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 Aidan Paul writes “I look after Vtesse Broadband. My mission is to bring fast, reliable and affordable broadband services.” He just installed 1 gigabit service to homes in Broughton, about 30 miles northwest of Cambridge. Vermont Tel and Singapore are also going for a full gig up and down, while SSP Yhtiöt Oy in Finland, Portugal Tel, and Australia's NBN are stretching GPON towards a gigabit down. The natural speed of fiber today is a gigabit; cable 100 megabits and bonded DSL 50-100 megabits. The economics make sense and anything less is a second rate Internet.
Vtesse sells fiber speed connections to businesses using a backbone across the country. They are looking for communities ready to work with them for residential service as well. “If you think we may have got it right, and you'd like Vtesse Broadband in your community, join our action groups on the Community pages. You can contact me personally at http://www.vtessebroadband.co.uk/index.cfm/home/contactus.” He adds a promise, “I will get back to you.”
Gigabit announcements in 2011 will number at least dozens and possibly hundreds.
Right on. Here's the Vtesse announcements:
About Vtesse Broadband
My name is Aidan Paul and I look after Vtesse Broadband. My mission is to bring fast, reliable and affordable broadband services to communities and businesses that are not currently able to receive them.
Vtesse Broadband is a division of Vtesse Networks Ltd and I am their Chief Executive. You can read all about that business at www.vtesse.com. If you do, you will discover that Vtesse is a long established national network service provider that built and operates one of the largest fibre optic networks in the United Kingdom.
Vtesse Broadband use this huge national asset to extend the reach of the internet into communities that other service providers have decided not to cover with realistic, competitive levels of broadband.
We engage initially with individuals in those local communities to gauge and capture local demand. Then, if enough people show interest, we work out the most appropriate technologies to service that demand, determine the cost of providing those services, engage local enthusiasts and action groups to work within each community to stimulate demand and that way establish a sensible business basis upon which services can be built and delivered. (Take a look at the Community pages on this website to see how we do that.)
Vtesse Broadband works directly not only with individuals, communities and local businesses but also with local councils and regional development agencies to build cases for government support where that is available.
Vtesse Broadband services provide for many different types of customer and user. We look to provide services ranging from basic, reliable, value oriented internet connectivity right the way through to those that support the needs of the most demanding gamer, impatient downloader, popular social networker, avid film fan, busiest home worker and passionate small business.
The services we offer are honest, good value and "do what they say on the tin"
Above all, they are built for you.
If you think we have got it wrong, please tell us.
If you think we may have got it right, and you'd like Vtesse Broadband in your community, join our action groups on the Community pages.
If you know we've got it right, you're probably a customer already!
You can contact me personally at http://www.vtessebroadband.co.uk/index.cfm/home/contactus
I will get back to you.
Best regards,
Aidan.
Vtesse Broadband announces availability of Gigabit “Fibre to the Home” broadband service
Broughton, a hamlet near Huntingdon, is now one of the best connected rural communities in the world!
Hertford, 11th January 2011
Vtesse Broadband (www.vtessebroadband.co.uk ), the broadband arm of Vtesse Networks, the UK’s leading provider of advanced national fibre optic networking services, today announced the availability of a new generation of fibre to the home services in the village of Broughton, Cambridgeshire. The new services bring Gigabit levels of bandwidth to homes that previously endured sub-megabit speeds. First customers are connected and a roll out to more enthusiastic residents is underway.
Commenting on this new Vtesse Broadband fibre to the home service, Broughton resident Nick Moulton said "Vtesse has provided us with an impressively fast and consistent service, which is a huge step forward for us. For years we have treated our use of the internet as a necessary evil, often waiting minutes on dial-up for simple page updates that may or may not complete. Streaming services or anything requiring large downloads were effectively unavailable to us. With the new service, everything becomes pretty much instantaneous, letting us focus on the content rather than the frustration that our old service delivered. Well done Vtesse!"
Vtesse Broadband has deployed Fibre to the Home (FTTH) in Broughton using a combination of underground and overground fibre optic cabling. The underground routes connect the new Vtesse Broadband Exchange (popularly called a “Digital Village Pump”) in Broughton to the Vtesse national multi gigabit fibre optic network. Individual homes are connected to the new exchange using overhead and underground fibres. In Broughton, brand new telegraph poles are being installed by Vtesse Broadband, in spite of the existence of suitable existing poles owned by BT and the local electricity distribution company, as the protracted industry debate about pole sharing currently taking place with the regulator OFCOM is unlikely to produce a workable outcome for many months yet.
Aidan Paul, Chief Executive of Vtesse commented “Broughton was chosen as it lies close to one of Vtesse’s arterial fibre optic routes, making the cost of bringing fibre to the community acceptable. Our community fibre distribution model uses telephone poles to carry dedicated fibres from our local broadband exchange directly to each home. There is no fibre sharing and every connected home has a dedicated fibre service. With the unlimited capacity that fibre offers we are able to offer our Broughton customers services that range from an entry level 10Mbit/second through to a world beating symmetric1,000 Mbit/second (a.k.a. 1 Gigabit/second). We think that the combination of fibre overhead pole delivery to consumer premises and gigabit speeds is a UK first.”
Broughton’s original broadband problems were complex. The first issue they faced is well understood. Broughton residents are 5km and more away from their serving telephone exchange in Warboys, meaning that BT, the only operator providing ADSL services from that exchange, could only deliver sub-megabit broadband speeds to residents. At those extended distances, for many residents, dial-up was the only connectivity possible. To compound the issue, the street side cabinet serving the majority of the Broughton community is also nearly two kilometres from the residents. This meant that Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) services that are often used to deliver super-fast broadband services to communities a long way from their exchanges were also impractical as FTTC depends on very short copper line lengths to deliver its higher speeds. Fibre to the Home (FTTH) really was the only practical solution for Broughton. Its higher initial cost is in part offset by the fact that it will provide a competitive level of service that will endure for at least 20 years compared to the far shorter life span of FTTC services.
Vtesse Broadband’s fibre to the home services for Broughton are priced at £25 per month for 10Mbit/sec and at £55 for 100Mbit/sec. Current Gigabit pricing makes it a challenging proposition for mainstream consumers today but over the lifespan of the new fibres it will undoubtedly become more affordable and Broughton residents will be the first to benefit from costs that reduce with time and scale.
....ends
Notes to editors:
1. Google Maps – Broughton - http://bit.ly/ctLtLJ
2. Photo Broughton Broadband Exchange – Vtesse’s new “Digital Village Pump”, Village Hall View – see http://bit.ly/hqQyqs (3.4Mb)
3. Photo Broughton Broadband Exchange – Vtesse’s new “Digital Village Pump”, residential lane view – see http://bit.ly/dWaSuN (3.4Mb)
4. Photo Broughton Broadband Exchange – Vtesse’s new “Digital Village Pump”, showing equipment inside – see http://bit.ly/e2QwRk (3.4Mb)
Article posted on: 11/01/2011 09:44:42
Back to news
Vtesse Networks rolls out 1Gbit/s fibre network
Rural village of Broughton benefits from telegraph pole connections
Dan Worth
V3.co.uk, 11 Jan 2011
Businesses and residents in the rural Cambridgeshire village of Broughton can now access broadband speeds of up to 1Gbit/s running over fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) delivered over purpose-built telegraph poles installed by Vtesse Networks.
Customers also get 1Gbit/s upload speeds and the option of a standard 10Mbit/s connection, which still marks a vast improvement for most residents.
"Some people were still on dial-up as the FTTH offerings were coming from a cabinet two miles away, so the speeds on offer were very low," said Vtesse chief executive Aidan Paul.
"Although we can offer up to 1Gbit/s, this is more a proof-of-concept rollout as the speeds on offer are almost pointless to consumers with regards the services they can use. But the network should be good for at least 30 years and it shows what's possible."
The use of telegraph poles as a deployment method for FTTH networks underlines its potential for rural deployments, but Paul explained that Vtesse decided to install its own poles despite the fact that BT owns suitable poles in the village.
"We already had our trunk network running near the areas, so we decided to install our own poles rather than using BT's, as that was the only work we had to do and we have some customers already live on this deployment," he said.
"BT is set to make the cost and terms and conditions of access to its poles and ducts public this Friday, which we hope will open up the regulatory environment in this area to drive similar deployments. But we're not optimistic it will do so."
Prices for the Vtesse service are £25 per month for 10Mbit/sec and £55 for 100Mbit/sec, but the company expects the price to fall over time owing to improvements in the cost and scale of managing the deployment.
Virgin Media is also running trials to deliver fibre in this manner in Woolhampton in Berkshire and Crumlin in Caerphilly that can offer speeds of up to 50Mbit/s.
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