https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/02/update-on-openreach-g-fast-fod-sogea-and-fttp-broadband-changes.htmlWe’ve today gathered together the latest information from our UK industry sources in order to produce a summary of the latest broadband ISP technology and service changes at Openreach (BT). On the list this time are new FTTC cabinets, the G.fast self install trial, SoGEA, FTTP on Demand (FoD) and more.
On the cabinets it seems they can increase huawei cabinets from 288 lines to 512, and an eci cabinet from 256 to 512 lines using a huawei pod.
Is capacity of cabinets a big issue?
On the G.fast story it seems they are going to have a trial of 3 months to see how self installs do. But it will only be in action on lines consistantly over 200Mbps. I wonder if this really is about moving manpower away from G.fast towards FTTP? What is the difference with an engineer being there and a regular plug the modem in and it works thing? I know when I had my FTTC line plugged in by an engineer (kellys) he literally just plugged it in. I could have done that.
The SOGEA service is supposed to be coming in just after easter. I dont really understand this product. Well, I understand the product but from the pricing people are saying that ordering a fttc / g.fast line only is still going to work out a similar price to buy a normal line. So what is the advantage of having no voice part on the line? Is it saying having a voice part makes a detrimental impact on the quality of broadband? If not, then what is the point of the product?
SRA seems like a quality boosting product on fttc lines. They are finally started the trial on 100,000 lines. It began on feb 4th and will run until july. Hopefully its a good result and it also includes eci cabinets.
The last part of the article is about FoD. At the moment its set to 20 oders across all isp's, and there is a hope it'll increase to 100 orders from april. I hope this is true as i've just started the FoD process myself. I'm waiting on the full survey. I don't know why FoD isn't more integrated in their FTTP rollout plans as essentially they are expanding the network in to new areas with minimal cost to themselves as the customer is helping build out the network.