FTTC expected trial length

[#1]

"Some customers will remember we began trialling FTTC a year ago."
How much longer (roughly) do you expect to continue trialling this service?

[#2]

Hi,
We're currently thinking of running the trial until the new year, we've not yet made any decisions about what we'll do as a fully live product and we want to get a good number of customers on to the trial so that we can get some feedback on how it changes peoples' usage, what they expect from the product, what sort of usage allowance and experience they want to have and what sort price people would pay. We've 70 live now, 6 more due this week and 3 next, plus 1 on FTTP. With the number of tickets and PMs I've had and the next areas of Bradwell Abbey due very soon I think we should have over 100 next month and then see what happens when the next batch of exchanges start coming on stream in September. I'd like to have 250 on FTTC by the end of the year which would give us a nice sample size for feedback but we'll just have to see how things go but like I say no end date has been set for the trial so expect it to last until the new year at the moment. FTTP is expected to run until March with Openreach now.

[#3]

I think the option of FTTC might need more publicity from Plusnet, if you're to ever switch from this being a trial to offering service to users.
I see comments elsewhere about people getting FTTC and speeds like 32 Mbps, and right now could only wish for some switch to be able to get 4 Mbps, 8 Mbps, let alone more than that (currently under 2 Mbps).
I saw the other day that BT plans to allow ISPs to nominate 6 exchanges to get FTTC, and if you had listed FTTC as a product on your 'front page' I would have made a significant effort over the next 2 months to get 1000 new signups who would  all want FTTC, but of course without a price or released product, there's no point doing that with Plusnet.
I could find some other ISP that has FTTC products listed and try it for them, of course, but would prefer to get the service with PN (as I already know of other PN users locally, and no, not ones I had referred for purely selfish reasons!).

[#4]

We'll be publicising FTTC and FTTP when the trial period is over but the whole point of the trial is to garner a large amount of feedback about the faults and provisioning processes, usage requirements and patterns, etc. etc. We don't have a product built and price points aren't set so there's not much point in us putting it on the front page just yet!
However, I'm sure that we'll be promoting the product in a big way when it's launched
P.S. Where did you see the information about nominating 6 exchanges? I've been bugging Dave to get mine enabled for FTTC as at the moment I have 8 meg or Talk Talk!

[#5]

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/4367-openreach-to-trial-nomination-of-exchanges-for-fibre-enablem...

[#6]

Quote

If an exchange is deemed viable for commercial deployment, the ISP will need to guarantee that 10% of premises will be using its fibre broadband within a year. If this isn't met, the ISP will be liable for any costs Openreach incurred by amending deployment plans

[#7]

Yes, it's the 10% that would mean I would be walking quite a lot around a half dozen villages to get 1,000+ households (10,000+ phone lines according to SamKnows) to commit to FTTC service.  I know that the main exchange here (Wrexham) has now been listed for FTTC, so it would really make it sensible for BT staff already in the area to do this exchange (considering they have kitted out Middlewich and Bagshot, each with under 8000 lines, but in 'commuter belts' and with high speed services from O2 /Be or Sky, so BT are clearly looking at making a presence where high speed is already available).
can understand your side of 'determining the problems' before it can go from trial status, and just wish you luck.  Without a product to promote, I cannot see potential customers coming to PlusNet when they can see other ISPs offering FTTC.  ThinkBroadband plans to revamp their ISP listings to include FTTC soon, so please get your Marketing people and PN Management to discuss FTTC so that PN doesn't get "left behind".

[#8]

Please don't worry!
When we're ready to sell FTTC as a product it will be promoted. However, we're not ready yet so aren't promoting it. We'd prefer to miss out on a few customers now instead of messing up the ordering / faults process for lots of customers that we weren't ready for.

[#9]

yep lessons learnt from previous upgrades to the openreach services ( eg adsl debacle ) means that plusnet should go carefully with this.
which is indeed what they are doing.

[#10]

Quote from: Ben

We'd prefer to miss out on a few customers now ...

With BT now offering free connection (where I've seen some ISPs charge 50 quid or more) and an 'unlimited' (FUP) option for people opting for broadband and calls, it looks difficult for people to find a better deal, at least for now.  I have not really researched the prices too deeply since there's a long, long, wait before my exchange would get FTTC, but will have to look at the costs for a comparison website I'm going to build.  Heck, I may not be able to use it, but might as well grab some commission from helping ISPs sign up people that can !!  I will have to create my own graphic with your colours saying "possibly in 2011"