DEmand Lead Rollout of FTTC

Why does not BT introduce a demand lead FTTC scheme. People would show their commitment to subscribing by putting down a £30 deposit When enough people have signed up the Cabinet is enabled. The money will help provided the revenues for the rollout and will one enbbled will discount the first years bill by £30

I think you mean demand-led, not demand lead.

Arithmetic:-

Maximum number of connections per cabinet, 288.
Maximum deposit value, (paid to which BT company?), £8630.
Discount to consumers in first year, £8630.
Cost of provisioning one cabinet at an otherwise non-enabled exchange, beyond my estimating capabilities.
Cost of provisioning one cabinet at an exchange with existing FTTC, high.

Minimum number of depositors? You haven't made a suggestion.

Openreach marginal revenue per line, (extra rental compared to that for ADSLx), low.

ISP giving that discount to the consumer? One of a large number, all of which would need to be in the accounting chain, including even tiny resellers of non-BT companies.

This doesn't sound like a goer to me, sorry.

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 21-Jan-11 18:54:19)

I think the cabinet is about £16k on the back of a truck.

Discount was perhaps the wrong world to use it would be the £30 depoist they paid being in effect used to discount the first bill.

The deposits would not fully fund it does give BT some cash flow to assist the roll out and if people but a £30 deposit it shows commitment to tke FTTC when it becomes available

I realised what you meant by discount, hence my question as to how the refund got to the ISP in question given the hundreds of possible ones the customer could choose.

You still haven't specified the required number of deposits - which by definition has to be below 289.

I hardly think 288 x £30 is significant within BT Openreach's hourly cashflow, never mind the period between deciding to schedule an FTTC cabinet and go-live of that cabinet with associated BT Wholesale backhaul.

Actually it isn't cashflow. It is additional working capital you are talking about. Cashflow is each individual receipt of £30 and each item of direct expenditure on that cabinet.

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 22-Jan-11 15:50:26)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I realised what you meant by discount, hence my question as to how the refund got to the ISP in question given the hundreds of possible ones the customer could choose.

You still haven't specified the required number of deposits - which by definition has to be below 289.

I hardly think 288 x £30 is significant within BT Openreach's hourly cashflow, never mind the period between deciding to schedule an FTTC cabinet and go-live of that cabinet with associated BT Wholesale backhaul.

Actually it isn't cashflow. It is additional working capital you are talking about. Cashflow is each individual receipt of £30 and each item of direct expenditure on that cabinet.

Indeed, can't see how BT, even if they wanted to, could take any form of deposit from a customer who may go to another ISP. Additionally if they took a deposit that locked you to Infinity then it wouldn't be long before others were complaining about that.

To address the original post, BT know how many lines are on each exchange (roughly) and know how many go to each cabinet. They can correlate this with current ADSL connections and see a very general indicator of "demand".

If you take a hypothetical cabinet with 200 lines on it and BT analyse the numbers and see 120 lines on that cabinet have ADSL they might deem that to be a promising candidate to upgrade. Similarly if they see other cabinets adjacent to that one with similar levels of broadband users they might see the area as "viable".

On the other hand if a cabinet only has 20 ADSL users on it due to demographics (perhaps it serves a few old peoples cul-de-sacs or the like) then they'll likely skip it enitrely.

There is a cost of the fibre, power, cabinet itself and the cost of man/woman power to install it all which likely amounts to a pretty tidy some considering it seems to take a few weeks to get a cabinet in place and set up along with more weeks in between where work seems to be stopped. It's just a guess on my part but it will probably take a few years worth of subscriptions before BT "pay off" the cost of the cabinets from user revenues.

At least BT have the advantage of owning a literal mountain of copper wire that is worth a fortune. Eventually when they get round to going to fibre only they can begin to start selling that off.

Edited by orly (Sat 22-Jan-11 20:56:31)

can see where you are going, however there will be some exchanges and even some cabinets that just not worth upgrading even if you have 100% of those lines upgraded to FTTC.

What I think would make sense is a system where people could register their interest for FTTC and once a the cost effective threshold +20% of interested parties a deposit of £100-150 would have to be paid. Once enough parties agreed (i.e. the number required to make it cost effective) to paid the exchange would be enabled and once the party signed up to an FTTC service the money would be refunded after 45 days (to stop people cancelling and still get the deposit back).

This would not need much work as once set up it could be autmatic and have access to open reach database

£100-150 sounds like a lot but without that you may get parties signing up that would be willing to lose less. Least to me 30£ is not that much lol less than 1 night out, where 150£ would hurt

In reply to a post by orly:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I realised what you meant by discount, hence my question as to how the refund got to the ISP in question given the hundreds of possible ones the customer could choose.

You still haven't specified the required number of deposits - which by definition has to be below 289.

I hardly think 288 x £30 is significant within BT Openreach's hourly cashflow, never mind the period between deciding to schedule an FTTC cabinet and go-live of that cabinet with associated BT Wholesale backhaul.

Actually it isn't cashflow. It is additional working capital you are talking about. Cashflow is each individual receipt of £30 and each item of direct expenditure on that cabinet.

Indeed, can't see how BT, even if they wanted to, could take any form of deposit from a customer who may go to another ISP. Additionally if they took a deposit that locked you to Infinity then it wouldn't be long before others were complaining about that.

To address the original post, BT know how many lines are on each exchange (roughly) and know how many go to each cabinet. They can correlate this with current ADSL connections and see a very general indicator of "demand".

If you take a hypothetical cabinet with 200 lines on it and BT analyse the numbers and see 120 lines on that cabinet have ADSL they might deem that to be a promising candidate to upgrade. Similarly if they see other cabinets adjacent to that one with similar levels of broadband users they might see the area as "viable".

On the other hand if a cabinet only has 20 ADSL users on it due to demographics (perhaps it serves a few old peoples cul-de-sacs or the like) then they'll likely skip it enitrely.

There is a cost of the fibre, power, cabinet itself and the cost of man/woman power to install it all which likely amounts to a pretty tidy some considering it seems to take a few weeks to get a cabinet in place and set up along with more weeks in between where work seems to be stopped. It's just a guess on my part but it will probably take a few years worth of subscriptions before BT "pay off" the cost of the cabinets from user revenues.

At least BT have the advantage of owning a literal mountain of copper wire that is worth a fortune. Eventually when they get round to going to fibre only they can begin to start selling that off.

The money would not go back to an ISP but to BT Openreach as they are the ones paying for the infrustructure

Clearly BT would have to limit the scheme to where its is realistically viable as you say in some areas without subsidises it may not.

A trigger level would have to be set which may be different for different areas as costs will vary a lot. I think a figure of a £100 to £150 is far to high. You will not get many people prepared to put that much down. I woulds set it at £50 maximun. Clearly there would also need to be a means for refunding it to people in some circrmstances such as moving home. Possibly as well a slighly higher charge for the service could be made in the first couple of years. It would have to be quite small though as otherwise I would suspect it would reduce demand

I think the main thing is not the amount of cash the deposits raise as this is quite modest say 700x£50 = £3500. It is more it is showing a real commitment to take the service. They no they will have X number of customers when the service becomes available

http://www.relay-rutlandtelecom.co.uk/registration/p...

Rutland's pre-registration / deposit scheme, for info. That's actually for exchange LLU but they also do sub-loop unbundling with VDSL2 and FTTC.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Arithmetic:-

Maximum number of connections per cabinet, 288.
Maximum deposit value, (paid to which BT company?), £8630.
Discount to consumers in first year, £8630.

If you take half the connections as an average guesstimate (144) then you would have £4315. Multiply that by the number of exchanges and that's £10 million. If BT start rolling out the most viable first, by the time they get to the least viable, they would have people paying monthly to subsidise the rollouts etc.

I wonder if there's a case for paying the connection and first year of subscriptions up front in one sum (approx. £300). Then you would see £100 million and a similar rollout scenario would be far more 'do-able'. Would I pay £300 up front, knowing I would be in the bottom half of priority? Hmmm. Only if they gave a guarantee of when they would connect me (such as within one year).

Add FTTP to the list

FTTP would increase the cost quite a lot unless a cheap way has been found to put the fibre in.

I would guess BT faces two problems with the Fibre Roll out which will be cash and knowing which locations will have a god take up of it. They will have some clue from the take up of Broadband. They have tried voting systems but generally they have been open to abuse and also tend to get a high level of votes by people who have no real intention of taking it up

If you have a system where a deposit is put down it shows commitment to take the service as well as giving BT access to low cost finance to assist with the rollout

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

The money would not go back to an ISP but to BT Openreach as they are the ones paying for the infrustructure

So you are saying users should pay the deposit, (of whatever value as per the rest of the thread), direct to Openreach, and once the user takes FTTC Openreach refund it directly to them?

That requires a few thousand quid of systems investment and some full-time staff to run it. Eating considerably into the cash.

There is also the un-asked so far question, though it has been hinted at, as to how long depositors may have to wait for enablement, and seeing as a trigger number has to be reached that could be a very long time, never mind the period from the trigger being reached to the go-live.

Would interest be paid on the deposit? It could be a couple of years or so with no news whatsoever about what is going on.

On should the systems regularly inform depositors of the position re both the exchange and their particular cabinet? A few more thousand quid development cost.

What happens if only a couple of cabinets are requested on a non-FTTC exchange?

But what happens when I apply and pay my £30 deposit, when both my lines are exchange based (no cab to enable)?

Although, to be honest, £30 would probably cover the cost of the 25 meters of fibre that would be needed to FTTP me anyway.....

People forget that the admin for the deposit scheme would cost money too

Errrm. Not all do.

I dont follow in your linked post as to where it talks about being able to run a deposit scheme for zero cost.

Even an automated system, requires a sys admin and people to write it in the first place, and ongoing verifications that system is still secure.

Handling the issue of people moving, is deposit refunded, or just non-refundable

The cost should be pretty low. BT already having billing systems in place. The admin cost odd a one off payment system would be insignificant particularly if done electronically rather then paper based.

The real benefit though is it shows real commiment by customers to take the service and that linked to say an intial 12 month minimum contract period means BT would be able to recover the start up costs quite quickly. Possibly the deposit could be non refundable and used by BT towards the initial rollout costs. That though leaves the problem with what you do with customers that join after go live.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

I dont follow in your linked post as to where it talks about being able to run a deposit scheme for zero cost.

Even an automated system, requires a sys admin and people to write it in the first place, and ongoing verifications that system is still secure.

Handling the issue of people moving, is deposit refunded, or just non-refundable

So you are saying users should pay the deposit, (of whatever value as per the rest of the thread), direct to Openreach, and once the user takes FTTC Openreach refund it directly to them?

That requires a few thousand quid of systems investment and some full-time staff to run it. Eating considerably into the cash.

There is also the un-asked so far question, though it has been hinted at, as to how long depositors may have to wait for enablement, and seeing as a trigger number has to be reached that could be a very long time, never mind the period from the trigger being reached to the go-live.

Would interest be paid on the deposit? It could be a couple of years or so with no news whatsoever about what is going on.

On should the systems regularly inform depositors of the position re both the exchange and their particular cabinet? A few more thousand quid development cost.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

I dont follow in your linked post as to where it talks about being able to run a deposit scheme for zero cost.

Even an automated system, requires a sys admin and people to write it in the first place, and ongoing verifications that system is still secure.

Handling the issue of people moving, is deposit refunded, or just non-refundable

So you are saying users should pay the deposit, (of whatever value as per the rest of the thread), direct to Openreach, and once the user takes FTTC Openreach refund it directly to them?

That requires a few thousand quid of systems investment and some full-time staff to run it. Eating considerably into the cash.

There is also the un-asked so far question, though it has been hinted at, as to how long depositors may have to wait for enablement, and seeing as a trigger number has to be reached that could be a very long time, never mind the period from the trigger being reached to the go-live.

Would interest be paid on the deposit? It could be a couple of years or so with no news whatsoever about what is going on.

On should the systems regularly inform depositors of the position re both the exchange and their particular cabinet? A few more thousand quid development cost.

BT have already done something similr in the past with regard to trigger levels. Certainly have a trigger level for an exchange or cabinet would increase demand and would encourage local campaigns to get more people to take part. Possibly the scheme runs for say a maximum of 18 months. If the trigger level is not reached the deposit is refunded. To keep costs low I would suggest that the money is just deducted from the next BT bill. I would suggest that no interest is paid. Current rates are tiny in any case and on something like £30 to £100 would be pretty insignificant

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

The cost should be pretty low. BT already having billing systems in place.

I don't think BT Openreach have a billing system for end users.

The admin cost odd a one off payment system would be insignificant particularly if done electronically rather then paper based.

Have you ever written a small or amended a large computerised accounting system? Or linked a small one to a large one?

The real benefit though is it shows real commiment by customers to take the service and that linked to say an intial 12 month minimum contract period means BT would be able to recover the start up costs quite quickly.

It seems you still haven't accepted that the divisions between BT Retail, Wholesale and Openreach are real, and the cash that passes between then does so on a strictly commercial basis. Also as already mentioned, the user may go with one of the myriad other FTTC suppliers (by then), not necessarily BT Broadband.

Possibly the deposit could be non refundable and used by BT towards the initial rollout costs. That though leaves the problem with what you do with customers that join after go live.

Now you are clutching at straws and as a result finding even more problems. Additionally we haven't yet mentioned what happens:

- where if the trigger is, for example, 150 depositors only 140 jump in;
- in the interim period someone moves away;
- in the interim period someone dies.

As I said at the start, in my opinion it just isn't a viable suggestion.

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

To keep costs low I would suggest that the money is just deducted from the next BT bill.

You just don't get it, do you?

There are a huge number of people who do not have BT bills for either broadband or phone.

I've just realised I misunderstood:-

The money would not go back to an ISP but to BT Openreach as they are the ones paying for the infrustructure

I originally read it as the deposit going straight to Openreach from the potential customer. But at that point the problem was how the customer got the refund. So what I now think is the correct reading of what you said just doesn't make sense. Who would collect and hold the deposit, and where would it end up, with Openreach or refunded to the user?

Assuming the company taking and holding the deposits, and keeping tabs on the associated cabinets, (which only Openreach know by the way), does not at any point get broadband revenue from the end user, what administration charge on the fund do you suggest they make for the costs already mentioned several times involved in setting up and running this system?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

To keep costs low I would suggest that the money is just deducted from the next BT bill.

You just don't get it, do you?

There are a huge number of people who do not have BT bills for either broadband or phone.

I've just realised I misunderstood:-

The money would not go back to an ISP but to BT Openreach as they are the ones paying for the infrustructure

I originally read it as the deposit going straight to Openreach from the potential customer. But at that point the problem was how the customer got the refund. So what I now think is the correct reading of what you said just doesn't make sense. Who would collect and hold the deposit, and where would it end up, with Openreach or refunded to the user?

Assuming the company taking and holding the deposits, and keeping tabs on the associated cabinets, (which only Openreach know by the way), does not at any point get broadband revenue from the end user, what administration charge on the fund do you suggest they make for the costs already mentioned several times involved in setting up and running this system?

It is nowhere near as complicated as you make out. Many of the transaction you suggest already take place now as part of the normal billing process.

If people do not have a BT line they wwould not be able to take part basically that rules out cable customers who are not likely to use FTTC in any case and those that have only mobiles or no phone at all.

Everyone else will be using an openreach line. BT Retail or the phone company or ISP ie whever the subscriber pays the line rental to would collect the Deposit and pass it on to BT Openreach. It no different to what they do with the line rental

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

Everyone else will be using an openreach line. BT Retail or the phone company or ISP ie whever the subscriber pays the line rental to would collect the Deposit and pass it on to BT Openreach. It no different to what they do with the line rental

At last .

So this is all at a negligible cost and inconvenience to all the phone SPs and ISPs involved, and Openreach can easily accommodate these extra transactions and the admin?

BT Wholesale would need to become involved, as they provide the MSAN at the (relevant) exchange and the backhaul from it.

(Edit - typo).

Edited by RobertoS (Sun 23-Jan-11 15:43:42)

http://www.relay-rutlandtelecom.co.uk/essendine/inde...

such a scheme in action via a competing provider.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

Everyone else will be using an openreach line. BT Retail or the phone company or ISP ie whever the subscriber pays the line rental to would collect the Deposit and pass it on to BT Openreach. It no different to what they do with the line rental

At last .

So this is all at a negligible cost and inconvenience to all the phone SPs and ISPs involved, and Openreach can easily accommodate these extra transactions and the admin?

BT Wholesale would need to become involved, as they provide the MSAN at the (relevant) exchange and the backhaul from it.

(Edit - typo).

All these things have to go on with the rollout in any case. What does is give BT a pretty much guaranteed demand at the point of going live with it rather then educated guesswork. It also helps with the cash flow as they will have to borrow less money which will also reduce costs

Yes, that was linked to earlier.

But here we are talking about a national plan. Not quite the same thing.

indeed. Reality vs hypothetical.

I pass. I give up. Brick wall.

As with all these things it is not impossible

BUT

the benefit versus the cost of doing a scheme like this, rather than Openreach just continuing as they are now are very much in doubt.

Doing this at a local level is easy enough, but at a national level the scale is very different. It also risks making the myth that all broadband is via BT even bigger, as would be seen as a BT run scheme.

If people think this is a seriously feasible job, then they need to approach BDUK who are charged with looking after roll-out in the final third of the country

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Yes, that was linked to earlier.

But here we are talking about a national plan. Not quite the same thing.

It is very simple and involves little admin. Anyone that uses a BT line and that�s pretty much everyone that does not use Cable pays either BT retail, another provider or an ISP the line rental. That line rental gets passed onto BT Openreach less a small margin for BT Retail etc. So what would happen is you would pay the deposit to your current provider who would pass it onto BT Open reach probably with their normal billing process event as this minimizes costs. You are not committed to any ISP or Teleco you would be free to go with whoever you choose. The costs to BT wholesale are not relevant here. This would be a charge between BT Openreach & BT Wholsale

If added as another product to the Openreach product catalogue then it is possible for the billing

Now what happens to the deposit when I move house? Move providers? When i die? When I divorce and billing name is changed on line?
How do we (those paying the money) keep track of the level of interest in our area?
What happens if the FTTC never comes to my area - how long can Openreach hang onto the money?
What is a fair charge for a provider to add as a markup for handling? 5%?

People who use full LLU have no intermediary in terms of BT Wholesale e.g. TalkTalk buys direct from Openreach.

I doubt this scheme would see much in the way of extending coverage beyond the current 60 to 70% plan. What will stimulate that is either (money from central funding) or evidence of good profits from the 60% already covered. The later is why TalkTalk LLU roll-out has continued, i.e. money to be made so continuing

setting aside admin &c do you see £30 as a big deal in securing installation of an FTTC cabinet ? if it reulted in a fully utilised cabinet it owuld only cover half the cost of the cabinet itself delivered but not installed, I don't know what proportion of the FTTC build cost the cabinet itself is, but it isn't all of it by a long chalk.

In reply to a post by yarwell:

setting aside admin &c do you see £30 as a big deal in securing installation of an FTTC cabinet ? if it reulted in a fully utilised cabinet it owuld only cover half the cost of the cabinet itself delivered but not installed, I don't know what proportion of the FTTC build cost the cabinet itself is, but it isn't all of it by a long chalk.

It is not intended to recover the ful costs. What you are getting is a known customer base and a commitment to take it for 12 months. BT would expect to recover the costs over about a 3 year period. What it does is speed up the cost recovery.

The complicatuions some people seem to invvent and the costs they think they are are just crazy. ISP;s have customers move & die now. There sysytems are built to handle it

If these things were as complicated and difficult and expensive credit card companies woyld be charging far more. Credits cards have a far more complex situation but they mange to do it all at no more then a few percent. They have to bill the cardholder each month and transfer money to each of the companies you have dealt with that month

Not everyone pays their bill on time. That's where they make their money. Some pay on time and pay no interest. If eveyone paid on time, they would go out of business.

It is not intended to recover the ful costs.

obviously, as it blatantly fails to come anywhere near that.

The question is does it make an unattractive FTTC project work ? or is it just a decibel management exercise to get it sooner.

Because FTTC costs a hell of a lot more than a town chucking 30 quid in the pot.

It just wouldn't happen from a power point of view.

In reply to a post by yarwell:

It is not intended to recover the ful costs.

obviously, as it blatantly fails to come anywhere near that.

The question is does it make an unattractive FTTC project work ? or is it just a decibel management exercise to get it sooner.

The economic are reasonably fixed and pretty much depend on the number taking up the service. Urban areas will have lower costs as you will have a higher number of cabinets within a geographic area. THe main cost variable is the hard dig to the cabinet but thats a one off costs and fibre has a very long service life.
Get a high enough number of users on a Cabinet in most areas and they are economic.

You're problem is number of users, if there product does what they need why will they pay more out for a faster service that will cost more. At a time when people are saving money and looking to pay out less.

150 would on be charges just before openreach was going to enable the area and as soon as the user took an fttc service the money would be returned

this is how it would work

open Reach decided exchange need 10k lines to make it worthwhile

target for that exchange is 11k,

people who want FTTC sign up free of charge, once 11k people have sthey want it an email/text is sent asking them to pay the 150£ deposit. Once 10k people pay the deposit the exchange is enabled quickly and people have a chance to sign up to FTTC Once they take out an FTTC service the 150£ is refunded after 45days.

This would only be for area which are not getting FTTC and Open reach think that there might not be enough interest.

The fee is high to stop time waster
i.e.

Edited by deleted (Sun 23-Jan-11 23:09:56)

true hardly anyone would sign up, but at least those that do are putting money where their mouth is and is a more reliable method than having % based demand checkers based on outdated housing maps.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

true hardly anyone would sign up, but at least those that do are putting money where their mouth is and is a more reliable method than having % based demand checkers based on outdated housing maps.

With FTTC though you are not really looking at the exhange but the take up on the Street Cabinet. BT may want to cluster them ie include all the cabinets along the fibre route

This system would speed up the rollout as it would be foccussed on where demand is highest which gives BT a quicker ROI. Clearly this could only work for about 90% of the UK. There would be the 10% odd where it will never be commercialy viable. Well at least without paying a very high price premium

How have you arrived at the 90% will be viable figure?

No one (including consultants paid a lot of money) have come out with a scheme that gives that figure as viable.

Currently BT is enabling as about as fast as it can go, to go faster means employing more contractors or staff for just the length of the roll-out.

OpenReach have a briefing note about trialling demand-driven exchange enablement, dated 23rd Dec 2010.

They want to test whether it is viable to add such a dynamic component to their existing plans for rollout.

See briefing note

Just asking for an exchange will cost the ISP £500 per exchange.

If the exchange is already within BT's 66% coverage plan (so will already be market 1), then the ISP must commit to having 10% of the exchange coverage taken up within 1 year.

If it is not already in the 66% coverage, then it will cost the ISP an "enablement charge". There is a fee of £5000 just to get a quotation to find out what the enablement charge will be!

This will allow up to 6 exchanges each for an ISP, and a total of 24 exchanges.

So... that's how BT Retail have gotten 6 exchanges into the rollout plan...

The Race to Infinity was actually part of an earlier trial

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/i/4367.html

it cost them more for market 2 and 3 than market 1?

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/i/4353.html

Ofcom market definitions to avoid doubt

Sorry - meant Market 3.

The latest proposals for what to do with the price-controls within market 1 said that market 3 was about 80% of UK premises.

I reckon you can pretty much assume that the 66% rollout plan that BT has in mind is pretty much *only* amongst the market 3 exchanges.

well all leicestershire ones are market 2, no market 3 enabled. and sheringham is market 1

yet when I seen the map of surrey rollout (and wow BT love that place loads of FTTC exchanges) it was mainly market 3.

Most of the Leicestershire exchanges (announced so far) look to be Market 3 to me, but that's quibbling - there are definitely some Market 2's amongst them. And yes, a couple of Market 1's in that latest announcement.

That suggests that BT have a rather different way of calculating profitability (for FTTC at least) than Ofcom

Edit: Fix reference to Leicestershire.

Edited by deleted (Wed 26-Jan-11 22:55:01)

My village lies outside of 2 towns both of which will have FTTC going live this year March and June as they have both been put back.

The later date exchange covers half of my village OR have already put the ductting to the green box already, just when it goes live half the village will be left out as we are connected to a exchange to the north.

BT claim that to connect the northen end of the village would require a telephone number change and a large cost.

how many you looking at? I only know of 3 or 4, which I think just 1 is market 3..

Thats rather odd. The FTTC connection doesnt have to come out of the same exchange as the telephone line.

In reply to a post by homer79:

Thats rather odd. The FTTC connection doesnt have to come out of the same exchange as the telephone line.

Can you expand more on this, as it would be of great help to the local village communications commitee that is trying to improve broadband speeds in the north of the village and other villages connected to the

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/THHRJ

The FFTC comes from the Thatcham exhange

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/THT

The cabinet where the FTTC will go is here

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&g...

The other green box that connects the north of the village to the Hermitage exchange is here

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&g...


There is already a large extend of what i believe to be BT ducting up the HIll so theres already a large part of the job done. The north green box is about 1.3 miles from the Southern FTTC box.

The overall aim is to bring a faster and more reliable service at peak time to the north of the village, even to Hermitage if possible as there is a large population.

the fibre taking the data back from the FTTC cabinet is a wholly separate entity to the bunch of twisted pairs taking voice to the exchange, so it can go to a different exchange or in the case of a 3rd party FTTC setup to no exchange at all.

I don't have my notes, but IIRC all the existing live exchanges are Market 3, and 3 of the ones now in the plan are Market 2. That leaves the balance in the plan as M3 - perhaps another 4 exchanges?

I just checked.

2 existing market 3, yes just 2 in entire leicestershire. Both outskirts of city.
3 new all market 2, all rural exchanges.

Ile pass that on to the lpc, though would be good to know what it would cost BT to actually connect up the north of the village with the south for fttc.