Fibre to the home, a missed opportunity

Right, I'm going to whinge about something I know about for a change. Fibre to the home.  So called FTTH is a technology that BT is trialing in Ebbsfleet, Kent.  These lucky people are going to get fibre connections and might even reach speeds of 100mb/sec!  Well that's just absolutely fantastic isn't it?

Err, no it isn't!  This trial is probably a bit of a farce in my opinion.  The whole point of a new technology such as FTTH should be to make a real stride and improve the UK's broadband infrastructure.  That means symmetric connections, in other words we should have the same upload speed as download.  Before anyone leaps at me to say it would just help file sharing and so on, well it might, yes. But for those of us who work remotely using software repositories, sending digital proofs, emailing document files or web applications, we often find our ADSL lines saturated by the upload limitations of broadband.  A symmetric connection would help a great deal.

Now, BT are possibly limiting this trial deliberately to protect their leased line business which is a hugely profitable area for them.  In my opinion its still a poor service with dismal speeds and the same nonsense of household broadband.  It's also monstrously overcharged (up to ten times what our American and Asia cousins pay).

The point is this: here's an opportunity to do things properly, with a real domestic network that could be a beacon to the whole world, and instead it appears to be being run more like a protection racket.  The UK should have symmetric connections to every home, especially with fibre as there is no rational reason it should be otherwise (except perhaps profiteering!)  It is this kind profiteering that annoys, nay, angers.  Here things could make real progress, but instead we're probably taking a half step forward, to then ten steps back.

There are numerous other ways to manage the connections and to limit network abuses including bandwidth limits, graduated speeds, SLAs (for a change), bolt on offers of mail filtering/scanning.  I for one would pay BT to plug in a fibre line that has the same upload as download, running at 10mb/sec. For me, this would be a real tool and make my working life far easier.

It just makes me angry that this opportunity may be wasted, and we'll still have an antique system running slowly, ineffectually and pathetically, all thanks to a lack of vision and putting profits before a quality service.

By: Nick

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Phil, I read your comment with real envy. I've recently moved to Plusnet from Virgin, going from a very stable 3.5mbps (dismal I know) to a very unstable 1.8mbps, and problems with upload speed (currently hovering around 200kbps). Plusnet are owned by BT, so are BT. Fibre is coming to my area in March. Can only BT and BT owned companies using their fibre network? I really want to get away from Plusnet as soon as possible - they are so bad it is almost becoming surreal from my perspective - but don't want to tie myself into another contract with a company unable to access the BT fibre network. March seems a long way off!

+1

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miserablemoaninggit - 4-Dec-11 11:53 

Just had the guy from BT on the phone trying to offer me the BT Infinity package as we now have fibre in our are (luck us eh?). The problem is, whilst you have download speeds of up to 40MB (actually 35 for us), you're stuck with a monthly download limit of 40GB. This is completely useless to me. I'm with Demon and whilst it's about £5 more a month the peak hours download limit is 5 times that (200GB) - off peak they're not bothered at all. Then there's the whole Newzbin, Phorm censorship thing. BT will apparently roll over and say "Yes sir, tree bags full sir" for anyone that asks.

So nice try BT, but I think I'll stay where I am. My current speed is around 13MB so still pretty good anyway!

-2

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Phil - 30-Nov-11 20:04 

The tiny-minded shekel-grubbers are behind it, aren't they? Incompetent Adolfs. I pay BT a fortune each month for "line-rental" for a very limited service. Why? The line in our building was installed over 40 years ago. What have they actually done to improve it? We do have a cable provider's line in our building, but all they were interested in doing for us was selling us dirty TV channels, and not broadband. These lines of communication should be "nationalised" as a public service, and managed like the motorways are in the country.

+7

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Trousering My Money - 3-Jul-09 06:44 

It wouldn't be the first opportunity that BT has missed, or our beloved government for that matter. The UK is already dragging its heels and it's sorry @rse behind the rest of the world in terms of Internet technology and in particular bandwidth. It won't be long before the average African in a mud hut has a better net connection than Gerald in Surrey. Don't you love the UK?

-6

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AngelCake - 3-Jul-09 02:23 

Fibre to the home is a pipe dream. With the state of progress in this country and now a recession there's no chance. Britain left behind again as usual.

+4

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Mark - 11-Sep-08 20:08 

It's all about the big numbers. I don't think 99% of people could truly justify >4Mbps downstream, let alone 100.

+7

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R - 9-Jul-08 18:42 

Nick, the problem lies with the fact that BT are running the trial, not Virgin, Talk Talk, Tiscali etc. Why would BT want to invest millions or billions upgrading a network that has to be virtually given away to the other quoted providers at prices decided on by ofcom. I'm sure if they all chipped in it would be a real possibility but can't see Talk Talk wanting to fork out when they "give" their customers "free broadband".

-1

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another Nick - 9-Jul-08 14:04