Superfast Fibre Broadband on the Estate

[Nico Macdonald]

Looks like fibre-based Internet access may be coming to Golden Lane Estate, based on notices on the noticeboards. See: Where and when - Superfast Fibre Broadband and enter your Post Code, and the @superfastcity Twitter account. 

I am not clear what has made this possible when all the research done has indicated it's either not possible or too expensive to upgrade our infrastructure. Perhaps it won't be fibre-to-the-home and thus cheaper/easier and not as broad or reliable. 

It will be interesting to review the experience of Barbican residents with respect to theVision Fibre Media fibre-based Internet access, which I sense is mixed at best. 

[nathan]

It looks like the cabinet will be fibre and the old copper lines to all flats will be connected to the cabinet, I could be mistaken, copied this from bt checker for the new fibre:-

"We're connecting power to the new fibre cabinet and joining the new fibre lines to the existing copper network. You can't order a fibre service today but typically it'll be available to your premises within the next four months.
If you'd like to know when you can order fibre, register your details.
Find out more about the fibre journey."

[Nico Macdonald]

Thanks for the note Nathan. Hopefully we will find out sooner than later about performance issues, and how this will relate to our existing ISPs. 

[nathan]

There is probably more info via google about connecting old copper wire to a fibre optic cabinet.

[JM]

Hi Nathan.  As far as I am aware, most superfast optic fibre broadband ends at the street cabinet and the cabinet to home is generally copper.  "Old" copper is still pretty good and works well, so this shouldn't be an issue.  We don't really need fibre right to the home (fibre is fastest when it's straightest, as it's light (laser) carrying the information rather than electrons being carried by the copper) as it would likely be prohibitively expensive for limited speed gain.  Unless you are performing micro/millisecond financial transactions worth £billions from your home line (?) the speed difference for us shouldn't be noticeable.  Apols if you know all this already - I know a man who knows this stuff so thought I'd share what he told me.

:-)

nathan said:

There is probably more info via google about connecting old copper wire to a fibre optic cabinet.

[Nico Macdonald]

Very good explanation Jean. I asked an OpenReach engineering in Golden Lane about this and, while he didn't know if the Estate was going to get fibre-enabled broadband, he did indicate that fibre-to-the-cabinet was most likely, and an adequate upgrade. He noted that the distance to the exchange was key. Our exchange – Clerkenwell – is just north of Ironmonger Row Baths and having the fibre terminate at a local cabinet would significant different to the distance travelled over copper.