Thursday, December 22nd, 2016 (4:25 pm) - Score 24,472

Openreach (BT) has today announced how much they will charge ISPs to take their new premium 500Mbps (165Mbps upload) and 1Gbps (220Mbps upload) FTTP-on-Demand (FTTPoD) product tiers and naturally you’ll need deep pockets.

Firstly, it’s very important not to confuse FTTPoD with Openreach’s native roll-out of ultrafast Fibre-to-the-Premise (FTTP) based broadband technology. Properties covered by the native roll-out (predicted to cover 2 million UK premises by 2020) should find that the fibre optic cable runs very near to the doorstep of their home or office and thus it attracts a much smaller cost (see here for details).

By comparison FTTPoD is designed to be requested (hence the ‘on demand’ element) in FTTC capable areas where Openreach’s pure FTTP fibre optic cables have yet to reach (the local exchange must also have been upgraded to support it), which in some cases will attract significant distance based construction charges worth thousands of pounds (i.e. civil works). On top of that you also pay significantly more for the monthly rental and one-off connection fee.

Unsurprisingly the new 500Mbps and 1Gbps tiers for FTTPoD are rather expensive (details here) and these are only the wholesale prices, which come before ISPs add to it with tax (20% VAT), profit margins, value-added services, network capacity and so forth. Not forgetting the 36 month contract term, but then FTTPoD is more of a business product and not really intended for home users (unless you’re rich).

FTTP vs FTTPoD Prices +vat (New Tiers Only) 500/165Mbps

Native FTTP Price: £55 per month (£660 per annum) rental and £500 connection*

FTTPoD Price: £1,392 per annum and £1,158 connection 1000/220Mbps

Native FTTP Price: £80 per month (£960 per annum) rental and £500 connection*

FTTPoD Price: £1,692 per annum and £1,158 connection * The native FTTP connection fee is currently reduced to £250.

As always the biggest challenge with FoD, other than the cost of course, stems from the problem of finding an ISP that actually offers it. We know that Spectrum Internet can do it in parts of the South West (England) and South Wales. On top of that we’ve been informed by some readers that FluidOne and Interoute may also be able to offer the service, but you’ll need to ask them directly as it doesn’t show on their websites.

Sadly none of the more mainstream providers appear to offer FTTPoD and many struggle to find a viable market for it. We should add that most FTTPoD offering ISPs won’t yet have begun promoting the new 500Mbps and 1Gbps tiers, which means they’ll only have the 330Mbps option.

Otherwise the launch pricing will become available from Friday 20th January 2017 and ISPs will also be able to change the speed tier of an existing FTTPoD service for a one-off charge of £11.25 per modification.