Need for Speed: Kat’s troubles with fibre-to-cabinet broadband provision

I’m in the process of moving house: stressful at the best of times. My little anarcho-technophile commune is easily shocked by the real world and was appalled to find that our new home – like a surprisingly large swathe of North London – isn’t covered by Virgin Media’s cable service. Even though broadband availability checkers such as Sam Knows confirmed that Virgin provided cable to the general area. The information may be inaccurate, or perhaps our street is just unlucky. Either way, our hopes of an upgrade to 100Mbit/s were dashed.

For all of us, a fast internet connection is a key tool for both work and entertainment; at least one of my flatmates is contractually obliged to maintain a certain minimum connection speed at home and the addition of new net addicts to the household will only increase our bandwidth consumption. Revolution threatened, people swore. It wasn’t pretty.

CALM DOWN DEAR, IT’S ONLY BROADBAND

We calmed down a bit when BT’s Broadband Availability Checker informed us that the exchange supported BT’s new Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC) fast ADSL, which has a maximum speed of 40Mbit/s. A bit more checking told us that we might have to wait a few weeks for it to be fully rolled out to BT’s street cabinets, but it’s still good enough for us.

Virgin, to their credit, cancelled our cable TV service without batting an eyelid. However, a few months ago, they’d replaced our failed cable modem with a new Super Hub cable router and offered us a cheap upgrade to 30Mbit/s from our existing 20Mbit/s. We jumped at the chance and were pleased to find that – as promised -we were achieving speeds of 30Mbit/s.

Still, Virgin offers ADSL, and an equivalent 30Mbit/s should be well within the scope of FTTC ADSL speeds, given our new home’s short distance from both the exchange and the nearest street cabinet. We’d happily put up with 17-18Mbit/s for a month or so until the rollout was complete.

Unfortunately, Virgin ADSL will not be taking part in the FTTC rollout. They’re not alone in this; only a handful of ISPs have confirmed their participation, including Zen and ADSL24. An independent list of providers and packages is currently maintained here.

A key reason that so few ADSL resellers are jumping on the FTTC bandwagon comes down to its cost. Not only do end users have to pay a fair sum for the service but the DSLAM (Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer) units that must be installed in each street cabinet don’t come cheap.

Andrew Saunders, Zen Internet’s Head of Product Management and Marketing, notes that “the rental cost of the [FTTC] circuit is considerably more than for [conventional] ADSL and having a faster service means that people use it more. Capacity costs: it drives an increase in usage, which means we need to put more capacity on our networks. FTTC costs more to provide but it is a great service, which is why we positioned it as a premium price product.”

Uptake of FTTC ADSL by most ISPs has been slow in general. Part of the reason for this is that it’s not universally available, even within the area covered by a single exchange. The rollout is massively complex and expensive, involving tens to hundreds of cabinets, which can’t all be upgraded at once. This means that companies like Zen have to check not just availability at the exchange, but also for availability on each individual line via the cabinet it’s connected to.

VIRGIN TERRITORY?

In Virgin Media’s case, there’s the added issue of potential confusion. Press Executive Ashley Scott told us that “[FTTC ADSL from Virgin] is possible, but we wouldn’t be able to deliver a service that’s in line with what customers would expect from a Virgin fibre product.” She also noted that most FTTC rollout areas to date are in large cities that are already well covered by Virgin’s cable service – the rural areas most in need of fast broadband have yet to see the benefits. Virgin’s official stance is that the company is looking into FTTC and will post an announcement as soon there’s news.

From a purely selfish perspective, I’m not happy. With Virgin Media currently unable to provide me with an equivalent fast FTTC ADSL service to replace my 30Mbits/s cable, I’ve looked into breaking my contract – with the associated painful cost – in the hope of finding another ISP: one that will offer me connection speeds that are up to the demands of a house full of data-hungry IT professionals with a net fixation.

Alternatively, we could view this as a valuable opportunity to go outside and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine…