Will AAISP be an early adopter of SOGEA

My understanding is that earlier this week BT/OR confirmed that SOGEA ("Single Order Generic Ethernet Access") will enter the UK ISP pilot phase on 9th January 2019.

The idea of a standalone FTTC �fibre broadband� (VDSL2 or G.fast) line without the voice (phone) service, is very attractive.

But is it much different from what AAISP already offer. What please are the pros & cons ? Hopefully maybe a price reduction?

Merry Christmas.

NJSS

The con is that you have no landline phone service at all. VoIP still available of course.

The pros will depend on your ISP�s pricing policy. It is thought the bigger ones will compensate for the profit loss from line rental by increasing the broadband plus SOGEA bundle price. Still below the broadband plus normal landline price though.

Additionally I guess another con would be that you'd have no dial tone, no way to perform a quiet line test (unlike AAISP's current implementation where it produces an automated quiet line test after telling you your circuit ID).

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Additionally I guess another con would be that you'd have no dial tone, no way to perform a quiet line test (unlike AAISP's current implementation where it produces an automated quiet line test after telling you your circuit ID).

And as we move towards 2025 and the switch off of the PSTN network starts to happen, eventually all lines will not have dial tone.

I can see the switch off of PSTN being just as successful as getting everyone to switch from FM to DAB!

Specifically from an AAISP perspective, though, that may not matter.

I pay £10/month for a copper line from A&A (no need for a landline), which already has no landline phone service, for a total of £60/month for VDSL2 + copper pair. That service is ripe for SoGEA - just swap out the WLR3 line that they provide and block calls on for a SoGEA FTTC service.

Strange, isn�t it?

I was resistant, and if I still had FTTC wouldn�t want to lose PSTN and move to VOIP on it. But have relied almost totally on mobile for years.

Even nearly all people with no corded phone are without PSTN when mains power goes off. There must be millions by now as relatively few will think to keep a corded phone somewhere they can get to it easily in the dark, even if they can remember where they put it.

Currently still debating killing my landline.

This USA survey is interesting. 50.8% of households there mobile-only at the end of 2017.

Feasible, but the question the OP asked was �But is it much different from what AAISP already offer. What please are the pros & cons ? Hopefully maybe a price reduction?�.

I doubt if anyone will see SOGEA lines sold by any provider at under £10pm. Openreach WLR3 currently costs providers £92.18pa. That translates into £9.22pm to us. Call charges on top.

The SOGEA trial appears to be free from OR.

I can�t see OR not charging some line rental when it goes mainstream. The copper line maintenance and the accompanying internal management infrastructure and staff still need to be paid for, and they can�t ditch the exchange kit until there are no PSTN lines in use. Any given SOGEA line can switch back to PSTN at any time while PSTN exists. A new owner moves into the premises.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

50.8% of households there mobile-only at the end of 2017.

Not a surprise when majority of US get broadband that does not use a copper pair. (i.e. cable coax).

Cable firms in the US never installed copper pairs, unlike the UK cable firms, so never expected to make money from calls.

They don�t provide phone services like VM does here?

No, VM is pretty unique in that respect when you look around the world.

US cable was earlier, 1970s and 1980s and telephones were monopoly by the (original) AT&T.

In the UK it was Thatcher that saw a possible competition route for the (just) privatised BT by licensing cable firms to supply TV and phone. Her government also prohibited BT from supplying television services for quite a while.


Also DSL was never a competition as "central offices" are much further away from homes than UK exchanges. Leading to speeds between 256kbps and 512kbps as "normal". VDSL services now appearing slowly (e.g. the new AT&T's uVerse) compete for television revenue.

Edited by jchamier (Sun 16-Dec-18 13:45:21)

They do now, using PacketCable to provide VoIP atop their DOCSIS data services.

But not the same as VM, whose predecessors installed both coax cable and voice-grade twisted pair, then used the twisted pair for ordinary PSTN.

A price reduction is unlikely - OR has already said in press releases that indicative pricing for SoGEA is the cost of the underlying GEA service plus MPF rental. That works out to around £5/year saving for AAISP, which is small enough that it's not worth passing on (better to use it to fund - e.g. - higher data allowances).

Even if OR sell SoGEA at slightly less than the indicated pricing, it's still going to be savings under £1/month; the real victory for AAISP will be that in an SoGEA world, there's one wholesale contact for all faults (as voice faults no longer exist - any fault in the GEA service is a broadband fault to Openreach) instead of having to split faults into voice and broadband faults.

.... a pair pinchers paradise

".... a pair pinchers paradise" Dr Pepper

Hehe .

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

".... a pair pinchers paradise" Dr Pepper

Hehe .

I thought it already was...

I wonder if that's a victory as such; how many broadband faults are identified and cleared by reporting a corresponding voice line fault which is also causing issues on the broadband?

Certainly with the ADSL/VDSL services being sold as 'up to', this might be a regression. Certainly on the one hand, a saving of a few pounds per year per line might add up quite handsomely for any ISP, it's probably a nice crutch to fall back on currently.


Although to RobertoS's point about ditching the landline, I've ditched mine already. It's been 3 years or so since I got Hyperoptic, whereupon I cancelled all ADSL and Voice over my BT pair. Pretty sure there's no dialtone now. All of my voice comms are now via VoIP or mobile. However, I've got a dual-sim personal phone & a separate work phone; personal mobile is on EE, work on Vodafone, so for £10 of credit on a Pay as you go o2 sim living as a backup in the second sim slot on my personal phone, I'd say I'm probably fairly alright for voice communications!

Edited by deleted (Tue 18-Dec-18 14:24:29)

But I've gone mobile-only. You still have landline broadband. It's a fibre optic line not a copper one, that's all.

Thanks for the responses everyone.

It will be interesting to see how things develop over the next few years.

NJSS

Super slow reply to this! I mean, I have a copper connection, in that it's ethernet direct to the Hyperoptic switch/router in my apartment block, then fibre from there.
So I'm not at the mercy of a BT Twisted pair, but yes unlike someone that's gone wholly wireless I do still have a physical connection to the internet.