Re: An easy first step
FTTP should be easy to do with new developments. Instead of laying copper, just lay Fibre.
I've wondered for the last few years why this is even legal. Overbuilding the copper network is expensive, but all the cost exists in paying people to physically dig up the road. If you're laying new lines into new builds, it is insane that OpenReach have been laying copper in. All the cost is in the trench, fibre costs sod all per metre.
Presumably they're working on the principle that in 10 years time the Government will pay them to dig it up again and lay FTTP.
In the meantime, G.Fast is great, except for rural dwellers who live long distances from cabinets or even the drop points, exacerbating the ruralurban split.
As Dan Howdle says, gigabit is massive overkill for almost all home and businesses and points out even 4K only needs 24mbps (easily covered by current FTTC or DOCSIS 3.0 offerings, never mind G.Fast). As he says, the difficulty is the final 5% where it's 1Mb by copper or anything else by fibre. Having laid FTTP you can be churlish and introduce differential tariffs and artificially limit people to 10/50/100/250mbps, or do as B4RN and Rutland Telecom did and just run everyone at their line speed and be limited by backhaul. So you'll get full gigabit off-peak and still manage better than 100mbps on-peak. It;s not about gigabit, it's about anything better than megabit!
How are you going to explain to the new occupiers that they're going to have to pay monthly FTTP costs when they only wanted FTTC service and costs?
The suggestion of specifying ducts so the occupier has the choice makes more sense.
As I recall, BT's "FTTP On-Demand" service actually didn't let you have just fibre, you got fibre and your copper line would continue to operate alongside for calls.
In any case, fibre costs sod all, the big money is in digging the trench to lay it in. You're quite right - every new house should be ducted (rather than direct bury) for easy upgrades, but I'd say just lay the copper and fibre in any way.
There's also nothing stopping BT setting a sane pricing strategy for FTTP if they're rolling it out as the standard install for new builds (if you're building an entire estate which will have FTTP, then costs per house are much lower than if one solitary customer on a FTTC cabinet is requesting an FTTP install, providing consequently lower prices to customers).
Biting the hand that feeds IT
