I posted a response from our MD yesterday however it's nowhere to be seen so let's try again.... We use a point to point ethernet approach and as such the active equipment sits in a common area (usually a communications room) in the basement of a development. Our cabling is terminated in the flat with a passive RJ45 faceplate. Our router has the footprint of a normal broadband router with no additional power nor environmental conditions necessary. Hyperoptic is not necessarily digging roads nor laying a new in-the-ground infrastructure but is using services previously used by large corporates for their connectivity. By providing this connectivity across a residential development we are able to create a residential service at a value price point for our customers. As we do not use the last mile infrastructure (read: copper network) of Openreach we do not need to pay any rental fees to them and so don't need to recover that cost in our prices. So while we can appreciate why it may sound too good to be true, especially compared to other Fibre services, we can assure you that our business model is proven and we are committed to making our service available to suitable commercial and residential developments that welcome the benefits true fibre can bring.
There is absolutely zero possibility of an ISP being able to guarantee that all of their customers will be able to simultaneously have a 1Gb connection to any server worldwide. The global infrastructure, let alone the UK infrastructure... let alone these guys infrastructure is ready for this. You go with this and I suspect you'll get an amazingly fast connection but one that will vary depending on when and where you're connecting to. EG: Do you think any cloud provider is able to supply a 1Gb connection to each and every connected user? No way. What about Facebook? Google? No...? Nobody is geared up for that level of bandwidth. So even if the contention ratio is 1:1 all the way offshore (It won't be!) you'll rarely see a full 1Gb in normal use as the severs you're connecting to won't always be able to support links of that speed... if they can at all. It's free for six months, see what guarantees they have that it'll work, be reliable and be as fast as it reasonably should be expected to be (Don't assume it'll be 1Gb to ANY server in ANY location at ANY time).
It's just FTTP. BT are rolling this out at the moment to test areas etc. It's an extension of their FTTC they're doing at the moment. Big fibre line to the street cabinet then replace the copper between the cabinet & the home with fibre.
All I know of hyperoptic has already been stated in the thread (same people that did bethere). They'll do their equipment to the buildings then distribute from there.
A couple of posts from the Hyperoptic chap approved (been in the mod queue), in case you were wondering why they've randomly appeared.
Well that's me out of this thread because I cannot say anymore as I now know who will provide the infrastructure for this service, and my personal oppinions could land in hot water at work. Hope it all goes well for anyone who signs up and HyperOptic.
Hmm, interesting. Well, thanks Hyperoptic for joining in this thread. So what building work needs to be done? do you need to drill holes in my wall or anything? Are is it 100% existing infrastructure, right through to my PC? I'm in a flat so the rules are no modifications to the building in any way.
So if I'm understanding correctly, you've leased or bought dark fiber, thus negating the cost of actually building out the network?
Be used a similar thing for there infastructure putting the required equipement in already enabled bt boxes in most cases. Id guess thats the main reason there fiber network has took so long to get out the gates as they dont personally own the infastructure, Its leased via BT via O2. ( Who do technically own BE)
O2 only now own BE - back in the early days of BE (ie: when I joined! Ahh, black modems) they had nothing to do with Telefonica/O2, but a buyout occurred a few years back. For ADSL2+ BE definitely owned the hardware in the exchanges (DSLAMs), but then used Openreach's cabling to the premises. With fibre I think things are a bit more complex, but I was disappointed that BE couldn't get a fibre product together (whereas Sky and PlusNet managed it, albeit by reselling what Openreach was offering) nor could they give a date estimation. As such I hopped to Infinity, but would be happy to go back when BE get their act together and launch a product. As for Hyperoptic? Sounds good to me, but limited to large residential developments rather than your average home. It has always been the case that your connection can outrun that of a server you are connected to, and a gigabit connection would simply magnify that issue. The fact that Hyperoptic is basically a BE spin-off (well kind of) just reinforces the fact that it should be good.
