That's not the whole picture though - FTTC/FTTP provide the potential for BT to cut costs by not needing 5500+ exchange buildings anymore - )
Too true. When they planned FTTH for the whole country, BT reckoned they would only need about 60 exchanges, down from around the 7600 they had at the time.
Too true. When they planned FTTH for the whole country, BT reckoned they would only need about 60 exchanges, down from around the 7600 they had at the time.
BT basically is state-funded. Every single FTTC contract has gone to them as it wasn't financially viable for them to do it themselves, when the Fujitsu idea was future--proof and better in every way.
Too true. When they planned FTTH for the whole country, BT reckoned they would only need about 60 exchanges, down from around the 7600 they had at the time.
This already seems to be happening, I'm reasonably sure that the the "headend" for the FTTC/P network in my village is not in the local exchange.
BT basically is state-funded. Every single FTTC contract has gone to them as it wasn't financially viable for them to do it themselves, when the Fujitsu idea was future--proof and better in every way.
For the non-commercially profitable areas yes. For the commercially profitable areas (ie, the ones already serviced by Virgin Media) BT's finance dept calculated a good return on investment.
BT basically is state-funded. Every single FTTC contract has gone to them as it wasn't financially viable for them to do it themselves, when the Fujitsu idea was future--proof and better in every way.
But that would have likely been a closed network even in partnership with Virgin. Whether we like it or not BT was the obvious choice as they are the only ones who would operate it openly to regulated costs.
Fujitsu/Virgin pulled out when they realised it wouldn't provide the returns expected and also the threat of open access posed a problem to their prospective monopoly. As I said any provider that gains public funds should be forced from the outset to allow third parties to compete and offer fair and reasonable terms. I'll be damned for supporting BT, again they were the only obvious choice. I also understand that if Virgin took public money then it would have opened up their wider business to scrutiny in the sense that areas where they have delivered on their own may have been forced to allow other operators to use their network.
Companies at times must think the government and public so stupid as to follow them blindly with lots of empty promises and big numbers, when in fact their proposals weren't too disimilar to what BT is delivering.
But that would have likely been a closed network even in partnership with Virgin. Whether we like it or not BT was the obvious choice as they are the only ones who would operate it openly to regulated costs.
Fujitsu/Virgin pulled out when they realised it wouldn't provide the returns expected and also the threat of open access posed a problem to their prospective monopoly. As I said any provider that gains public funds should be forced from the outset to allow third parties to compete and offer fair and reasonable terms. I'll be damned for supporting BT, again they were the only obvious choice. I also understand that if Virgin took public money then it would have opened up their wider business to scrutiny in the sense that areas where they have delivered on their own may have been forced to allow other operators to use their network.
Companies at times must think the government and public so stupid as to follow them blindly with lots of empty promises and big numbers, when in fact their proposals weren't too disimilar to what BT is delivering.
Fujitsu pulled out, not Virgin. Why would the threat of open access be a threat to a network proposing "truly open access"? Virgin weren't asking for public money. They were merely a prospective tenant of Fujitsu along with TalkTalk (also named) and any other ISP that wished to get on board.
"In the vast majority of areas, Fujitsu will run fibre optic cabling directly to the home (FTTH), rather than to the local street cabinet. As a result, the Fujitsu network will be one gigabit (1Gbps) symmetric capable from day one with potential to go to 10Gbps and beyond." - Is that really what you think BT is delivering today?
This already seems to be happening, I'm reasonably sure that the the "headend" for the FTTC/P network in my village is not in the local exchange.
You're right. The really big exchanges act as headends and the fibre cabinets from the surrounding towns and villages connect directly to the headend, regardless of whether they are actually in a different exchange area.
I don't know how many heaends there are, but it's not as low as 60. In the area I live which is about 10 miles each way there are 5 headends and 12 telephone exchanges.
Their certainly a perfect match , both have dire customer services in my experience.:D
I agree, but I do know a fair few people that is on EE, both for phone and broadband and they seem pretty happy, at least with the broadband.
Most have also told me that if BT do buy EE then they will go elsewhere as BT is way over priced.
so I think Talk Talk and sky will get some more customers.
You're right. The really big exchanges act as headends and the fibre cabinets from the surrounding towns and villages connect directly to the headend, regardless of whether they are actually in a different exchange area.
I don't know how many heaends there are, but it's not as low as 60. In the area I live which is about 10 miles each way there are 5 headends and 12 telephone exchanges.
There's ~1200 head end main exchanges out of a total of ~5500 exchanges.
I agree, but I do know a fair few people that is on EE, both for phone and broadband and they seem pretty happy, at least with the broadband.
Most have also told me that if BT do buy EE then they will go elsewhere as BT is way over priced.
so I think Talk Talk and sky will get some more customers.
Chances are BT won't be allowed to take over EE's broadband base and will EE will have to arrange a separate sale of it. So they will most likely be sold off to someone like TalkTalk. Unless they can someone how place those customers under plus net which is BT's cheap broadband arm. Just my opinion.
Fujitsu pulled out, not Virgin. Why would the threat of open access be a threat to a network proposing "truly open access"? Virgin weren't asking for public money. They were merely a prospective tenant of Fujitsu along with TalkTalk (also named) and any other ISP that wished to get on board.
Not sure why they think BT is the only company capable of open access, either - TalkTalk has quite a lucrative business in selling capacity on its LLU network to smaller ISPs, who are happy to take it up as it's significantly cheaper than through BTWholesale (and I understand it's actually really good, TalkTalk's reputation as a poor ISP doesn't count here)
(see also Be/O2 when they existed and Cable&Wireless)
I would have expected that any winner of BDUK contracts would be expected to provide open access at a fair rate.
Chances are BT won't be allowed to take over EE's broadband base and will EE will have to arrange a separate sale of it. So they will most likely be sold off to someone like TalkTalk. Unless they can someone how place those customers under plus net which is BT's cheap broadband arm. Just my opinion.
I'm not sure about that. I know BT is the biggest to start with but EE is pretty small - around 800k so it doesn't add much. The next three (Sky, Virgin and TalkTalk) are all quite substantial fixed line players themselves so that helps.
I'd say the larger regulatory hurdles will centre around the connectivity that BT provides to the other mobile networks who will want to ensure that will be available on a fair basis and the connectivity that EE currently gets from others e.g. A lot of EE's backhaul is provided by Virgin Media who could be seriously squeezed if BT decide it would be in their interests to move to their own backhaul.
You could also say quad-play itself is a market and given EE have just made the move into TV it is also a player in that. Buying EE removes a competitor from the quad-play market so that will need some scrutiny too.
I'm not sure about that. I know BT is the biggest to start with but EE is pretty small - around 800k so it doesn't add much. The next three (Sky, Virgin and TalkTalk) are all quite substantial fixed line players themselves so that helps.
I'd say the larger regulatory hurdles will centre around the connectivity that BT provides to the other mobile networks who will want to ensure that will be available on a fair basis and the connectivity that EE currently gets from others e.g. A lot of EE's backhaul is provided by Virgin Media who could be seriously squeezed if BT decide it would be in their interests to move to their own backhaul.
You could also say quad-play itself is a market and given EE have just made the move into TV it is also a player in that. Buying EE removes a competitor from the quad-play market so that will need some scrutiny too.
WOW. Two things I didn't know; 1. EE have already ventured into PAYTV and 2. Virgin Media provide EE with backhaul, I thought EE just allowed Virgin Mobile to piggy back on their network. I'm learning a fair bit on this thread, so thanks to all the contributors, it's been a great read so far!:)
And you have to wonder why B4RN and Gigaclear seem to be able to do it when BT won't (in B4RN's case, they've decided to "compete" by overbuilding BT FTTP in the exact same places B4RN are in - which they wouldn't have done if B4RN didn't exist)
In Gigaclear’s case this is because they very carefully pick their targets.
Compact rural upmarket villages of more that 400 houses, remote from exchanges with easy/viable access to internet backhaul.
So that is cheap to fibre up/meter run of fibre, easy digging in soft rural verges, residents with bad internet and hence with both the motivation and ability to pay the significant price for a FTTP connection.
Remember also that Gigaclear get you to pay the cost of getting the fibre from their termination point at your property's boundary across your garden/land and into the house.
Even if they decide to target a village and get the required signups – if there is a small group of say 4 houses remotely situated then their answer is sorry we are not going to connect you unless you “contribute” to our costs of getting the fibre to you.
So it is cherry picking just as any other purely commercial venture does: which is very different to a UK wide roll out of something.
If you are a small hamlet of 100 residents, miles from anywhere, nowhere near internet backhaul and with 0.5Mbps internet then no altnet will be the interested – and I know of these places in southern UK….and as for the really rural places with one house every few miles you can forget it.
Additionally Gigaclear relies on a local committee of interested persons to do a lot of the hard work for them in drumming up interest, writing articles in parish magazines, distributing leaflets and sorting out land access/ownership/wayleave issues plus dealing with the inevitable awkward residents…..so all that is done for free. I know people involved in this and some really do put in a LOT of work.
Even then they often struggle even in promising areas as above with rubbish broadband to get to their 30% trigger point of sign ups before they will commit to build. The other 70% of residents seemingly don’t care about having dire broadband.
The self-help community FTTP fibre project B4RN works due to peculiar local circumstances not likely to be repeated elsewhere, along with fortuitous availability of backhaul. This is the coincidence of the local availability of retired fibre/networking specialists living in the area with the knowledge and industry background/contacts on how to do it. Also a large number of farmers etc with the both the ability and the equipment to do the civils side – trench digging etc all in effect for free as are the wayleaves across said farm’s land free.
In Gigaclear’s case this is because they very carefully pick their targets.
Compact rural upmarket villages of more that 400 houses, remote from exchanges with easy/viable access to internet backhaul.
So that is cheap to fibre up/meter run of fibre, easy digging in soft rural verges, residents with bad internet and hence with both the motivation and ability to pay the significant price for a FTTP connection.
Remember also that Gigaclear get you to pay the cost of getting the fibre from their termination point at your property's boundary across your garden/land and into the house.
So basically most villages, then, ones where BT claims that they can't do FTTP despite owning a network of ducts and poles, and existing backhaul, but Gigaclear can when they have to start from scratch.
Not sure why it's a downside that you have to pay for installation. BT would expect me to pay for them to run a copper or fibre line from their pole to my house, and if Virgin were available here they may expect the same to dig up my garden. I had to pay BT £80 for someone to patch my line into the FTTC cabinet and plug in a modem.
Even if they decide to target a village and get the required signups – if there is a small group of say 4 houses remotely situated then their answer is sorry we are not going to connect you unless you “contribute” to our costs of getting the fibre to you.
So it is cherry picking just as any other purely commercial venture does: which is very different to a UK wide roll out of something.
If you are a small hamlet of 100 residents, miles from anywhere, nowhere near internet backhaul and with 0.5Mbps internet then no altnet will be the interested – and I know of these places in southern UK….and as for the really rural places with one house every few miles you can forget it.
This is true also for BT's rural rollout - I know of people in Cornwall who are in the back of beyond who are being steered toward mobile broadband or satellite as BT currently doesn't plan to do even FTTC for them - despite getting taxpayer funding
(and I've seen other similar places with BT FTTP and where the single home in range of the FTTP pole isn't connected up, so that's a huge economic win for BT there)
Additionally Gigaclear relies on a local committee of interested persons to do a lot of the hard work for them in drumming up interest, writing articles in parish magazines, distributing leaflets and sorting out land access/ownership/wayleave issues plus dealing with the inevitable awkward residents…..so all that is done for free. I know people involved in this and some really do put in a LOT of work.
The latter is stuff that BT does day in, day out, and has to do for both FTTC or FTTP (to get connectivity to whereever the headend is, or to site FTTC cabinets on private land, I've seen them in people's front gardens), so it isn't as much cost or effort to them as it is to anyone else. I doubt BT would need to do much when it's just a case of pushing fibre through their ducting and onto their poles.
Even then they often struggle even in promising areas as above with rubbish broadband to get to their 30% trigger point of sign ups before they will commit to build. The other 70% of residents seemingly don’t care about having dire broadband.
So no different to the ancient BT ADSL demand tracking scheme (I remember trying to convince people to register interest to reach the magical 300 people level), and later on that "race to Infinity" thing.
The self-help community FTTP fibre project B4RN works due to peculiar local circumstances not likely to be repeated elsewhere, along with fortuitous availability of backhaul. This is the coincidence of the local availability of retired fibre/networking specialists living in the area with the knowledge and industry background/contacts on how to do it. Also a large number of farmers etc with the both the ability and the equipment to do the civils side – trench digging etc all in effect for free as are the wayleaves across said farm’s land free.
I can't dispute this, but my point was that BT seems happy to pull out all the stops and install their own FTTP network in the same places B4RN are in - and that if B4RN didn't exist, they'd probably still be waiting for FTTC. Money is no object, FTTP for everyone - but only when someone else did it first.
I suspect that if BT ever gets around to doing 1Gbit on their FTTP network, the B4RN area would probably be inexplicably chosen as a trial area (not at all because this is what B4RN are offering)
Best news I've heard in awhile. I'm sure the details will come out soon enough. I'm told it was so nearly O2 but I'm glad it's EE they are considering... Anyone who is part of the trial ongoing just now will be glad too! Kinda knew when the O2 had to fly in their chief that things were not working out. This deal should in theory Nuke any idea the Govt have of national roaming. I'll explain at a later date.
Hopefully the govt / EU don't regulate the hell out of the two of them!
Looks like Three will have to take their second choice, although that does pose questions for the market and MBNL if Three do indeed buy/merge O2 into H3G.
MBNL is nothing
EE no longer uses half of the masts they were sharing with 3 which was part of the decommissioning of masts which EE thought overlapped with the Orange 3G masts. The T-Mobile network in Northern Ireland was completely switched off in 2012 and the rest of the country had a rationalisation programme on both its 2G and 3G networks.
When you do a network scan on your phone, it is rare to see 2 EE networks anymore it used to look like this:
O2-UK
EE
Vodafone
EE
3-UK
So I suppose they could sell the other 50% of MBNL and any remains to 3
EE no longer uses half of the masts they were sharing with 3 which was part of the decommissioning of masts which EE thought overlapped with the Orange 3G masts. The T-Mobile network in Northern Ireland was completely switched off in 2012 and the rest of the country had a rationalisation programme on both its 2G and 3G networks.
Northern Ireland was an exception. In the rest of the UK it's the Orange 3G masts that got turned off, with those that were kept being upgraded and brought into MBNL (was due to be done by the end of 2014, but it's still ongoing).
EE no longer uses half of the masts they were sharing with 3 which was part of the decommissioning of masts which EE thought overlapped with the Orange 3G masts.
...
Comments
I believe that's certain cities only? Certainly not rural Devon
You guys are no fun....
That is only available in select cities plus I expect would get charged around 5K bring FTTP to him.
Too true. When they planned FTTH for the whole country, BT reckoned they would only need about 60 exchanges, down from around the 7600 they had at the time.
Wait, what?
This already seems to be happening, I'm reasonably sure that the the "headend" for the FTTC/P network in my village is not in the local exchange.
For the non-commercially profitable areas yes. For the commercially profitable areas (ie, the ones already serviced by Virgin Media) BT's finance dept calculated a good return on investment.
If they'd just done FTTP in the first place, it would have lasted for YEARS!
But that would have likely been a closed network even in partnership with Virgin. Whether we like it or not BT was the obvious choice as they are the only ones who would operate it openly to regulated costs.
Fujitsu/Virgin pulled out when they realised it wouldn't provide the returns expected and also the threat of open access posed a problem to their prospective monopoly. As I said any provider that gains public funds should be forced from the outset to allow third parties to compete and offer fair and reasonable terms. I'll be damned for supporting BT, again they were the only obvious choice. I also understand that if Virgin took public money then it would have opened up their wider business to scrutiny in the sense that areas where they have delivered on their own may have been forced to allow other operators to use their network.
Companies at times must think the government and public so stupid as to follow them blindly with lots of empty promises and big numbers, when in fact their proposals weren't too disimilar to what BT is delivering.
"In the vast majority of areas, Fujitsu will run fibre optic cabling directly to the home (FTTH), rather than to the local street cabinet. As a result, the Fujitsu network will be one gigabit (1Gbps) symmetric capable from day one with potential to go to 10Gbps and beyond." - Is that really what you think BT is delivering today?
You're right. The really big exchanges act as headends and the fibre cabinets from the surrounding towns and villages connect directly to the headend, regardless of whether they are actually in a different exchange area.
I don't know how many heaends there are, but it's not as low as 60. In the area I live which is about 10 miles each way there are 5 headends and 12 telephone exchanges.
I agree, but I do know a fair few people that is on EE, both for phone and broadband and they seem pretty happy, at least with the broadband.
Most have also told me that if BT do buy EE then they will go elsewhere as BT is way over priced.
so I think Talk Talk and sky will get some more customers.
There's ~1200 head end main exchanges out of a total of ~5500 exchanges.
The figure of 60 came about after ex BT CTO Peter Cochrane recounted his story of BT's plan for FTTH to Parliament a few years ago. There's a summary of it here.
https://br0kent3l3ph0n3.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/ex-bt-cto-slams-government-broadband-scheme/
Chances are BT won't be allowed to take over EE's broadband base and will EE will have to arrange a separate sale of it. So they will most likely be sold off to someone like TalkTalk. Unless they can someone how place those customers under plus net which is BT's cheap broadband arm. Just my opinion.
Not sure why they think BT is the only company capable of open access, either - TalkTalk has quite a lucrative business in selling capacity on its LLU network to smaller ISPs, who are happy to take it up as it's significantly cheaper than through BTWholesale (and I understand it's actually really good, TalkTalk's reputation as a poor ISP doesn't count here)
(see also Be/O2 when they existed and Cable&Wireless)
I would have expected that any winner of BDUK contracts would be expected to provide open access at a fair rate.
I'm not sure about that. I know BT is the biggest to start with but EE is pretty small - around 800k so it doesn't add much. The next three (Sky, Virgin and TalkTalk) are all quite substantial fixed line players themselves so that helps.
I'd say the larger regulatory hurdles will centre around the connectivity that BT provides to the other mobile networks who will want to ensure that will be available on a fair basis and the connectivity that EE currently gets from others e.g. A lot of EE's backhaul is provided by Virgin Media who could be seriously squeezed if BT decide it would be in their interests to move to their own backhaul.
You could also say quad-play itself is a market and given EE have just made the move into TV it is also a player in that. Buying EE removes a competitor from the quad-play market so that will need some scrutiny too.
In Gigaclear’s case this is because they very carefully pick their targets.
Compact rural upmarket villages of more that 400 houses, remote from exchanges with easy/viable access to internet backhaul.
So that is cheap to fibre up/meter run of fibre, easy digging in soft rural verges, residents with bad internet and hence with both the motivation and ability to pay the significant price for a FTTP connection.
Remember also that Gigaclear get you to pay the cost of getting the fibre from their termination point at your property's boundary across your garden/land and into the house.
Even if they decide to target a village and get the required signups – if there is a small group of say 4 houses remotely situated then their answer is sorry we are not going to connect you unless you “contribute” to our costs of getting the fibre to you.
So it is cherry picking just as any other purely commercial venture does: which is very different to a UK wide roll out of something.
If you are a small hamlet of 100 residents, miles from anywhere, nowhere near internet backhaul and with 0.5Mbps internet then no altnet will be the interested – and I know of these places in southern UK….and as for the really rural places with one house every few miles you can forget it.
Additionally Gigaclear relies on a local committee of interested persons to do a lot of the hard work for them in drumming up interest, writing articles in parish magazines, distributing leaflets and sorting out land access/ownership/wayleave issues plus dealing with the inevitable awkward residents…..so all that is done for free. I know people involved in this and some really do put in a LOT of work.
Even then they often struggle even in promising areas as above with rubbish broadband to get to their 30% trigger point of sign ups before they will commit to build. The other 70% of residents seemingly don’t care about having dire broadband.
The self-help community FTTP fibre project B4RN works due to peculiar local circumstances not likely to be repeated elsewhere, along with fortuitous availability of backhaul. This is the coincidence of the local availability of retired fibre/networking specialists living in the area with the knowledge and industry background/contacts on how to do it. Also a large number of farmers etc with the both the ability and the equipment to do the civils side – trench digging etc all in effect for free as are the wayleaves across said farm’s land free.
No they won't. They have got so many more speed increased that they can give, using compression and technology methods when required.
The needs of data from the net are now at saturation for most. So long as people can stream video that will tick the box for nearly every household.
So basically most villages, then, ones where BT claims that they can't do FTTP despite owning a network of ducts and poles, and existing backhaul, but Gigaclear can when they have to start from scratch.
Not sure why it's a downside that you have to pay for installation. BT would expect me to pay for them to run a copper or fibre line from their pole to my house, and if Virgin were available here they may expect the same to dig up my garden. I had to pay BT £80 for someone to patch my line into the FTTC cabinet and plug in a modem.
This is true also for BT's rural rollout - I know of people in Cornwall who are in the back of beyond who are being steered toward mobile broadband or satellite as BT currently doesn't plan to do even FTTC for them - despite getting taxpayer funding
(and I've seen other similar places with BT FTTP and where the single home in range of the FTTP pole isn't connected up, so that's a huge economic win for BT there)
The latter is stuff that BT does day in, day out, and has to do for both FTTC or FTTP (to get connectivity to whereever the headend is, or to site FTTC cabinets on private land, I've seen them in people's front gardens), so it isn't as much cost or effort to them as it is to anyone else. I doubt BT would need to do much when it's just a case of pushing fibre through their ducting and onto their poles.
So no different to the ancient BT ADSL demand tracking scheme (I remember trying to convince people to register interest to reach the magical 300 people level), and later on that "race to Infinity" thing.
I can't dispute this, but my point was that BT seems happy to pull out all the stops and install their own FTTP network in the same places B4RN are in - and that if B4RN didn't exist, they'd probably still be waiting for FTTC. Money is no object, FTTP for everyone - but only when someone else did it first.
I suspect that if BT ever gets around to doing 1Gbit on their FTTP network, the B4RN area would probably be inexplicably chosen as a trial area (not at all because this is what B4RN are offering)
MBNL is nothing
EE no longer uses half of the masts they were sharing with 3 which was part of the decommissioning of masts which EE thought overlapped with the Orange 3G masts. The T-Mobile network in Northern Ireland was completely switched off in 2012 and the rest of the country had a rationalisation programme on both its 2G and 3G networks.
When you do a network scan on your phone, it is rare to see 2 EE networks anymore it used to look like this:
O2-UK
EE
Vodafone
EE
3-UK
So I suppose they could sell the other 50% of MBNL and any remains to 3
Northern Ireland was an exception. In the rest of the UK it's the Orange 3G masts that got turned off, with those that were kept being upgraded and brought into MBNL (was due to be done by the end of 2014, but it's still ongoing).
Is this really the case?