TonyP Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 I've just had a representative of Fibrecity come to my door. Apparently Bournemouth has been chosen to be the first town in the UK to become a "fibrecity". From what I can make out you are under no obligation to sign up to any services but they want you to agree to have a box put on/in your house. Anyway, when she tried using scare tactics to sign me up I sent her away with a flea in her ear. (You know the sort of thing "If you sign up now it's free but in three years EVERYONE will be using it and then it'll cost you £500". I hate it when they try things like that! Does anyone here know anything about them? Is it worth it? All of their literature seems a bit vague as to exactly what services they will be offering, when and at what cost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 What is it? Your linky no worky Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyP Posted April 17, 2009 Author Share Posted April 17, 2009 http://www.fibrecity.eu/bournemouth/index.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGav Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 I have heard about this before, utilizing the existing sewer system in order to put fibre optic throughout. It is a good idea, HOWEVER as with all things like this the technology isn't the sticky point, adoption and management will be. It is just another way of getting comms to your house and HOPEFULLY one that succeeds BUT then there have been so many other ways that have failed due to commercial reasons. If you are the only one in your area who says yes, then they wouldn't run it just for you due to commercial costs.... Does of course mean that when "man with digger" digs up a sewer he is probably going to take out a few fibre lines, and that definitely wouldn't be the first time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Massey Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 Dont go with them, they are trying to cash in before it happens. BT have been told by the government that they have to install fibreoptics to every street by the year 2012 at no charge to the public as BT and the government are picking up the tab Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 So Bournemouth will be a next gen city because it's residents will be able to get their Internet porn quicker? I suppose it then affords them to get on with something else with the time they've saved waiting for pages to load? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caseys Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 Fibrecity. As Gav said it's going to be run via the sewers, it's becoming known as Fibre Through The Toilet. The Uni and the Council are already fibred up. 50-100Mb speeds is just plain laughable. Virgin admittedly are only at 50Mb but Fibre is a heck of a lot faster than that. 4Gb and 8Gb kit is very cheap now compared to where it was 18 months ago. Gav I believe there's a grant via the Government for this rollout, so if one person wants it in the street they're gonna get it. I guess it'll be run at a loss but Fibrecity won't care, the Government are lining their wallet + profits. I tried to get a signup to get more info but unfortunately I'm about 1km out of the cachement area! Just wait for the Government to get their act in gear and get proper switching kit in the junction boxes. I bet within 5 years time you'll see 2Gb+ connection speeds to your ISP at least. The bottleneck for internet speeds will soon become your networking kit (card or router) or your hard drive BT have to go Fibre to survive. Big ISPs like Sky are pushing for it to compete with Virgin, or at least force the Government to break Virgin's monopoly on Fibre access (even though Virgin/NTL/Telewest et al paid the £££ up front for the infrastructure in the first place). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyP Posted April 17, 2009 Author Share Posted April 17, 2009 Fibrecity. As Gav said it's going to be run via the sewers, it's becoming known as Fibre Through The Toilet. The Uni and the Council are already fibred up. 50-100Mb speeds is just plain laughable. Virgin admittedly are only at 50Mb but Fibre is a heck of a lot faster than that. 4Gb and 8Gb kit is very cheap now compared to where it was 18 months ago. Gav I believe there's a grant via the Government for this rollout, so if one person wants it in the street they're gonna get it. I guess it'll be run at a loss but Fibrecity won't care, the Government are lining their wallet + profits. I tried to get a signup to get more info but unfortunately I'm about 1km out of the cachement area! Just wait for the Government to get their act in gear and get proper switching kit in the junction boxes. I bet within 5 years time you'll see 2Gb+ connection speeds to your ISP at least. The bottleneck for internet speeds will soon become your networking kit (card or router) or your hard drive BT have to go Fibre to survive. Big ISPs like Sky are pushing for it to compete with Virgin, or at least force the Government to break Virgin's monopoly on Fibre access (even though Virgin/NTL/Telewest et al paid the £££ up front for the infrastructure in the first place). So should I sign up or not? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGav Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 So should I sign up or not? Depends on how much... I personally would (caveat obviously being checking the fine print and such like) Casey and I speak the same tech language, and I personally would love to see community wide based fibre networks distributing not just 'internet' access but complete communications. ADSL and other based copper systems simply can't compete with the raw speed and upgradeability of fibre. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caseys Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 So should I sign up or not? Heh, sorry sometimes I do wonder off the topic. What was the costs? Is there a download limit? Is there a 'throttling' policy or fair usage policy? I haven't been down the Bournemouth library yet to check on the info. If you can get it for say £40 guaranteed for 24 months with no limits on download/bandwidth I'd say it's worthwhile if installation is relatively low cost. If it's > £40-45/month, and there is a limit or throttling I'd just tell them to beggar off. You may as well get a bundled package with Virgin or Sky. If you haven't got a price already that they'll commit to you did the right thing in sending them away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyP Posted April 17, 2009 Author Share Posted April 17, 2009 Heh, sorry sometimes I do wonder off the topic. What was the costs? Is there a download limit? Is there a 'throttling' policy or fair usage policy? I haven't been down the Bournemouth library yet to check on the info. If you can get it for say £40 guaranteed for 24 months with no limits on download/bandwidth I'd say it's worthwhile if installation is relatively low cost. If it's > £40-45/month, and there is a limit or throttling I'd just tell them to beggar off. You may as well get a bundled package with Virgin or Sky. If you haven't got a price already that they'll commit to you did the right thing in sending them away. That's the thing the details are very sketchy. All you initially have to agree to is to allow them to install a "box". Apparently there is no obligation to use it after that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caseys Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 That's the thing the details are very sketchy. All you initially have to agree to is to allow them to install a "box". Apparently there is no obligation to use it after that. If you're not downloading gigabytes of data a day... then no (I don't know anything legitimate that takes up gigabytes of data a day). It's just not worth this apparent hassle and all the vagueness. You won't benefit at all from the speeds (I doubt HD TV will advance that much in 2-3 years) and I doubt it'll be cheaper than ADSL or Virgin's cable boxes now. Give it 2-3 years and fibre will be a plain normal commodity/utility. Just as ADSL/Cable has become now compared to where it was 3-4 years ago when many people had dialup. Gav you're a utopian I like your vision and zanyness, but alas our country just doesn't have the mentality for community networks or resources ... I'd still like to see the day where society is more like The Culture from Iain M Banks books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGav Posted April 17, 2009 Share Posted April 17, 2009 Gav you're a utopian Yup, now all I need to do is find someone to fund my utopian village and everyone can move in. VOIP access for all, open bandwidth, on access demand to media, shared green energy banks etc etc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caseys Posted May 5, 2010 Share Posted May 5, 2010 25Mb/s - £9.95/month 50Mb/s - £29.95/month 100Mb/s - £39.95/month (inc free international landline calls) All inc free weekend/off peak national landline calls Velocity 1 Plan : # Velocity1 Big Bundle £19.99 per month +£10 fibre rental per month.* # Up to 100Mb/s with Unlimited Usage. ** # 10 free one-hour boosts of up to 1Gb/s every month. http://www.fibrecity.eu/commercial/services/service-bundles/ But fibrecity need to sort out their website. Doesn't work in IE6, fine in firefox tho. Maybe worth shifting off Virgin Media for... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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