When business comes last

It seems to be an irony of the current strategy for high speed broadband that businesses are treated as lower priority than domestic users, when they need it every bit as much, if not more.

The targets for high speed broadband coverage are expressed in terms of population coverage. BT/Openreach seems to set its FTTC priorities in line with this, not to mention the fact that a cabinet serving an industrial estate is likely to be much less lucrative than one serving a residential area (which has many more potential customers).

Businesses in this country and particularly smaller ones are being held back by this, which is perhaps a case of the law of unintended consequences.

How can this be fixed?

Maybe there is not much demand?

Really speaking if you require 40-80mb bandwidth you are a bigger company and what most businesses require is something with high up time which means a leased line. BT will not eat into that business quickly by providing you with a cut price residential service.

Many businesses will be quite happily serving hundreds of users on a 2mb leased line. I work for a place with 7000 users, we 'only' have 2x40mbit to the internet yet 10gbit between sites.

You only really need the bandwidth if you are extending your LAN and doing that across *dsl is not wise.

I can think of a few exceptions I suppose, graphic design people or photography houses but most people who want it, will want it 'just cos' and don't really need it.

In comparison with the volume of residential demand, small business will of course be much less.

I am sure you are right in that BT and other carriers will wish to protect their lucrative leased line business for as long as possible.

A 2Mb leased line is vastly expensive for a small business. Their issue is generally one of remote access to their server. This requires a good upload speed, and you are lucky to get 0.5Mb with ADSL copper services. Your 2Mb leased line is 2Mb both up and down. At least FTTC, even with a basic option gives around 2Mb upload, a vast improvement.

Roll on FTTP on Demand which is being pitched at businesses.

FTTP on demand looks fine - but only if the nearby cabinet has been done for FTTC. And if that is done, the business could get FTTC anyway. That's my point - they are not doing these cabinets, or if they are, the priority is way down.

small business hasn't done well at demonstrating demand - the faster upstream Office ADSL products for example have offered 832k upstream for ages but are seldom used.

I suspect supply is matching perceived demand.

If only one could always get 832k upstream! I can think straight away of at least 5 of my customers with line lengths that are too long to achieve that.

Edited by deleted (Wed 30-Jan-13 11:09:09)

In reply to a post by jimsym:

If only one could always get 832k upstream! I can think straight away of at least 5 of my customers with line lengths that are too long to achieve that.

sure, it's rate adaptive and 832k seems to work out to about 45 dB downstream attenuation give or take.

Thing is many just didn't buy it. How many of the five did ?

Some have tried, but frankly it does nothing for you if the line is too long, so for those it would just be a wasted effort.

In reply to a post by jimsym:

Some have tried, but frankly it does nothing for you if the line is too long, so for those it would just be a wasted effort.

as expected. The higher traffic priority was ignored too I guess. Demand side failure.

In reply to a post by jimsym:

It seems to be an irony of the current strategy for high speed broadband that businesses are treated as lower priority than domestic users, when they need it every bit as much, if not more.

Not really. Business are assumed to be able to afford a leased line if it matters that much. Otherwise they probably aren't worth treating much differently to consumers.

We are in the process of getting a leased line (paperwork actually being signed and monies committed at last). It wasn't that expensive. Works out at about £15k for an office park just outside a large town. The BT part to blow a fibre from the nearest PCP is only a grand and might actually be waived altogether. The kit for the park and cabling is the bulk of the cost. A lot of that would have to be paid even for one hookup but the entire park is being done and four companies signing up to start with. Works out at £3k per head which is nothing really and monthly rental of £250 for a 10Mb/s pipe which can burst up to 40Mb/s depending on what the other people are doing.

Edited by Andrue (Wed 30-Jan-13 14:13:58)

Sorry, disagree. Complaints to ISP about need for better service get no more response than a "Sorry". How else are we supposed to generate demand?

How else are we supposed to generate demand?

By buying the available products that offer the better service. Simples.

Currently much of the small business landscape consists of people using bargain basement residential ISPs on home services while complaining on Twitter or in forums about the lack of better services.

If there was a business need services are available, like bonding lines etc, but use of these is as common as hen's teeth.

While the 832Kbps upstream did fall off with distance we have seen people getting good speeds from it out to 5 or 6km. The technicalities of ADSL mean the upstream can often be better than downstream on long lines.

In short if someone was getting 448Kbps upstream chances are the switch to 832 would have given a welcome boost.

One aspect often not mentioned and based on the few business parks where I've worked is that line lengths can be pretty long due to spread out nature which affects economics of FTTC.

If the commercial side is ignoring you then your local authority broadband project should not, as those projects are meant to be skewed towards economic benefits for the local economy. Particularly if you can act as a coherent group, e.g. local chamber of commerce or similar group to represent everyone.

While I know there is truth in this, there are also those who buy business class services from top providers. Things like bonded lines are too expensive and don't necessarily work that well. All that is required is FTTC on a business service.

Yup, had them sign up to the Local Authority broadband project. Now we just sit and wait. And wait. And wait.

That's a nice solution. £15k is far too much for the SMEs I deal with. £3k is more realistic but still expensive compared to FTTC business tarriffs. I'll suggest that and see if they have neighbours who are prepared to join in.

In reply to a post by jimsym:

It seems to be an irony of the current strategy for high speed broadband that businesses are treated as lower priority than domestic users, when they need it every bit as much, if not more.

The targets for high speed broadband coverage are expressed in terms of population coverage. BT/Openreach seems to set its FTTC priorities in line with this, not to mention the fact that a cabinet serving an industrial estate is likely to be much less lucrative than one serving a residential area (which has many more potential customers).

Businesses in this country and particularly smaller ones are being held back by this, which is perhaps a case of the law of unintended consequences.

How can this be fixed?

As you quite rightly suspect one of the major considerations for fibre deployment is the amount of premises passed by a cabinet. In the case of many business parks the amount of premises passed by the cabinet is relatively low compared with residential areas.

As far as I can tell there's no particular bias from Openreach and no conscious attempt being made to protect leased line revenues, just as you thought originally unintended consequences.

Openreach don't get any extra revenue from a business using a 80Mb/20Mb service over a residential one so can't view the business areas as a more favourable commercial proposition. They have to be judged under similar criteria to residential areas.

ADSL Max Premium's traffic prioritisation was a life saver when I was connected to a small congested market 1 exchange.

Exactly so. How do we get this changed?

Which local authority?

Some seem to be just ticking boxes and others appear to be much more into the project

Bucks mostly

Firms like http://www.callflowsolutions.com/home-broadband/slu-... can install their own FTTC cabinet

Or park does like residents of some villages are doing http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/5659-villagers-by...

I'd agree. SMEs (but more towards the small end) with internet fall in to one of two camps in my experience:

1) The ones that don't really care, get whatever BT offers them for as cheap as possible [I know a small TV production firm in London that has a ADSL2+ business line and the boss is a bit old fashioned so just pays for couriers to send DVDs and Blurays round London - madness]

2) The ones that do, and go for leased lines.

While I am sure there are people in the middle (who care, but don't want to spend the £k on a leased line for faster speeds), the vast majority don't.

Joe Bloggs accounting ltd might have 20 users, but if all they are doing is sending files round by email (often locally, via a local exchange server), they're not going to be knocking the doors down for BT to install fibre.

Ironically, a small family probably has more demand for broadband than a 10 person office these days. Video streaming, gaming downloads, music chews up a lot of bandwidth, people sitting on salesforce and excel all day don't.

PS: I am definitely aware of exceptions, especially small creative businesses which are really hurt by bad ADSL upload speeds and often will not have the money for a leased line.

As if by magic

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/5690-bucks-and-he...

The maps on the state aid page are worth a check, and if your area is grey or black then it suggests either (a) a mistake or (b) Openreach (or someone else) has plans to provide service in the area.

yes the majority of isps do 'appear' to be focusing on consumer takeup. On the infrastructure side such as openreach skipping business park areas I suspect thats to protect the leased line market.

The fix is probably subsidisation, those super cities picked by the government on their scheme are about improving connectivity for business areas, so those areas I expect business areas to get FTTC/P but the cities not picked unless the councils themselves put the money in or the businesses it will be the same as now probably.

Quite surprised by the general feeling on this matter being expressed in this thread, I would have thought there would be high demand for FTTC amongst small businesses around the country.

I work at a satellite branch of a smallish engineering firm where we often need to do fairly simple things that are painful due to the poor download speed we have combined with the poor upload speed at main office. Even saving small changes on large spreadsheets takes around 1 minute....becomes pretty frustrating when you have to make changes to that spreadsheet quite a few times every day. Then theres transferring project folders, can be anything from 500MB to 2GB. Have to leave them running over night, its like the dark ages!

Theres no way we could justify a leased line but I think we'd gladly pay a premium for a business based FTTC service. I really cant imagine our experience is that unique. There has to be many, many small businesses in similar situations crying out for FTTC.

Openreach's aim at the moment is "properties passed", for all sorts of reasons - with politics being an important factor. They make a tidy profit anyway.

https://www.btwholesale.com/pages/static/Wholesale_E...

That link is from this news article:

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/5334-fttc-etherwa...

In reply to a post by Rygar1:

Quite surprised by the general feeling on this matter being expressed in this thread, I would have thought there would be high demand for FTTC amongst small businesses around the country.

I work at a satellite branch of a smallish engineering firm where we often need to do fairly simple things that are painful due to the poor download speed we have combined with the poor upload speed at main office. Even saving small changes on large spreadsheets takes around 1 minute....becomes pretty frustrating when you have to make changes to that spreadsheet quite a few times every day. Then theres transferring project folders, can be anything from 500MB to 2GB. Have to leave them running over night, its like the dark ages!

Theres no way we could justify a leased line but I think we'd gladly pay a premium for a business based FTTC service. I really cant imagine our experience is that unique. There has to be many, many small businesses in similar situations crying out for FTTC.

Exactly my feelings, and what I see all the time in smaller SMEs. Thanks for the support.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

As if by magic

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/5690-bucks-and-he...

The maps on the state aid page are worth a check, and if your area is grey or black then it suggests either (a) a mistake or (b) Openreach (or someone else) has plans to provide service in the area.

Thanks for that. It's quite difficult to see the detail on a a map of such a large area, but it looks to me as if a major High Wycombe industrial estate will still be out in the fibre cold after 2015.

In reply to a post by mr_mojo:

I'd agree. SMEs (but more towards the small end) with internet fall in to one of two camps in my experience:

1) The ones that don't really care, get whatever BT offers them for as cheap as possible [I know a small TV production firm in London that has a ADSL2+ business line and the boss is a bit old fashioned so just pays for couriers to send DVDs and Blurays round London - madness]

2) The ones that do, and go for leased lines.

While I am sure there are people in the middle (who care, but don't want to spend the £k on a leased line for faster speeds), the vast majority don't.

Joe Bloggs accounting ltd might have 20 users, but if all they are doing is sending files round by email (often locally, via a local exchange server), they're not going to be knocking the doors down for BT to install fibre.

Ironically, a small family probably has more demand for broadband than a 10 person office these days. Video streaming, gaming downloads, music chews up a lot of bandwidth, people sitting on salesforce and excel all day don't.

PS: I am definitely aware of exceptions, especially small creative businesses which are really hurt by bad ADSL upload speeds and often will not have the money for a leased line.

I think that's broadly right. However, two things:

1) There are those who care who really cannot afford the cost of a leased line for their size of business/turnover. It's can't pay rather than won't pay.
2) If there is a national policy of connecting up the country with fibre, why should any small company have to pay leased line costs to get decent connectivity?

I work for a haulage company, and manage the workshop. We've had broadband for a long time, about 3 to 4 Mbps, but the low speed doesn't really affect us, nothing we do is time sensitive, even when I have to update the diagnostic software which is about a 2GB download I just leave it going.

It used to be annoying sending large emails, but now we have our own email server, they appear to the end user to go instantly but of course are slowing uploading from the server.

We do actually have FTTC available (36/6 estimate) , but our ISP doesn't actually offer it, although they are supposed to be soon, so when they do I'll get costs put together and see if we can get it upgraded, might as well have it if we can.

I doubt anyone else here even realises it's available and I think that would be the same for a lot of company's.

Edited by R0NSKI (Thu 31-Jan-13 13:31:59)

In reply to a post by jimsym:

It seems to be an irony of the current strategy for high speed broadband that businesses are treated as lower priority than domestic users, when they need it every bit as much, if not more.

The targets for high speed broadband coverage are expressed in terms of population coverage. BT/Openreach seems to set its FTTC priorities in line with this, not to mention the fact that a cabinet serving an industrial estate is likely to be much less lucrative than one serving a residential area (which has many more potential customers).

Businesses in this country and particularly smaller ones are being held back by this, which is perhaps a case of the law of unintended consequences.

How can this be fixed?

Businesses should have a leased line, if the rely on broadband that much.

In reply to a post by dave2150:

Businesses should have a leased line, if the rely on broadband that much.

What about businesses that dont NEED and cant afford leased lines but none the less would be far more efficient and profitable if they had access to FTTC? Should they be overlooked?

At the end of the day BT will only do it if it makes commercial sense for them to do so, I understand that. However I think there would be very high demand for business based FTTC services from small businesses that cant afford leased lines and I think it would benefit the country's economy as a whole if small businesses had (relatively) cheap access to fibre.

Cant help but think we're missing a trick here.

I take it you did not look at the 2 links i posted back on the previous page at the bottom, as BT wholesale does have a FTTC package for small business that cannot afford a full leased line.

In reply to a post by ccxo:

... on the previous page at the bottom ....

I've only got one page . It depends on your personal preference settings.

Okay then my first post on this thead, does that solve it Bob

Yes. All very well if you have FTTC in the first place - which is what this whinge is all about.

Well Openreach may return to these areas and do infill possibly, though the real interest will be in the BDUK areas if they target the Industrial estates etc.