Re: City Fibre
 

I see why they won't do it, I was just asserting that they won't.

If Cityfibre actually complete all the towns they have planned, they will also be a genuinely national provider.

Re: City Fibre
 

Hopefully alt nets drive coverage and competition.

As you say if one becomes national (or the sum of them does) then it represents competition at a national level.

As Pierre pointed out earlier though as it’s cost prohibitive to deploy the challenge is if there’s someone already there (FTTP or Virgin) and you are fighting over market share from Day 1 it’s often more appealing to go elsewhere.

Re: City Fibre
 

Yeah, you'd definitely think that, yet neither Cityfibre (who are going hard on their deployment), or others like toob in Southampton seem to consider VM competition.

I guess they are planning on significantly undercutting them, with a product that can easily be scaled to XS-GPON and beyond for little additional cost (no need to replace any cables etc, unlike the work VM have to do for node splits).

I mean, 20x the upload for more than 1/3rd less than Gig1, with much better latency than DOCSIS can achieve? Hell, in the case of toob it's £25/m to £64/m from VM. You'd be a fool not to switch.

VM can of course do GPON over their fibre in RFoG areas, it can coexist with DOCSIS, but that raises the "national product" issue again.

That said I've heard that CF are not achieving the level of penetration they hoped for. Personally I think this is at least partly down to lack of hype/advertisement. Most people here in Ipswich don't even know they exist or are rolling out.

Re: City Fibre
 

VM are going to overbuild their HFC network with fibre, and the two networks will operate in tandem. Those happy with what they’re getting can stay on HFC, higher users can transfer to fibre, thereby easing the demands on the HFC. This will start either late this year or early next.

And yes, replacing RFoG with XGPoN is very much in development and will be deployed as soon as.

Re: City Fibre
 

Interesting, I assume you work for VM? This sounds like a long term project that will take a long time to complete, as it's most of the way to deploying a new network, unless VM have a lot of spare duct space, but this is one of those things that probably varies heavily by area, and which cable company built it in the 80s/90s.


I mean it's less in development and more there are already commercial off the shelf solutions for it, it's just WDM which is already used to increase density in RFoG areas, except another frequency for GPON/XGPON.

Re: City Fibre
 

Fibre is smaller than coax, They would probably use the old cable to draw the fibre through

Re: City Fibre
 

Pierre - have VM said anything publicly on overbuild?

Not disputing your posts here - 100% sure you are correct. I'd be quite interested to read more if in public domain just out of curiousity.

Re: City Fibre
 

That works if it's replacement, less so if it's operating in tandem as the guy I replied to suggested. Also doesn't work for direct buried cables, as certainly the last few meters per customer usually are.

Re: City Fibre
 

No, and it's unlikely they will until the build is well underway and dates for releasing areas have been confirmed. Trust me it's happening, I know what the project is called.

Re: City Fibre
 

As I said, wasn’t disputing it will be interesting to read about it when they go public.

Re: City Fibre
 

Interesting.

In my streets in Coventry we have the old NTL network, but a few streets away, where VM previously had nothing, they have installed FTTP as part of their new Coventry South network. VM doesn't offer these customers any products different to what they offer on NTL cable. FTTP hasn't been fully exploited. So, at what point do VM offer a full symmetrical service on their new fibre and on the fibre over-building existing cable? Is the answer to this question more to do with VM's network architecture than fibre or cable?

Re: City Fibre
 

VM's network architecture

Re: City Fibre
 

Because right now they use rfog, which means it's the same docsis system with zero advantages from a customer perspective, although from VM's perspective it's cheaper to maintain, doesn't need power, fibre is cheaper, and the runs can be a lot longer.

They can do gpon and rfog (for TV etc) over the same fibre with wdm, but they don't want to do that yet as they want one range of products nationwide.

Re: City Fibre
 

Sorry ... groupon and frogs and what the what now?

Anyone got a helpful glossary to hand here? This all sounds like it ought to be interesting, if only I could follow it... :D

Re: City Fibre
 

RFoG, Radio Frequency over Glass.

Disappointingly turns an Optical Fibre into a Coax, but without the losses.

It meant that VM could roll out a full fibre network but deliver the exact same services as it’s HFC network (with the exact same limitations) but not need to change any of the back office systems and headend kit.

Because the FTTP network is passive, it doesn’t matter what you put over it. RFoG today, tomorrow XGS-PON. XGS-PON was always the end game and still is.

The HFC will get you to 10G, and probably beyond but it is estimated it will be at end of life between 2035-2040. So a fibre overbuild will be required.

There is a lot of work to be done with the backbone Access network architecture before you get to the delivery.