
Magic Ducts Fairies
The above will be need to find any available space in the ducts... OFCOM = Clueless.
Ofcom has ordered BT's Openreach to open its telegraph poles and underground ducts to more companies wishing to lay their own fibre networks aimed at business customers. Previously access was restricted to providers offering services to home users and small businesses. Ofcom estimates that such access can cut the cost of …
Well if BT had done what they were supposed to with all those government billions we wouldn't be in this position in first place because (a) more fibre would have been installed (b) old copper would have been ripped out of ducts as a result.
The current position on duct space is a direct correlation to BT's insistence on sweating the copper assets and sitting on its backside in relation to fibre until it sees an AltNet seriously turn up on its patch, then its suddenly "yes, of course we can get fibre to you Sir".
Most of the time I consider OFCOM to be fairly useless, a typical government quango without the necessary teeth. However you should at least offer a modicum of praise when it looks like they might finally do something about something relatively worthwhile.
The government gave the money to councils and councils tasked BT and others with doing specific pieces of work. Upgrading to FTTC is quicker and cheaper than installing FTTP - so I think the choice was to give lots of people FTTC or a much smaller set of people FTTP.
I think it depends if your approach to solving the issue is to be primarily concerned with the technology or primarily concerned with improving broadband speeds for as many people as possible in as short a time as possible, If FTTP had been the chosen option, 90% of the people with decent enough speeds today on FTTC would still be stuck on ADSL and 10% of them would have FTTP. I'm struggling with how that would be preferable.
" so I think the choice was to give lots of people FTTC"
Except lots of people are *still* waiting for FTTC, let alone FTTP.
Even in extreme remote rural areas such as, erm.... parts of Central London !
BT have failed miserably If they haven't even managed to get off their backside and plaster Central London in fibre by now.
Surely that's the lowest of the low hanging fruit ? Probably the highest population density you'll find anywhere in the UK ... and you still can't be arsed to roll out 100% fibre ?
Well done BT. Well done.
Central London would be among the most expensive and red-tape-ridden areas to do such a rollout, so it's hardly a surprise that it's not number one. Businesses will have leased lines anyway.
You might be waiting for something but millions have access to FTTC with an ever growing number on FTTP. Even in rural areas, where they can string fibres from poles instead of having to dig and blow, and where road closures and other inconveniences are much easier to arrange
The regulator reckons more than half of UK homes now have access to ultrafast broadband (defined as services offering download speeds of at least 300Mbit/s). [citation required]
As far as I know there is only one company offering 300mb/s internet, and then only if the wind is in the right direction. At that is "upto 300mb/s" not "at least 300mb/s" and that provider likely does not cover 50% of homes......
As far as I know there is only one company offering 300mb/s internet
Nope, the figure is correct, possibly even understated.
There are two major CPs (BT(*) and VM) who both offer 300Mb/s or higher. Then there's KCOM around hull, almost all the alt nets offer ultrafast and there are several middle-ground CPs (Gigaclear, Hyperoptic) offering ultrafast.
The reason you might think it's not common is because, as ever, hardly anyone is actually choosing to pay for the higher speeds. Most people don't need it and can't justify it. If everyone paid for the fastest service available to them the UK would be in number one place on the speed charts.
(*)BT offer it through G.FAST which is very range limited but also have a lot of FTTP (GPON) in place.
Nope, the figure is correct, possibly even understated.
Actually, I suspect the figure is more of an overstatement.
No where in the Ofcom report do they actually define what "Access to a download speed of
300Mbit/s or higher (ultrafast)" actually means.
>*)BT offer it through G.FAST which is very range limited but also have a lot of FTTP (GPON) in place.
Just to put "a lot" into perspective, according to Ofcom's report "access to full fibre service" ie. FTTP accounts for 7% of properties.
No where in the Ofcom report do they actually define what "Access to a download speed of
300Mbit/s or higher (ultrafast)" actually means.
It doesn't really need to be defined. It's fairly well understood that 'Access to...' means that should a given property owner wish to purchase such a service they can do so. And since VM covers more than 50% of the country and with all the other CPs offering 300Mb/s or higher (including BT's lamentable G.FAST since that does at least provide some properties with 300Mb/s) it's quite easy to see how Ofcom and other industry watchers come to that conclusion.
No-one thinks that Ofcom is claiming 50% of properties in the country already have the service. That would be ridiculous. All they (and other industry watchers are saying) is that at least 50% of properties in the UK could have a 300Mb/s or faster service if they wanted to.
I don't think you'd find many industry pundits who would disagree with that.
It doesn't really need to be defined. It's fairly well understood that 'Access to...' means that should a given property owner wish to purchase such a service they can do so.
I can purchase a FTTP service, just that the price it will have lots of zeros on it and a long lead time, thus from your definition I clearly have 'access to...'
Does 'access to...' include properties that have a dual copper/fibre cabinet to the home cable, but only FTTC and copper to the home services are being delivered.
The only definition that holds water, is that it only includes those properties that can access ultrafast services by only replacing the home router/modem....
"I can purchase a FTTP service, just that the price it will have lots of zeros on it and a long lead time, thus from your definition I clearly have 'access to...'"
Then you are not in the low percentage deemed to have access to FTTP. That refers to properties where FTTP infrastructure is already in the street, often instead of FTTC, and the installation cost of an actual service is "consumer friendly" if not free, within a week or two of order.
>Then you are not in the low percentage deemed to have access to FTTP.
Agreed, I'm in the even smaller percentage of people who have explored what jonathan keith recommended Lostintranslation do.
So I had costings for getting 7 miles of fibre (exchange to street cabinet), street cabinet (installed and equiped) and fibre (cabinet to premises)... To cut a long story short, couldn't persuade enough residents (or the right ones) to invest and so went mobile broadband and waited (6 years) until BDUK/BT decided to install FTTC...
toob.co.uk will be offering 1Gb symmetric / up & down, in Southampton, over a G.PON - Gigabit Passive Optical Network.
This is great news but it's unclear to me how competition will take place. I can see 3 technical options.
First that other operators use the same G.PON as toob, with DWDM - separate wavelengths up to 32 or even 96 could mean 16 to 48 symmetric broadband services, respectively, are possible, in theory over one fibre. From a simplified high level viewpoint, this is an equivalent of openreach where services are delivered over the same last mile copper connection. But in practice, one company such as toob may own that infrastructure and not be willing to let others compete on it.
Second: multiple separate fibre optic networks are laid. But what would be the physical limit to number of fibres laid and therefore competition?
Third, combination of first and second.
Then there's the implementation at the customer end, which can vary, particularly with multiple customers in a building, e.g. residential. In that regard, Toob are offering full fibre G.PON into the customers premises or home - FTTP. Meanwhile hyperoptic have offered FTTP which is FTTB - to the building terminating at a Gigabit ethernet router which serves each customer via Gigabit ethernet (electrical). Inside a building can get more complicated and restrictive, physically to offer competing separate services.
In conclusion, with new fibre services it seems some more clarity on regulation and how competition can operate, is needed from Ofcom.
In spite of the fact that OpenReach have fibre to the cabinet only half a mile from where I currently live, Virgin point blank refused to use that cabinet under Local Loop Unbundling rules to move my contract from where I had been with them for over ten years (NTL originally) to where I am now. They then had the audacity to try to charge me a disconnection fee, despite the fact that they were the ones who wanted me disconnected. I am now with BT, FTTC and copper the last half mile, but it is not as fast nor as reliable as the FTTP I had with VM. BTW, I am now living in the Wild West, and VM do not consider Wales as being civilized enough to warrant their incursion, despite the fact that the nearest VM box is in Oswestry, only 3 miles away.
I agree with you about nervous seeing Openscreech vans. That's happened so often to me at one location that I've now got the mobile and DDI of the local area manager and instructions to "call if you have any problems in the future".
However I disagree on "letting other companies start mucking around" due to the simple fact that you hardly get Openscreech engineers these days. Instead they send you contractors who are typically worse than useless. So chances are you won't see anyone new "mucking around", just the same useless contractors being hired by different firms.
".....that BT will finally be able to use the cable ducts that Virgin use."
That's not the problem.
BT have cherry-picked their fibre deployment so they are already in areas served by Virgin anyway.
Its the BT monopoly areas that is the problem, where BT know there's nobody else around in a 10 mile radius. BT have the ducts there but can't be arsed to use them themselves, unless an AltNet turns up and starts going through the hassle of digging their own ducts. At which point BT "suddenly remember".
>BT have cherry-picked their fibre deployment so they are already in areas served by Virgin anyway.
Discussion in BT: Wheres the best place to deploy fibre to maximise our return on investment? In high density built up areas like cities.
Discussion in VM: Wheres the best place to deploy our ultrafast service so as to maximise our return on investment? In high density built up areas like cities.
Given the lead times on these projects, we can expect those discussions to have occurred and decisions made sometime before anyone things about scheduling a gang to dig up the streets...
"supplied to them cheaply by the investors in umpteen bust cable companies..."
Well, at least Virgin extensively use their ducts (whatever their origins) for fibre.
Which is more than can be said for BT, who prefer the "I'll get out of bed if you pay me enough" approach.
"BT have the ducts there but can't be arsed to use them themselves, unless an AltNet turns up and starts going through the hassle of digging their own ducts. At which point BT "suddenly remember"."
That's not completely true. For all the whinging people throw at them, Openreach are perhaps the biggest FTTP provider in rural and less desirable areas.
Around here they're doing a ton of FTTP infill for those that never had FTTC, or are too far from their FTTC enabled cabinet. Sadly my FTTC line appears to be too good for such an upgrade.
No Virgin, no other competition. The postcodes don't show up on the local broadband campaign's list so unsure if they're even taxpayer subsidised. The FTTC cabinets were.
As for "suddenly remembering" - the altnets wanted forced competition in what is really a natural monopoly, so they're going to get it. Don't see a problem with that. Nothing stopping others from taking risks and investment - one of those risks is that Openreach decide to upgrade their existing network.
Depending on your neighbours, you might want to consider a Community Interest Company. Some examples of CIC Gigabit FTTP:
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-34256790
... and .gov info:
https://gigabitvoucher.culture.gov.uk/
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/broadband-delivery-uk#local-full-fibre-networks-programme
Are you sure it's supposed to be Openreach?
CDS were one of those campaigns that decided not to hand it all to Openreach. They gave some of the FTTP work to Gigaclear, who have recently been pulled up for missing their targets and dates in... Devon and Somerset.
Meanwhile on the other side of the Tamar Openreach are stringing fibre from every pole, at least they are around here. Just not mine.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Wednesday welcomed the decision by a group of telecom and cable industry associations to abandon their legal challenge of the US state's net neutrality law SB822.
"My office has fought for years to ensure that internet service providers can't interfere with or limit what Californians do online," said Bonta in a statement. "Now the case is finally over.
"Following multiple defeats in court, internet service providers have abandoned this effort to block enforcement of California's net neutrality law. With this victory, we’ve secured a free and open internet for California's 40 million residents once and for all."
The FTC has settled a case in which Frontier Communications was accused of charging high prices for under-delivered internet connectivity.
The US telecommunications giant has promised to be clearer with subscribers on connection speeds, and will cough up more than $8.5 million, or less than a day in annual profit, to end the matter.
Frontier used to primarily pipe broadband over phone lines to people in rural areas, expanded to cities, and today supplies the usual fare to homes and businesses: fiber internet, TV, and phone services.
The Biden White House has put forward a plan that could see 40 percent of households in the United States getting subsidized high-speed internet, with some having service free of charge.
The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) was created as part of the recently passed infrastructure law, and will reimburse bills from internet service providers (ISPs).
Households covered by the ACP will have internet service costs reduced by up to $30 a month, or up to $75 a month if they live on tribal lands.
Starlink customers who've been itching to take their dish on the road can finally do so – for a price.
The Musk-owned satellite internet service provider quietly rolled out a feature this week called Portability which, for an additional $25 per month, will allow customers to take their service with them anywhere on the same continent – provided they can find a clear line-of-sight to the sky and the necessary power needed to keep the data flowing.
That doesn't mean potential Starlink customers sign up for service in an area without a wait list and take their satellite to a more congested area. Sneaky, but you won't get away with it. If Starlink detects a dish isn't at its home address, there's no guarantee of service if there's not enough bandwidth to go around, or there's another outage.
The Communication and Workers Union (CWU) will this week publish the timetable to run an industrial action ballot over the pay rise BT gave to members recently, with the telco's subsidiaries to vote separately.
Earlier this month, BT paid its 58,000 frontline workers a flat rate increase of £1,500 ($1,930) for the year, upping it from the £1,200 ($1,545) initially offered. BT hadn't cleared this increase with the CWU, and the union branded the offer as unacceptable at a time when inflation in Britain is expected to soar by 10 percent this year.
In a public town hall meeting last week, the CWU said it will take an "emergency motion" to the Annual Conference this week to "set out the exact ballot timetable," said Karen Rose, vice president at CWU.
Parts of South Yorkshire are to get fiber broadband run through mains water pipes in a two-year trial to evaluate the viability of the technology for connecting more homes.
The move will see fiber-optic cable strung through 17 kilometers of water mains between Barnsley and Penistone under a government-sanctioned technology trial. The project appears to be part of a £4m fund announced last year to trial ways of connecting up hard-to-reach homes without digging up roads.
Another section of the trial will be to test out whether fiber installed inside water pipes can be used to help water companies detect leaks, and so cut down on water wastage.
In an analysis of 3,356 fixed-line broadband deals in 220 countries, price comparison website Cable.co.uk found that the UK has the 92nd cheapest internet, beating the US, which came in 134th place.
Based on 41 packages, the average cost per month for broadband in Britain came in at $39.01. Stateside, this rose to $55, from 34 packages measured.
For these bulwarks of western democracy, 92nd and 134th place isn't particularly impressive. But if you really want to shave the dollars off your internet bill, you have a number of options.
Column I heard an electric discharge, a bit like a Jacob's ladder, immediately before a deafening crack of thunder. I'd never been so close to a lightning strike! All of the lights in the house went bright, then dimmed, then went back to normal. "Uh-oh," I thought, "I'm in trouble now." Everything in the house had been hit by a nasty surge and the oft-spoken aphorism that broadband services are now a utility to rank with water and electricity was suddenly very, very, real to me.
But it was electricity I worried about first. I use top of the line surge protectors so my most sensitive devices – computers and monitors, of which I have many – all seemed fine. But I'd overlooked two other connections that come into nearly every home: the antenna and the phone line.
My television seemed to have taken a direct hit. It still worked – mostly – but appeared unable to receive any digital broadcasts. That circuit, lying on the other side of the antenna lead, likely took a big hit from the lightning strike. But the rest of the television seemed fine – at first. After a few days, and several spontaneous reboots, I began to intuit that devices don't always immediately fail when hit by lightning. Sometimes they gradually shed their functions and utility.
The telecoms kit market had a good 2021 with revenues close to $100bn, up more than 20 percent since 2017, but growth is now slowing, according to analyst Dell'Oro Group. Huawei is also starting to feel the effect of sanctions, but still leads the global market by a fair margin.
However, the Dell'Oro Group's prediction of slightly less growth for 2022 may turn out to be optimistic amid warnings that the Ukraine war is already having an impact on the fragile supply chain recovery.
Dell'Oro's analysis is based on the telecoms market sectors it monitors, including Broadband Access, Microwave & Optical Transport, Mobile Core Network (MCN), Radio Access Network (RAN), and Service Provider Router & Switch.
Optical-fibre internet now makes up 32 per cent of fixed broadband subscriptions across the OECD countries, and is the fastest growing broadband technology. However, there is a mixed picture with cable still dominant in the Americas and the UK still predominantly DSL.
These figures come from an update to the OECD's broadband portal, indicating that fibre subscriptions grew by 15 per cent across the OECD countries between June 2020 and June 2021, with demand for faster internet speeds as employees worked remotely due to COVID-19 restrictions cited as one reason.
Fixed broadband subscriptions in OECD countries totalled 462.5 million as of June 2021, up from 443 million a year earlier, while mobile broadband subscriptions totalled 1.67 billion, up from 1.57 billion a year earlier.
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