[Gllug] Proposed broadband improvements

[Jason Clifford]

On Thu, 2010-05-13 at 07:59 +0000, Chris Bell wrote:
>    BT are apparently pushing ahead providing at least fibre to the local
> cabinet, if not to the home. This requires new larger cabinets with space
> for power supplies and additional equipment to supply much faster broadband.
>    I seem to remember that standby batteries were used with ISDN so that at
> least emergency calls could be made after local power loss. What precautions
> are to be included to cope with the expected power supply problems? Are we
> expected to fall back to mobile phones, where the general public can expect
> to be denied service during emergencies?
>    If superfast broadband does happen, I assume that even my relatively new
> ADSL2+ modem will need to be replaced again, so will I be able to purchase a
> new box actually manufactured within the UK? 

Broadband services based upon fibre to the cabinet or fibre to the
premises are supplied as vDSL and not as ADSL. Your existing ADSL router
will not work.

Rather than have customers purchase their own router BT are insisting
that they supply the router to the customer as part of the install
process. For this reason the installation will be more expensive -
£75.00+VAT at wholesale level and probably more at retail.

Note that prices for ports on fibre based services are much higher as
the BT Openreach pricing is a lot higher than for for ADSL ports.

My understanding is that the cabinets don't have batteries for standby
power provision. This means that broadband will fail in the event of a
power cut which is what already happens when there is a power cut at the
exchange so there is no change there.

I don't think this has any impact on availability on the PSTN side. The
phone connection is not terminated into any digital equipment at the
cabinet but will still be jumpered through to the exchange as it already
is so a power cut wont have any more effect that it currently does on
your ability to make phone calls.

Jason Clifford
-- 
UK Free Software Network


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