UK sets out full-fiber network plan to catch up with European rivals

i wonder if that could ever happen in the US. It's a joke that, outside large cities, Internet service is among the worst in the "developed" world.

 

Good news. Full fibre network that ends at the UP flush mount box. From there, you got a copper line to your flat. We got that here in Switzerland. Extremely edgy, I must admit.

 

That won't give you full speed, I believe it's called VDSL. But what people forget to mention is that fiber connections are inferior to cable. That's because every device needs to be connected to the fiber modem, while with cable you can plugin devices like router and TV into the wall in almost every room, no need for wired UTP cables and WIFI connections.

 

Not really. I'm part of a group that has a fiber uplink, and then CAT6 to anywhere people want. We only have 100 Mbps now, but we could easily upgrade. And the CAT6 could likely handle more than gigabit, if we upgraded routers and switches.

 

Are you talking about home connections? To explain it as simple as possible, the cable signal is distributed throughout the whole house via coaxial cable. This means, modem, DVR and TV can be connected to the wall socket in almost every room. With fiber, the signal can not be distributed to wall sockets, meaning that all mentioned devices need to be connected directly to the entry point which is the fiber modem, and this is a huge problem. Are you saying that it works differently in your country?

https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-does-a-cable-box-receiver-work

 

The fiber is connected to a fiber modem. Which has Ethernet jacks. So then there's a perimeter router/firewall, and then switches and CAT6 cabling. It's basically like any setup with a broadband router. And if we needed the local bandwidth, we could have used fiber through the perimeter router/firewall, and the first level of switches. But that would have cost a lot more, because fiber gear is considerably more expensive.

 

I get the feeling you are misunderstanding me. Let me ask you, does this CAT 6 cabling runs inside the walls? Because that's my issue. Let's say your router is in the workroom and your TV/DVR is located in the living room. This means you would have to connect these devices to the fiber modem via UTP cable, which is a pain because the fiber modem is often located in the technical area (near the front door) of apartments. You can also use Powerline adapters but they are often not reliable. That's how it works in Holland.

 

In our case, yes. Because it was part of the build.

Depending on wall and ceiling construction, it my be possible to pull cable. Or you can just route CAT6 along baseboards and door trim. The maximum CAT6 run, before signal degradation, is 100 meters.

 

My god tell me about it. Signal strength in my rural area is been going downhill every year and you DON"T get what you pay for with the current grid, at least not around this neck of the woods. There are periods when my own connection reminds me of 56K Dial Up again on Windows 98 and the deal is supposed to be HI-SPEED?

 

Just because cable as a specific advantage over fiber does not mean fiber is inferior. Besides, in most houses I've lived in, there was only a COAX connection in the living room, not in the other rooms.

 

The dutch government should do the same. Not leave it to the ‘market’, the telco’s just wont invest with all the restrictions from Brussels and the ACM.

 

Germany is going to invest billions in broadband.
Teletext article at ZDF at this moment (in German) https://teletext.zdf.de/teletext/zdf/seiten/klassisch/126.html

 

OK I see, AFAIK they don't do this in Holland. But can you then also plug your UTP cable into a wall socket like in some hotels? Now that I think of it, ADSL has the exact same disadvantage as fiber optics, you need to connect the DVR/receiver directly to the modem.

Yes correct, even cable companies use fiber in their own internal networks. But I meant to say that the way it's set up is inferior. I believe that in most houses that are built in the 80's and 90's, copper and coaxial cable are always a standard in most rooms. Also with cable, the TV and internet signal are separated, so even if you use the full 100Mbps you can still watch full quality TV in multiple rooms, with fiber this is not the case.

I don't care about fiber, cable works perfectly fine. They currently can both deliver up to 500Mbps, do we really need this speed, and uploading isn't important for most people.

 

Yes, there's an RJ45 socket in each room.

Yes, and when we built, it was starting to be the case for Ethernet too. But no longer, given the rise of fast WiFi. So we have both Ethernet and WiFi.

Well, it's nice if you're torrenting Also, having gigabit connectivity among rooms and units is useful for backups and data sharing.

 

That's only a problem with Fiber ISP's whose fastest offer is a 100Mbps connection and still use 100Mbit switches in the neighbourhood central. If they offer higher speeds(which most do by now) they needed to upgrade the switches to Gbit first to make it possible, and then it's no longer a problem.(Technically, if they offer a 1Gbps subscription and you take it because a 500Mbps connection is not fast enough for you, if you use the full 1Gbps that would degrade your TV quality, but the chances of maxing out a 1Gbps connection are slim.)

 

OK, then it's indeed not a problem because you don't have to directly connect router and TV to the fiber modem. But even then there are certain drawbacks, because if the fiber modem breaks, it's game over, you have no internet, phone and TV/radio. With cable, if the modem is broken, you still have TV/radio. Also worth noting, a lot of fiber ISP's use cloud based DVR's, so if there is no signal you can't watch recordings. Most cable companies still use DVR with HDD's, they don't have this problem.

Yes correct, the higher the speed the better, but it's still interesting to note that cable doesn't suffer from this problem AFAIK. I can use all of my 200 Mbps connection purely for internet, and still watch TV in both living room and bedroom, including Netflix which works via IPTV.

 

Boris Johnson fails to back-up showy 'full-fibre by 2025' pledge
June 19, 2019
https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3077602/boris-johnson-full-fibre-2025-pledge

 

The race to get the UK using fibre optic broadband is speeding up
July 22, 2019
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/uk-broadband-speed-fibre-optic

 

Virgin Media promises to deliver 1Gbps broadband to 15 million homes by 2021
July 25, 2019
https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3079586/virgin-media-1gbps-2021

 

Yes, BT, an acronym for Bloody Terrible.

My favourite BT story is when I phoned them to ask them what I could do to ameliorate dropouts. The conversation went something like this:

"Hello, is that British Telecom?"

"Yes, how an we help you?"

"I'm customer Daveski and I am having regular dropouts."

"You are not having any dropouts."

"Sorry?"

"You are not having any dropouts."

"Yes I am, I just wanted to know how I could stop them."

"You are not having any dropouts."

"I don't think you quite understand, I am having regular dropouts."

"You are not having any dropouts."

This Jedi mind trick stuff went on for a short while before Obi Wan tried to get me to negotiate a new contract and failing that convincing me to reboot my router. Honestly, I'm seriously considering Plusnet.

 

BT says it's ready to deliver on BoJo's full-fibre pledge
If the price is right, that is
August 2, 2019
https://www.theinquirer.net/inquire...s-ready-to-deliver-on-bojos-full-fibre-pledge

 

Broadband chiefs fire back at PM's full-fibre internet pledge
August 3, 2019
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49209013