Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Alex Atkin UK]

Richard Tang at Zen did a
fibre splicing video where he casually mentioned 1.8Gbit, so I gave a little elbow in the comments:

You can't go saying things like 1.8Gbit per second when Zen don't offer this yet, that's just mean.

Its just a race right now, do Cityfibre reach me first hopefully offering their 2Gbit service, or will Openreach more widely roll out 1.8Gbit.

His response however:

Thanks for your comment 🙂... we're working on launching both 1.8Gbps from Openreach and 2.5Gbps from CityFibre.  Don't have a firm date yet, but will happen within the next few months.

when we launch 1.8Gbps / 2.5Gbps, you will be able to upgrade in contract and get the same price that we offer to new customers.  We haven't announced details yet, but our planned pricing is not much more than you're currently paying.  If you stick on your current speed, then we'll send you an End Of Contract Notification that will give you an opportunity to move to the price we are then charging for new customers - if that is lower (as it is currently) then you'll benefit from a price reduction.  Whilst you're in contract, you're protected by our Contract Price Promise, so we won't hike your price (unlike most of our competitors who typiclly put through a CPI + 3.9% increase every April).

[dee.jay]

I can order EE 1.6Gbps at my fathers address and that's literally just gone live with OR FTTP in the last couple of weeks.

[Derpy]

I just wished that OR had done a 220MB upload along with the 1.6GB tier. I dont need much more than 500MB but the upload forced 900MB as I do need extra upload for work.
Sadly just OR here and will be only OR forever I suspect.

[Chrysalis]

This doesnt excite me, I know OR dont deem my area worthy, but thats not the prime reason.

Most consumer equipment tops out at gigabit for ethernet, and most mainstream wifi tops out with wifi 6.

For me the logical progression for OR to get with the times is to increase their upload speeds.  They need to find a way to move past their LL revenue protection. 

From a practical point of view there is a clear benefit from going from VDSL to gigabit internet speeds, most of that benefit is probably even exhausted at speeds of 300-500mbit as can be seen with peeps like Ronski settling at those speeds whilst being happy with it.  I think once this is achieved, the practical benefit is going to be higher moving from say 100mbps upload up to 300+ mbps upload.

For this reason am very glad I am in a CF area, as whenever I pull the cord on FTTP I will have same speed up and down.  I think I can see myself in one of these 3 scenarios.

VM gig1 alongside 160/160 CF, I think I will be doing this soon so I can if decide to dump VM have a very quick way of jumping to 1000/1000 CF.
1000/1000 CF
VM gig1 alongside 1000/1000 CF

--

Of course I think they also should be rolling out fully in cities as well, so sneaking that bit in there.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Most consumer equipment tops out at gigabit for ethernet, and most mainstream wifi tops out with wifi 6.

I would not be surprised if the PS5 Pro (should the rumours be true) had 2.5Gbit, modern gaming PCs also often come with 2.5Gbit ports.  Also WiFi 7 seems likely to handle 3.5Gbit short range, WiFi 6 can already do up to ~1.6Gbit on 2x2 MIMO devices that support 160Mhz channels.

Also the lack of demand for the top package is kinda the point.  It would be a worthless to offer 1.8Gbit over GPON if it was likely more than one customer per PON would take up the service.

For me the logical progression for OR to get with the times is to increase their upload speeds.  They need to find a way to move past their LL revenue protection. 

Oh I agree, I was waiting on CF here (given its symmetrical AND cheaper) but they're moving so slowly I think I'm years away from them reaching me.  In the meantime being able to upgrade to 1.8Gbit down has a tangible benefit, as games are getting really large and with fibro fog you can guarantee the second I feel well enough to play a game it wants a 50GB update.  Every second saved is a second longer I get to play the game, as I can fatigue quickly and more than once its happening before the update finished installing.  Once I'm actually in the game, there's a chance being engrossed in the game will get me past the fatigue.

I used to load balance between FTTP and 5G to reach 1.6Gbit, but Three 5G has degraded so it doesn't work well any more.

Also I often run into a situation where I want to update multiple Linux boxes at the same time, so I don't forget.  Again, when you suffer from fatigue, being able to download quicker has its benefits.

[tubaman]

I wish they'd focus on getting FTTP rolled out to everyone (like me, stuck on 40Mbps FTTC for the foreseeable) rather than upgrading those who already have a decent service.

[Alex Atkin UK]

I wish they'd focus on getting FTTP rolled out to everyone (like me, stuck on 40Mbps FTTC for the foreseeable) rather than upgrading those who already have a decent service.

That would be suggesting adding a faster tier takes focus away from expansion, which it does not given its merely a change in the traffic limiter that is now possible due to the cost of ONTs with 2.5Gbit ports now being cheap enough for them to switch to them over the old ones with only Gigabit ports.

One of the biggest hurdles is simply engineer availability, given so many alt-nets are also rolling out at the same time, spreading the subcontractors really thin.  Someone coming to swap an ONT is unlikely to be the ones laying the trunks.

[tubaman]

Appreciate what you are saying there @Alex Atkin UK but for those of us stuck with a (relatively) low speed service it really does feel like the priorities are all wrong.

[j0hn]

Appreciate what you are saying there @Alex Atkin UK but for those of us stuck with a (relatively) low speed service it really does feel like the priorities are all wrong.

I get that it might feel like priorities are wrong but this is literally flicking a switch.
If anything it will increase revenue, increase the return on FTTP investment and give a stronger case to roll out FTTP further and faster.