Re: SHARON WHITE, OFCOM - WE NEED A FIRM DATE TO START THE LONG PROCESS OF SWITCHING OF COPPER.
My name is in black and white unlike yours.
I've written my views on UK's broadband here and elsewhere since 2008 (inc TV transmission, advocating iPlayer technologies over the Digital Switchover long before iPlayer became mainstream).
Back then, it was the technical deliverables of up to 40Mbps FTTC (before it was deployed) what I posted then (probably the first person to post technical pitfalls of FTTC) remains valid today in terms of speed/distances achieved. That's quite a technical feat, maybe I should call myself Commswonk?
And you are exactly?
Self-grandee titled hidden anonymous "Commswonk" (blowing your own trumpet somewhat, for someone so set in the past at preserving POTS-Plain Old Telephone Service).
Sorry to burst your bubble, but there is no way copper lines* longer than 500m could ever get blanket ultrafast 100Mbps+ speeds over copper reliably or cheaply as I've explained (and explained).
As soon as start deploying copper solutions for lines longer than 500m, the costs and amount of active technology (number of nodes) required spiral, as does the electricity running costs and maintenance. Hence, why it would be a 'can of worms' to fault find on such a network.
The same bullshit paraded by BT apologists including weasels Ofcom "we're technology agnostic, don't blame us -Ofcom". The utopia that 'future' copper technologies can still come to the rescue of these customers with lines longer than 500m+, it can't and won't, well not in any real world situation.
Blanket ultrafast 100Mbps+ coverage (what we should be aiming for a minimum, for the UK as whole) just can't be done comparatively cheaply using FTTC/G.fast, verses fibre, on these longer 500m+ lines.
It's about time you faced facts, the idea it can is 'delaying' vapourware bullshit, once you add in all the complications G.fast causes. Yep, you can keep patching over the cracks, but it's not the solution.
Pointless G.fast is literally pointless on lines over 500m and the cost of reducing the copper distance, with the incease in mains grid power required, ongoing metered electricity usage of this active G.fast node network, long term it's just a waste of money compared to full fibre rollout.
Fibre optic outweighs it in every aspect at these 500m+ line lengths, as does using a single type of technology, i.e. sticking to Fibre, going forward, retiring the copper network.
Your answer Commswonk is to ignore the plight of customers with copper/alu lines longer than 500m, as though some vapourware mixed solution using a combo of "up to" copper tech will work. It's the wrong approach, it won't and produces an expensive 'can of worms' in maintenance terms. A real practical headache to maintain.
It will become increasingly more expensive to maintain copper based POTS/ADSL/FTTC on short lines near a cabinet when vectored ultrafast frequencies are operating in the adjacent copper cables and mean maintenance/fault finding/firmware upgrade costs will rise. Rurally, there just isn't the manpower to maintain that, and those maintenance costs will be passed onto consumers anyway, and those customer will still have crappy copper.
So your solution is to throw your "good enough?" crumbs, to shut them up. it certainly won't silence everyone and as this (your) generation ages and dies off, the next will be even more vocal to BT's current "Sit on hands approach - wait for handouts".
The bamboozled, obfscuated "up to" problem isn't going away, whatever copper carcass crumbs you want to throw.
As I've said, who are BT to say what is "Good enough?", they don't have a good past record here.
I'm writing for the many (mainly the plight of the non-technical consumer/and their MPs) that don't understand the technical limitations of their crappy obfuscated, bamboozled "up to" BT Broadband over 500m or longer cursed copper lines, that still (stupidly) believes one day they too will get ultrafast 100Mbps+ G.fast over that copper line, over that 500m+ distance. In the real world - they won't.
Who are you writing for?
Yourself. Self interest, nothing else. It's you that is thinking of the few. (well just yourself by the looks of it). And all because you are individually obsessed by keeping AGE UK 's aid call device working on POTS line. So can we assume you have more than a singular vested interest in Age UK's Aid Call over POTS.
*(real world wet string twisted pair 0.5mm BT copper lines)