Could anyone give me a general idea of how the politics-vs-delivery time works? Are BT getting firm offers of cash up front from public bodies to support the progression to FTTDP / FTTRN or are potential customers going to be caught up in a rut while the politicians decide whether or not to do the right thing and just cough up.
FTTRN should be seen as a part of the current rollout - VDSL2-based, "up to 80Mbps" technology - more suitable for small sites, likely rural, more than 1km from an upgraded FTTC cabinet. It has proven expensive to get power to so far, so may (or may not) end up part of the BDUK schemes. The LA's have money, but BT cannot, as yet, make it into a cost-effective, deployable solution. While that remains true, the LA's have nothing to spend their money on.
FTTdp nodes, with G.fast-based speeds, can be better seen as the "next" rollout. In government documents, this rollout is likely to appear under the label of "ultrafast" broadband, rather than mere "superfast" ... and everything that the government has written so far tells us that they have no plans to fund anything; it is all being left to "the market" for competitive investment. The government will help to make it easy and cheap to invest, but they will not fund it themselves.
We do know that VM is extending their network to roughly 66%, and it can already be said to deliver ultrafast speeds ... with Docsis 3.1 yet to come. We know, therefore, that government funding won't be involved in that part of the network at all.
So BT is “keen”, but either it’s a secret or else BT doesn’t know what it’s up to yet, so much going on, can’t keep track of it all. I wonder who does know?
The checkers won't include anything about FTTdp yet, because we (as a planet) don't know enough about either G.fast or FTTdp as yet. BT has high hopes, but not enough knowledge.
The chipset manufacturers have held a couple of plugfests so far, aimed at getting equipment to interwork. The vendors have, I believe, just held their first plugfest. Real equipment that "just works" (without an army of engineers, tweaking things manually) is still a way off ... but BT are keen to get real-life experiences running.
However, BT's plans look to require changes in G.fast mk.II - which have barely begun discussion.
Vectoring was approved 5 years ago, and was going through plugfests 3 years ago. That equipment made it into Eircom's network last year, but not BT's. That might give you an idea of the timescales involved here; to start deploying in a year looks tight.
I wonder what kind of deployment makes sense. FTTdp-on-demand?
That link is excellent, black Sheep.
I didn’t understand the last part about “easy-to-deploy” cable.
That article was based on a presentation at UKNOF, linked here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLpk2dz6nBQPart of the presentation is used to describe the options involved in making fibre easier to deploy (in particular the work involved in blowing fibre through subduct, using connectors instead of splices, and using fibre that is more easily split into strands by hand).
In the end, the failure of FTTPoD to be a viable product comes down to the cost to deploy - which is dictated, in turn, by the amount of manpower used in those activities. Making FTTPoD viable seems to have triggered a massive rethink in the way PON fibre is deployed between the new spines (put in alongside FTTC) and homes.
