New Plusnet customer, first impressions

[#1]

BT supply two different fibre services - FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet), which is rolling out across the country. BT market it as BT Infinity. The other is FTTP (Fibre to the Premises). This is currently undergoing trials.

[#2]

OK.  But whats the answer to my question?

[#3]

the signal dosnt fly through the air, it has have a physical connection, in the case of FTTC the DSLAM is in the Fiber cabinet down the road and the BT Speedtouch man has to run a link wire through to the old Analogue cabinet

[#4]

Quote from: fourfourdevon

whats the answer to my question?

The answer is in the answer...
FTTP stands for fibre to the premises. That means your connection is purely fibre, with no copper line involvement at all.

[#5]

Yes, I am not stupid.
My question '... is FTTP another "how to get better speed over the last mile of copper" as ADSL2+ et al are, or do they really put fibre into the premises of the customer?'

[#6]

Quote from: Jaggies

FTTP stands for fibre to the premises. That means your connection is purely fibre, with no copper line involvement at all.

OK, well thats what I would have assumed, but I have read posts here where people talk about Openreach changing the panels on their phone points and being able to revert back to ADSL merely by swapping the front panel back and having a cable replugged at the exchange.
That doesn't make sense to me at all.

[#7]

Quote from: fourfourdevon

OK, well thats what I would have assumed, but I have read posts here where people talk about Openreach changing the panels on their phone points and being able to revert back to ADSL merely by swapping the front panel back and having a cable replugged at the exchange.

That would only be possible with FTTC, and the reconnection would be by reverting the copper line from the fibre cabinet to the original cabinet.. FTTP is fibre all the way.
I don't know enough about it to say for sure that it's an easy process to revert back, but I assume that BT leave the last section of copper wire in place so that it can be reconnected if necessary.
Bear in mind that FTTP is only a trial just now, and very few people are actually connected in that fashion. FTTC is the fibre product with the majority of coverage.

[#8]

http://community.plus.net/fttp_faq/

Quote

The engineer will run fibre from the nearest distribution point to your property. In most cases this will be run alongside your existing copper either underground or over a pole.

[#9]

Quote from: et0

Oh, I get that.   But in this case, my telephone line is already connected to the DSLAM, and already has a modem allocated to it - what I'm using right now.   It's a Market 1 exchange so there is no choice of racks. So to the layman like me, I can't see the need for any *physical* intervention.  Is that right, anyone know?

So anyway, back to me signing up
The router showed up yesterday (that was quick) complete with a sticker giving the password and IP address for the control panel.  So that's good.
Can anyone comment on my question above?

[#10]

Baring a fault and you needing to plug the new modem in, I would say yes, no more physical intervention.

[#11]

So...  Why the 7 day delay whenever you change between ISPs?! 

[#12]

Some manual configuration does have to be carried out, after all don't forget that your log in credentials change when you change providers, the other reason is just that its the lead time provided for the majority of migration orders by BT Wholesale, some migration orders will complete sooner but we'd rather give a broader lead time to set better expectations.

[#13]

I have a message to say broadband has been activated, a day earlier than estimated.  No going back now! 
I am currently still running on AOL, will change over to PN as soon as I get home..

[#14]

Great, it works, no problem!   And amazingly, it's now fast enough to watch streaming TV, even around teatime, where it wasn't fast enough for streaming radio before.  Thanks Plusnet!
I have two questions to ask support:  Because I can now watch streaming video I'm going to get through a lot more data than before, the 10 GB is not going to be enough, so I want to find out if I can switch to the Extra package without losing the 3 months discounted rate.
And: I've realised my old router is still perfectly adequate, maybe I can return the new one...

[#15]

Quote

Insert Quote Great, it works, no problem!  And amazingly, it's now fast enough to watch streaming TV, even around teatime, where it wasn't fast enough for streaming radio before.  Thanks Plusnet!

You sound so surprised No problem we're happy to hear that things are going well so far
To answer your questions, yes you can switch to extra and keep the 3 months for free. Please raise a ticket or give us a call and we'll do schedule that to happen on your next billing date.
You can send back the router if you like but you've already paid postage and packing so my advice would be to hang onto it in case you need a spare, especially as we do request that you try an alternate router in the event of a fault with your service. So let me know what you decide on that one.
Hope all is well with you,
Adam.