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BT Fibre On Demand: What is it and what will it cost?

Fibre On Demand: What is it?

Fibre On Demand – or FTTP On Demand – enables customers to access speeds of up to 330Mbps by extending BT’s fibre-optic broadband connection from their nearest street cabinet to their front door.

This FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) connection runs alongside the existing copper phone line from the cabinet to the customer (that still carries phone calls), so it does require BT to push the fibre through existing conduits, dig up roads and pavements, or string fibre-optic cable across overhead telephone poles.

This means that there’s a significantly higher installation cost than FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet), which uses the copper phone line for the final leg of the journey.

BT Fibre On Demand: What is it and what will it cost?
That’s the cabinet done, now get digging my good man

 

Fibre On Demand: How much will it cost to get it?

BT predicts that the average cost of Fibre On Demand will be £1,500. There is a £500 + VAT flat fee for installation and connection of your home or business, plus a variable cost for the line itself. There’s also an annual line rental of £496+VAT, and a one-off connection charge of £92+VAT.

Additional installation costs (not including VAT), start at £200 for up to 199 metres from the cabinet, rising to £3,500 at 1.5km-2km. Openreach expects 96 per cent of premises to be within 2km, but prices beyond this are available on demand. This page lists the full range of BT Openreach FTTP On Demand charges.

The question will be how much of this ISPs choose to pass on to customers up front, and how much they load into the monthly subscription.

BT Fibre On Demand: What is it and what will it cost?
FoD: even close to the cabinet, it’s pricey

 

Fibre On Demand: Where can I get it?

You’ll be able to order FTTP On Demand anywhere there’s a BT fibre broadband street cabinet. If you can get FTTC in your area then you’ll be able to upgrade and get FTTP On Demand.

Initially it’s being trialled in areas connected to just six exchanges so that BT and its partner ISPs can work through the problems of actually delivering the service to customers.

Fibre On Demand: How much will it cost a month?

We haven’t seen how much ISPs will charge for FoD, but Openreach has published a list of how much it will charge wholesale to customers also taking phone services over their copper connection

These ex-VAT prices (with guaranteed speeds) will be:

  • 40Mbps down/2Mbps up: £6.90/month
  • 40Mbps down/10Mbps up: £7.40/month
  • 40Mbps down/15Mbps up: £9.95/month
  • 80Mbps down/20Mbps up: £9.95/month
  • 100Mbps down/15Mbps up: £12.90/month
  • 110Mbps down/15Mbps up: £13.15/month
  • 100Mbps down/30Mbps up: £36.35/month
  • 330Mbps down/20Mbps up: £24.61/month
  • 330Mbps down/30Mbps up: £29.61/month

It’s a confusing array of prices, and to make matters worse, customers will pay more if they don’t also take copper line rental with their fibre (£38/month at the fastest tier).

Our Fibre Broadband: Who’s Doing It? feature keeps track of which ISPs are offering FTTP broadband and is updated regularly.

Previous news stories about FTTP On Demand

£38/month for 330Mbps trial plus £500 minimum installation

BT FTTP on demand: £38/month for 330Mbps trial plus £500 minimum installationBT Openreach will charge £38/month for its trial 330Mbps FTTP On Demand service, with installation costs starting at £500.

Up to 100 customers will be connected at six exchanges around the UK, with the trial open from March 1 to April 26 this year, getting up to 330Mbps downstream and 30Mbps up.

The FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) connection will be billed at £456/year – £38/month – with a £500 installation charge, plus construction costs to connect the customers to their nearest street cabinet or fibre node.

As reported last month, BT expects the typical construction fee to be about £1,000 at 500 metres, with ducting charges starting at £46.20/metre including fibre.

The Phase 2 Pilot will come with a three-year contract, but before ISPs will be able to downgrade to a slower connection or cancel by October 31, 2013.

The pilot exchanges will be High Wycombe, Bristol South, St Agnes Cornwall, Edinburgh Waverley, Basingstoke, Watford, Cardiff Central, and Manchester Central. Trial customers will also have to be located near an FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) street cabinet.

January 15, 2013

Prices announced, £1,500 for full fibre broadband

BT FTTP On Demand: Prices announced, £1,500 for full fibre broadbandGot a spare grand and half lying around? Good, because that’s how much you’d need to cough up, on average for FTTP On Demand.

BT has just given us the first indication of its fibre on-demand pricing structure which will see customers connected to FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) able to pay a one-off sum to upgrade their line to full FTTP (Fibre to the Premises).

This will see top download speeds leap from 80Mbps to 330Mbps, provide a more robust service and future proof you for speeds of up to 10Gbps.

There is a £500 flat fee for installation of FTTP in addition to £1,000 for homes or businesses that are around 500 metres away from a cabinet.

If you’re closer to the cabinet you’ll pay less and if you’re further out from the 500 metre radius then you’ll pay more.

This could rack up some seriously high figures for those in the remotest parts of the UK. In St. Davids for example, the nearest BT exchange is 17 kilometres away from the city.

Depending on where the street cabinets are situated in places like St. Davids, upgrading the last mile for some could cost serious coin.

BT has yet to announce exactly how it will allocate prices according to distance or whether there’ll be a cap on prices so rural folk aren’t penalised.

Even so, who is going to be shelling out £1,500 for fast broadband?

While this is out of the price range of most UK homeowners, FTTP On Demand could hit the sweet spot for small businesses.

Business customers who perhaps don’t need the resilience of an expensive lease line might find this the perfect solution – miles faster than conventional ADSL but without the high costs of enterprise services.

During our time with Superfast Cornwall we saw how a 330Mbps FTTP line had changed everything for Arcol Ltd – until recently the Threemilestone-based company could only get single figure speeds.

December 5, 2012

First customer connected to 330Mbps in Bristol

Pricing for BT’s FTTP On Demand program is still up in the air, but Openreach’s chief executive Liz Garfield confirmed that the program will be live in Spring 2013.

In a conference call, Garfield also announced that the first customer connected to the trial program this Saturday just gone (November 3). The customer connected to the Bristol South exchange, where download speeds of up to 330Mbps can be achieved on a full end-to-end FTTP line.

BT’s FTTP On Demand program will let those on FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) broadband lines pay to upgrade to faster FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) services.

BT FTTP On Demand: First customer connected to 330Mbps in Bristol

This will involve the copper ‘last mile’ being replaced with a fibre optic line for a ‘premium’ price.

Pricing revealed by Openreach back in May showed that the annual fees for an ISP to sell FTTP lines capable of providing 330Mbps lines with upload speeds of 20Mbps and 30Mbps would be £396 and £720 respectively. An £80 connection fee would also apply in either case.

While prices for the FTTP On Demand program are still not being revealed to the public, this gives us an idea of how much customers could pay, either directly or – more likely – indirectly over the course of a subscription.

Providers of full FTTP services like Hyperoptic or Gigler are charging up to £50/month for 1Gbps fibre broadband.

While 330Mbps download speeds are nowhere near as fast a gigabit speeds, they’re still head and shoulders above the national average. Therefore we’d expect monthly prices to be around this neck of the woods.

The trial is expected to end in May 2013, once customers in Basingstoke, Cardiff, Manchester Central and Watford will have completed their trial.

November 1, 2012

 

FTTP On Demand trial locations revealed

Openreach has announced the trial locations for the FTTP On Demand trial. The trial will see customers in High Wycombe, Bristol South and St. Agnes able to order in faster connections from July.

Customers connected to the Waverley exchange in Edinburgh will be able to order in FTTP from September onwards.

From March to May 2013, exchanges in Basingstoke, Cardiff, Manchester Central and Watford will run 330Mbps downstream and 30Mbps upstream lines.

June 27, 2012

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