No one is saying Pointless G.fast can't do the job - up to a poiint.
BT are backtracking before they have even started, since the ofcom announcement earlier in the year.
Don't associate G.fast with 'inclusiveness', about furthering/enabling the rollout of 'upto' Ultrafast speeds to Rural communities, that was never the G.fast remit as a technology.
With G.fast - notspots remain notspots. G.fast is all about selective rollout to specific locations, to grab the headline "Ultrafast broadband is here!" (as always, that doesn't help if it isn't anywhere near you, because you don't live within 250m {125m as the crow flies} of a G.fast attached FTTC cabinet).
G.fast works best in cherry picked locations that already get close to 80Mbps FTTC.
If you radius out from there - to do a 'proper blanket coverage job' with G.fast it becomes exponentially expensive, because of the sheer number of (important point:) actively powered G.fast nodes required, hence it's not an 'inclusive' (in terms of the population of UK as a whole) technology.
BT have already made it clear that 'selective' rollout of G.fast will map 1:1 with existing FTTC Cabinets, i.e. you only can get G.fast if you already have an FTTC cabinet within 250m by cable length (125m as the crow flies).
No one is saying G.fast can't do the job, (if that's your copper carcass bias talking for you).
The problem 'to do the job' is the distance between the property/subscriber and a newly installed (and importantly, reiterate this point: the actively powered G.fast node.
We're back to the 'upto' terminology governed by distance - of past ADSL and FTTC, but 100x worse, and even more obfuscated, because the final leg is still Copper or Aluminium.
BT love G.fast, because it allows them to sell 'upto' Ultrafast broadband marketing as an artificially capped 'Finite Resource', priced according to speed, with little worry for them, whether its copper or aluminium cabling, because that affects you (in terms of speed) but aids BT, in terms of marketing. It's difficult to sell true fibre FTTP as a limited resource, when the optical cable is all the way to the property.
So how many G.fast nodes would the UK require for blanket coverage?
In a 2km2 area with a FTTC cabinet in the centre of that graphic, you need 'upto' 25 equally spaced G.fast nodes to get blanket coverage depending on the 'upto' Ultrafast Broadband, say 200-300Mbps - you intend to rollout. Thats a lot of high tech/firmware patches to always work / talk to each other (remain powered) and rurally there isn't the maintenance for that to happen.
Real Fibre optic FTTP is a simpler, passive network, it requires no additional power from its source. Once its in, its more or less job done, in comparison to endless fault finding G.fast will create.
Each G.fast node has to be actively powered (making them expensive to install, and inherently adding more complexity into the local loop, i.e. more stuff to go wrong and far more reasons for it to go wrong)
Top 'upto' G.fast speeds are very susceptible to distance, interference, Power Supply smoothing issues, Low frequency Pump Noise, damp, poor cabling copper/alu, poor connections, the list is endless.
Saying the 'expensive' subscriber termination costs are the reason not to rollout real fibre is a con, its doesn't show the true picture of the ongoing maintenance costs of G.fast. It's been done in order for BT to sell their bias toward their legacy copper carcass network, BT want to sell the taxpayer G.fast, because it suits BT (in terms of maintaining their own asset values), not the UK as a whole.
I'm not anti-BT, I can see exactly why BT are doing what they are doing, going this route. The problem is, its the wrong approach for the UK as a whole.
Split BT (and reform ofcom while you're at it, too many love-in ex-BT employees making the decisions), concentrate on real fibre optic to the premises FTTP at local loop level, with the use of local support in Rural areas, to get it rolled out across farmland, verges, riverbeds, public footpaths etc. Build on the model of B4RN.
Stop further investment in BT's Copper Carcass now, force all new installs to be real FTTP fibre optic. It's going to take a long time even with active local support rurally, so we may aswell start now.
If BT (on our behalf of the taxpayer) are to use G.fast at all, G.fast should only be used as a last resort (start with a cut-off at distances <500m by length cable, but it really need to be <250 by cable length, everything else real FTTP.
Legislate:
For every G.fast install, mandate an FTTP install at the outer reaches of the local loop/network, so that BT can't cherry pick their customers.
We're already seeing apathy regarding FTTC uptake because subscribers have slowed connections at peak times, it's impossible for any normal person to actually work out the reason their distance based 'upto' copper based ADSL connection is slow, hence users are already sceptical that FTTC won't just be more of the same, with congestion in the backhaul/internodes, not the last leg, the local loop. With real fibre FTTP, subscribers can firmly point the finger at the backhaul, if congestion does occur, not which way the wind is blowing, as is the case at the moment.
The real reason G.fast is been put forward as a technical solution is to extend the life of BT's copper carcass. It's not cheaper in the long run, its potentially a maintenance nightmare. G.fast is certainly not something taxpayers should fund. Don't get sold a Pup, Mr taxpayer.