330m/bit gfast BT trial begins in the UK

Praetorian

http://hexus.net/business/news/telcos/85841-bt-begins-trials-330mbps-gfast-internet/

http://www.btplc.com/News/index.cfm#/pressreleases/first-customers-connected-in-trial-of-g-fast-ultrafast-broadband-1206553

Interesting. Upstream will be 30 m/bit apparently.

500 / 1000m/bit to come

Nollog

squeezing what's left of copper will only get them a few more years surely.

before the inevitable switch to fibre.

Praetorian

I think the last few meters of copper will be with us for a very long time. If trials are already happening up to 1000 m/bit, who is to say in the future that 10,000 m/bit won't be possible. So many buildings will be very hard to reach with actual fiber without very high civil costs making it unfeasible.

Nollog

Praetorian wrote: »

I think the last few meters of copper will be with us for a very long time. If trials are already happening up to 1000 m/bit, who is to say in the future that 10,000 m/bit won't be possible. So many buildings will be very hard to reach with actual fiber without very high civil costs making it unfeasible.

front-loaded costs you could offset either by charging those people installation, or accept as the costs of rolling out a new network which will be in operation for over 2 decades.

Praetorian

/\/ollog wrote: »

front-loaded costs you could offset either by charging those people installation, or accept as the costs of rolling out a new network which will be in operation for over 2 decades.

I think your absolutely right. I still think a lot of people will be on a few meters of copper for a very long time.

My fingers are majorly crossed for fiber myself. The eircom man hole (I'm not actually sure of the correct terminology) is right at the bottom of my driveway. So I'm hopeful. I would actually like to do fairly heavy offsite backups that only FTTH could make a reality for me.

bk

The linked article pricing isn't in line with what I've heard previously.

From what I've heard G.Fast is only 0 to 20% cheaper then FTTH. It is 0% cheaper in cases where you can push the fiber through an existing duct or overhead and 20% cheaper where you have to dig up and lay new duct.

So the general expectation is that most installs will be FTTH and G.Fast will only be used for difficult installs that would require lots of internal wiring, mostly apartment buildings.

In particular G.Fast will have much higher ongoing running and maintenance costs, so for the most part I expect ISP's to largely avoid it where possible.

reboot

Praetorian wrote: »

http://hexus.net/business/news/telcos/85841-bt-begins-trials-330mbps-gfast-internet/

http://www.btplc.com/News/index.cfm#/pressreleases/first-customers-connected-in-trial-of-g-fast-ultrafast-broadband-1206553

Interesting. Upstream will be 30 m/bit apparently.

500 / 1000m/bit to come

Think I read recently that laser may replace fibre in some cases? Many years ago a guy in London bought the pipes that connected the hotel lifts, once driven pneumatically,he took the valves out and fed cable TV without digging the streets up! You tell me that?

murphaph

It's apartment buildings where gfast will be deployed really. It's not going to see much use beyond those installations IMO and rightly so, but it does serve a very useful purpose for those high on impossible installs.

Nollog

TalkTalk are doing GFast too, they upped their prices a pound to cover the costs.

ED E

Praetorian wrote: »

I think the last few meters of copper will be with us for a very long time. If trials are already happening up to 1000 m/bit, who is to say in the future that 10,000 m/bit won't be possible. So many buildings will be very hard to reach with actual fiber without very high civil costs making it unfeasible.

Enterprise only gets 40Gb on the best cabling and proper setups, we'll never see more than 2Gb on old bell wire no matter how good the modems become.

satguy

How many time has poor old copper been told, "go away, you are too slow now" Yet it just never gives up, it's the little engine that keeps finding more.

bk

satguy wrote: »

How many time has poor old copper been told, "go away, you are too slow now" Yet it just never gives up, it's the little engine that keeps finding more.

The reality is copper is going away. In fact each major improvement in copper broadband has been powered by fiber and has reduced copper.

ADSL, VDSL, G.FAST, etc. aren't some magical technology. They were largely academically known 40 years ago, what made them possible is fiber, along with electronics miniaturisation.

ADSL2, made possible by fiber to the exchange.

VDSL, made possible by running fiber with 2km of people.

G.FAST, made possible by running fiber within 100 meters of people.

In reality it is fiber that made all of these advances possible.

satguy

What they do underground, or undersea is all well and good, but the wire coming into my home is copper.

They say is cant do high bandwidth but if the stuff behind it keeps getting better, how am I still on copper and on 240mb+TV+landline. UPC might well go up to 600MB, and the wire coming into my home will still be copper..

ED E

satguy wrote: »

They say is cant do high bandwidth but if the stuff behind it keeps getting better, how am I still on copper and on 240mb+TV+landline. UPC might well go up to 600MB, and the wire coming into my home will still be copper..

Thats Co-Ax not bell wire, not the same at all, and totally off topic for here.

Capt'n Midnight

bk wrote: »

ADSL, VDSL, G.FAST, etc. aren't some magical technology. They were largely academically known 40 years ago, what made them possible is fiber, along with electronics miniaturisation.

It's not so much that copper had gotten better, it's that thanks to fibre and local cabinets the remaining distance to be travelled over copper is getting shorter.

The main reason ADSL was so much faster then dial up modems wasn't so much that they were magically better, it was that the old voice equipment in the exchanges was hard limited to 64Kb , once that equipment was bypassed people long distances from the exchange could receive ADSL speeds not a million miles away from what they do today on the latest equipment over the same old copper.