UK's first open access fibre network showcased
Super fast fibre network to offer traffic free speeds up to 100Mbps with open access for service providers
Broadband speeds haven't really improved much in the last five years for most of the UK. Those of us lucky enough to live close to an exchange may see close to 20Mbits on ADSL while Virgin has recently rolled out its expensive 50Mbit service although this still only has a comparatively slow 1.5Mbps upload speed.
Fibrecity, part of the i3 group and recently showcased the service as well as it's interactive portal in Bournemouth where the first of the UKs connections have been made available. Once connected to the network, customers will be shown a portal where various services such as broadband, telephony, television, video on demand, security or other next generation services will be offered.
The difference here is that the technology will already be in place so all companies offering these products have to do is to get on board and they'll appear on the portal. Rather than being restricted to say Virgin or Sky's offerings, Fibrecity claim customers will be able to pick and choose the services they want.
i3 Group’s CEO, Elfed Thomas said: "The Fibrecity portal is a fully interactive way to access next generation services from service providers all over the world. When a home is connected to the Fibrecity network, the resident will be given a set top box and router that they can then just plug and play. What they will see on their TV or computer screen is a menu of the services available to them in their area from a variety of service providers."
Mr Thomas continued: "Our vision is to offer people living in Fibrecities real choice without being restricted to one provider. People will have options and will be able to buy services tailored to their individual needs.
"Our view has always been to offer a true open access model; we have engaged with the market and our customers and are confident that this unique approach will deliver the very best fibre to the home experience throughout the world."
Fibrecity also claim one of the main benefits of fibre optic networks over current broadband is that it doesn't suffer from slow speeds at peak times or drastically slower speeds due to distance from exchanges and the like. Fibre optic cables are installed in waste water networks and then all the way to your front door in an end to end setup which eliminates traffic meaning in theory your speed shouldn't fluctuate. With the UK's current broadband speeds well below that of countries like Sweden and Japan, fibre optics installed in waste water pipes could be the answer.
This could possibly mean an end to traffic shaping and stroppy emails from your ISP after downloading that 500MB game demo when you get home from work or school too. More importantly bandwidth hungry traffic like high definition content streaming should at last be totally stutter free. There's no word on cost yet though.
What price would you be willing to pay for such a service? Would what you use the internet for see any benefit from a 100Mbps synchronous connection? What services would you like to have available that your current ISP doesn't provide? Let us know in the forums.
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That's why we are a backward country chasing the tails of everyone else. Still, at least the tory MP made himself a name eh.
Still, nice if you can get it and are on mains sewage but it will still be leaving a lot of the countryside out.
This should have happened YEARS ago!
I should theoretically be on an 8 megabit link right now but back down here on Earth I only ever see 2 - and I'm not even a mile and a half from the exchange. God knows what it's like out in the sticks. When I complained about this they told me I should upgrade my router to one supporting a more recent ADSL revision, for christ's sake...
If God's up there I'd expect God to be pissed off like I am. 256Kbps, 25freaking6Kbps!
lol i remember they had that in an internet cafe i used to work in and if i remember correctly the fastest isdn option was only twice the speed of regular dial up ! that was only about 10 years ago i think ! thank smeg for progress and moors law.
Did you read the article?
You're using ADSL as the basis for how Fibre optic broadband will behave.
The article said "straight to the home connections" that means 100Mb.
We've had 512K for a few years now, but according to anyone you phone up the maximum our line can support is 256K, and I know people further away with more than that so you may find they are lying.
The router thinks we should be able to get more like 1.8Mbps...
This is why I really hope I'm included in this BET programme BT are trialing. Really freaking hope so, there really isn't any excuse for such a lack in preparing for fibre. Why not get the fibre down when they dig the freaking roads up for new waterpipes?
>.<
You are not going to get 100Mb/s un-contended and un-limited for anything like the kind of figures you are suggesting. The Absolute cheapest IP transit provider here in the UK (who most would not use as their transit is quite honestly shocking) is pricing at £2.90 per Mb/s at present in 10Gb/s commit levels. Therefore un-contended and un-limited that 100Mb/s through your door starts around £300 per month, assuming the sub-lease cost of the fibre and the cost of getting IP transit to an interconnect point is nothing.
Of course you could contend it at 20:1 and then it could potentially cost £15 per user for rubbish transit or closer to £30 per month for anything decent, but its then not un-limited obviously.
Pete
Can I have that in writing?
This implies the service is a last mile access medium only and requires the buy-in of ISPs, content providers etc etc to actually deliver services to the premises. Which means you are returning to the commercial model of the data providers in the case of internet access.
The figures I provided are real-world, realistic current ones for current market and I would suggest be a base model for those trying to put realistic service delivery costs around the service. No-one can possibly deliver a truly un-contended 100Mb/s leased line to the door for 50-100 - lord that isn't possible in blooming Telehouse on a private cable to IP Transit.
If you're paying for an 8Mb link then you should be getting an 8Mb link.
However if you're paying for an up to 8Mb link then you are, in fact, getting what you're paying for.
Now what happens when you have to 'snake' your sewage lines? Is the plumber responsible for tearing up the fiber line?
on one hand it's great that these kind of steps are being taken, on the other, there's so many people outside the big cities that live with stupidly poor internet that i'd rather there was investment to improve the nation wide network.
I'm involved in building open access fibre networks in Germany for local communities. Open access is a relatively new concept in Germany and the regulations for such compliance is not as advance as it is in the UK. Regarding symmetrical users bandwidths... There is no current need for symmetrical upstream bandwidths as a typical residential customer will never use this. Analysis of typical upstream traffic patterns shows that customers at best will use 25% of the downstream capacity for uploads; this however is not true for business customers which have proven needs for symmetrical services.
Regarding traffic shaping, the network operator still has great control in this area and can implement it on the fibre access line as well as in the backbone of their network. They need to increase their internal network capacities and have links to locally offered services in order for the end user / customer to see an improvement in their quality of service. Upgrading the customer access network alone will not improve service quality.