uk BT Fibre Broadband on Demand prices revealed: From

[Crisp]

BT Fibre Broadband on Demand prices revealed: From ?700 for FTTP

BT has revealed prices for its FTTP on Demand plans which show that prices for full fibre broadband start at ?700 per installation.

The one-off cost to upgrade an FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) line to the full FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) service will include a ?500 fixed fee with an extra cost based on distance - to reflect the cost of building the last mile connection to your home or business.

This distance-based cost will vary but will start at ?200. Openreach estimates that in most cases (55 per cent), people will incur a distance cost between ?200 and ?1,000.

So in most cases if you?re lucky enough to be connected to BT?s FTTC network you can expect to pay between ?700 and ?1,500 if you want the real fibre deal.

For the other 45 per cent, things start to get really expensive. Openreach says that virtually all other places will need to pay anything between ?1,400 and ?3,500 for the fibre, on top of the ?500 flat fee. This means for places located a good distance away from street cabinets, things will cost anything between ?1,900 up to ?4,000.

Note that these prices, all exclude VAT and reflect the cost that Openreach (not BT Retail) will set FTTP On Demand at. So, it?ll be up to ISPs to decide how these charges will be passed on to you, the customer.

What's more is that installation won't be exactly speedy either. You're looking at a 60 day wait for things to be up and running. Then there's the ?38/month cost on top of that for the actual broadband service.

Fibre to the Premises is more desirable than FTTC as it provides faster download speeds and is more future-proofed; tests have shown that BT?s FTTP lines can handle speeds of up to 10Gbps. Top speeds currently available on BT?s FTTP lines can reach 330Mbps.

While this is head and shoulders above what most home users need at the moment, businesses will no doubt find some use for a 330Mbps broadband line. And perhaps just as well - at those prices, most UK homeowners won?t be able to entertain the idea of FTTP On Demand for a while yet.

From April 29 onwards, FTTP On Demand will launch in the wholesale space, meaning ISPs like Plusnet and Zen Internet, who?ve been trialling 330Mbps fibre services, could well launch their own FTTC-FTTP upgrade packages.

Source

[Mr. Gibs]

What's more is that installation won't be exactly speedy either. You're looking at a 60 day wait for things to be up and running. Then there's the ?38/month cost on top of that for the actual broadband service.

In America I pay more than that to get ****ty 15mbps internet...

Granted I don't really have to pay the 700 pounds installation fee but still.

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

Expensive, however a worthwhile investment for people who own a house and plan to stay there.

Too bad all we have been able to get from BT in the last 10 years is 2mbps ADSL2, thankfully Virgin have always been great here and we enjoy 100mbit for ?30 a month.

[Sleeper Veteran]

Just had Infinity 2 installed yesterday. Can't believe I waited so long to make the jump. Getting the max possible so far from the 80/20 and can't see me needing anything faster for a while to come.

[sagum]

"to reflect the cost of building the last mile connection to your home or business"

I assume this means applying for digging the path up, actually laying down pipe, covering it up. Then having the fiber line actually pushed in and spliced into to the cab and termination point.

If they're going to be using existing piping or even bringing down from the telegraph poles, I think it's a little excessive to charge a fixed fee of ?500 just to run some fiber and splice it in. If they're digging the roads up, I'm going to assume they'll be reusing the conduit pipe for other users and still charge them the same.

Still, I can see end consumers having to tack on another few bob for the cost of the FC adapters and FC router too. I'll be interesting to see if the ISPs bundle that lol ;)

[FlintyV]

If I could get anything other than the bog standard Max ADSL I'd certainly stump up the cost. I'd love fibre.

[primexx]

In America I pay more than that to get ****ty 15mbps internet...

Granted I don't really have to pay the 700 pounds installation fee but still.

I was just about to say... that's only $60 which is what my 25/2.5 costs without my student deal, and even cheaper than Google Fibre. That's dirt cheap for FTTP.

[neufuse Veteran]

In America I pay more than that to get ****ty 15mbps internet...

Granted I don't really have to pay the 700 pounds installation fee but still.

I'm on Comcast and I pay almost exactly that in USD for 50 Mbit :huh:

[Jan Veteran]

I have Infinity and I couldn't be happier.

[Mr. Gibs]

I'm on Comcast and I pay almost exactly that in USD for 50 Mbit :huh:

I'm on Comcast too. Basically my monthly bill is:

$180 in total for HDTV (no premium channels and no equipment rental since we have tivo), 15mbps internet and phone.

If I look at the breakdown it's about $49 a month for internet by itself plus $7 modem rental, 38GBP is $58. So not more but close enough.

[jren207]

I have Infinity and I couldn't be happier.

Same here. I was getting so impatient waiting for BT to get my cabinet done, but it happened, and I could never go back to ADSL. Those poor speeds, and random disconnections, urgh!

But now it's installed, I don't have to mess around with it, I just get on with watching YouTube videos...

I don't see the need for FTTP at this moment in time, but it would be nice of course... mostly for bragging rights really though ;).

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

The installation cost isn't entirely unreasonable methinks. I don't know what the process would entail to be honest though. We've got people upgrading the gas main on the street at the minute, and they've only dug up some specific parts of the road, not the whole thing. It's all done by threading stuff down pipes for the gas main, I'd expect fitting the FTTP would be similar.

That said, it'd still be a fairly big undertaking. I mean, the road would have to be dug up, the cables installed. The rental of the machinery would be pretty pricey, and the inconvenience cost would be pretty high too.

Does anyone know if NTL Virgin Media is FTTP or FTTC?

[neufuse Veteran]

I'm on Comcast too. Basically my monthly bill is:

$180 in total for HDTV (no premium channels and no equipment rental since we have tivo), 15mbps internet and phone.

If I look at the breakdown it's about $49 a month for internet by itself plus $7 modem rental, 38GBP is $58. So not more but close enough.

And you only have 15Mbit? Wow, Comcast upgraded our "Normal" aka "Preferred" internet tier to 25Mbit 2yrs ago up here... Blast is 50Mbit and "powerboosts" up to 90Mbit... The lowest normal tier was suppose to be upgraded to 20Mbit minimum across the country last month... I guess Comcast loves their East coast more *lol* heck I can get FTTP here at 305Mbit for $300 a month.... with a dedicated fiber to the node

[Mr. Gibs]

And you only have 15Mbit? Wow, Comcast upgraded our "Normal" aka "Preferred" internet tier to 25Mbit 2yrs ago up here... Blast is 50Mbit and "powerboosts" up to 90Mbit... The lowest normal tier was suppose to be upgraded to 20Mbit minimum across the country last month... I guess Comcast loves their East coast more *lol* heck I can get FTTP here at 305Mbit for $300 a month.... with a dedicated fiber to the node

You guys also have more competition. Cablevision, Time Warner, Verizon etc. Where I live the only provider is Comcast and like AT&T DSL. So we're pretty much screwed lol.

[Sandor]

Running the cable is generally at least a 2 man job (especially if it's underground) and if it's over even a fairly short distance (few hundred metres) it can take a few hours. So the cost of the manpower alone can add up.

It then requires an engineer to install the FTTP equipment in your house which adds more time.

[sagum]

Does anyone know if NTL Virgin Media is FTTP or FTTC?

Virgin Media's network is made up of at least 3 different types of existing cable networks (as well as a DSL overlay across the UK) that merged over the years when Virgin Media took over (or rather, rebranded).

For cable connections, they should all be FTTC now for residential and small most business locations.

Then from the Cab, for each property, it's <100meters with their own dedicated coaxial cable. Both TV and broadband services are then split (if needed) off the cable. Telephone comes in via its own line.

For anyone willing to pay for a business location. You can have a dedicated fiber line up to 1Gbit asymmetric, but that's a whole different story.

[Brian M. Veteran]

Virgin's FTTC currently offers 120mbit, and they're trialling 240mbit. Those installation costs seem a little ridiculous considering the competition.

[coth]

I have Infinity and I couldn't be happier.

Sorry for you :)

I got 100mbit FTTB unlim with no caps. Cost me 1130 rub per month. That's about $36 USD. But adjusting to average incomes it would be around $170-200. Getting for that 360 mobile minutes, 3000 SMS, unlimited mobile data with 2GB cap for unlimited speed and 64kbit above cap and 100mbit unlimited FTTB connection with no caps.

[Detection]

I`ll stick with my FTTC thanks, I think 32GB per hour is sufficient

[Jan Veteran]

Sorry for you :)

I got 100mbit FTTB unlim with no caps. Cost me 1130 rub per month. That's about $36 USD. But adjusting to average incomes it would be around $170-200. Getting for that 360 mobile minutes, 3000 SMS, unlimited mobile data with 2GB cap for unlimited speed and 64kbit above cap and 100mbit unlimited FTTB connection with no caps.

:p I came from this:

Believe me when I say I couldn't be happier :D

[torrentthief]

the problem is the fibre wouldn't be going to the green cabinet, it will be going to a box further away so it is impossible for us to know how much it would cost. Ispreview.co.uk has some good info on this. Hopefully bt will have a postcode checker to give us an estimate, i'm pretty sure an engineer would have to come over to give a more accurate estimate though.

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

:p I came from this:

Believe me when I say I couldn't be happier :D

Wait... you got more upload than download? :wacko:

[Detection]

Wait... you got more upload than download? :wacko:

I've seen that quite a lot with Virgin, not with BT though

[Biohead]

Virgin's FTTC currently offers 120mbit, and they're trialling 240mbit. Those installation costs seem a little ridiculous considering the competition.

BT (Openreach)'s FTTP is fibre all the way into the building. Virgin's offering still has bog standard coax cable the last few hundred meters or so. Quite a difference, and a lot more work involved - hence the cost. And the fact that Virgin has a much smaller footprint - many areas will never get "cable".

As it stands, the potential for BT's FTTP will be much greater than anything Virgin will be able to offer down coax. 330mbps is just the starting product - much like how when Infinity/FTTC launched it started at 40mb, and has since doubled to 80mb. A pure fibre connection has much more potential than a coax, which itself is much better than good ol' twisted pair the rest of BT's network has to endure.

[Detection]

As nice as the speeds that FTTP would offer would be, I don't think I could make use of them at all, apart from the odd download, even with BTs FTTC I only get full speeds on around 30-50% of downloads