commercial criteria

Would anyone be able to clarify who makes the decisions regarding the commercial criteria regarding upgrading BT cabinets to fibre technology?

My neighbour has done a lot of research on this subject following finding out that the cabinet we are connected to does not reach the commercial criteria to be upgraded.

Our exchange has recently been upgraded to fibre technology. The estate that I live in has two cabinets. One was upgraded and one was not. My neighbour has asked for reasons why and what streets are covered by each cabinet and the results are baffling to say the least.

The cabinet that was upgraded covers 354 houses.

Of those 354 houses 321 currently have access to FTTH with virgin media.

32 Houses do not have access to virgin media and have less than 1mb broadband due to the distance from the exchange.



The cabinet that was not upgraded covers an area of 386 houses.

Of those 259 currently have FTTH with virgin media.

127 do not have access to virgin Media and have less than 1mb broadband due to the distance from the exchange.



If the upgraded cabinet reaches the commercial criteria for upgrade why does the non-upgraded one not. I know that I am no expert but there is almost 100 houses extra that BT would have as a captive market therefore it would make sense to upgrade??

Can anyone clarify this?
We have contacted BT and they have said that there is nothing that now can be done. The cabinate will not be upgraded even though all of this information has been put to them.

Where do we go next?

Ask Virgin Mediato provide service.

2 options exist:

Run a campaign by leafleting the houses that are served by that particular cabinet are not served by Virgin, asking them to register their interest. If enough people register with OpenReach they may consider upgrading the cabinet during infill.

Edit: Register here

Alternatively, find out from your council it they're bidding for BDUK funding.

Edited by deleted (Mon 12-Nov-12 21:57:28)

Openreach is in control of the commercial process - they decide in a way not unlike how Virgin Media decide to do some streets and not others...figures in a spreadsheet

BTW VIrgin Media is NOT FTTH, it is FTTN where the final 100 to 200m are over a metal coax cable. Big difference

Did you include
Conservation area
Checks on objects to cabinet citing
Possible lack of space of pavement
Distance and cost of getting power to cabinet
A person with a campaign may have influenced things
Distance from cabinet to the existing fibre ducting
Distance of homes from the cabinet
Distance of new ducting needed between old and new cabinet

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Openreach is in control of the commercial process - they decide in a way not unlike how Virgin Media decide to do some streets and not others...figures in a spreadsheet

BTW VIrgin Media is NOT FTTH, it is FTTN where the final 100 to 200m are over a metal coax cable. Big difference

Did you include
Conservation area
Checks on objects to cabinet citing
Possible lack of space of pavement
Distance and cost of getting power to cabinet
A person with a campaign may have influenced things
Distance from cabinet to the existing fibre ducting
Distance of homes from the cabinet
Distance of new ducting needed between old and new cabinet

Hi Thanks for the information.
From the information we have gathered
1. we are not in a conservation area
2. There are no objections to the cabinate
3. there is plenty of space by the non upgraded cabinate
4. the cabinate is about 1/2 mile from the upgraded cabinate but power should not be an issue
5. According to the council there have been no objections.
6. the distance from the cabinate is less than 500m (although I am closer to the upgraded one!!)
7. No idea about that one!!

Thanks for any help.

Not sure how that example would work for BDUK. I would presume it would be excluded.

Also, watch out because BT have this nasty habit or saying things aren't viable then two weeks later you catch the cheeky monkeys putting in fibre. They appear to randomly reply with cut and past even for high level complaints. Having the people at the tops contact details helps!

We've made good progress by campaigning, but we started to get a bit sneaky which BT didn't like very much. Our demand stimulation exercise got them very very upset. Actually, it got a lot of people upset not just BT.

Needles to say fibre deployment in my area is progressing nicely thanks - but god is it slow.

G

As others have indicated, it is solely within BT that the decisions are made for commercial rollout.

Your neighbour has perhaps identified the opportunities available if the cabinet were converted - the number of houses, and the competition both being important issues.

However, a significant amount of the decision rests on the cost to deploy - in particular the cost to supply a power connection, and the cost to feed fibre - which requires space in ducting going in the right direction, or new ducting.

In addition, if the fibre has to pass the cabinet on its way further out, then the cost for *this* cabinet is relatively minor. However, if the cabinet is a "leaf" in the fibre network, then it has to bear the cost burden alone.

BT will be in control of feeding fibre - and will know what is required there.

However, the odd-one-out can be the cost of providing electricity. What you describe as "should not be an issue" may indeed be an issue. Due to the way the charging for new electricity supplies now works, If the cabinet tips the local transformer over the edge - and an upgraded or new transformer is required - then BT would have to pay the full charge for doing this. I've seen some complaints (from electrical contractors) suggesting that this could be £20,000 (or one case which might have even been £54,000). And that's without having to run cables a long distance!

Whatever the cause, the cabinet is obviously failing in an accountant's spreadsheets.

Now, in BDUK terms, things are different. Firstly the council get to decide where the upgrades should happen. Additionally, it would appear to me that infill cabinets - those that just fail the commercial criteria in an already-converted exchange - are the ones *most* likely to be converted within BDUK provided BT wins the contract.

Hi,
This is my neighbour who has posted this.
Just to give you a little background we live in a medium sized village in the Northwest called Lowton. We are connected to the Ashton in Makerfield exchange.

For years the a lot of the village has had very poor broadband connection, around 800k-1mb download due to the distance from the exchange and we have been highlighted as a broadband �slowspot�

http://www.broadband-notspot.org.uk/coverage-map.htm...

About two thirds of the estate have access to Virgin media services of if they want fast broadband they have been able to connect with virgin.

At the beginning of the year we found out that the Ashton in Makerfield exchange was being upgraded to fibre technology and this would be available by September. I thought that my very slow and unreliable broadband problems would be over!!

Over the past few months we have seen the new green street cabinets installed and we have been waiting for the day that we could order BT Infinity. The deadline passed (30th September) and I was checking every day when I came home from work but no sign

I then contacted BT to see what the hold-up was and I was told that the cabinet that I was connected to was not upgraded as it did not meet the �commercial criteria� for upgrade. Shocked about this I went round to my next door neighbour to tell them only to find that they had ordered BT infinity that day.

I started to do a little more digging to try and find out the reason why my next door neighbour could get superfast broadband, but I could not.

On my estate there are 2 cabinets. Number 55 and number 69. Cabinet 55 was upgraded but 69 not upgraded. I actually live nearer to cabinet 55 than I do to 69!!

Anyway as I said two thirds of the estate has access to Virgin media, however there is a pocket of about 150 houses that do not. I asked BT to give me the details of the areas that bath Cabinet 55 and 69 covered to see if I could work out why my cabinet did not meet the �commercial criteria�

I was sent this information from BT.

To my surprise the cabinet that has been updated (55) covers almost all the streets that already has access to virgin Media, there is only a small number of about 25-30 houses that will benefit from the upgraded service that cannot get Virgin. Cabinet 69 covers an area that is also covered by Virgin media; however the vast majority of the area, around 120 houses is not covered by the virgin media footprint and now will have no access to fast broadband services.

From the information provided to be by BT openreach the following streets are covered by the upgraded cab 55

BEARDSMORE DRIVE, , virgin Media

BRAITHWAITE ROAD, , virgin media

ALLERBY WAY, , virgin media

REDMAIN GROVE, , virgin media

GARTON DRIVE virgin media

HAGUE BUSH CLOSE, virgin media

HOLLY BUSH SQUARE virgin media

THORNBUSH CLOSE, , virgin media

THE GROVE (LOWTON), , virgin media

FIELDFARE CLOSE, virgin media

MULLEIN CLOSE, ASHWOOD FARM DEV., virgin media

WOODSORREL WAY, ,

SPEEDWELL CLOSE, ,

SAFFRON CLOSE, ASHWOOD FARM DEVELOPMENT.,

FOXGLOVE CLOSE virgin media

PRIMULA DR, , virgin media

FIELDFARE CLOSE Virgin media



This is the area covered by cab 69


DUXBURY WAY, virgin Media

DURRELL WAY, virgin Media

AMIS GROVE virgin Media

STEIN AVE, virgin Media

HUDSON GROVE, , virgin Media

LANDOR CLOSE virgin Media

CHANDLER WAY, , virgin Media

LAPWING CL virgin Media

BALLANTYNE WAY, , virgin Media

WILD AVUM CL virgin Media

CONINGSBY GARDENS, , virgin Media

SUDBROOK CLOSE, virgin Media

WILD ARUM CLOSE, , virgin Media

PLOVER WAY virgin Media

BUNTING CL virgin Media

REDSTART CL virgin Media

WOOD SORREL WAY

STONECHAT CL

WHINCHAT C

BRAMBLING WAY, ,

SPEEDWELL CLOSE, ,

SAFFRON CLOSE, ,

WHINCHAT CLOSE

BRAMBLING WAY



As you can see from Cabinet 55 the only streets that are not covered by Virgin media are Wood Sorrell way (most of which is connected to the non-upgraded cab 69)

Speedwell Close (most of which is connected to the non-upgraded cab 69)

And Saffron Close (most of which is connected to the non-upgraded cab 69)


There is a huge market for people who have no access from cabinet 69

Speedwell Close: Numbers 1,2,3,4,6

Wood Sorrell Way 1,2,3,4,6,8,10,11,12,14,16,17,19,21,23,25,27,29, 32,34,36,38,40,42,44,46,48

Saffron Close 1,3,5,7

Whinchat Close � All Houses 1-57

Brambling Way � All Houses 2-57

Stonechat Close All houses 1-8

I am finding it difficult to understand why cabinet 55 meets the �commercial criteria� and yet cabinet 69 does not since there are more people who have no access to fast broadband services are actually connected to the non-upgraded cabinet 69. Virgin Media has already saturated the market in the area covered by cabinet 55 for superfast broadband services.


The other issue is that the cables from the upgraded cabinet and the distributions points from each run very near the non-connected houses. The distribution point in my street where my neighbour is connected to cabinet 55 is about 10m from my house and the cable for this actually runs past my house!

I asked if I could be connected to the distribution point for the upgraded cabinet, and I was willing to pay for the work to be done and I was told that this would not be possible, even though it is so close to my house.

Our local councillor has said that he will "support" our cause as we are currently getting less than 1mb in download speed where as my neighbour who lives next door is now getting 60mb.

I have contacted BDUK but no reply as of yet. BT says there are no plans to upgrade the cab 69 nor will they connect us to the upgraded cab55.

Thanks for any help.

I've mapped all cabinets on our 3 local exchanges (link in my sig), and have noticed that one cabinet in particular appeared to be missed out.

Cabinet NDBRO 5, the red shaded area shown covers a large residential area, I could see no reason as to why this would not have been included in the initial roll out. The other one in that map is not being done, but this does serve a fairly small area, but their speeds are terrible, and a cabinet 280 meters away is being done, whist other cabinets which seem to serve small areas have been done.

NDBRO 5 is not far from the exchange, although closer ones have been done.
I'm sure fibre runs past this cabinet to one at the bottom of the road which has been done.
I don't think space or power are a problem.
There's no Virgin media in our area at all.,
Cabinets which are further out and serve less properties have been done.

I initially emailed Ian Livingston as to why it wasn't being done, and got a standard reply

Much later I emailed Open Reach and was told that it is now being done next March, along with one other cabinet that wasn't scheduled.

My feeling is that this cabinet was simply overlooked somehow, the roll out is vast and there's bound to be mistakes - I wonder if my email to Ian Livingston triggered someone to double check the figures.

And of course with BDUK funding coming up it wouldn't pay to do every cabinet if someone else is going to pay for some of them would it?

Edited by R0NSKI (Tue 13-Nov-12 08:33:27)

Hi,
I have emailed open reach and given them this information and there does not seem to be any movement on their position regarding this cab. It is not in their plans to upgrade saying that they have been very helpful with all the information they have given me.

I did point out that this left a quite large area with broadband speeds of 800k to a maximum of 1024k and this is mot the minimum of 2mb as stated in the digital Britain document, but this did not have any influence on their decision.
Our councillor is now involved and I am trying to get the MP involved,fortunately our MP is not in the jungle eating bugs but just as hard to get hold of!!!
As a small village there is a large proportion of us being overlooked. Having said that there is now a lot of people who now have the option of virgin media or BT infinity!!!
That does not seem fair to me.

Thanks for any help or advice you could me me.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Did you include
Conservation area
Checks on objects to cabinet citing
Possible lack of space of pavement
Distance and cost of getting power to cabinet
A person with a campaign may have influenced things
Distance from cabinet to the existing fibre ducting
Distance of homes from the cabinet
Distance of new ducting needed between old and new cabinet

The key things are proximity to fibre, power, and number of homes passed. The rest don't get picked up until the cabinet goes into planning.

Well, the only advice I can think of is to rally local support, canvas all the properties and get signatures of people willing to switch to FTTC if it was available, then get the MP's and local papers involved. Produce graphical evidence of the areas covered/not covered using google maps.

Most of all don't give up.

Thanks for the information.
I have emailed the local papers and am trying to get in touch with the MP.
I have designed a leaflet that I will post through houses affected on the estate.
Lets see where that gets us!

You are doing a great job Paul.
Keep up the good work.

I think a petition would also be worthwhile, whilst collecting the signatures you could also point out how little it actually costs the end user to move over to fibre, you may get more people to sign then.

However, a significant amount of the decision rests on the cost to deploy - in particular the cost to supply a power connection, and the cost to feed fibre - which requires space in ducting going in the right direction, or new ducting.

That makes a lot of sense. I've now got examples of cabinets that literally have 30 houses connected to them in the middle of nowhere. The one cab I'm thinking of has had to have two sections of ducting added (I think about 120 meters) to get fibre to the cab.

However, your comment about those cabinets being viable for BDUK isn't my understanding. We had advice from a lawyer who specialises in the subject and he said if more than two principle providers (e.g. the area had cable on a large proportion of properties) then it wasn't possible for a subsidy to be applied for.

I also don't think the council could pay for the sub-station to be upgrade. In that example, the area becomes viable for FTTP rather than FTTC. BT will not talk about FTTP.


Regards,


Gareth

In addition, ask the people you are leafleting to contact/write your MP too. The more pressure applied to said MP the more he/she will be inclined to press BT. You could even provide a sample letter that could simply be signed and posted.

Edited by deleted (Tue 13-Nov-12 12:32:27)

The council/local authority runs an Open Market Review, followed by a public consultation.

Check your authorities project to see what they have done.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/5555-warwickshire... has an example of the sort of info that should become available.

An area with Virgin Media would be considered Grey for superfast, but if the cabinet is also serving streets that are white it might get service. So it is very much a case of checking Virgin Media coverage.

First let me say you are doing a good job. Don't get disheartened, because this effort will get rewarded in the end.

However, I don't think *any* of your actions will make BT change their mind over the commercial rollout - they will still look at the spreadsheet & use that to make a yes/no decision.

Why do I say it that bluntly? I believe that the BDUK process now binds BT in this way. To show that some places deserve BDUK funding, BT have to show the commercial reasoning - and then *act like they believe it* across the board. The knock-on effect is that there can no longer be any grey areas, and no extra human judgement ("gut feeling") - because to do so will invalidate *all* of the BDUK process. It also means that MP's can't override the spreadsheet by dint of persuasion, nor can media campaigns embarrass BT into changing tack.

Having said that, there are changes possible - as shown by Ronski. These changes can only come about because the spreadsheet contains mistakes that get fixed, or because one of the commercial assumptions gets refactored - perhaps the fibre spine changes route, or the power company reduces the charge for supply of a new connection. Certainly BT have come back and done some infill, so it isn't impossible. Conversely we have seen the opposite happen (though rarely) - where a cabinet proves to be no longer viable even after the box has been installed. Those cases prove that changes to the cost of power & fibre alone can make a significant difference to viability.

The only factor that I think you could cause to be changed, on a very local basis, is the take-up factor - which might mean a detailed survey of the residents - something a bit more than a simple petition.

I don't believe that the amount of Virgin competition is a factor that is going to cause a change. BT will know the facts that you do, and part of the commercial decision-making will be based on it. Whether you think it is sane or not, having Virgin present is not nearly a negative point, and having Virgin absent is not nearly a positive one.

That's my belief about the commercial rollout. Everything changes for the BDUK one.

There, it is humans in the council that make the decisions about the rollout, and they *can* be persuaded by MPs, media campaigns & petitions. Facts help further than the emotions, so a residents survey will help - and surveying those with Virgin available will help too (even if only in your own understanding of takeup).

Someone else brought up the point about whether BDUK would even apply. I'll reply to that separately.

For now, the obvious question I should ask is this: Have you asked BT/Openreach if there is anything that can be done at a local level to improve viability for that particular cabinet?

And if/when you get in touch with the BDUK contacts, the same questions will apply. Councils going for BDUK funding will normally have some wedbsite information, which invariable includes a survey. It *is* worth getting the residents to fill that survey in.

In reply to a post by garethr:

However, a significant amount of the decision rests on the cost to deploy - in particular the cost to supply a power connection, and the cost to feed fibre - which requires space in ducting going in the right direction, or new ducting.

That makes a lot of sense. I've now got examples of cabinets that literally have 30 houses connected to them in the middle of nowhere. The one cab I'm thinking of has had to have two sections of ducting added (I think about 120 meters) to get fibre to the cab.

When you say you've "now got examples of cabinets", do you mean just that these examples are viable? Or is there something else about them?

However, your comment about those cabinets being viable for BDUK isn't my understanding. We had advice from a lawyer who specialises in the subject and he said if more than two principle providers (e.g. the area had cable on a large proportion of properties) then it wasn't possible for a subsidy to be applied for.

Are you sure the lawyer is talking about cabinets, or areas?

Certainly the concept of being an NGA white area goes to a finer level of granularity than a cabinet's coverage area. As Mr Saffron posted, Warwickshire have coverage maps that appear to be based on postcodes (they're fascinating to zoom in on), and are asking the public to identify anomolies.

There, BDUK would certainly show the streets that have no Virgin presence as NGA white areas - and so be candidates for NGA subsidy.

But what does this mean when considered at a cabinet level?

My impression is that subsidising a cabinet is *not* an all-or-nothing affair. Rather the subsidy would apply to the proportion of customers that live in the white zones, but that the "bid winner" would have to use it's own money (and commercial criteria) for the remaining proportion.

Perhaps this is an issue that TBB can take up: What happens where a cabinet area has a mixture of NGA white & grey zones (or even black zones)?

After that, the decision then depends on who decides. If BT themselves would decide, I guess they get told the amount of subsidy available, and the decision will be based on whether the volume of subsidy available is enough to take the cabinet over the threshold into viability.

If the council decide, then I guess they just get told how much subsidy is required to make each cabinet viable. They then have to choose (on a subsidy-spent per person basis?) which cabinets get done, until their budget is used up.

I also don't think the council could pay for the sub-station to be upgrade. In that example, the area becomes viable for FTTP rather than FTTC. BT will not talk about FTTP.

Perhaps the council has other subtle ways to get the cost of supply spread over multiple parties (or years).

I guess you say that the area becomes viable for FTTP because that is unpowered equipment, right?

If so, I'd re-phrase that. I'd say that FTTP may become the only possible candidate, but it doesn't make it any more viable. Certainly the lack of FTTC makes FTTP-on-demand unlikely.

Another course is to just wait, until some other infrastructure change causes an upgrade to the electricity supply independently. Then the cabinet viability may swing the other way.

Most BDUK schemes go down to full post code level. Although most council have not yet got their online Postcode search operational yet. What is does mean is it is now silly for BT to continue to not show the exchanges and cabinets it will upgrade commercial as it is now becoming public knowledge as the BDUK online checkers go live. They are not showing commercial rollout but if you are not in the BDUK rollout it�s about 99% certain you are in the commercial rollout.

The first thing is to identify how many lines are on that cabinet. If you have the postcodes for that cabinet a check on the Royal Mail Web site will give a pretty accurate number (Some Postcodes will be split across cabinets) Depending on exact circumxtances you are probably looking at about 200 lines minimum to make the figures add up. If power is difficult to supply that can push up costs although in 98% of cases power will be nearby. THe power cables normally run along the road.
Conservation area can add to costs as well

The other think to do is to concact whover is doing your BDUK rollout to see if you are inluded in that. If you give them your Phone number and House number and full postcode should be able to tell you from that. In most casse it is the local council to contact for BDUK in your area

Edited by deleted (Tue 13-Nov-12 15:10:15)

OK I have had this reply from BT care
As discussed here is the reply from Openreach.

As you read below, I�ve already had involvement in this.
Historically, the cables feeding this area were moved to be fed from two cabinets. This was probably done to ensure that there were enough spares to meet demand.
However, as you have no doubt read, one of these cabs isn�t getting an upgrade.
I�ve spoken to the local �copper� planner whether its� possible to re-arrange, however, this can�t be done as a scheme would need to be funded and it is Openreach policy not to rearrange the network to enable services where they aren�t currently available.
The best move forward that this gentleman has is to go to his local and county council and try to get funding via BDUK to upgrade the cab.

I hope that the council are able to aid you in some kind of way, good luck.

Om what I get from this is that BT are not willing to look at possibly connecting us to the upgraded cab as "Openreach policy not to rearrange the network to enable services where they aren�t currently available."

So even though the cable runs outside my house they are not willing to consider!

Contact you local council about the BDUK rollout in your area. If you are not in the commercial rollout you should be in the BDUK rollout. I am assuming you cannot get VM as if you can BDUK would not rollout to it

I am not sure quite what will happen where some properties can get VM and some cannot> I guess they will have to work with BT on that one as BDUK funding can only be used where there is no commercial supplier

I have to say I think BT are been incredibly pety when your neighbour is getting the service, suurely the cost wouldnt be that bad when your neighbour can get it already.

As for the maths, BT probably see it as more viable to try and steal customers of VM because those customers currently pay BT nothing whilst people like you on a soggy 1mbit service pay BT and already give them revenue. BT know you have nowhere else to go.

You assume that it is only BT data in the open market review. If that were the case then no where would be black for NGA.

Thus there may be other commercial operators planning to serve a postcode who do not want exact service details made available yet.

While you have 99% confidence, if people are unsure they SHOULD contact the local authority to ensure the issue is looked into, imagine if you missed out because a desk bound person made a mistake in a spreadsheet.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

First let me say you are doing a good job. Don't get disheartened, because this effort will get rewarded in the end.

However, I don't think *any* of your actions will make BT change their mind over the commercial rollout - they will still look at the spreadsheet & use that to make a yes/no decision.

Why do I say it that bluntly? I believe that the BDUK process now binds BT in this way. To show that some places deserve BDUK funding, BT have to show the commercial reasoning - and then *act like they believe it* across the board. The knock-on effect is that there can no longer be any grey areas, and no extra human judgement ("gut feeling") - because to do so will invalidate *all* of the BDUK process. It also means that MP's can't override the spreadsheet by dint of persuasion, nor can media campaigns embarrass BT into changing tack.

Of course this is nothing to do with Openreach not having to supply councils with per-cabinet nor indeed per-exchange costs for the BDUK bids so pretty much able to pull figures out of the air.

Where private subsidy is being offered the BDUK process isn't threatened in any way.

Until procurement has begun there is nothing binding on Openreach.

Openreach closed the door on private funding to us months ago.

Debatable as to whether it makes economic sense but BT do tend to be keener to rollout in VM areas than non VM areas

If you look at it logically the demand on a Cabinet in a VM area is going to be considerable less than in a non VM area. Let�s say VM typically have a 40% take up of homes past that means only 60% of the people on that Cabinet are taking BT even if FTTC takes 10% of the VM customers
So say the cabinet is 400 lines and VM is serving 40% of those homes BT have 240 potential FTTC customers and say they gain 10% of the existing VM customers that�s 40.
Typical FTTC take up is about 20% so 48 plus the 40 ex VM ones so 84.
If the same size cabinet was in a non VM area they get 80. Could be more as a lot tend to have long lines so poor ADSL speeds so at best it is marginal

In theroy BT should be declaring their cost to BDUK but as we can see from Starbucks and Amazon etc there are all sorts of ways to manipulate your costs etc and the councils would not understand it. so would not be able to tell the true costs

It would probably better to reverse engineer it and for BDUK to cost it on that basis.

So even though the cable runs outside my house they are not willing to consider!

It seems daft, but you are not alone in that boat - I've not seen a single case where BT are willing to rearrange a network to make it viable for a single house.

We have recently seen a case where a whole new cabinet has been inserted, splitting an old one (presumably like was done for your two cabinets). In fact, the cabinet numbering near me suggests exactly the same happened here years ago, though both cabinets have been converted. But that is what a network re-arrangement requires - whole new cabinets.

One problem of handling you individually is that, if they did this for you, then the set an expectation for your neighbour. And then for his neighbour, and so on.

From their perspective it is better for the entire cabinet to be done... and right now, the best prospect of that is to harness some BDUK funds.

Note: Just because the cable goes past your house doesn't mean that they're capable of diving into it to extract 1 pair for use with you. The cable carries tens or hundreds of pairs, and can only realistically be broken into at the cabinets. Then smaller cables (but still with many pairs) distribute out to the DPs. It is only here where you can make use of a pair to a property - but of course there must be a spare one around.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

so pretty much able to pull figures out of the air.

Except that the councils talk, and BDUK act as an umbrella. There has to be some consistency.

Where private subsidy is being offered the BDUK process isn't threatened in any way.

Until procurement has begun there is nothing binding on Openreach.

I disagree on both counts. The fact that the BDUK process is broken down to umpteen separate council decisions, all going at their own pace, all requires consistency from BT so that they can keep winning the bids. If early bids show signs of a lack of a consistent approach, a lack of trust builds up, and they'll stand much less chance of winning the later bids. Once the first county has gone through the "invitation to tender" phase, the stage is largely set for the rest of the bids.

For the sake of the big picture, I can see that BT will have to stick firmly to the criteria they are using, with little flexibility. And unfortunately, because of the scale of the big picture (both commercial and BDUK), the smaller projects fall victim to this lack of flexibility.

OK - BDUK doesn't entirely threaten locations where private subsidy is available. But it does get in the way between the early "open market review" phase and the later "design stage sign-off".

Openreach closed the door on private funding to us months ago.

Who are "us"?

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

If you look at it logically the demand on a Cabinet in a VM area is going to be considerable less than in a non VM area.
...
even if FTTC takes 10% of the VM customers
...
Typical FTTC take up is about 20%

You are assuming that VM are giving an acceptable service, and that FTTC will take fewer of the VM customers than of the non-VM customers. Is that strictly known to be the case?

When I moved I had the choice of VM or FTTC, and very firmly chose FTTC - because of what I know can happen with VM. It wouldn't surprise me to see a fair proportion of the VM subscribers turning out to be disgruntled, and jumping at the opportunity.

It also makes an assumption that while VM passes 40% of the properties, those properties all choose VM as a phone/broadband supplier. I'm not sure that's the case either. People with Sky satellite subscriptions are probably more likely to stick with their phone & broadband through Openreach's copper, and are good targets for FTTC.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

I have to say I think BT are been incredibly pety when your neighbour is getting the service, suurely the cost wouldnt be that bad when your neighbour can get it already.

As for the maths, BT probably see it as more viable to try and steal customers of VM because those customers currently pay BT nothing whilst people like you on a soggy 1mbit service pay BT and already give them revenue. BT know you have nowhere else to go.

Try to steal customers from VM cable is exactly their monoplistic mentality
They not only will green light areas that have a VM cable before other areas that don't they will also make sure that they enable those FFTC cabs in those areas first, as they have done here, Their greedy very greedy, perhaps it shouldn't be run soley for the benefit of its shareholders

I believe the idea that 200 connection is required is the old commercial criteria. The newer phases in mature areas appear to ignore this criteria. The power costs will be an issue.

Yeah that sound daft. But think about it.

The costs at the start of the program were higher so you do the areas where you get the best bang for your buck. As you move though the program you can justify doing smaller areas because you cost per cab is reduced.. In my area this now includes cabs which only have 20-30 properties or are industrial areas (warehouses etc).

You can disagree but this is happening!

Regards,


Gareth

THere is no way they will be doing cabinets with just 20 or 30 subscribers. It would make no economic sense. I doubt that BT even have cabinet that small.

Cae to name the exchange and cabinet number(s) that have been enabled with only 20 lines?

Virgin added 56,900 to its cable service in the quarter
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/5510-virgin-media...

BT added 160,000 to Infinity
TalkTalk added 22,000 over the last six months

And we know Openreach added 190,000 new FTTC/P connections in last quarter.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/5531-second-quart...

The picture is pretty complex, particularly as the VM performance varies from area to area

Disagree all you wish, we had a price from BT for 2 cabinets, when we pursued the matter we were blanked. This was before any BDUK procurement had taken place.

A consultation with the local council finds that they will have no specific numbers for the costs by cabinet nor even exchange area due to commercial confidentiality.

So in short nothing had been signed, nothing had been presented, no RFP or even RFQ had been made, the only indication was that the area in question was potentially a part of that region's BDUK bid and suddenly Openreach jump from dealing with private finance on a per-cabinet basis to the public purse and a regional level of granularity.

Convenient, isn't it?

Incidentally you contradict yourself by initially claiming you disagree with my comment that there's nothing binding on Openreach until procurement essentially saying that it's purely a commercial Openreach decision that they do not wish to continue to entertain private finance.

Likewise you don't give any kind of indication why private subsidy would threaten the BDUK process. If that were the case Openreach wouldn't be deploying anything on a commercial basis while BDUK procurements - they are.

BDUK isn't an umbrella beyond being a project name and Whitehall quango; each council is given a set amount of money to be spent as they see fit. There is absolutely nothing preventing a council from demanding cabinet level numbers from any bidder to ensure value for money.

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

In theroy BT should be declaring their cost to BDUK but as we can see from Starbucks and Amazon etc there are all sorts of ways to manipulate your costs etc and the councils would not understand it. so would not be able to tell the true costs

It would probably better to reverse engineer it and for BDUK to cost it on that basis.

Already done.

Check the link at the end of the post.

In reply to a post by garethr:

I believe the idea that 200 connection is required is the old commercial criteria. The newer phases in mature areas appear to ignore this criteria. The power costs will be an issue.

The major issue is proximity to existing fibre network. There is no way cabinets covering 20-30 premises will be upgraded without an external party picking up some of the costs which is probably what has happened in the instances you mention.

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

Debatable as to whether it makes economic sense but BT do tend to be keener to rollout in VM areas than non VM areas

From one angle makes perfect sense. Each subscriber FTTC pulls back from VM is paying line rental and FTTC charges. Existing Openreach customers only pay an additional FTTC charge.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

You are assuming that VM are giving an acceptable service, and that FTTC will take fewer of the VM customers than of the non-VM customers. Is that strictly known to be the case?

Yes, hence why smaller capacity cabinets relative to homes passed are planned for VM heavy areas.

About 2/3rds of VM customers are triple play. Takes a tad more than offering broadband speeds inferior to those they can already get from VM in the downstream direction to make most people change their TV and phone service.

So yes, it is strictly known and indeed blatantly obvious. Trying to pull people away from 30Mb / 60Mb / 120Mb services along with line rental and TV on to upto 40Mb / 80Mb requiring a change of line rental and TV is obviously going to be a harder sell than a free upgrade in the case of BT Broadband / Infinity and a small cost increment in the case of other providers with a clear and obvious performance improvement.

VM have reported no churn spike as a result of increased FTTC availability. Openreach are deploying in the wrong places then bemoaning disappointing uptake when operators are actually asking people to pay for fibre rather than getting it as a freebie.

Edited by deleted (Tue 13-Nov-12 19:14:14)

VM are pretty much saturated in their areas now and have been for a while.

When using Infinity numbers it should be remembered they're offering this for free to some of their subscribers.

On the key metric, churn, there is absolutely no evidence that FTTC is having any impact at all on Virgin.

I think BT have been taking lessons from the government in creative accounting. Offer FTTC for no price increase at the retail level, play games with the wholesale pricing to try and balance out the retail hit then report flattering results to Openreach and FTTC penetration, fairly neutral results at retail, while carrying on the ongoing trend of BT Wholesale's revenue dropping.

I agree on the demand, but the point is all BT will care about is revenue and profits.

A customer pays them already due to lack of viable competition I expect is a factor. Clearly not the only factor of course since FTTC is in many non VM areas. But its my opinion it was a factor here, either that or a openreach manager lives in the area serviced maybe.

REALLY!!!! YOU SURE ABOUT THAT!

Have a look at MK17 8AR.

That isn't BDUK because the project hasn't completed the initial stages.

One on a industrial estate?

Try MK10 0AT that has TWO cabs!!!!!


Regards,


Gareth

The GPO as it was pre 1984 was a paragon of virtue as you knew where you were in the queue to be allowed pay line rental and the rental of the handset.

Openreach should be run for the benefit of it's shareholders. It's the law.

Openreach should be competing with Virgin Media. Competition is good and leads to lower prices.

Openreach have gone from nothing to millions of homes passed in 30 months. Virgin have passed next to no extra homes in this time.

Perhaps we should look to nationalise the Virgin platform.

It is stagnant on coverage. It locks out providers such as BT, Sky, TalkTalk, o2 etc. That punters want to buy from. It does not engage with punters or local authorities that wish to bring superfast to the public.

Virgin is fat. Virgin is lazy. Virgin is simply quite happy working a cable monopoly.

I am not in favour of nationalising any communications provider.

The government would simply starve them of cash and funnel the money into badly running health and education.

But if we are force to nationalise a fat, lazy, anti competitive and cherry picking platform out there, it's Virgins.

Edited by deleted (Tue 13-Nov-12 21:02:22)

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

If you look at it logically the demand on a Cabinet in a VM area is going to be considerable less than in a non VM area.
...
even if FTTC takes 10% of the VM customers
...
Typical FTTC take up is about 20%

You are assuming that VM are giving an acceptable service, and that FTTC will take fewer of the VM customers than of the non-VM customers. Is that strictly known to be the case?

When I moved I had the choice of VM or FTTC, and very firmly chose FTTC - because of what I know can happen with VM. It wouldn't surprise me to see a fair proportion of the VM subscribers turning out to be disgruntled, and jumping at the opportunity.

It also makes an assumption that while VM passes 40% of the properties, those properties all choose VM as a phone/broadband supplier. I'm not sure that's the case either. People with Sky satellite subscriptions are probably more likely to stick with their phone & broadband through Openreach's copper, and are good targets for FTTC.

I can say in my area, the VM service is poor, now I am seeing performance levels similiar to 2 years ago before VM did what was considered for them major uplift work, its now normal for me to get under 1.5mbit/sec during evenings and weekends which is 5% of my rated max speed. Plus VM are lagging no upload performance.

However I am led to believe my area's performance is not typical for VM and it does normally perform better, personally I will be off like lightning to FTTC but I am not a typical customer,. I dont care for the tv package and the performance of my broadband is important to me.

With all that said and done I believe VM's future is a budget provider competing on price and dodgy headline speeds, even if an area isnt congested STM is pretty agressive only allowing 15-20 mins or so of downloading at full speed, BT like sky have now direct ownership of premium tv content, VM are still limited to reselling it only. The day will come when this catches up on VM I feel, I could be very wrong of course but I feel the tables are turning because VM no longer have the technology advantage and compared to BT and sky financially they very weak.

My view is this.

If a state spends money for something, then clearly its deemed as somethign required which capitalism has failed to provide, hence the subsidies.

I strongly have a belief commercial companies should never be subsidised by the state unless is clauses in place.

So eg. with BDUK even if the initial outlay was higher due to no base network a state owned network should either be built to compete with BT which woudl then give BT (or VM) the choice of upgrading their own network to compete or the alternative would be to pay BT as is now but have a requirement for BT to pay the state back so instead of a gift its a loan. It could have the condition the loan is not fully paid back if a profit isnt made maybe but its better than what happens now where the state just writes blank cheques and someone else makes the profit.

Lets face facts here. Either areas are viable or they are not. If areas are unviable nobody is going to come to the party without help from the councils.

There are two infrastructure players out there.

One of them is matching council funding. Is providing realistic options for councils and communities. Has publicly released rollout info. Is offering equivalent wholesale access to anyone who wants it, including monster players such as BT, Sky and TalkTalk. Is generating jobs and growth in the industry. Is bringing superfast to the market towns.

The other is the closed shop cable monopoly.

Edited by deleted (Tue 13-Nov-12 22:30:45)

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

or the alternative would be to pay BT as is now but have a requirement for BT to pay the state back so instead of a gift its a loan. It could have the condition the loan is not fully paid back if a profit isnt made maybe but its better than what happens now where the state just writes blank cheques and someone else makes the profit.

The reality is inbetween...

BT take the money as a "gift" to spend on installing infrastructure. They have to take the penalty if insufficient people take up the upgrade, but can only take limited profits if too many take it up.

As Bob_s2 pointed out recently, there are clawbacks that send money back to the council if BT end up making too much profit. And of course, the cheques aren't really blank. If a cabinet makes a loss after the subsidy, then BT get to shoulder that alone.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

Is that strictly known to be the case?

Yes, hence why smaller capacity cabinets relative to homes passed are planned for VM heavy areas.

I've not seen evidence of that around here. The cabinets all seem to be the same size, no matter the proportion of VM around - all of them are the larger variant.

About 2/3rds of VM customers are triple play. Takes a tad more than offering broadband speeds inferior to those they can already get from VM in the downstream direction to make most people change their TV and phone service.

I didn't know the 2/3 figure, so that's useful to know.

I agree entirely that triple-play customers are indeed harder to shift. My personal perception is that in triple-play providers, the broadband element is always the weak service. Cheap & cheerful. High speed figures, but appallling latency & support figures. Those triple-play customers who have no more serious demands on their broadband will stay hooked up until there is serious triple-play competition.

However, I don't know how long it will stay that way. How many people will start feeling dissatisfied at poor broadband performance? And for VM, it seems that their weak link is indeed the poor operational performance of their broadband. certainly *some* people will do that.

You say it is "blatantly obvious" that FTTC will take fewer customers, but I'm less convinced. Unfortunately, the whole of your argument is cost-based, while mine is quality-based. In the short-term your cost-based argument probably wins, but in the longer-term, quality will play its roll. Especially as FTTC brings out more triple-play competition.

All 3 of the big TV-offering ISPs are starting to offer IP-based TV propositions. That means that VM will start to face competition against the full triple-play, and not just at broadband level. Quality of all 3 elements will come into play more then.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

Disagree all you wish, we had a price from BT for 2 cabinets, when we pursued the matter we were blanked. This was before any BDUK procurement had taken place.

I'm not sure you understand why I'm disagreeing with you.

The point I was trying to make is that the mere presence of BDUK stops *any* non-standard installation stone-dead, and was pretty much bound to. Nothing has to be signed to make this happen - all that was really needed was for someone within BT to see the scale of the opportunity that BDUK opened, and to then decide that it needed to play a straight, consistent bat to *everything* going on *anywhere*.

Convenience has nothing to do with it - it is sheer consideration of the scales involved. BDUK funding potentially allows BT to bring an extra 20,000 cabinets into the FTTC rollout - the extra 25% of the country.

In essence, they chose to disengage with you over 2 cabinets to help ensure they're seen to be straight over the other 19,998.

I suspect that they had (have) to appear to be absolutely lilly-white on this, to allow the EU to approve funding - and it is in their (self-)interest to ensure that there is nothing (at all) that would allow Fujitsu, Virgin, Sky, Branson, or whoever, from appealing some small issues in the EU, and strangling the whole thing from red-tape.

I suspect that there are *big* political games at issue here. And I have little doubt that some smaller projects took a hit because of it.

Incidentally you contradict yourself by initially claiming you disagree with my comment that there's nothing binding on Openreach until procurement essentially saying that it's purely a commercial Openreach decision that they do not wish to continue to entertain private finance.

I guess it depends on your take of the word "binding". No, I don't think there is anything contractually binding OR in the strictest sense of the word - but I do indeed think they have to take a sensible self-binding approach. A different take on the word, I think, but not contradicting myself.

Plenty of people, you included, are demanding that BT's numbers be published, if they are going to be allowed to dip into the public purse. It would make sense if BT, even while attempting to avoid this action, planned for its inevitability.

In fact, some of the numbers would need to be available for the post-installation clawback monitoring. It wouldn't surprise me if BT saw the disclosure as inevitable (and indeed, planned for it), but would prefer not to until later. Any disclosure helps their competition.

Likewise you don't give any kind of indication why private subsidy would threaten the BDUK process.

Because it isn't "blind" private investment, where BT have operational choice over what to do with the funds. The private investment in this case is targetted at a specific pair of cabinets.

In that sense, it is far closer to BDUK funding than the commercial rollout. It sets a precedent. It sets a flag in the ground that the competition can compare with, complain about, and use as a staff.

The simple answer, overall, is that it is a risk factor. And someone, somewhere, decided it was a risk that wasn't worth taking; that the upside wasn't worth it.

Look at it another way: For your project to have gone forward, it needed to be a win-win proposition. Where was the 'win' for OR?

If that were the case Openreach wouldn't be deploying anything on a commercial basis while BDUK procurements - they are.

Not the same thing at all. They take the investor's money, and are free to choose what to do with it. There is no third party to deal with over justifying every last aspect of 2 cabinets out of 80,000.

BDUK isn't an umbrella beyond being a project name and Whitehall quango; each council is given a set amount of money to be spent as they see fit. There is absolutely nothing preventing a council from demanding cabinet level numbers from any bidder to ensure value for money.

I agree.

Except for the point that *all* of the BDUK funding, and *all* of the council-based match funding, has to be approved by one organisation - the EU.

The EU, in turn, has to be convinced that the application of state aid to a near-monopoly is worthwhile. And it is *hugely* in BT's favour if this is granted without a huge kerfuffle instigated by Fujitsu, Virgin, Sky et al. BT in turn will not want to give even a hint of discordance out to allow this to happen. I don't think the UK Government wants it to happen either.

I'm absolutely convinced that the politics behind *this* aspect of the BDUK project - getting EU approval - is what is shaping the SFBB landscape for the next 2 years. Both for good & bad - absolutely *everything* that OR touches is going through this lens.

For BT to take custom from VM is a tough ask. So I doubt they are taking much business away. The most likely ones that might are gamers who are always looking for the very cheapes price and hoping for low latency. I doubt though they will find it any better.

I think you're right, I don't understand.

If those issues were such major issues and Openreach had such a strong need to seem whiter than white they have ceased their commercial rollout too which they haven't.

It isn't things like this that are causing problems with EU approval and various other interested parties so much it is Openreach refusing to supply data on the subsidies they need by cabinet and in turn permit private investment.

I'm sure you can see why a private company locking out the private sector in order to obtain public sector funding based on a cost model rather than actual costs as they are under no obligation to provide them would be seen less than favourably by pretty much anyone apart from Openreach.

Have you actually read the 'Value for Money' DCMS Power Point? Do. Openreach have still not presented substantive answers to it.

The whole point about the commercial rollout is that that is the bit that helps define the black areas (in conjunction with other operators plans submitted in the OMR stage). These are the areas that are then excluded from public matched-funding.

That cabinet is not enabled

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

THere is no way they will be doing cabinets with just 20 or 30 subscribers. It would make no economic sense. I doubt that BT even have cabinet that small.

Cae to name the exchange and cabinet number(s) that have been enabled with only 20 lines?

Apparently there is an ECI Minicab which appeared in an Openreach video, it's the one on the left, which according to ECI's website has 64 pairs and can also be powered off the -48V on a phoneline. I guess Openreach may be looking at it as an option for the areas which have low numbers of subscribers.

Hi everyone, This seems to be a very interesting debate!
I wonder if BT actually look at these forums? If they did maybe some transparency about their decision making may be in order so that people could clearly work out which cabinet would be viable for upgrade and which ones would not meet the "commercial criteria"
Anyway as an update on my situation (that started all of this!!)
I have been in touch with the local council I am awaiting a phone call from the councillor again about the possibility of BDUK funding.
I have also been contacted by the local paper. They want to come an interview me and publish a story about the inconsistencies of the BT decisions to upgrade certain cabinets.
Im am also tempted to contact local radio to see if they would be interested in the story!
I'm still fighting for this!!!

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

That cabinet is not enabled

It will be very soon.

In reply to a post by simon194:

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

THere is no way they will be doing cabinets with just 20 or 30 subscribers. It would make no economic sense. I doubt that BT even have cabinet that small.

Cae to name the exchange and cabinet number(s) that have been enabled with only 20 lines?

Apparently there is an ECI Minicab which appeared in an Openreach video, it's the one on the left, which according to ECI's website has 64 pairs and can also be powered off the -48V on a phoneline. I guess Openreach may be looking at it as an option for the areas which have low numbers of subscribers.

Since some people consider the scenario to be so unbelievable I'll try and get a picture of it. The cab is going live in Dec. Civil engineering is being done at moment to get duct to it.

Exchange: Woburn Sands

https://maps.google.co.uk/?ll=52.031284,-0.64472&spn...



Regards,

Gareth

In reply to a post by pau1777:

If they did maybe some transparency about their decision making may be in order so that people could clearly work out which cabinet would be viable for upgrade and which ones would not meet the "commercial criteria"

Absolutely no chance in hell. Far more powerful people than anyone in this thread are pushing for that to happen and Openreach are pushing back.

Does not sound like a BT phone cabinet. It may be something to do with the old analogue TV system that was shut down

Its a PCP. You can see the chamber in front of it...

I guess you won't like the example ECI 256 without a green PCP cabinet? Just to show you how non-standard BT can go. Hint - the PCP is underground!

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

In reply to a post by pau1777:

If they did maybe some transparency about their decision making may be in order so that people could clearly work out which cabinet would be viable for upgrade and which ones would not meet the "commercial criteria"

Absolutely no chance in hell. Far more powerful people than anyone in this thread are pushing for that to happen and Openreach are pushing back.

It does make you wonder how they can do this since there is government funding involved!
My taxes are paying for this so are we not entitled to information??

In reply to a post by 1mb_broadband:

It does make you wonder how they can do this since there is government funding involved!
My taxes are paying for this so are we not entitled to information??

Nope. All money spent so far has come from commercial sources. No BDUK funding has been spent yet, I believe.

Salaries of the 70 to 100 BDUK staff - and the 9.8m on contractors.

But not aware of any connections delivered - we can expect politicians kissing babies when it happens

Earklist rollouts were planned to be this year but with the EU funding clearance delay this is unlikely unless BT is doing some advance work at risk.

In reply to a post by garethr:

Since some people consider the scenario to be so unbelievable I'll try and get a picture of it. The cab is going live in Dec. Civil engineering is being done at moment to get duct to it.

Exchange: Woburn Sands

https://maps.google.co.uk/?ll=52.031284,-0.64472&spn...

Regards,

Gareth

Indeed.

Street Side DSLAM Cab Nmbwmw, Cranfield Road, Wavendon, Milton Keynes, MK17 8AS

If the advance work is that in North Yorkshire, they have state aid clearance already

I live on Wood Sorrel Way and just noticed this thread. I too am on cabinet 69 and was very disheartened to hear from BT that this one cab would not be upgraded. As has already been stated, it's probably no coincidence that they're only upgrading the houses where VM is available. That's catch-22 to me, because if I had VM I probably wouldn't want infinity!

It's worse for me as I've recently moved into the area from having a fantastic 30MB VM service to suffering with a lousy 450kbps ADSL (I honestly wish I'd done my homework better before buying the house, as a quick postcode check stated that I could get VM *AND* infinity would be coming in September. How wrong I was!). Although I have the option of working from home I very rarely take advantage due to the pathetic speeds, and any kind of catchup/lovefilm/gaming is way out of the question.

Here's hoping cab 69 gets its long overdue upgrade!

In reply to a post by shaunj83:

I live on Wood Sorrel Way and just noticed this thread. I too am on cabinet 69 and was very disheartened to hear from BT that this one cab would not be upgraded. As has already been stated, it's probably no coincidence that they're only upgrading the houses where VM is available. That's catch-22 to me, because if I had VM I probably wouldn't want infinity!

It's worse for me as I've recently moved into the area from having a fantastic 30MB VM service to suffering with a lousy 450kbps ADSL (I honestly wish I'd done my homework better before buying the house, as a quick postcode check stated that I could get VM *AND* infinity would be coming in September. How wrong I was!). Although I have the option of working from home I very rarely take advantage due to the pathetic speeds, and any kind of catchup/lovefilm/gaming is way out of the question.

Here's hoping cab 69 gets its long overdue upgrade!

Have you checked what your phone reception is like in the are?

If I chuck my Three "One Plan" SIM in a USB Dongle at my home address I often get around 5 Meg down, 2 Meg up. "The One Plan" is also totally unlimited for 3G.