FTTP and Hub Questions

[minimos]

Hi,

I am considering switching to Virgin from a BT provisioned FTTC line as the full FTTP rollout from BT appears to be stalled in my area, and I'm seeing decreasing sync speeds due to a full cabinet currently hovering in the mid 50's for download.

As I want to leverage faster speeds and my current contract is up I have been looking at my options.  Virgins current offerings although a little but pricey compared to what I am paying now look good on headline speeds.

I have a number of questions, the overriding one being

1. Does Virgin implemented FTTP suffer from higher latency when in a congested area like the HFC product?

Now of course, this main headliner leads to a number of sub questions about whether I can actually get FTTP in my property and how I go about identifying that.

I believe I am in a project lightening area as Virgin was deployed into my new build estate circa 2017 after Project Lightening was announced, so I believe most installs will be Fibre to the Omibox outside the property and then terminated to Coax inside the property.  

How do I identify that FTTP is actually utilised in my area?  I am guessing a tell tale sign may be the boxes outside the property as from doing my research they appear to be bigger than previous cable boxes, however there are not enough results returned for me to categorically prove this theory.  Does any one have  recent pictures of the various boxes used throughout the years on install, or any staff members can give an indicator of what an FTTP box would look like? 

As you can probably tell knowing the underlying technology I may get is quite important to me, especially as latency and packet loss is my number 1 concern about any switch.

Secondly, what are the odds that I will get a Hub 5 if I get a new install of a 1gig provisioned line?

There appears to be comments in the forum about a shortage of Hub 5's, and some customers are being given a hub 4 with a promise to upgrade later.  Is this still the case?

Finally, if I did go ahead with an order and ended up with a Hub 4, I'd probably end up running it in modem mode and utilise my own router (I'd prefer the Hub 5 as it has a 2.5gb port that would work nicely with the corresponding port on my router).  Does the Hub 4 modem exhibit any issues that may affect latency etc when purely running as a modem?

Apologies for the many questions, and for anyone who may have nodded off as they are very dry.

Thanks in advance for any insight people can provide?

Thanks

Wayne

[minimos]

Thanks for the frank and honest replies.

Being a gladiator is certainly not on my list of aspirations (too many lions) so the thought of meeting VM CS fills me with dread.

I'm swinging towards staying as I am (will review after a week of BQM stats) based on the feedback, and certainty because I don't want to get locked out of the BT cabinet in 18 months when someone takes my slot should ridiculous prices come around.

I have viewed the link you posted Andrew-G re BQM on normal lines.  Certainly seems big variances, with one example on par with what I currently believe I have. A moderate increase of ping I can live with as long as it is consistent and not seeing large repeatable spikes at peak times.

I think what I have gathered is each person will see different characteristics on the line, its a shame we have no way of marrying BQM graphs to areas and cross reference to deployment type e.h RFoG or HFC as that would give a clearer picture.

[Client62]

Having illuminated the dark side of life with VM ! 

The upside of RFoG deployed into a mature residential area is the numbers of properties are well defined and only expand slowly so the service level can be well judged for what is needed now and for the future which is XGS-PON. Some of the older HFC area pre-date Virgin Media and have see both a  housing boom and over the last two decades a quite astonishing ramp up in home data usage for an ever wider range of devices.

I've not done the BQM graphs, when I can have a 90 min Skype call without and audio or video glitches I'm quite content.

For interest this is our RFoG M125 connection, the desktop is an HP Workstation on a short network cable.

[Andrew-G]

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@Client62 wrote:

We are at West Bergholt, but the telephone exchange is Fordham this means a an ADSL service of 1.5/0.5Mb/s is a jolly good day. Openreach & their retail ISPs did not and still do not have FTTC or FTTP on offer for us. Openreach FTTP may come with the end of analogue phone lines, or that is my hope.

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Well, at least Fordham exchange is on Openreach's official list to be upgraded. 

I got lucky, my area wasn't listed at all, it suddenly appeared on the list about a year ago, within six months there was Openreach activity and in about nine months availability to order.  And then I was able to take my business to an ISP that does 12 month fixed terms, doesn't do "in-term" price rises, and treats customer service as central to its business (and offered much better latency).  Something else to keep an eye open for is that it seems to me that when an Openreach area is newly FTTP'd, there's often ISP deals available with no installation or reconnection charge, and if you've been with VM for a while, you'll be paying an Openreach connection fee unless you spot those deals and take advantage of them.  I assume that Openreach offer ISP's incentives to promote take up of FTTP shortly after they've made it available, and those incentives will be time limited, but I haven't got any proof of that.

[Client62]

POTS + ADSL only exchange Fordham "EAFOR" is on the upgrade list ? I have not see that.

There is Openreach FTTP on telegraph poles in under a quarter of the village and for a state junior school. 

It cost the residents almost £100k to encourage Openreach to install and the feed came from another local exchange that had FTTx services.

The Openreach FTTP cables are barely 5 mins walk from us.

In 2017 Openreach sat on its hands and watched all their ADSL customer migrate to VM.