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BT Unveils 1000Mbps Capable G.fast Broadband Rollout For the United Kingdom
Mark.JUK writes The national telecoms operator for the United Kingdom, BT, has today announced that it will begin a country-wide deployment of the next generation hybrid-fibre G.fast (ITU G.9701) broadband technology from 2016/17, with most homes being told to expect speeds of up to 500Mbps (Megabits per second) and a premium service offering 1000Mbps will also be available.
At present BT already covers most of the UK with hybrid Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) technology, which delivers download speeds of up to 80Mbps by running a fibre optic cable to a local street cabinet and then using VDSL2 over the remaining copper line from the cabinet to homes. G.fast follows a similar principal, but it brings the fibre optic cable even closer to homes (often by installing smaller remote nodes on telegraph poles) and uses more radio spectrum (17-106MHz) over a shorter remaining run of copper cable (ideally less than 250 metres). The reliance upon copper cable means that the real-world speeds for some, such as those living furthest away from the remote nodes, will probably struggle to match up to BT's claims. Nevertheless many telecoms operators see this as being a more cost effective approach to broadband than deploying a pure fibre optic / Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) network.
At present BT already covers most of the UK with hybrid Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) technology, which delivers download speeds of up to 80Mbps by running a fibre optic cable to a local street cabinet and then using VDSL2 over the remaining copper line from the cabinet to homes. G.fast follows a similar principal, but it brings the fibre optic cable even closer to homes (often by installing smaller remote nodes on telegraph poles) and uses more radio spectrum (17-106MHz) over a shorter remaining run of copper cable (ideally less than 250 metres). The reliance upon copper cable means that the real-world speeds for some, such as those living furthest away from the remote nodes, will probably struggle to match up to BT's claims. Nevertheless many telecoms operators see this as being a more cost effective approach to broadband than deploying a pure fibre optic / Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) network.
BT has more precise data, but history tells us that idiots ruin it for everyone.
If you say "Your cabinet will probably be completed in May 2014" the idiots think that means "BT 100% guarantees that you personally will have service in May 2014, no matter what" and if there's a problem they immediately say BT are lying and should be punished. So you can imagine this definitely makes the people who figure out the estimates really feel valued, like a weather forecaster getting yelled at for the one day in six weeks when they predicted clear sky and there was a rain storm...
If you say "Your cabinet is delayed because of *complicated technical reason*" the idiots think you're making up lies to hide your incompetence. After all, if BT really knew anything about this technical stuff it stands to reason they must have known when they made the estimate, and if they didn't know then, they must be making it up now. See?
So there is a great reluctance to even try to present the estimates to the public. One of the major broadband user forums on the web has a pet BT person who sometimes goes to the bother of getting the hard facts about a particular subscriber's problems. Sometimes the subscribers are grateful. But I have to say that far too often the response is just rudeness. If I was them I'd just stop. We are, apparently, as a nation ungrateful bastards.