Except of course for those who don't get anywhere close to the current maximum because they're already too far away from the FTTC cabinet, and those who may not get any upgrade from what they have until BT decides to do something substantial (vectoring, pair bonding, FTTdp, FTTP)
Using your "gas supply" analogy, those "substantial" solutions are the exact equivalent of using tanks or bottles for gas. In both cases, it is about adjusting the business case - the finances - until a solution fits in well enough.
In the gas-supply case, pipes are used when the economics allow for it, but tanks and bottles are used when the economics don't pan out. They certainly can't do *everything* that mains gas can - the safety equation is very, very different, and the risk of supply failure is different. In the end, "gas supply" is the same - a pared-down, "just about good enough" bodge.
Everyone's situation is different, but around here everyone is either on overhead wiring or it's a new build with underground wiring, neat ducting and whatever. The latter already is FTTP. and so is some of the former
I guess you picked out the easiest, cheapest, two cases there.
Differences appear when the full cable is distributed overhead, rather than just the drop wire. The load on the poles needs to be considered - so fibre cannot just be added where a pole is already fully-loaded. Other utilities play a part too; it appears that current regulations means no more shared poles, and increased spacing from overhead electrical wiring too: what used to be done can no longer be done.
For underground, the issue comes back to ducting, and the question about whether there is spare capacity, and whether there has been any collapse - or even if ducting exists at all.
Then we feed into the next point: scale. And scale is a thing that doesn't enter most people's thinking.
Every argument you make is about your house, your line, your pole, and what amount of "imperfection" you are willing to put up with to get gigabit (by which I mean, you will accept extra cables outside, holes in walls, untidy skirting boards, the extra battery backup unit etc).
BT have to think at a scale way beyond just you: They have to consider a solution for everyone in an area; they have to cope with some streets having poles, some using poles shared with electricity, some being ducted, and some being direct-burial. They have to figure the total works required, and factor in things like main roads with traffic measures. Whatever solution is picked has to balance over everyone - because some will be cheap to do, and some will be expensive.
Within this environment, they have to consider all the routes out from a cabinet, and all the junctions. Is there room in every single path to add fibre? Are the chambers large enough to add the extra underground equipment, or can enough space be found in the pathway to put a new chamber without disturbing other utilities?
Once you've factored the above considerations for individual routes, and individual homes, you have to add some coherency. If half of the cabinet area could get FTTP economically, and half could not ... which options do you go for? Do FTTP for half, and leave the others out? Or upgrade the cabinet to FTTC for everyone ... a decision which then destroys the economics for FTTP where it would have been viable?
Eventually, it leads to a decision: Cabinet for the whole area, or FTTP for the whole area.
There's an interesting Analysys Mason document on "Sample Survey of Ducts and Poles in the UK Access Network", linked
on this Ofcom page. It gives a feel for the picture seen from a higher vantage point.
Beyond the technical and financial issues, there will be some emotional problems. Most people do not like having their prize garden dug, or their driveway dug; The likes of you and me, frequenting broadband forums, may be perfectly willing to compromise so we get fibre ... but most won't. Such issues either add to the cost, or add a barrier to take-up (making payback longer).
There will of course be situations where G.FAST is almost as good and doesn't have the same hassles as FTTP for certain areas with local infrastructure issues, I just hope it isn't picked as the one-size-fits-all solution like FTTC seems to have been
I think the nature of the current FTTC deployment makes it look like a one-size-fits-all solution, but it isn't. It is a one-size-fits-almost-everyone solution, combined with the current target levels (67% commercial, 90% subsidised superfast) that haven't yet required anything other than this one size. Even the next target level (95% subsidised superfast) can likely be achieved (on average, nationally) with just this one size solution too. But if you start setting 95% as standalone targets in each of the sparse counties, you are going to have to see the other solutions come out.
The nature of this "one-size" rollout is that it leaves the fringes of upgraded cabinets under-served. Around 4% suffer from this, judging by TBB stats, but that will be worse for some of the cabinets yet to be rolled out (the harder, rural ones).
It seems that FTTRN works for this 4%, in a technical sense, but suffers from the cost of power. We haven't seen what solution BT have for this, if anything.
Reverse power, for FTTdp, seems to offer a solution, but is probably a couple of years away. If they can get it working well, I can see it being rolled out in the way that FTTRN was trialled (Ulshaw, North Yorkshire).
FTTB also seems to be in the list for trials this year.
Right, but they do this for copper every day. An Openreach employee (appropriately insured) visited my house to install the FTTC modem. If I had line issues, someone would enter my house and twiddle with BT-owned internal wiring (which will have to be insured against the risk of it causing damage to my property). If I wanted more copper lines, again, more internal work, running new cable from the pole, drilling holes in an exterior wall, etc, all of which would be done with no trouble.
For most people, isn't the second line there already, in the existing cable? There is little extra cost that way, but not many homes use a second line nowadays - with the prevalence of mobiles and VoIP.
The large rural/urban difference in effort and cost is really going to be in getting the fibre from the headend to the pole, surely (which you'll be doing for G.FAST or FTTP anyway, and where a large percentage of the distance has likely already been covered with the FTTC build)
It depends. Overall, I think the total cost of getting to the pole (from the cabinet) about balances the cost of going from pole to home; actual amounts depend on the takeup. Obviously that means the cheapest home-pole cases will be worth doing as FTTP (providing that *every* home in the area can be done that way cheaply); the expensive home-pole cases will be worth doing as FTTdp.
The reason that the balance of cost is not as you think comes down, simply, to the opportunity for sharing the cost between homes.
- On average, the exchange-cabinet distance was about 2.8km, but the cost gets shared amongst 300 homes; that amounts to 9m of fibre per home; less if the fibre spines are shared significantly, which I suspect they are. They are also mostly ducted, helping costs.
- On average, the cabinet-DP distance is around 400m, and the cost gets shared amongst 8 homes; that amounts to 50m of fibre per home; less if the fibre sub-spines are shared significantly, which I suspect they are. They are also mostly ducted, helping costs.
- On average, drop wires are about 35m, and by definition, not shared.
- the additional few metres from pole to home is largely the same if it's overhead wiring in central London or overhead wiring in the Highlands, no? (if both houses were near their respective poles).
It really depends on how much overhead wiring there is in a location. I think that AM documents gives the national proportion of DP types, but how they are distributed is key.
I think, however, you are missing one or two elements that lie in G.fast's favour: The ability to roll out much faster, and the ability to do it without needing appointments with subscribers.