Kitz Forum
Announcements => News Articles => Topic started by: Bowdon on March 13, 2017, 01:18:26 PM
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http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2017/03/first-330mbps-bt-g-fast-broadband-pilot-customer-goes-live-kent-uk.html (http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2017/03/first-330mbps-bt-g-fast-broadband-pilot-customer-goes-live-kent-uk.html)
Openreach (BT) has today announced that the first customer on their new pilot of ‘up to’ 330Mbps capable hybrid fibre G.fast (ITU G.9700/9701) broadband technology has gone live in Gillingham (Kent). The pilot aims to reach 138,000 premises in 17 UK locations by the end of March 2017.
The PR blurb claims that the family run business of Temiz book-keeping Ltd has now become the “first” to benefit from their planned roll-out to reach 10 million homes and businesses across the United Kingdom by 2020 and then “most of the UK” by 2025 (this includes their FTTP/H commitment), although strictly speaking the operator has actually had a limited trial of G.fast running in Gillingham since last Spring.
I was contemplating making the subject header of this post... G.fast goes live.. oh wait.. its another pilot!
But I didn't want to excite and then disappoint people.
I mean, damn.. how long can the G.fast promotion drag on for? Considering that technology is being shown at these telecommunications events that are way ahead of G.fast, it seems to me that BT are trying to get the maximum business marketing opportunity out of this rather than keeping quiet and getting on with putting the pods in and releasing commercially.
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Well, I suppose Gillingham has to have *something* of note!
(I kid, of course. But as a current Gravesendian I'm honour-bound to dig at the Medway towns)
Anyway, it does feel like G.fast is going to be something of a damp squib. Those who have fast lines already will get faster whilst everyone else sees little to no benefit.
I wonder if there are some stats on FTTC cab-to-premises line length vs. percentage of subscribers. That would give an idea of how much impact G.fast could have.
Personally, at ~600m from the cab, I'm more excited by the possibility of a drop to 3dB SNRM than I am for G.fast.
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As a customer on an ECI cabinet I'd get excited if ANYTHING was likely to happen which gave me back the 70000+kbps I had with G.INP
Stuart
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Well full rollout isn't likely until the 64port G.Fast kit with vectoring is available.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm under the impression they're using 16ports which is possibly unvectored at the moment.
I'd rather wait a little while and get the G.Fast that's vectored, higher transmit power and steals some VDSL spectrum than some rushed abomination.
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I mean, damn.. how long can the G.fast promotion drag on for? Considering that technology is being shown at these telecommunications events that are way ahead of G.fast, it seems to me that BT are trying to get the maximum business marketing opportunity out of this rather than keeping quiet and getting on with putting the pods in and releasing commercially.
It's still under development. It's completely different kit to what they used in Gillingham. It will then likely be different kit used in the full rollout.
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Personally, at ~600m from the cab, I'm more excited by the possibility of a drop to 3dB SNRM than I am for G.fast.
In much the same boat here, around 650 metres from the cab. However, my target margin has been decreasing, and hit 3dB 16 days ago. Upstream speed hasn't changed but downstream sync rate has gone from around 55 Mbps to over 67 Mbps!
Happy days! ;D
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Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm under the impression they're using 16ports which is possibly unvectored at the moment.
There is no G.fast without vectoring, it's mandatory.
Current design is 48 ports available in each pod, 2 x 24 ports, waiting on the compute power to vector 4 x 24 port cards before the other 2 can be installed.