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Deddington to be first fibre only exchange in UK
Thursday 29 March 2012 10:23:01 by Andrew Ferguson

House prices in Deddington, which lies between Banbury and Oxford may soon be about to go up, as the village telephone exchange is set to become the first fibre only exchange as part of a pilot that in time will see fibre only exchanges becoming the standard.

"We are excited to be the first community in the UK to be piloting this latest innovation in telecommunications. Not only will our residents and businesses be able to take advantage of ultra-fast broadband speeds but Deddington is also helping pave the way for the services of the future"

Councillor Jim Flux, Chairman of Deddington Parish Council

This means that the existing copper local loop will be removed and replaced with FTTP serving the 1,400 lines currently on the exchange. This means broadband speeds of 300 Mbps will be possible, though until more providers have announced their FTTP products it will be hard to say what exact speeds will be offered, a range of 40 Mbps to 300 Mbps at various price points is expected.

The launch of the Fibre Voice Access earlier in 2012, and the final guidelines on battery backup were preludes to the start of this pilot. The work to upgrade the infrastructure will start this Spring, with the ultra-fast services being available from 2013 onwards.

Update 11am: The full BT press release of the announcement is now available

[ Topic: Broadband | 23 comments | link to this item ]

Comments

Posted by jumpmum about 1 year ago
Cannot get much more rural than this in Southern England. Hope this pleases Cyberdoyle at last.

Posted by Michael_Chare about 1 year ago
It is nice that they have picked a rural exchange. A 1 hour battery backup is inadequate. I do wonder how this will fit in with the BDUK funding plans.

Posted by desouzr about 1 year ago
It will mean one less place in the local authority area that will not require BDUK funding.

Posted by andrew ( staff member) about 1 year ago
In terms of overlap, Openreach and other providers are meant to provide in confidence details of commerical roll-out plans.

Those in the village of Deddington, were probably getting well over 2 Mbps already, as exchange is in the South East corner of the village.

Posted by themanstan about 1 year ago
Oxfordshire is the most rural of the south/southeast counties, there are plenty of towns larger than Oxford.

Good choice, mix of farming rural community and house in the country affluent professionals.

Posted by aledm about 1 year ago
I'm afraid this is another move by BT to lock out competition.

http://wiredcounty.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/fibre-only-exchanges-ultimate-bt-lock.html

BT needs a monopoly so they can drip-feed broadband roll-out; offering minor increases in speeds every year or so rather than the order-of-magnitude leaps that the technology is capable of.

BT are milking every penny from the public and tricking them into being grateful for it too.

Posted by Saurus about 1 year ago
"BT are milking every penny from the public and tricking them into being grateful for it too."
Absolutely spot on, which is why they are doing very little in Suffolk/Norfolk without the money from BDUK and Local Authorities, they are just hanging back waiting for the cash to drop in their laps. In my area there are 21 exchanges and not one is marked for an upgrade anytime in the long term let alone medium to short term

Posted by themanstan about 1 year ago
SO which competition are they locking out and, why haven't those competitors taken advantage of BT sitting on their hands and rolled out a network?

Posted by herdwick about 1 year ago
"It will mean one less place in the local authority area that will not require BDUK funding."

is that the same as saying one more area needing BDUK funding ? Too many negatives I fear.

Posted by chrysalis about 1 year ago
It may well be smaller exchanges that are more attractive for FTTP due to lower cost of migration. This keep confirming the trend that rural is the new broadband king and urban is the new slow lane of the digital divide.

Posted by desouzr about 1 year ago
Let me rephrase that:
One less place that will require BDUK funding.

Posted by Legolash2o about 1 year ago
Long time no see, hope you're all OK. Apparently this village only gets upto 6-8Mbps max.

The confusing this is that the article says 40-300Mbps which suggest there will be a bit of FTTC which technically means its not 'fibre-only' :P

Problem is, people will complain when BT do something and upgrade but people also complain when do nothing. Its probably jealousy because as soon as BT update their exchange people suddenly like BT :/

Posted by andrew ( staff member) about 1 year ago
On article no confusion at all.

GEA FTTP is available to buy at speeds of 40 to 110 Mbps currently, rising to 300 Mbps soon.

We did the pricing a month or so ago when Fibre Voice Access was launched.

I have checked with BT, and it is full fibre. Providers may device to offer slower than 40Meg if attemping social type tariffs.

Posted by Legolash2o about 1 year ago
Ignore the FTTC comment in my last post, BT will be offering 40-300Mbps packages, but who would need 300Mbps?? 100Mbps should be enough for anyone.

Personally i think they should have got FTTC, same applies to all rural areas really but towns/cities should get FTTP.

Posted by andrew ( staff member) about 1 year ago
Oddly similar comments were made when 2meg appearred for consumers

Posted by fastman about 1 year ago
Sauras - i assume you comment on little in suffolk/norlk is because your personal exchange not done - think you might want to check how much has actually been invested in those counties and you might be surprissed -- who else have invested in your exchnage i wonder ?

Posted by fastman about 1 year ago
lelolash with FTTP overlay on an FTTC cab that option will become more avalbe from 2013

Posted by ccohen about 1 year ago
Well, I'm on Deddi exchange, about 6km from it in another village and the last but one in the village to get ADSL at all.

I 'normally' get only up to 120Kb/s, but for the last two weeks down to 10-60K and I bet I don't benefit from this.

Posted by pfvincent about 1 year ago
If a small exchange like Deddington is to become fibre only in the foreseeable future, what is to happen to the large exchanges which nominally have FTTC, but only to a few cabinets? Are we ever to see full FTTC, let alone fibre only?

Posted by cooperfamy about 1 year ago
Are you sure that this will not require BDUK funding? The article says nothing about where the money is coming from and Oxfordshire County Council are also keen to see highspeed broadband. As a pilot, it could be partially funded by one or both.

Posted by Dixinormous about 1 year ago
pfvincent - to say that these areas are low down on Openreach's to do list is an understatement.

They'll likely sit and wait for external funding as much as possible.

In the interim they'll just carry on cooking the books and rearranging income to try and pretend Openreach aren't considerably more profitable than they're regulated to be.

Posted by ccohen about 1 year ago
I live in a village on the Deddington exchange. I am not clear on several points, and would like a non-technical explanation. We are about 6km from the exchange. I am the second to last to be able get ADSL and on ‘good’ days get 160KB/s. We have one GPO cabinet and 2-3 manholes, most of us have poles.
Does anyone know if FTTC will actually cover the outlying villages [the Oxford Times says so?
If there is fibre to about 650m from me can I keep my copper and get ‘up to 8Mb’ in place of my present joke of ‘up to 512Kb’, which would do me fine, or do I have to get a new deal, router, etc?

Posted by jumpmum about 1 year ago
ccohen:- Openreach are saying EVERYONE on the exchange will get FTTP. There will be NO FTTC. The intention appears to be to remove ALL the existing services and replace them with Fibre based ones. Voice will have to convert to Voice over Fibreservice as well.