Openreach offers duct-off providers 'OSA Filter' instead of Dark Fibre Access

Openreach has today offered its communication providers an alternative to the Ofcom-proposed Dark Fibre Access (DFA) product, which a court ruling slapped down three months ago. In July the High Court's Competition Appeals Tribunal ruled that Ofcom had made a series of errors when it drew up the rules for a new market in unlit …

[Blitheringeejit]

>>Wallington said so far CPs have been "very positive" about the plans

Well he would say that wouldn't he. It would be interesting (and I would have thought basic journalistic practice on your part, El Reg) to get an actual statement from a few CPs before going to press with this. Somewhat disappointing to see you just spouting whatever self-serving speculation you hear emanating from the mouth of an Openreach-droid.

Somehow I don't think that CPs will agree that buying bandwidth on existing OR fibre gives them as much market freedom and investment opportunity as being able to put their own kit in the ducts.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think they were ever being given the opportunity to put their own kit in the actual ducts. But certainly this grudgingly small massive concession falls far short of allowing them to connect their own kit to unlit fibre, and still leaves them almost entirely dependent on Openreach infrastructure.

[David Lewis 2]

basic journalistic practice ... El Reg

Two concepts I never expected to see in the same sentence!

[Peter Galbavy]

How to stifle innovation: Ensure, through working with your ex-colleagues at the regulator, that your competitors are limited by your technology. Nice.

[Jellied Eel]

Indeed. Typical regulatory gamesmanship. It's not the service CPs want, and by restricting it to a wavelength of BT's specification, it prevents CPs from using their own DWDM kit. And it helps lock-in customers given BT's control over endpoints vs standard ISI's and true DF interconnection.. Which is likely to be more favourable to BT's in-house customers. Cheap NID that takes coloured optics and it's another Ethernet delivery service that may undercut BT's competitors.

[Tim J]

Cripes... this all sounds a bit more complicated than LLU...

Pass me my two cans and a string please, regards, Grandad.

[Elmer Phud]

I could do with a 'fair' LLU.

I'd like full-fat fibre but there's no BT U/G on my side of the street - mine is via O/H while the green cabinet just up the road is only 1/4 full

[Anonymous Coward]

"this all sounds a bit more complicated than LLU..."

I was thinking it was very remininscent of BTwholesale IPstream vs BTwholesale DataStream.

IPstream was at the heart of BTw's mass market DSL rollout (even before LLU?), the first product family saleable to volume market retail ISPs.

Datastream was the "alternative" product from BTw, offering "lower level access".

Never heard of Datastream? Exactly.

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/adsltype.htm

In due course, it'll be the same with this new thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Buying a 10G wave is pretty much the same as buying a 10G managed point-to-point service; probably just as expensive; and maybe less flexible (e.g. if the service provider has to bring their own gear into to the DWDM location)

What service providers want is dark fibre. If there's no regulated dark fibre, fine: let BT provide an unregulated dark fibre offering. Let them choose to compete with the other dark fibre providers out there.

[EstoyTelco]

CP here - no I don't want this

We viewed the DFA product as a way of moving away from EAD and OSA and into managing our own NTE or even merging the L2 OAM functions into a hybrid NTE/x86 box. This is a big blow.

We spent a lot of time spinning up our internal testing to select the kit we needed to terminate DFA connections either as white light Ethernet or multicoloured WDM services where there was demand.

We were led down a path to believe it was going ahead until the last minute and it's a big blow. BT OR are just trying to keep their stronghold in the access space as their product would be swiftly undercut by other CPs (who are already in the exchanges).

It's no wonder there's success in fibre delivery companies in the capital - they can provide what CP's want - fibre infrastructure to site.

[Jellied Eel]

Re: CP here - no I don't want this

Fibre to a site comes at a cost though, either CP's civils to lay fibre into site, or paying BT to. BT then gains access to that site via OR's proposed wavelength service, and at a lower cost because BT Business/Wholesale's colo'd in the exchange. So the new service creates vendor lockin rather than opening up competition on BT's fibre/ducts. BT controls endpoints at the 'A-end', ie 'benefit' of terminating in BT's exchange. Termination via ISI could be done, but with an attenuation cost given it's PON-ish, and not 'dark'.