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BT announces next 178 exchanges for its fibre based services
Monday 12 December 2011 11:22:01 by Andrew Ferguson

With the announcement today of another 178 exchange areas, Openreach has now announced some 80% of its foot print commercial fibre roll-out, which is primarily fibre to the cabinet, offering up to 40 Mbps now, with upgrades to an up to 80 Mbps in 2012. The final goal of the Openreach £2.5 billion investment is to offer its fibre products to two thirds of households in the UK.

"We continue to make tremendous strides with our fibre programme. Super-fast broadband is already within reach of more than six million premises today and we are on track to pass ten million premises next year.

Our ambitions do not stop there. We will make fibre available to two thirds of UK premises by the end of 2014 2 and we want to go even further. It is important that as many premises as possible have access to fibre and so we will bid for the BDUK 3 funds that are available. Our experience in deploying fibre networks at scale and the fact that our open, wholesale network allows competition to thrive in an area makes Openreach an ideal partner for these local/regional broadband initiatives."

Olivia Garfield, CEO of Openreach

The full list is published on the BT website. The majority of the exchanges are expected to be ready for service by the end of 2012, and while be offering Fibre to the cabinet. Any additional areas on top of the existing FTTP roll-outs are likely to get their own announcement. The Openreach superfast website has the exchanges listed too.

[ Topic: Wholesale | 123 comments | link to this item ]

Comments

Posted by welshwarrior 5 months ago
Surprise Surprise - still nothing west of Cardiff!! Do BT think that WALES ends at Cardiff?
Posted by cyberdoyle 5 months ago
Fibre based programme? my dial up is fibre based.
Posted by SiPurdy 5 months ago
Worse than that, they've got Sketty and Morriston, but no mention of Swansea Central (possibly the 2nd biggest exchange in Wales?).
Posted by welshwarrior 5 months ago
HaHa yeah - I meant Swansea not Cardiff in my original post ;-) Weird that in some cases they seem to be doing smaller exchanges such as Morriston but not Swansea Central. MY exchange isn't even 21CN enabled yet! But then I'm nearly as far west as you can get in Wales!
Posted by chaz6 5 months ago
Market Bosworth not on the list and still stuck at 576kbs :-(
Posted by rickw 5 months ago
City Airport not serviced even though exchange enabled.

I get 1meg if I am lucky right on top of the airport and close to the olympic site.

I tried again just now but still no joy and there are over 700 dwelling on this estate.

To Infinity maybe but not in the London area!
Posted by Bob_s2 5 months ago
The list in some cases is confusing it lists for instance two exchanges in Newport, Newport Chartist & Newport Gwent. Newport Chartist makes sense but I have not a clue as to what Newport Gwent one is?
Posted by Somerset 5 months ago
It's Newport Savoy.

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/SWNE_EX
Posted by fastman 5 months ago
Rickw can you PM your psotcode and i wll have a look
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
cyberdoyle, between you and the exchange what part of your dial up service is fibre?

Bah my exchange doesn't make the list again. :(
Posted by vicdupreez 5 months ago
No new Northern Ireland ones in that list either...
Posted by Saurus 5 months ago
33 in Scotland (lucky them) and a big fat 0 in East Anglia, despite: Adastral Park is BT’s global innovation and development centre. It’s also the home of InnovationMartlesham – a joint initiative by BT and East of England Development Agency (EEDA) to bring ICT related companies to the Park.
Posted by Saurus 5 months ago
Having checked the BT sites there is not one exchange in the areas between Thetford, Long Stratton, Harleston, Framlingham and just north of Stowmarket which is marked for upgrade a total of 21 excchanges in the area not even considered, disgracefully and absolutely unbelievable!!!
Posted by andrew (Favicon staff member) 5 months ago
With their two thirds target, thus a 1 in 3 chance of being missed out for any one property.

If it was a 100% full fibre to the home, then it would probably only be a 20% coverage figure.
Posted by Bob_s2 5 months ago
One interesting thing is most of Cornwall is getting FTTP. Is this being subsidised in some way. It cannot be viable commercially ?
Posted by welshwarrior 5 months ago
@Saurus

That is a disgrace but what's even worse is that hardly anywhere West of Swansea even has 21CN WBC let alone FTTC - which is not fair at all!
Posted by chrysalis 5 months ago
It is certianly a lopsided rollout, it seems the rollout is concentrated heavily on certian parts of the country. Cornwall is been subsidised I would have thought. Finally my exchange is FE status by end of 2012, looking at leics map zoomed out its as if they threw darts a board since there is no pattern to it.
Posted by djfunkdup 5 months ago
There seams to be a pattern here for the have and have not's..yea i am sure many of you have spotted and noticed this before.. i all ready have 100Mbps from virgin media and i have just noticed that the bt exchange that serves my area(DOUGLAS)is getting FTTC enabled next year at some point..
Posted by djfunkdup 5 months ago
Cont: i do feel sorry for you guys that seam to be getting left out,while other areas seam to have a choice of fast broadband suppliers..i can understand why some of you feel there is not a fair coverage happening here....hopefully things will happen soon for you,or news of something @ least..
Posted by welshwarrior 5 months ago
Yep definitely needs to be sorted out. TalkTalk just LLU'd my exchange and then within days, BT announced that it'll be 21CN WBC by end on Jan! It's like BT are trying to out do their competitors in aeas already enabled for fastewr speeds!
Posted by AndrueC 5 months ago
To be fair to CD for years we've been telling her about the huge amount of fibre used in BT's networks. It seems a bit churlish to know deride her for finally acknowledging it. 99% of the network her packets flow over is fibre and therefore in a sense she's right.
Posted by b4dger 5 months ago
When BT make these announcements are they 'new' exchanges or ones already on their 'to do' schedule? www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/where-and-when
Posted by JPL 5 months ago
"two thirds of UK premises by the end of 2014" is just not good enough.

Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
JPL, I think you'll find as no-one else is stepping up its all you'll get.

AndrueC, yeah I know what you are saying but I read her comments as snide meaning "oh its not fibre at all"
Posted by solitaire 5 months ago
Woo!! *Snoopy Dance*
My exchange is one of the lucky ones in Scotland listed in the new list ^_^
Posted by themanstan 5 months ago
Re: Cornwall, kudos to local gov there. They got the EU to cough tens of millions to help roll-out there.

Re: VM and BT
Er... well if VM has 50% coverage and BT is going for 66% coverage, there will be a lot of overlap. Note VM is mostly urban deployed, i.e. the most profitable.

Posted by themanstan 5 months ago
Re: 2014 end date for FTTC...
Unless you can magic up another £5 billion during a recession it's not going to get any faster or larger. And blame OFCOM, because whilst the rest of Europe was building their fibre networks since the earyl 2000s, BT was prevented by OFCOM from domestic fibre services up until mid-2009...
Posted by andrew (Favicon staff member) 5 months ago
Comments that use profanities are not welcome. We accept any viewpoint that is relevant to the topic, but keep things civil please.
Posted by Thalgrum 5 months ago
even in area's they have done, there are still large parts that get skipped, so dont get your hopes up if your town/area comes up, you still might get missed...
Posted by warweezil 5 months ago
Spoke to some muppet at The Welsh Assembly today who could offer no explanation as to why we are so far behind Cornwall... (who don't even have a devolved administration to fight their corner)Apparently they are "talking to people" and *Hope* to have something in progress by 2015.
Posted by warweezil 5 months ago
Meanwhile we have BTw parroting garbage like this - ""Super-fast broadband will be welcomed by families throughout the area because it will help improve their quality of life and leisure and open new doors through online learning and fast access to information and services," and yet these families are the ones who live close to the education and leisure facilities with good public transport and existing fast broadband services available.
Posted by warweezil 5 months ago
(CONTD) While large swathes of wales remain on ADSL1 paying through the nose for a greatly inferior service. I wonder why Cornwall county Council seems to be able to look after their citizens better than the much heralded Assembly "Government" in Cardiff nwho seem to have an inability to see beyond the South Wales M4 Corridor.
Posted by Discus 5 months ago
Hooray, the Hunslet exchange has finally been selected. Not so sure when our cabinets will be upgraded though!! It would be nice to think they would upgrade the cabinets on long/ slower lines first, before those that already get much higher speeds, but I doubt it.
Posted by andrew (Favicon staff member) 5 months ago
Cornwall had a previous project that was ahead of the game with regards to ADSL, and when that project finished they started on the next one.

In short the announcement in Sept 2010, was almost three years in the making.
Posted by Bob_s2 5 months ago
The 178 Exchanges seems to bee a mixture of new plus ones moved from the Future list to the Available soon list

As far as Wales is concerned they recieved a large sum from Westminster for HS Broadband but other than talk I dont thing anything has happened at all. If you are not on the commercial rollout I would not hold your breath waiting for the assembly to do anything
Posted by gobsheen 5 months ago
I see Warrington has been left out again yet Stockton heath (small area of Warrington) is already connected to Infinity. just does not make sense.I can see a lot of people going to Virgin Cable.
Posted by fastman 5 months ago
Sauras - i seems to recall that a large number in suffolk were done in phase 8 most the the ones ou mentioned are small exchanges (m1) in comparison for instance Harleston is a 2500 premises Market 1
Posted by kingbiscit 5 months ago
Gobsheen - its pathetic, I live in Winwick, Warrington which has terrible speeds... luckily we are doing something about and hopefully ditiching BT altogether.

www.whyswinwickwaiting.com
Posted by themanstan 5 months ago
I find it disturbing to see UK society descending into "I expect and want it now" society! Yet be unwilling to pay for a now service. It just shows that we're moving away from a manufacturing economy to a service economy, as the logistics of infrastructure builds aren't understood...
Posted by warweezil 5 months ago
I find it pretty disturbing that BTw can charge almost as much for an old gen service as they do for the spanking new mega fast service that all this roll out money has been spent on. Maybe thats why we havent even got WBC here and are stuck on the half assed IPSC bodge job.

Our Exchange has had ADSL for 10 years I'm sure they more than made their money back on this kit by now. Meanwhile we are told how this FTTx will improve lives and opportunities.. but that only seems to apply to those in urban areas
Posted by warweezil 5 months ago
Fibre isnt so much of the issue... its just SOME investment in an exchange that has seen little done to it in 10 years... or a decent sized cut in the cost of ADSL1 that might actually reach consumers and reflect the 3rd rate service we get here for near 1st division money.
Posted by creakycopperline 5 months ago
looks like all your pro bt statements have been in vein gmann, they haven't rewarded you with a date. stan i've been told bt is not a charity.
then why should the public be asked to donate
towards it?
Posted by creakycopperline 5 months ago
JPL, I think you'll find as no-one else is stepping up its all you'll get.

AndrueC, yeah I know what you are saying but I read her comments as snide meaning "oh its not fibre at all"

well if bt didn't stand in the way by overcharging for access may be someone else would be able to. but BT deploying it's monopoly as usual. btw cleckheaton june date set.
Posted by themanstan 5 months ago
@Creaky

my point is that it's been only ~18 month since OFCOM allowed BT to begin domestic fibre and 1st exchanges announced.
I'm not saying they should donate, it's if they want something on larger scale faster it costs more... yet will customers want to pay more to get it sooner... the vast majority will not.
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
creaky, ofcom doesn't seem to think they are overcharging and Fujitsu are willing to pay the prices
Posted by themanstan 5 months ago
@Warweezil

Unfortunately, market 1 is generally going to be last in line, except for the lucky ones that have so far been upgraded.

Actually, Andrew do you have any stats on exchange by market? It would be interesting to see what proportion of FTTC upgrades are by market 1,2 or 3.
Posted by andrew (Favicon staff member) 5 months ago
Can the person who wants to convey their opinion on BT do so without swearing.

Negative opinions are perfectly OK, just swearing is not.
Posted by zyborg47 5 months ago
I am socked, Hereford is in the list, now that is a shock. i bet the larger estate will be served by it and yet they are the ones who can get a decent broadband speed.

I have said I will not bother with fibre even if it comes here, I think I will stick with that.
Posted by chris6273 5 months ago
Perhaps BT should focus on meeting existing RFS dates rather than announcing new exchanges which will probably make the matter worse! Pretty disgraceful. My exchange's RFS date has been pushed back 2 months now, and I've seen some exchanges near me pushed back 3 months!
Posted by creakycopperline 5 months ago

To Infinity maybe but not in the London area!
long long time ago, once saw a map with yellow
flags with planned exchange upgrades on it,
a few were scattered about the map. but the vast majority were in london. no offence but you've got the new wembley london 2012, home of the finnacial sector, and you get the large bulk of tourism, i don't think tourists say to them selves when they first get here, [screw london i'm off to swindon, that place place sounds like fun.
and yet you londoners cry like you've been hard done by.
Posted by Scubaholic 5 months ago
There was a recent report that said the UK has spent the least on infrastructure since WW2 of European countries. There is no vision let alone a plan. In part it is the fault of BB being sold on price & nothing else. As a Londoner I do feel hard done by, my exchange was due for upgrade this month & has been put back a year! The whole approach seems haphazard.
Posted by themanstan 5 months ago
@Scuba

That's likely down to the fact that the UK went relatively unscathed compared to what happened in Europe. Yes, we were subjected to the Blitz, but that pales in comparison to the wholesale destruction of cities, towns and villages across the continent. This allowed for a clean blueprint approach, which shows up the more modern infrastructure Europe has compared to the UK.
Posted by nickkcin 5 months ago
You have to be able to read between the lines and try and cut through the Marketing BS.
Most of the time an 'obvious' exchange is actually a VM area and therefore unattractive to BT (their service being inferior).
In Cornwall, the majority will not get FTTP (although they are 'marketing' those that are heavily), and actually there is a lot of Satellite backhaul being used down there due to lack of fibre.
Fujitsu are only involved in a pilot with BT and this doesn't mean it will actually become viable for large scale projects (the fact you can't use PIA for business being a big reason)

Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
PIA has nothing to do with business, never has been that is why it can't be used for that purpose.

Is Infinity inferior to VM cable? Speeds wise not as fast with FTTC not sure inferior is the right word.
Posted by nickkcin 5 months ago
The fact PIA doesn't allow business services on it has a big impact on any business case and therefore makes it less likely to happen

You don't have the 'upto' problem with VM, and the on demand services are better than the poor excuse that BT Vision delivers
Posted by Scubaholic 5 months ago
@themanstan
That's only part of the reason. Here we rebuilt the same old stuff again due to lack of forward thinking.
Wasn't it Milton Keynes where they had problems installing ADSL so they ripped out the fibre & put in copper? See comment above about Ofcom & BT a fiasco presided over by a govt without vision & the current lot thinks 100m is a great sum of money unless giving it to bankers.
Posted by themanstan 5 months ago
PIA for business would only work if all ISPs opened their infrastructure, as BT does not have SMP... Can you see other ISPs (C&W, VM, etc...) opening their infrastructure to the competition?
More importantly, capacity would then a serious problem. Would you allow BT to reserve more space in ducts as your adding an additional competitive component? This may have a knock on effect on the prime purpose of PIA domestic services. As a single leased line can generate £300-10,000/pm, you can see operators using it for business and ignoring domestic customers.
Posted by themanstan 5 months ago
@Scuba

Yes, they built MK with Alu and TPON... but then again the internet wasn't even a twinkling in the eye of Berners-Lee. And back then copper was stupidly expensive as it is now. So unless you objectively look at the history, it's not a fair call. All you had was telephones and data via telephones (the squeeky stuff) that was pretty much it and was well served by that tech. It was impossible to predict that ADSL would be a tech that needed copper...
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
nickkcin you certainly DO have the upto problem with VM. You'll find it in their marketing and you'll find people with 50Mbps services that don't get anything like it, don't fool yourself Virgin's offerings are far from perfect, congestion and other issues, same as everyone else, worse in some areas.
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
and nickkcin there are no competition issue with business circuits, there's already competition in that area. As theman says, why aren't you asking C&W and every other business circuit provide to open up? If your supplying businesses this has nothing to do with PIA which covers the home stretch to the exchange
Posted by nickkcin 5 months ago
We must make a distinction here. In the cities etc there is more than enough competition for business services and most SPs have some sort of infrastructure. However, if you are looking to provide NGA services in rural areas (ala BDUK) then BT has (by definition) a monopoly. PIA rules don't allow you to provide Homeworking, or SME services etc so hurting an already difficult business case
Posted by nickkcin 5 months ago
regarding the upto statement - I agree that both services use throttling of some sort, and in the peak hours people will only get a small amount of actual bandwidth. The difference with VM is that you buy 50M and you will get a peak of 50M, with BT you buy an 'upto 40M' service but get somewhere between 10 and 35 depending on a lot of factors
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
No there's more than enough competition anywhere in the UK. C&W BT VM (etc etc) can provide you a business circuit to any part of the UK. PIA doesn't cover businesses connections for a reason, there is no monopoly of business connections or SMP, that's how Ofcom see it because that is how it is.
Posted by themanstan 5 months ago
Homeworking is allowed, as it's just a form of business form of ADSL or Inifinty, just not leased lines.
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
Nope not always.. if you look at the Virgin forums and Avforums etc etc, you'll find many many people complaining about congestion and not getting anything like their headline speeds. I don't mean throttling I'm talking about capacity and congestion. Virgin isn't perfect just like other ISP's
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
I just find it unbelievable that some people think its "ok" to open up just BT ducts to any other business to put in their own leased lines to sell at a huge profit without having to do barely any work its unreal! :o

There's nothing wrong with the state of play as it is now, for business build your own infrastructure not rob it. Build your own and charge the customer it works now, no freeloaders please....
Posted by themanstan 5 months ago
Actually, PIA for leased could work... but not at the prices proposed for domestic fibre connections.
They should be proportionate to the charge of the leased line. However, I would expect the ISPs to squeal at the indignity of having to pay a market rate...
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
I don't think it would work, if every circuit provider switched to using BT ducts they'd soon run out of space and stifle the market. Plus its not use ISP's its any circuit provider, point to point circuits, meshed networks, everyone would be in like a shot. We need more businesses providing duct access not less.
Posted by themanstan 5 months ago
I think it would, with reserved space for domestic and BT capacity... there wouldn't be much space, but i'd expect ISPs would be prepared to pay top dollar for access to a little duct sapce they didn't need to dig.
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
I just can't see it.

BT have congested ducts in areas with just their own domestic and business customers, if you pulled in X other big circuit providers it would go downhill very fast. We need more ducting and more choice not less.
Posted by New_Londoner 5 months ago
@Scuba
If your exchange in London has moved back 12 months suggest you look into the approach being taken by your local authority. A fair number of exchanges have been activated but some seem to be suffering from local authorities being difficult. Perhaps a call to your local councillor and planning department would be in order...
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
Yep... there's a lot of local authority/planning issues that scupper dates
Posted by fastman 5 months ago
kingbiscit interesting observation
Posted by fastman 5 months ago
welsh warrior and 21cn exchange means their is a good investment case and multi suppliers -- thats a important factor in when your looking to roll out a network
Posted by damien001 5 months ago
Trobule is if cost of the old adsl product was slash lots of people would find they have no internet as it would cost bt and the ISP more than they made so would not provide the service
Posted by welshwarrior 5 months ago
Fastman:

Perhaps my exchange will get FTTC at some point down the line then :-)
Posted by nickkcin 5 months ago
"C&W BT VM (etc etc) can provide you a business circuit to any part of the UK"

This bit is true, until you realise that actually the tail circuit is mostly BT. The main service providers do have some own infrastructure in the main city centres and of course between cities, but if you buy a leased line from a non-BT service provider outside the cities there is a 90% chance they will actually buy the 'tail' circuits from BT.
Posted by nickkcin 5 months ago
Using 'leased line' is misleading as what we are really looking at with PIA is the ability to buy dark fibre type services to provide true competition in the NGA space (the link from the exchange to the cabinet)
Posted by nickkcin 5 months ago
In rural areas the monopoly (yes I do mean 100%) provider of access circuits is BT. Is this competition - no. So PIA is a way (albeit flawed) of trying to introduce a level of competition, to allow some choice. Remember, even with PIA, BT is still the monopoly (yes 100% again) owner of the copper circuits.
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
With PIA BT just owns the rented space, they don't own the circuit the PIA customer puts in whatever they want into that sub duct.
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
If other telco's don't have ducts in rural areas then they have to buy the tails from BT that's not a problem surely, if they want it cheaper they need to expand their own ducting, these are businesses we are talking about, with money :)
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
Its like saying that the Post Office/Tesco/Amazon etc has a more significant distribution network than its rivals and its poor rivals should be allowed access.

No, they should develop their own business.
Posted by Stoobs 5 months ago
Or perhaps they should have been lucky enough to have been a privatised ex-government utility in the first place, then had the luxury of having a complete stranglehold over the market for a decade or two? ;)

Let's face it, if BT had to start from scratch at the same time as Virgin etc, they would be in a similar place in terms of infrastructure rollout.

Given the complete control of national infrastructure which was handed to them on a plate, it's hardly a fair comparison now is it?
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
Not sure if was on a plate? It was paid for, someone had to buy it and they did and it was just voice at the time, no-one knew back then what it would develop into.

Agree though that if they were starting from scratch they wouldn't have the coverage they have now. But it is what is it, they bought what was sold and its theirs, its a private company the sale was many years ago other telco's need to develop more infrastructure instead of this constant my poor bleeding heart approach, saying that brits love to moan!
Posted by Stoobs 5 months ago
The new company didn't have to invest in building up the ducting network - it was already there because it was funded directly via public funds as it was a government department.

The company was effectively turned into X amount of shares, the government held 50%, while the public could purchase the remaining 50%. Subsequently the government offloaded the remaining shares over two more sell-offs.

So yes, handed it on a plate.
Posted by Stoobs 5 months ago
Not to mention on a plate, along with the keys to a significant war-chest/money printing device given the vast unchallenged monopoly it enjoyed.

Your argument that Virgin et al should effectively suck it up and do it all from scratch
becomes a moot point given the vastly different circumstances the companies find themselves in.
Posted by Stoobs 5 months ago
How could a much smaller company hope to compete against a fully solvent company with vast resources who were effectively given their infrastructure by the government?

That is why we have regulation - BT is still a monopoly with the keys to the Kingdom still firmly entrenched within it's coffers, hence why the ducting needs to be opened up to 3rd parties to ensure a level playing field.
Posted by Stoobs 5 months ago
Although I'd be a lot happier if all key infrastructure in the country was government owned and maintained, with private companies renting and providing the main customer services with strict SLAs to the customers..

Let the core infrastructure run at break-even, and allow the private companies make their profits on the top by providing additional services/customer service etc. Pipe-dream I know..
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
Sadly it is, would you trust this (or any) government to run key infrastructure?

Not sure if you remember what the phone service was like when it was run by HMG but it wasn't pretty.

I can see some of your points, but what they were "handed on a plate" isn't what is in place now, sure the ducts/poles are the same and they have reached further out (investment). But everything else is new, the networks of today came much later they were not given on a plate as they didn't exist
Posted by Stoobs 5 months ago
True, I wouldn't trust the current or previous government to run a bath, and I don't really see that changing much in the future, but we can all dream ;)

When the whole enchilada was run by Madge's finest(?!), there was no real regulation/SLA over what was delivered to the end user, especially given that it was analogue voice circuits, there wouldn't have been much call for it.

But that's not where the argument is, the argument stated is over access to ducts (and poles), which I think should happen if only be be able to level the playing field a touch.
Posted by Stoobs 5 months ago
If the market becomes stagnant because it becomes too costly for any other player to be able to compete, we all lose.

One of the bottlenecks is being able to get the groundworks in place - it costs an enormous amount of money and a large amount of inconvenience to dig all the ducting to be able to even put the infrastructure in place in the first instance, if that barrier can be removed, and the last real seat of BT's monopoly broken then we have set the basis for a healthy future market.
Posted by Stoobs 5 months ago
I wouldn't go as far as insisting that BT's core network be opened up to third parties, you're correct, that's where BT has heavily invested (rightly or wrongly given the various issues with 21CN), but physical access shouldn't be the barrier.

Third party access to space in exchanges, shared cabs etc just makes sense, we really wouldn't want multiple provider cabs and exchanges cluttering the place up.

If you change your gas/water/electricity provider, you really wouldn't want to have them dig up the road to lay their own branded pipe/cable to you would you?
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
Well with PIA you wouldn't need cabs and exchanges become POP's which other ISP's already have.

Gas and leccy etc are different setups though, the suppliers pay to use the distribution networks, there is no concept of LLU or PIA.

PIA is happening for domestic access which is what it is all about, to improve broadband speeds to the home.
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
There is no such issue with business connections, it might not be ideal for other telco's to use BT tail ends in some areas but if they want to operate in the area that is how it is and they pass that cost onto the customer. Its two different things, one is needed to boost speeds, one isn't.
Posted by nickkcin 5 months ago
Glad you brought up the Electricity/Gas angle as this shows how it really ought to be run. National Grid runs the infrastructure on an open basis for all, and does not compete for the supply of services over the network.
If you break out BT Openreach from BT (something I have argued for for a long while) you could have a similar solution for Telecoms (as they are effectively doing in Australia).
Posted by nickkcin 5 months ago
At the moment you have BT being monopoly provider (that is MONOPOLY - does this word not fill you with dread!!!! It ought to and why we need regulation - unless you work for BT of course). You are saying it was rubbish when HMG had a MONOPOLY and then it got a bit better when it became private, and then a lot better when we started to have competition
Posted by nickkcin 5 months ago
The area where BT still has a MONOPOLY is in the "outside city centre" local loop and that is where we still have a poor service. So we need a way of removing that MONOPOLY and giving fair competition which should improve services and prices.
Posted by themanstan 5 months ago
Not as cut and dried as you might think.

Where does the distribution network start and end?

Currently Openreach also has the BT's backbone. That can quite easily be said to be like other ISPs backbones, therefore not part of a demerged Openreach.

That just then leaves tails, cabs, and other bits and bobs.

However, it then deprives BT of balancing portions vs VM, as VM now has market advantage with it's own infrastructure to 50% of the population... this now would give it also SMP as compared to other ISPs.

See how complicated this gets? It's nowhere near as trivial as a simple demerger.
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
It didn't get bit better when it was handed over it got a lot better, you were lucky to get dial tone when they ran it!

Its something that comes up time and time again (splitting out OR)

The trouble is, its now privately owned if you could some how split out Openreach (Ofcom seem happy enough with the chinese wall approach) then who would buy it? The government? Even if they could afford it would the government invest in it? Hell no, they look to the private sector for anything broadband related, they don't want to invest anything.
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
It isn't ideal and if you could turn back time to change it all I'm sure people would, but it was sold and developed and is nothing like it was back then, you can't simply go back after 20+yrs and said.. err actually we want it all back if that's ok.

PIA is as good as it gets I guess.
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
And as theman says its even more complicated. After the sale Ofcom strangled BT for many years to let Mercury, NTL, C&W, Virgin build up their own market for competition purposes and to become what is it now.

You can't force a telco not to develop (fibre) for many many years so others can and then tell them they need to sell their infrastructure :) Virgin would become the new SMP overnight
Posted by creakycopperline 5 months ago
Bah my exchange doesn't make the list again. :(

which exchange are you connected to?
Posted by nickkcin 5 months ago
I was going to continue to comment but then I did a search for GMAN99 on Google and realised it was pointless. Hopefully those with an open mind will realise the issue with a MONOPOLY.
Posted by themanstan 5 months ago
Yes, it is i agree it has monopoly positions in parts of the market.
But, how do you break up the company equitably without putting another competitor company at an advantage? That's they key issue and my key gripe about OFCOM. They've developed a situation where they can no longer change the course of the market without significant detriment to either party.
Posted by Somerset 5 months ago
A monopoly where any other supplier, like VM, is free to setup.
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
nickkcin , I have got an open mind I've agreed with some of your comments, but its just not that easy from a regulation point of view, probably legally as well. Just because I'm not on the BT bashing wagon it doesn't mean I'm a lover of them, I'm just being realistic.

I couldn't seen anything relating to me on google btw :)
Posted by nickkcin 5 months ago
My Google search found results that implied Somerset and GMAN99 are the same person as well.
Being 'realistic' is what is allowing BT to continue it's MONOPOLY without there being any COMPETITION in rural areas. When all of the BDUK money ends up with BT lets see if everyone thinks it was a fair process particularly the 6M people who will be left with cr@p
Posted by nickkcin 5 months ago
btw if you want to know how to break up BT, look at NBN Co in Australia (no competitors getting an advantage there)
Posted by themanstan 5 months ago
That's not a break up of BT...
The Australian government leases from the two largest infrastructure owners and uses it as a wholesale network, as well as building out it's own infrastructure.
The equivalent here would be the UK government leasing both BT and VM infrastructure to deliver a nationwide network.
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
lol, I'm certainly not Somerset its been a while since he PM'd me on the forum but I'm not in the habit of pm'ing myself ;)

But anyone can build out into rural areas, competitors did it in cities, VM has done it in cities and beyond, there's nothing stopping anyone else doing rurals.

I don't know if NBN has the same story as BT and was handed it on a plate so I can't compare. People need to nag Ofcom to death, its only Ofcom that can do anything in this area and so far they seem to think its ok? PIA hasn't got off the ground yet shouldn't we be seeing if that works first?

Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
I still don't understand why other telco's can't dig/pole to rural areas. The GPO did it back in the day why can't a.n.other telco or the open consortium do it?
Posted by nickkcin 5 months ago
Basic economics
The BT infrastructure is basically an Operations cost to them (with a bit of capital for replacement items). Any new build is a Capital cost, plus Depreciation, plus Operations
The Operations cost is of course less for new build, but it doesn't make up the difference.
If you convert the GPO expenditure back into today's terms they spent many Billions installing it (a lot more than the Govt got back when they sold BT)
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
So its down to money and other telco's not wanting to spend.
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
Communications are here to stay, if someone wants to rival BT in rural areas someone needs to create new ducting/poles otherwise they will always have to pay BT for services.
Posted by dazzabigboy 5 months ago
Great BT announces another load exchanges what a massive difference it will make? "Fibre to the Cabinet" is still "Copper to the Home".

Well its good news for BT share holders not so good news for the customers as it means more ADSL rubbish!

I live in Ashby de la Launde where NextGenUs built a Gigabit fibre network to the home....stop messing about with copper BT and look at NextGenUs' example!!!!
Posted by GMAN99 5 months ago
If NextGenUS can do FTTP for £150 install why don't they do it for the rest of the country?
Posted by themanstan 5 months ago
I'd rather wait a couple of years for FTTC than10-15 for FTTH!
Posted by michaels_perry 5 months ago
Still nothing for rural Wiltshire! Chippenham has it, Calne is getting it soon but nothing in the surrounding areas! It is these areas that are worst affected by poor performance so rural businesses lose out again. All we want is the speed we are already paying for but not getting, so give us that, by fibre if that is the best way forward, but at the price we are already paying.
Posted by BREWERDAVE 5 months ago
Looked at this morning with hope in my heart! ..but as expected my little exchange,6 miles south of Cardiff and which is situated about 3 miles from 2 bigger exchanges which already have 21CN,FTTC etc - no plans for ANYTHING !So stuck on ADSL Max for the foreseeable future at inflated prices!
Posted by amips 5 months ago
Nothing for East Anglia as usual!
Posted by cbaldock 5 months ago
My FTTC Infinity experience, in South London.

Promised 30.7M, got 15-16. Took 3 months of badgering Bt Retail and many OR visits to get close to the contractual speed. Achieved over 30m,2am one Sun.
learnt that my cabinet is over 700yds distance, with the last 200 yds not copper but aluminium, which as one O.R. engineer admitted is rubbish. Openreach refuse point blank to replace with copper.

I was told in writing by a BT exec, that wilst Bt was obliged to provide a phone line for voice calls, it had no obligation to provide internet service of any speed!
Posted by creakycopperline 5 months ago

by the way i've just had a terrible thought,cleckheaton is the exchange i'm connected to, but i don't exactly live in the middle of cleck. upon the hill in hightown.i've seen white markins next to a green cab in the centre, but nowhere else. its slated to be fttp, but is everyone on the exchnge going to be connected, or will i still be stuck on 512kbps come june?

Posted by creakycopperline 5 months ago
gmann i checked samknows your xchange is due at 1st june same as mine
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