less packed up and gone home to die. I can't get online anymore.

    I've had one installed for a couple of years now, and it is brilliant...it isn't as if I actually download a lot, but I certainly notice a difference when connected to a non-fibre line.

  • Do you mean you actually have fibre installed right into your home Stevlin, rather than a FTTC service? Who do you use?

    Yes - it's connected from the local cabinet to my house. The speed naturally varies dependent upon usage etc, but it can be, and has been over 50 mps , depending on the time of day/night.

    It was installed by BT, and then I took out a very good 18 month contract with SSE.... ( but not via their energy dept!) - (£21/ month - including line rental and anytime phone calls....I haven't looked, but I doubt that offer is available today).

  • Not sure I'd pay extra but maybe I would, I might have got used to fibre - I get about 130Mbps download. I don't feel I notice much difference in non-fibre places until you watch an HD film or download a huge file.

  • Yes - it's connected from the local cabinet to my house. The speed naturally varies dependent upon usage etc, but it can be, and has been over 50 mps , depending on the time of day/night.

    It was installed by BT, and then I took out a very good 18 month contract with SSE.... ( but not via their energy dept!) - (£21/ month - including line rental and anytime phone calls....I haven't looked, but I doubt that offer is available today).

    That's not a fibre connection, but the FTTC (Fibre-to-the-Cabinet) service that all the companies use.

    The fibre optic cable goes from under the node in the pavement into the cabinet, its then changed into a telephone line which is connected to your house. What Openreach are talking about is installing the fibre optic cables directly to the house, hence the term FTTP - Fibre-to-the-premise.

    Not sure I'd pay extra but maybe I would, I might have got used to fibre - I get about 130Mbps download. I don't feel I notice much difference in non-fibre places until you watch an HD film or download a huge file.

    Very few people have got a full fibre, FTTP service, so it is hard to judge. Supposedly, its better for latency which is better for gamers.

  • Just checked again and it is currently 194Mbps which is not bad going (supposed to be 200Mbps). I'm in Brighton with Virgin so I'm fairly sure it is FTTP. I compared my whole package including telly etc. with Sky and a BT based internet provider. Virgin was only slightly more expensive. I don't trust BT lines now anyway as mentioned before...

  • Virgin don't use FTTP, apart from in a few trial areas. They use a system called DOCSIS3, which is coaxial cable instead of a telephone line to deliver broadband. I'm on the same 200mb connection as you. It's pretty decent the broadband service, that is, VM's service is poor and as I said in another thread, I am looking to ditch it next year when Sky launch their full tv service over broadband, called IPTV for the tech types - Internet Protocol TV.

  • Virgin don't use FTTP, apart from in a few trial areas. They use a system called DOCSIS3, which is coaxial cable instead of a telephone line to deliver broadband. I'm on the same 200mb connection as you. It's pretty decent the broadband service, that is, VM's service is poor and as I said in another thread, I am looking to ditch it next year when Sky launch their full tv service over broadband, called IPTV for the tech types - Internet Protocol TV.

    In that case I definitely wouldn't pay extra for full fibre - what I've got was more than good enough for a household of 5 including heavy users of online games, Netflix, Steam downloads etc. etc. and now as the kids are very slowly leaving the nest our internet use is reducing. I hear negative stories about Virgin elsewhere but I've been with them for years and have no gripes about them at all, and my brief foray into BT territory was a total disaster so wouldn't entertain them again unless they gave it away for nothing!

  • Not sure I'd pay extra but maybe I would, I might have got used to fibre - I get about 130Mbps download. I don't feel I notice much difference in non-fibre places until you watch an HD film or download a huge file.

    Doesn't sound like you need fibre Hoxton. My house is a fair distance from the exchange, and prior to having fibre installed, my download speed was very, very slow. As I said earlier, I don't download a lot, and very few seriously large files, but the difference nowadays when even just downloading my digital newspapers is extremely noticeable, but that speed you quoted is faster than the average UK download speed by a mile:

    http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2017…e-36-2mbps.html

  • Openreach, newly hived off from BT, recently launched a consultation into accessing whether there would be demand if it launched a widespread roll out of FTTP (Fibre to the home) service. The BBC article about it is here.

    The latest on my current saga. We came back from holiday and our download speed was still 0.25 Mbs. On Sunday morning, it took ages and 2 attempts to get on line at all but we finally did and got up to 4Mbps which it is still is.

    The engineer is coming tomorrow, no doubt to spin us a yarn and attempt to justify their initial charge of £130 which I have demanded is refunded.

  • The latest on my current saga. We came back from holiday and our download speed was still 0.25 Mbs. On Sunday morning, it took ages and 2 attempts to get on line at all but we finally did and got up to 4Mbps which it is still is.

    The engineer is coming tomorrow, no doubt to spin us a yarn and attempt to justify their initial charge of £130 which I have demanded is refunded.

    Have you had two separate problems with your connection Morgan, or are they linked? I'm sure you've posted on a different thread about this earlier in the year.

    Get your money back of them for the install charge. You're paying them for a service and if they're not providing that, get that refunded too.

  • Surely in the 21st century such service should be standard for everyone in the UK, yet we have some areas that are not even remote that can't even get FTTC.

    When DTT (digital terrestrial tv) was being proposed, I suggested to the politicians dealing with this at the time that the technology was too limiting and that the funds should be used for a nationwide fibre optic network instead. Did they listen to me? Of course not.

    As you say Ron, there are still many areas that can't even get FTTC, although some of the small pure fibre companies are targeting these places like Gigaclear, CityFibre and in particular, B4RN, which is community built FTTP projects for rural areas.

  • Have you had two separate problems with your connection Morgan, or are they linked? I'm sure you've posted on a different thread about this earlier in the year.

    Get your money back of them for the install charge. You're paying them for a service and if they're not providing that, get that refunded too.

    The latest in my saga with BT.

    Dear Sir/Madam

    Further to our scheduled visit by yet another BT engineer yesterday, we were informed that we were in a flat spot between exchanges and that was the problem with our dropped line and reduced download speed. ( Apparently in the nine years since we've been here either my property or the telephone exchanges have moved. It must have been an earthquake we didn't notice.)

    Anyway the result was that he apparently found a spare line between the junction box up the road and the exchange and connected us to that. The end result is that we are still only getting download speeds of about 3 Mbps whereas prior to April it was approx. 6 MBps and it takes so long and so many attempts to connect in the morning that we now leave the router on permanently.

    In any event, since two engineers have now informed us that the fault is not in our property, would you please refund my £130 you forced me to pay after the first engineer's visit in April which also didn't cure the problem.

    As you cannot seem to resolve this problem we are contacting other internet suppliers with a view to ending our contract with yourselves.

    Yours etc.

    We await events.;)

  • Oh...8| I wished you posted here, before writing that. I used to train the young 'erns in my office into writing complaint letters. Golden rule, never get personal. Unfortunately, you've told them you want to cancel before getting your refund. You should have waited before doing that. If you want a refund, that should be at, or near the top of a letter, not at the bottom.

    You have to place yourself in their shoes. The person who will read that letter is underpaid and works in a noisy call centre and you have just de-incentivesed them into doing nothing for you.

    Let us know how you get on. Hate BT.

  • Let us know how you get on. Hate BT.

    You do? :D I know the feeling. I've just had a text message saying they want to send in an engineer. I replied telling them to ring me because I didn't know what they were talking about. This was followed by a call from a Chinese sounding girl who I couldn't understand so put the wife on and the latest is the effing broadband connection has just gone again and I had to wait for it to come on to post this. AAAAAAAAArrrrgh!!!!!

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