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[Weaver]

I don’t see the news on the telly box, but my wife mentioned something to me about politicians claiming that <someone> was some somehow going to magic up FFT(P?) for <absolutely everyone, or perhaps-everyone-who-is-not-hard>/<england>/<uk>.

Has anyone else heard any such vote-winning hand waving?

I am in Scotland mind, so whatever she heard probably doesn’t even apply to me any way for all I know.

[toulouse]

Hi Weaver,
While I don't know the full details, apparently our new Prime Minister, BoJo has made some stupid announcement that everyone in the UK should have access to Ultrafast broadband (FTTP/FTTH ?) by the year 2025. It seems to have upset a few of the major broadband suppliers and in order to achieve the said goal, they all require changes to the law. I think this should be treated with a large dose of 'I'll believe it when I see it'.

Good luck

toulouse

[Weaver]

Thank you very much for that.

Well, they can of course legislate how they want, but someone needs to pay for all of this, and in any case he is not the Prime Minister of Scotland, last time I checked, as I mentioned, I never get out, so I’d better be careful; anyway this is a devolved matter and I seem to remember that there was some sort of claim from the Scottish Parliament about some sort of internet of other at some date for all the people who are /are not hard.

[j0hn]

BoJo reckons the 2033 target was "ambitiously laughable" and he'll deliver "full fibre for all by 2025".

He wants the private sector to pay for most of it, with undisclosed funds paying for the rest.

Well Boris.... the private sector WERE doing  huge amounts of FTTP.
Promising state funds (straight from Jeremy Corbyns magic money tree) for a massive FTTP rollout will just make many operators scale back their plans.

Why would a company take on a huge amount of debt installing FTTP if they think Boris is going to give huge handouts.

Where is all this Labour coming from? He's stopping free movement of people. The industry is already really struggling with shortage of Labour.

Simply do what the Scottish Gov did, 10 years business rates relief on FTTP.
OpenReach have just announced a disproportionate amount of Scottish towns/Cities in their Fibre First rollout because of this.
They said it's because of the business rates relief that they have done this.

Ah well... he's doing 1 thing I like.... #IndyRef2

[sevenlayermuddle]

See this story.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49209013

So it seems likely that what he actually promised was “full fibre”, a term which I still consider to be vague.  Even if it has an accepted definition among professionals, political promises are aimed at the voting public, not industry professionals.

The BBC’s reporter links the story to a European industry document, a study into fibre uptake in Europe, which I note does not mention “full fibre” anywhere.  It uses “FTTH” rather than “FTTP”, which is ok but, more interestingly, it mixes FTTH and FTTB as if they were equals.  If you scroll down to the tables on pages 18 and 22 they do differentiate between FTTH and FTTB in the graphs and it becomes clear that much of the claimed fibre penetration elsewhere in Europe, is actually FTTB, not FTTH(/P).  In fact, hard to tell from the coloured charts, but the UK might even rise above last place in the rankings, if you only include FTTP.

https://www.ftthcouncil.eu/documents/FTTH%20Council%20Europe%20-%20Panorama%20at%20September%202018.pdf

Boris is, for his criticisms, a very clever chappie.   If he did say “full fibre” rather than “FTTP” then it would not surprise me if his words were carefully chosen.  A promise that might be interpreted as “FTTB for all”, whilst still unbelievably ambitious, falls far short of FTTP for all.

[j0hn]

So it seems likely that what he actually promised was “full fibre”, a term which I still consider to be vague. 

Wow...
Must say I couldn't disagree more.

I disagreed with your opinion on the ASA ruling on the term "Fibre broadband", but I can see the other side of that argument.

What is vague about "full fibre"? I can't see how that could possibly mean anything other than "full" fibre.

He was talking about FTTP. He referenced the 2033 "full fibre" targets and called them "laughably unambitious".
There was nothing vague about the 2033 "full fibre" targets before Boris opened his mouth.

Even his own paper The Telegraph recognise what the term "full fibre" means, as does the ASA.

I've read many people, providers and industry experts criticise his 2025 target as too ambitious and not achievable.
I haven't read anything that suggests when he said "full fibre" he meant anything other than "full" fibre.

I'm not sure if you think anything qualifies as full fibre though.

You were talking about the copper in circuit boards and Ethernet cables between an ONT and router in a previous threads like somehow that isn't full fibre.
That's pedantry at the highest level imo.

[sevenlayermuddle]

May I suggest we try and stick to reasoned arguments, debating the things with which we agree or disagree, rather than personal attacks?

I personally agree, “full fibre” should imply, at a minimum FTTP (sometimes known as FTTH).

However, it would seem that many people think “full fibre” bears comparison to the enviable fibre services deployed in, for example other European countries.   The document I linked earlier suggests the European fibre penetration and adoption is largely FTTB, and so not “full fibre” by our own definition.   That is the basis of my assertion (as relates to this thread) that “full fibre” can be misunderstood.

I am not saying FTTB is bad.  Despite the fact it may rely on ethernet or G.fast to complete the connection, performance ought to be a match for FTTP in many/most cases, and I wish I could have it.   But there will be other cases where FTTB is inferior to FTTP.  So I think we should distinguish between them, rather than call them both “full fibre” just because they both use a lot of fibre and are both very very fast.

Yet check Hyperoptic's definition of full fibre, wherein they define it to include their own provision of FTTB...

https://hyperoptic.com/information-advice/posts/the-download-on-full-fibre/

I hope that has clarified the point I was making, that “full fibre” may not mean the same thing to everybody, at least when uttered by politicians.

[niemand]

Hyperoptic are correct. It is full fibre to the premises.

FTTB will probably be fine as a 'full fibre' solution for these purposes.

MDUs are a single premises split into a number of apartments that are leased from the premises owner.

So they're counted in FTTP numbers where fibre is FTTB, however that's only if Ethernet to the individual units. G.fast would go into the DSL numbers.

[sevenlayermuddle]

Clearly, opinions differ as to the meaning of “full fibre”, which is the point I was making re Boris’s promises.   

In telecoms engineering, such differences of opinion must be resolved, and are generally resolved by the standards bodies, ITU, ANSI, ETSI, etc.   I’d be interested if anybody can cross refer to a definition of “full fibre” by any such standards body?