Welsh community builds FTTP 1Gb broadband network to leave 4Mb speeds behind

[WYP]

Need fast internet? Why not build it yourself?



Read more about the Welsh community that built their own FTTP 1Gb broadband service.

 

[Damien c]

Good on them, and they did most of the work themselves which would have saved a fortune.

The woman who by the sound of it taught herself how to splice fibres, if she get's qualified will have a nice new career option is she want's it.

The big ISP's should take note, although I know most are going to be looking to role these sort of speeds out over the next few years anyway.

 

[Chopper3]

There's 365 people live in that town, if 100% of households there pay £30/month then they'll repay that £150k investment in about 4 years or so - this won't including ongoing maintenance costs, upgrades and may not include actual external bandwidth costs - which can be significant depending on how much they're buying. If they're only buying a 1Gbps (LES) line then that could fit into their budget but would mean each household getting around 10Mbps, not the fastest village in Wales then. If they're buying 10Gbps links this will not fit into their budget, in fact it'll double it, and they'd get 100Gbps each - which today would make them one of the fastest, but far from the fastest, village in Wales.

It's great that they've put their own money into doing this but the economies don't work, not long-term anyway - as they don't for 'Big ISPs' - DSL rollout is limited by physics and economics, which are universal.

 

[Emu]

There's 365 people live in that town, if 100% of households there pay £30/month then they'll repay that £150k investment in about 4 years or so - this won't including ongoing maintenance costs, upgrades and may not include actual external bandwidth costs - which can be significant depending on how much they're buying. If they're only buying a 1Gbps (LES) line then that could fit into their budget but would mean each household getting around 10Mbps, not the fastest village in Wales then. If they're buying 10Gbps links this will not fit into their budget, in fact it'll double it, and they'd get 100Gbps each - which today would make them one of the fastest, but far from the fastest, village in Wales.

It's great that they've put their own money into doing this but the economies don't work, not long-term anyway - as they don't for 'Big ISPs' - DSL rollout is limited by physics and economics, which are universal.

You missed the "applied for every grant available" part. They may have only been 150k out of pocket but the actual funds available is probably much higher then that. It is also stated that the cost is 30 per month for early adopters and will go up eventually.

DSL rollouts are limited to the fact that DSL is relying on the copper wire infrastructure which is pretty poor in more areas then you would think - analog signals are much more forgiving about interference then what a digital signal like xDSLs are.

Fibre is literally the most economic technology to roll out en-masse. The Australian government could have saved $40B+ by continuing their fibre rollout instead of having a "we crapped all over it and now we need to do something different to justify our position" change to VDSL. Sure the VDSL was quicker to rollout but it will be obsolete by the time it is done.

 

[AlienALX]

It's cool but it kinda grinds my gears. Let me explain why..

A supposed large chunk of the price we pay for broadband in the UK is supposedly because they use it to expand and better the service. IE - they reinvest it to make it better for all. However, as this Welsh village found out if the cost of fitting it returns an eggy investment (IE not massive profit) then companies like BT simply don't bother. It's the same reason why my mother's broadband was crud for so many years and why there is no cable down here at all, anywhere.

So when you think about it it just shows that greedy lying side of human nature all the more