No big changes to UK broadband regs, despite no real competition for BT Britain's telecoms watchdog is giving itself a pat on the back for overseeing the UK's fiber broadband rollout thus far, so doesn't want to rock the boat by making any drastic changes to the regulations at this point, despite admitting there is no effective competition for BT. Ofcom claims the country is on course to have " …
It always feels a little bit odd when Ofcom prevent BT from reducing prices. Making consumers pay more in order to create a market where there is scope for competitors to undercut the majority player sounds a bit back to front and although altnets often do offer better deals and/or faster speeds I'm not sure it's benefiting all that many people.
On the other hand I do think Ofcom are right not to rock the boat at the moment. Things are progressing reasonably well and given the current economic climate I don't think drastically changing the rules would help.
With the benefit of having spend (cough) decades on the periphery of the telecoms industry, there are good reasons to be seen.
BT of old had a history of blatantly doing stuff that was for it's own benefit. OK, they were (and still are) a business which is there to make profits, but for something as nationally important you can't let an actual (as they were at one time) monopoly do things only in a way designed to maximise their own profits.
Some of those tricks were technical: for example, in Germany, use of the ISDN D channel for low bitrate signalling was quite common. In the UK it was available, but only in a manner that made it totally impractical and/or uneconomic for all but a few niche situations. At the time, we had a couple of remote sites where the bulk of the traffic was "green screen" terminals (user presses a key, terminal sends a code to the host, host sends something to the terminal to display). With D channel signalling, we could have allowed that to carry a lot of the traffic, and dialled up a B channel (64k) call when there was a higher amount of traffic. Instead we spent a not inconsiderable amount on "leased lines" (64k Kilostream connections) - hence by withholding a service from their ISDN offering, BT protected it's leased line business.
Some were ... lets be kind here, marketing led: for example, in a not so recent job I worked for a small IT services company. When FTTC (a.k.a. VDSL) was being rolled out in our town, cabinets that primarily served commercial areas magically didn't get provisioned until (sometimes) years after the residential areas were done. Again, one might think there was an element of stopping businesses dropping more expensive options in favour of a VPN over VDSL.
Some were just plain and obvious dirty tricks: For example, B4RN could show a pattern where BT/OpenRetch would declare an area as not getting any upgrades, B4RN announce plans to build out in that area, BT/OpenRetch suddenly decide the area is worth upgrading and go round persuading people to take up 2 yr ADSL contracts (thus locking out competitors for a couple of years for most customers) on the promise of an upgrade to VDSL (FTTC) when it's installed - except that the VDSL fails to arrive !
On pricing, that's a difficult question. In a previous job we had a marketing sheet from an outfit that was planning to offer a 2mbps symmetric connection using DSL technology using two pairs. That would have been great for us, at the time ADSL at 512k down and some pittance up hadn't yet arrived. ADSL was also what we'd consider expensive these days, IIRC it was something like £50+/mo for a 512k connection in noughties money - and needless to say there were calls for the price to come down. Come down it did, and the provider I mentioned just disappeared as their business model had been the rug pulled from under it. So we got cheaper, slower, ADSL instead of a choice of options.
Same thing with the altnets of today. Leaving our community projects like B4RN, it's eye wateringly expensive rolling out a network. BT & OR have an advantage - but by already being there, and by owning lots of ducts and poles. If you set the prices too low, then that favours the incumbent who has a better business case than any newcomer. All they need to do is target areas an altnet looks like rolling out in, and get users signed up to 2 yr contracts - that more or less scuppers the chances of the altnet getting a good signup rate and hence kills the business case. Drop the price to just above where you make a profit, but just below what the altnet needs to take to make a profit, and you also kill off the competition.
Unfortunately, while separating OpenRetch out from BT was a good start, it wasn't really enough. While in theory there was a wall between OR and BT, in practice BT owned OR and still had scope for influencing what OR did according to what was best for BT, not for OR, competing service providers, or the nation.
What is most maddening is that we could have been where we are now, 3 decades ago - it's a really classic tale of wrong thing done for the right reasons. If they'd instead made the decision to say that BT could roll out fibre, but that it had to completely separate the cables business from anything selling services, and anyone could come along and get the same access on the same terms - we'll a lot of the younger readers would be wondering what copper phone lines, or analogue phone services, were.
There are lots of different operators currently digging up roads and pavements in the town where I live.
But when everything finally goes live, unless I have misunderstood how all of this works, there will be no competition in most parts.
In my street I'll have a choice of one operator. Two streets away there will be a choice of one different operator.
Other parts of town will have a genuine choice but they are pretty small, dispersed areas.
Have I got this wrong?
Almost all of them are OpenReach.
In my street, there are two options - OpenReach (resold by about ten companies with near-identical pricing), and a single alt-net.
The alt-net is using OpenReach ducting and poles, but installing their own fibre.
It's creating rather a ratsnest, several homes now have two lines from the pole. In the new-build estates it's all underground, and looks much tidier.
Where I live I have a choice of FTC with EE/BT/OpenReach or FTP with GoFibre. GoFibre have been digging up streets to lay their own network, and putting up poles where they can't go underground. Their price is competitive but the quality of the work I've seen leaves a lot to be desired. For example, fibres going up poles have been left hanging loose (ideal loops to catch the unwary) - eventually "tidied up" by being tied in with blue polypropylene rope. A few neighbours have had FTP installed through the OpenReach ducts and say the service is OK - but the ducting is left uncapped and the ubiquitous blue PP rope used to pull it through left in place (the neighbours have had to tidy it so it does cause a trip hazard).
I've got EE (BT until my latest contract renewal) broadband and have had no problems with it - download speeds of 30Mbs are fine for us as we never need to watch more than one film at a time. I wouldn't complain if it was faster, though a bit more upload speed would be useful at times. EE have no plans to compete on FTP in our area (though some houses on new estates have the option) so I've considered getting GoFibre installed just for data, but their standard of finishing doesn't instil confidence that I'll be any better off in the long run.
I think you missed my point. Currently only FTTC is available. But when the fibre goes live (no idea yet when that will be) am I going to be limited by who laid the fibre? In my street it is Nexfibre, so Virgin Media. Two streets away it is Netomnia, so Youfibre. Other parts of town these two and Openreach are all working at the same time. So, as I currently understand it, choice will be different in different parts of a not very big town. Have I got THAT wrong?
I'm not that surprised.
In our town both OpenRetch and Fibrus have been working very hard - most poles now have two optical splitters on them. Connectivity is patchy though - there's a lot of work in between the boxes appearing on the poles, and the service being live, a lot of it being some person sat for hours splcing fibres ! Fibrus were first up our pole, but can't tell me when it will be live. OpenRetch followed about a week later, but informed me the service was available about 3 weeks ago. Just up the road, my late mother's house could get Fibrus a couple of months ago.
Give it a few months and I'd expect things to get more uniform. It's not in an operator's interests to roll out a network, but then leave half the town not covered. SO as the work progresses, I'd expect you to find the differences disappear as availability improves.
Around here, we have three networks to choose from
1) Vermin Media (not available at my home because it was built after NTL laid the cable and VM won't connect my house not that I want them)
2) TOOB Fibre. They installed their cable to the BT Poles and put a box on the top of them.
3) BT as a carrier for other ISP's like EE, PlusNet and even TalkTalk.
I went with PlusNet and get 500MB down (that's the limit of my router)
These choices is pretty common around here.
If it’s the dangerous wildcat CityFibre ‘mobile’ digging/roadwork’s (you have my sympathy), you will have a choice of about a gazillion GigaFibre companies, but none you will have heard of - Wombat Giga, Hyperfibre Rabbit, PurpleBanana Broadband … but most of them are small fry just wholesaling of CityFibre who have spaffed their money-burn exceptionally quickky - they forgot digging costs real money (see NTL-Telewest).
I find it strange that, wherever I've ever lived over the last 25+ years, I always seem to be in the "1%" that doesn't get the new stuff, or grants, or anything at all.
Despite living in cities, suburbs and rurally. Same for workplaces.
Strange how it's always "somewhere else" that gets the benefits of these things.
We do have a choice now. The Government subsidised the new installation of FTTP under one of their "rural connectivity" schemes but I've yet to find anyone in the village who actually subscribed - when it launched the cost was around double that of unlimited as-fast-as-it-would-go FTTC over the BT network with VOIP adding another significant chunk on top of that*. Subsequently Openreach also implemented FTTP here so the choice is from the many ISPs who piggy back on that and I'll probably go that way at the next renewal.
*Having had very poor mobile coverage until relatively recently people are still reliant on landlines.
but only EE (now the official provider of BT broadband) has access to the full 1.6Gbps
Not true. Or at least if it is true then BT is in big trouble with Ofcom.
More likely is that EE is the only CP choosing to market a retail product using the 1.6GBp/s wholesale product. Given that very few residential customers want such a thing and that almost none of them have any need for it that's hardly surprising.
and the difference is enormous.
Latency between home and office dropped from 40ms to 3ms on average. The connections are symmetric so I get a full Gigabit VPN connection between home and office and its dirt cheap. £35 for 1GB both ways and £104 for 8GB both ways at the office with static IPv4 allocations. They even let us set PTR records for the static IP's so we moved our mail and web back on prem
Keeping the BT connections as a standby for now but so far the service has been great and the support OK. There have been a couple of "scheduled upgrade" outages but we always get advance notice and they do it between 3am-4am
Makes me wonder why BT cant match a little outfit like YouFibre
35 quid for 1GB both ways seems like a n awful good bargain. Here in Weymouth using Jurassic Fiber, we don't get symmetric and it's currently 34 quid for 450 down, 100 up. When they started out it was even less, but my guess is that was a loss leader to get folk onboard. Awhile back JF were bought out by Cuckoo, my guess is they were almost bankrupt...
Makes me wonder why BT cant match a little outfit like YouFibre
Scale. OpenReach has to run a network which covers most premises in the UK with either FTTP or FTTC or POTS-to-internet, business broadband, dark fibre lines, government lines, and connections to international lines (although IIRC the actual international lines are run by TalkTalk backhaul or foreign companies like AT&T or Vodafone), whereas YouFibre have a much smaller network in comparison which doesn't cover most of those sectors I'd imagine.
"Ofcom claims the country is on course to have "full-fiber" internet connectivity (i.e. fiber-to-the-premises or FTTP) available to 96 percent of homes and businesses by 2027, if all the planned network deployments are realized."
And the 4% will be those that get crap FTTC and even worse analogue to the exchange. No thought of getting everyone up to a basic standard before adding the shiny.
Cleared space in the corner of the room where I wanted the fibre to come in, the back room.
They said they can only do the front room. They asked why. I just stared them out and said they cannot do the front room.
They said they cannot do the back room.
They said don't worry if you need it in the back we can put it in the front room then access point it to your back room.
I replied I don't need it as I have ethernet over powerline. They had never heard of it. Lame. They wanted to see my EoP units. I refused.
They left.
Community Fibre phoned me to ask why the install hadn't gone ahead. They said of course they can make the cables that have already come 5000 miles to reach me stretch to the back of my house.
I still haven't found time to rebook.
The front room? I just don't want dirty installer trolls in my sacred yoga room, nor anything with flashing lights.
There is some competition, whether you can call it effective or not depends on ... numbers.
Where I live there's online headlines from 2013 "fiber broadband heading for <where I live>", with a prominent local MP waxing lyrical about the opportunties.
It never happened, at least via BT or OpenReach(Around)
It took a decade for fibre to reach premises in my town, 10 years after that announcement.
It also was a private company that did the job - Gigaclear.
Much derided at the time they started up, because they were absolutely bloody awful, but they delivered the goods in the end.
Open Reach will probably never get to my town to install fiber, but it's already done, so screw them.
Some suggestions for OFCOM.
1. No charges for changing packages for customers in or out of contract.
2. If out of contract, existing customers must be offered same deals as new customers.
3. No signup or connection charges.
4. Failing to meet customer care levels, £10m fine per percentage point missed.
5. Old copper cabling/coax to be phased out by 2030, including in home cabling.
I don't mind connection charges. There's a cost to installing things and setting up a service, and charging one means cheaper monthly rolling contracts, as they don't need to recover that cost.
And as a connection charge is up-front, they can't change it after the contract starts, and it only makes it less likely that I'll buy the service. So it's ok as the market has a built-in encouragement not to be stupid about it.
What should be banned are disconnection charges. If I'm out of contract and giving you the relevant notice, then it's completely unreasonable for you to try to lock me in by charging an exit fee.
The fibre rollout continues to be a mad free-for-all, with some areas having 2, 3 or even more separate FTTP networks. While other areas, including in major cities, still have zero. We're still waiting, waiting, waiting, nearly 5 years after CityFibre announced their arrival in town. When it finally, finally happens, my broadband will get cheaper (even with OR) as well as much faster...
by 'full fibre' access... I technically have it, but only through Toob. I am happy with A&A so I am still awaiting openreach fibre. But because we have toob available, openreach haven't made my postcode a priority. All direct buried 1960s cable, so no ducting to the house, and all underground. Hence not a priority
That is indeed an issue - and a complex one.
I could see an argument for any provider who is the only provider in the area to offer access to others in the way OR do. Note: this does not mean the others freeloading - they have to pay. That would solve the problem where you want to use X, but they are only available over OR fibre.
Again it I can see several issues. One is whether it would discourage investments - meaning you get none, rather than one that works but isn't your choice. Another is whether it would create a two-tier pricing system for CSPs (communication services providers) - one price via OR, a different (potentially many different) via alternative carriers. And it has scope for creating a complex admin system (that we as users shouldn't ever see) where "many" CSPs need to deal with "many" carriers - and potentially we end up with a mish-mash where some CSPs only deal with some carriers, so your choice of CSP varies with carrier.
There is also an argument for requiring that the carrier either a) offers carriage to other ISPs in a similar manner to OR, or b) offers a minimum set of services (static IPv4 address if required, static IPv6 prefix, setting or reverse DNS for IPv4 address/delegation of reverse DNS for IPv6 prefix, unfiltered service (no blocking of inbound traffic)).
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