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[rjpreston]

I'm looking move my family and business to a rural area in Pembrokeshire. Decent broadband is needed for both. One property pretty much ticks all our boxes apart from its dire 1.5-5.5 mbps ADSL (1.3-3.1 VDSL) prediction due to the distance from the exchange. I'm considering whether paying for FTTPoD is a viable option, and quickly need to estimate what budget I might need for it. I don't have time to wait for a  BT quote (and i am not sure whether they would do even do a quote for a non-homeowner of the property). I've seen some pretty wild numbers being quoted on this and other sites, but no details of the distances involved, so its very difficult to use those to guess a £ number myself. I'm really hoping that one of you might have been through this already (at this sort of distance) and so have a better clue of the £££!

Here are the details:
* Exchange and cabinet are in the centre of the village.
* FTTPoD is available up to 330mbps down / 30 up.
* The distance of property from the FTTC cabinet is 2,750m, of which approx 350m is buried and 2,400m on overhead poles.
* After walking from cabinet to house following the cables, the route is through the village on poles, underground up a hill, then back onto poles alongside the lane to the house. Poles are spaced roughly every 50m.

I've got a frightening 5-figure number in mind, but a better guide from someone who has had a quote in a rural location over a similar distance would be  fantastic.

Cheers all.

[ktz392837]

I would also consider that it would not only be cost be a deciding factor, timeframe may also have to be considered.  Having FttpOD available at the exchange is one thing but also research how long it may take to install especially if the need is that great - nothing is guaranteed.

Perhaps also consider 4g mobile broadband, check out the "4g again" thread in the "broadband technology" forum for some starting points.  Just using a payg mobile phone sim near your new house running a speed test may be a possible way to get a ballpark speed estimate but these could vary wildly throughout the day.

I would certainly think carefully about buying a house with poor broadband as it can severely impact resale value.  You would need a decent discount and be able to live with the poor speeds (or no speed it may not work at all after all it is only an estimate) if they couldn't be improved.

[rjpreston]

Thanks ktz392837. Unfortunately the mobile phone signal at the property is as bad, if not worse, than the broadband issue. Rural living impacts all comms in a v real and direct way.I could look at satellite broadband too - i experienced it last year in a remote holiday cottage in the Lake District - but not sure yet of its capability or cost for long term use.

Thanks for the tip on the timescales - i hadn't thought of that, but it makes sense considering OR/BT! If I can afford the cost, i can wait a bit but not forever!

I would also consider that it would not only be cost be a deciding factor, timeframe may also have to be considered.  Having FttpOD available at the exchange is one thing but also research how long it may take to install especially if the need is that great - nothing is guaranteed.

Perhaps also consider 4g mobile broadband, check out the "4g again" thread in the "broadband technology" forum for some starting points.  Just using a payg mobile phone sim near your new house running a speed test may be a possible way to get a ballpark speed estimate.

I would certainly think carefully about buying a house with poor broadband as it can severely impact resale value.

[ktz392837]

I have made a few edits to my original reply. 

General gist is - broadband is important nowadays you are much braver than me to risk it with those estimates.

I think there are some threads both on this forum and thinkbroadband forums with more fttpod information together with a collection of peoples both quick estimates vs survey costs.

Hopefully someone will point you in the correct direction or post on their experience of costs and timescales.

[Ronski]

Take a look at the following thread and the ones linked to in the first post, there's lots of info.

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/f/4612934-fttpod-desktop-quotes-and-final-prices-part-3.html?vc=1

I think its impossible to get an accurate idea from other quotes as what's required varies wildly, the threads above will show that.

I think if I was really set on the property then I'd be getting a desktop quote and then a full survey ASAP. Ask to run speed tests from the house so you can actually verify speeds. If these are workable short term then perhaps start the purchase process, if the fttpod survey quote is excessive you can pull out although you will have incurred costs on both the house and fttpod survey.


Instead of thinking I won't pay say £15k for fttpod, think would I pay another £15k for the house, although could be more or less.

[jelv]

If you can't get a quote because you are not in the property I'd suggest telling the vendors you want them to get a quote for you.

[Ixel]

FTTPoD generally comes from the nearest aggregration node, which could be anywhere (not necessarily near the VDSL2 DSLAM). Your best option would be to request a desktop quote, generally the actual survey quote (if you end up going for that) can be around 50% of the estimated desktop quote, so should give you a rough idea of whether you think paying for an actual survey quote after the estimated desktop quote is worth it. Some people may go FTTPoD even if they don't own the property, depending on how long they expect to continue living at the address and whether the cost is low enough to make it worthwhile. Obviously if you own the property then it will potentially add some value to it.

For me the price was low enough to make it worthwhile, especially as I anticipate to be living where I am for quite some time. It also means I won't potentially have issues with copper for the forseeable future while I'm living at this address (like last year with the temperature apparently causing one of my lines to rapidly re-sync at certain times of day), and by the time I move maybe there will be better availability or slightly easier/cheaper installation of FTTP(oD).

Also, for the moment, there's a bit of backlog with actual surveys being done (due to high demand for FTTPoD, fortunately I got in before that issue kicked off). You might have to wait some weeks or months before your actual survey is done (should you pay for that option).

[Weaver]

Hi, 

 If you cannot manage to get FTTPoD organised, then you can immediately get, say, 4-15 Mbps downstream / 0.8-1.5 Mbps upstream by bonding three or more DSL lines together, as I did. I’m delighted with the results I get. I have bonding in upstream as well as downstream directions. A single download or upload potentially real goes at n times the speed - you don’t have to have multiple conversations in progress to get the benefit, as traffic is always directed down the different links and split even if there is just a single conversation in progress.

With more than three links it is sometimes more difficult to get full n times performance out of an  application’s single transfer activity.

I have bonded together four extremely long ADSL2 lines which are ~2.45 / 0.4 Mbps. Real world combined performance is 10-11 Mbps downstream and 1.1-1.3 Mbps upstream.

Reliability is stunning, because if one link goes down then the traffic is immediately redirected down the other links in the correct split fractions according to their individual speed capabilities.

[rjpreston]

Interesting Weaver - how do ongoing costs for that compare? (i.e. is it 4 x ADSL monthly costs for the 4 lines). Would it be a specific supplier that does this or can any?

Hi, 

 If you cannot manage to get FTTPoD organised, then you can immediately get, say, 4-15 Mbps downstream / 0.8-1.5 Mbps upstream by bonding three or more DSL lines together, as I did. I’m delighted with the results I get. I have bonding in upstream as well as downstream directions. A single download or upload potentially real goes at n times the speed - you don’t have to have multiple conversations in progress to get the benefit, as traffic is always directed down the different links and split even if there is just a single conversation in progress.

With more than three links it is sometimes more difficult to get full n times performance out of an  application’s single transfer activity.

I have bonded together four extremely long ADSL2 lines which are ~2.45 / 0.4 Mbps. Real world combined performance is 10-11 Mbps downstream and 1.1-1.3 Mbps upstream.

Reliability is stunning, because if one link goes down then the traffic is immediately redirected down the other links in the correct split fractions according to their individual speed capabilities.

[psychopomp1]

As you would be nearly 3km away from your connected FTTC cab, it would be fair to say your nearest fibre aggregation node - which is often not far away from serving FTTC cab(s) - would be a similar distance away from you. More than happy to be proved wrong, but I would be amazed if the build costs were less than £15k, probably a lot more. However, as others have already said, a proper survey would be needed to get an exact price.

[Weaver]

> Is it 4 x ADSL monthly costs for the four lines

No. Sort of. It’s cheap per line, cheap to add one more with my isp Andrews and Arnold, aa.net.uk, using the old ‘units tariff’ which is not being well advertised these days and other deals are suggested instead. I pay £20-30 per copper line and traffic is extra but there are various deals from AA.

To get downstream ip-bonded and traffic split properly so that even a single download goes n times faster then you need either an ISP that offers this, such as AA, or alternatively use an overlay routing service provider that offers this separately and then you use whatever ISPs for each line. To get upstream to work you need the right router, one example would be my Firebrick.

Ask kitizens here about pfsense also.

AA will just do the whole thing for you in no hassle fashion, with a Firebrick (scarily expensive) router at your end.

Using one company to do everything, is a very very good idea: line rental payment for copper lines so that all faults including those regarded as ‘PSTN’-type are handled by one company with no buck passing, and the same company to handle all of data transmission over the lines and IP traffic splitting and Firebrick router support.

It is possible to get AA to handle traffic via their L2TP service and you can use any ISPs to deliver the traffic over your lines, a mixture of ISPs for greater fault reliability (but more risk with support and possibly problems from differing latencies and speeds). There are other service providers too who can do IP traffic bonding - Pulse8 [?] (maybe straight IP, not L2TP, not sure)

[PhilipD]

Hi

As others have said a desktop quote will be back with you in around 7 to 14 days, these are an over-estimate it seems with actual costs typically being much less.  If you are running a business from that address you may qualify for a the government voucher scheme that will cover up to £2500 of the installation costs. 

Also note that as mentioned, if you went ahead with a full survey to get a confirmed price, you may have to wait several weeks or a month or more before that order gets to BT for a surveyor, and then several weeks for an appointment, after that it can take many more months before installation is started and completed, some people its taken 9 months or more.  You'll probably not be able to even place the order for a surveyor until you have completed and moved in, as the surveyor will usually want to enter the property.  You might be able to get the present owner to start the process, however whilst they might be able to get the desktop quote, I don't think they could book the surveyor as it will all be in their name, and when you move in you'll probably need to start again.

With Cerberus, I know they will give you a desktop quote without worrying about if you are at the property, just use your name and the property address you are moving to.  They don't post anything to the address, everything is done online, and you are under no obligation to continue, of course if you want the full survey, that's when you have to start signing things and their is a credit check that takes place, so you really need to live there.

Either way, you will likely move into the property waiting many months for a decent broadband connection, that's assuming FTTP on Demand isn't priced too high for you, so if you need to run a business and are reliant on the internet, you will certainly need some sort of plan for the interim period, which is easily 6 months or more.

Regards

Phil