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What needs to be done to improve rural phone signal?


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Old 28-12-2016, 18:35
jonmorris
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History tells us that as soon as BT gets it's hands on anything it will turn to utter shyte. As will EE over the next 5 years. They will screw it up. It might take 10 years but mark my words, they will ruin a perfectly good vision. Ironic really. In a way. Sort of. Not really.
I hope you're wrong, but so far it's being run very separately (even in the same building) because BT doesn't want EE to go the way of other BT divisions!

And the new boss of EE is making damn sure to make it as hard as possible to change things.

As you say, in the future, changes of management etc then who knows.

But as of today, BT is as keen as EE to keep things independent. We may well see Plusnet and BT Mobile being virtually identical to EE in terms of offerings, but EE won't disappear.

We can argue about whether EE has become a strong brand in its own right, but I think it has probably done pretty well. I doubt there are many people who don't know who EE is, and probably a lot of people who don't like BT (and those that do can go with BT Mobile).

Let's look back at this thread in 5 years time and see.
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Old 28-12-2016, 18:48
jonmorris
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BT's investors would say that would be a misuse of funds, so hopefully the shareholders will prevent it.
BT knows as well as anyone else what problems large corporations have, and if it doesn't want EE ruined (which in turn will help EE make more money) then we should be hopeful that it won't be ruined.

If bosses, shareholders and customers don't want things to change, you'd have to hope it won't. After all, who would change things?

But it's very easy to say it will change. I am sure many analysts will say it. Those who despise BT will say it. If enough people say it...

And I am no BT fan. Openreach has royally screwed me over by losing paperwork that means I've waited approaching FIVE years for a cabinet to be fibre'd. It's perhaps the ONLY cabinet in the whole town not done, because it crossed private land. And being a business that nobody can communicate with, neither me, the press office, or even my MP can get any info from them on how they plan to resolve the problem.

A few houses up, they can get 70 megabit on FTTC broadband. I get 6-7 on a good day.

Speak to people within BT and they'll just say 'I know' and shrug their shoulders. It's a total joke because everyone knows Openreach is a total shambles, but nobody can do anything about it.
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Old 28-12-2016, 18:54
Gigabit
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Hopefully Ofcom will split off Openreach as they want to do.
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Old 28-12-2016, 19:10
jonmorris
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Hopefully Ofcom will split off Openreach as they want to do.
Yes but I still don't think they'll be accountable to the end user. All the cabinet has associated with it now is 'under review' and that's been for over two years.

Clearly it's not on ANY schedule now.
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Old 28-12-2016, 19:22
jchamier
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Yes but I still don't think they'll be accountable to the end user.
You can understand why, as the people paying the money are not the end user, but the ISP. However its when the ISP can't chase Openreach (e.g. proactive ISP such as AAISP or Zen) then its a broken business model.
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Old 28-12-2016, 19:27
moox
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Hopefully Ofcom will split off Openreach as they want to do.
Stuff is happening here - they're required to go about as far as they can go without actually spinning it off into a separate company. A full separation would be a legal minefield.

But a split won't necessarily speed up things like Jon's situation. Or mine - where I have had to wait months for them to turn on a fibre cabinet that's already there (it's an additional cabinet, so power and fibre are not an issue). I was finally able to order last week.

I also doubt that a split will suddenly make Openreach a bit more end user-facing. I wish they were, but that's something that BT could do today if it wanted.
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Old 28-12-2016, 19:33
moox
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You can understand why, as the people paying the money are not the end user, but the ISP. However its when the ISP can't chase Openreach (e.g. proactive ISP such as AAISP or Zen) then its a broken business model.
I don't directly pay the electricity network operator, the billing company pays them and passes it on to be, but I can still contact them if I need to.

I don't have to go through the billing company to say "the wire is about to fall off my house, someone needs to look at it PDQ". Nor do I have to deal with them if I'm building a new house and need to be connected. I can deal direct with WPD.

Why shouldn't I be able to do the same with Openreach?
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Old 28-12-2016, 19:38
jchamier
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Why shouldn't I be able to do the same with Openreach?
I see your point, but that's an organisation with one product, versus another with hundreds?
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Old 28-12-2016, 19:40
Stereo Steve
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I pay the same amount for sub 2mb ADSL as someone on 20 odd meg. I pay nearly 2 grand in council tax and get very little aside from the odd bin collection (when they can be bothered).

I must have bought so much Crucial Brew for druggies that I feel I am now owed a FTTP connection. Like ASAP. The next popular uprising is when the peasants revolt. Again.
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Old 28-12-2016, 20:24
moox
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I see your point, but that's an organisation with one product, versus another with hundreds?
Not quite - you can still deal direct with the DNO whether you want to plug your nuclear power plant into the grid, or want a measly residential hook up for the house you're building, or you're planning an entire housing estate and need their input. Totally different scenarios (and there are similarities to Openreach - leased lines vs FTTP vs ADSL)

Though you could easily limit the scope to consumer/small business products, or anything that has been escalated by an ISP. I shouldn't have to go through my ISP to know when my fibre cab is coming online, or how to get a brand new line connected - for example.

I have actually been called by BT Wholesale (another normally non-end user facing entity) after my ISP put in a ticket, and even managed to have a technical conversation
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Old 28-12-2016, 21:19
daveh75
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I don't directly pay the electricity network operator, the billing company pays them and passes it on to be, but I can still contact them if I need to.

I don't have to go through the billing company to say "the wire is about to fall off my house, someone needs to look at it PDQ". Nor do I have to deal with them if I'm building a new house and need to be connected. I can deal direct with WPD.

Why shouldn't I be able to do the same with Openreach?
Ask the ISPs and Ofcom, it was them that were against Consumers having direct access not OpenReach...
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Old 28-12-2016, 23:29
jonmorris
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You can understand why, as the people paying the money are not the end user, but the ISP. However its when the ISP can't chase Openreach (e.g. proactive ISP such as AAISP or Zen) then its a broken business model.
Exactly. ISPs have channels for faults etc which work, but they can't get info on upgrades (at least beyond quite generic plans, which don't always happen).

People like me should have some way to communicate when there are specific circumstances to justify it, as in my case (and similar ones elsewhere).

Thing is, they did allow contact with the great unwashed in the past.
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Old 29-12-2016, 10:48
Mark C
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I hope you're wrong, but so far it's being run very separately (even in the same building) because BT doesn't want EE to go the way of other BT divisions!
.
I've just heard a radio ad for BT Mobile, and the voice was (or sounded very much like) Kevin Bacon's !
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