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[kitz]

. . . I suppose there is LLU issues to resolve and capacity may well need increasing at the cabinets.

Both issues would, most definitely, need to be resolved first.

Im in agreement here.   It would be good if they could get rid for the adsl frequencies alone.   It would also be good if they could get rid of the copper too.   In fact Im sure in one of those old reports, BT had considered this back in early 2000 and went into all the pros and cons because they really would have preferred fibre all the way for TV/streaming etc.

Them wanting to get into TV and BT Sport isnt something new.   By all accounts they have been planning to do this for the best part of two decades.. and from what I can recall reading it was OFTEL that put the block on it - although Ive read elsewhere which claims it was the govt.

I was part of the original multicast trials in 2004. Then there was another one in 2005 for IPTV.   Triple play has been on their agenda for a long time.

iirc one of the other problems with conversion to all fibre from copper is/or was the downtime during transition.  I shall have to try find it again. 


Re LLU.    That is now a major problem for them.    The LLU providers would not be happy in the slightest.


--
PS I just removed one of my posts as I was talking garbage.   

[kitz]

Re the roll out of fibre

OK here goes ..  bear in mind this was 2004. 

When they refer to overlay approach, they are talking about rolling out FTTC -> FTTdP (or FTT Kerb as they called it) -> FTTH in step by step stages.   That is fairly long winded and TBH doesn't seem to vary much from plans which now seem to be more likely to be on the horizon

The alternative to an overlay approach is to change out whole DP, PCP or exchange catchment areas.  This approach would be much more efficient in terms of labour and ultimately result in a lower cost per customer connected.  It would however only be cost effective if a high percentage of customers on the DP//PCP/exchange require high bandwidth services.   Changing out large sections of the network in this way also present major practical and operation challenges, not least how to maintain customer services whilst large sections of the network are cut over from one technology to another.  For a PCP change out customers would need to be moved of their existing copper bearers whilst the old PCP cabinet was removed together with the associated copper cables.   Service would need to be maintained by some agreed method (eg mobile phones or temporary radio links).  The new fibre cables could then be installed in the freed duct space.  This sounds attractive but is complicated because most E-side cables feed more than one PCP.  An additional complexity is that cables from exchanges to PCPs (E-side) and from PCPs to DPs (D-side) often coexist in the same duct segments.   These factors mean that several PCPs (or a whole exchange) may need to be simultaneously changed out.   This would be a considerable logistical challenge.

For green fields sites, installation of FTTH as a day 1 alternative to copper could be considered in the near future.   

Any typos are mine -  I touch typed.


Re VOD & how long theyve been wanting to do TV services to the public.

References are available online showing equipment and info from the 1995 trials.

IEE - BTs video on demand technology
Photo of the 1995 TV system

[WWWombat]

The way I interpret that is that 80% can get least 40Mbps.   33% take up the 80 Mbps product..  so therefore there's potential for 46% to get more out of their connection. 
Have I worked that out right?   Obviously we don't know the figure for how much more they could get.

That's what I make it too. The proportions will likely change, as BDUK targets more rural areas, with longer D-sides. Probably not a huge change.

The VM figures obviously show them in mid-upgrade from the set of speeds with a top-end of 120, to a set with top-end of 150. However, it seems plain to me that there's only 10% of their userbase that are willing to shell out for the top tier. As they have around 20% of the market, this *could* map to just 2% of UK users demanding those highest speeds.

This plays into the quote you put into your latest post:

Re the roll out of fibre

OK here goes ..  bear in mind this was 2004. 

The alternative to an overlay approach is to change out whole DP, PCP or exchange catchment areas.  This approach would be much more efficient in terms of labour and ultimately result in a lower cost per customer connected.  It would however only be cost effective if a high percentage of customers on the DP//PCP/exchange require high bandwidth services.

When we look at the picture now, it is hard to see the "high percentage of customers ... [that] require high bandwidth services".

90% of the UK has access to FTTC speeds that seem, on the face of it, enough for needs right now. If only 2% of them require something faster, G.Fast-kind of faster, that tends to rule out the "whole PCP" approach, and tends to favour the overlay approach.

Re VOD & how long theyve been wanting to do TV services to the public.

References are available online showing equipment and info from the 1995 trials.

Is any of that the same as highlighted in the Tomorrow's World clip? That was 1994, wasn't it?

I have no "inside information" but wonder if the launch of the Openreach 55/10 Mbps VDSL2 product may be a precursor to the rationalisation of the product range as --

80/20, 55/10 & 40/2 Mbps

I've wondered similar things too. I tend to think 55/10 was introduced, so it allows "up to 50" products to be sold. It looks like it would be available to 60% of users.

As @ejs points out, mustn't forget the 18/2 tier being trialled.

[Chrysalis]

Why can't Openreach invest in 20/5 or 20/1?

Makes little sense for them to do this.   ADSL2+ is up to 24Mbps so they arent likely to retail fibre speeds at less than that.

You may say but some users can only get say 20Mb (<5% according to that graph), but they are highly likely to have only got a couple of Mbps on adsl, so its still worth them upgrading to fttc anyhow. 

That was a bad era, for BT when they were selling adsl2+ for less than adsl, and with no intermediate speed products other than 8mbit and 24mbit.
There is 2 main reasons why higher speeds are not cost free, the first is despite not been obvious but increasing speeds increases an isp's peak time demand which most defenitly does cost money to maintain sufficient capacity to avoid visible contention. VM get caught out by this everytime they bump speeds, BTw isp's were caught out by it with the launch of adsl max, granted as speeds get ever higher and higher the impact on peak time demand will reduce as a %, but I dont think we at the point yet where its close to 0.
The second reason is openreach's costs in maintaining such speeds, think back to my pair swap, I had some engineer callouts eventually with a speed boost engineer swapping my pair to get the line back from <50mbit up to the 70s so within reasonable range of my estimate, however if I was on 40/10 I probably wouldnt have even bothered raising it as a fault as the line still would be at full sync. Also if I did  openreach would very likely have rejected it as no impact on service.

We need to remember when adsl max was launched, the fixed pricing for adsl ports was artifical, a natural charging mechanism has BT charging more for higher speed ports, but ofcom manipulated pricing to encourage higher take up of high speed products, of course the tradeoff was BT recovered those lost revenues via artifically high priced BT centrals.

This is also why I think livingstone was a much better CEO than his predecessor, he is the one who rolled out FTTC, probably BT's first major local loop investment in the decades since privatisation.

[NewtronStar]

http://postimg.org/image/bly6o16cl/
Everyone's probably sick of me posting that, but it tells us all sorts 

Not by me it's the first time I have seen it, being a MDWS user I just thought that 90% of FTTC users in the UK were getting 70+ Mbps, now I can see the true picture and I'm part of the 90% sub 40Mbps team 

[Chrysalis]

Most users arent even on the 80/20 product.

[NewtronStar]

Most users arent even on the 80/20 product.

If you use MDWS as a snapshot of sync rate it does not look that way as there seems to be more 60 to 70 Mbps+ users than sub 40 Mbps why is that ?

probably to embarrassed to show their stats when compared to a user getting 79999 Kbps   

[Chrysalis]

well yeah but MDWS users tend to be techies like ourselves, our type of user is more likely to go for the premium product.  I probably dont even need 80/20, 40/10 would deliver my needs, but I have it because I can.

[kitz]

Not by me it's the first time I have seen it, being a MDWS user I just thought that 90% of FTTC users in the UK were getting 70+ Mbps, now I can see the true picture and I'm part of the 90% sub 40Mbps team 

When it shows 90% at 30Mbps - what it means is that 90% can get at least 30Mbps (ie 30Mbps or more).   
So anyone getting 80Mbps will be part of that 90%... and 10% get less than 30Mbps.
According to the graph about 18% get 70Mbps or more.