EO Lines in London - A Case Study

I thought the following might be of interest to some.

Background.
I live on a late 1980s development a mile south of the river in central London. The development totals some 75 premises ranging from 2, 3 and 4 bed freehold houses to 1 and 2 bed leasehold flats and studios. The 75 properties collectively own the freehold of the development, each property owner having one share with no third party invovlement. The development is served by EO lines from the Vauxhall (WRVAUX) exchange in Kennington whch is roughly 2km away. None of the properties is served by Virgin Media however all properties in the surrounding area have access to both FTTC via BT and cable via VM. I have for some time been trying to establish the possibilities of the residents on the development obtaining access to NGA broadband.

Mayor and GLA.
I have written to the Mayor and in his he says he cannot help although I note he's happy for all Londoner's to continue to pay for the Olympics via our Council Tax, money that I feel could have been better spent helping all Londoners. I quote below from his reply:

Regrettably, I have to inform you that at this time the GLA is unable to intervene directly in broadband connectivity for residential premises.

BDUK, the government body responsible for promoting broadband connectivity nationally, have two main programmes underway: the Rural Broadband Project that you refer to in your letter, which is resulting in increased FTTC/P roll-out by BT; and the Super Connected Cities Programme (SCCP) from which London will benefit from funding. The SCCP initially intended to address un-served urban areas through a similar approach to the rural project, whereby funding would be used to subsidise roll-out by a private company (most likely BT). This would have included provision for residential premises, however unfortunately due to issues around State aid guidelines and competition law, BDUK has decided to change the scope of the SCCP and this will no longer be possible.

London’s SCCP will now consist primarily of a connection voucher scheme to cover the up-front costs of NGA connections. For budgetary reasons the voucher scheme will need to targeted at small and medium sized enterprises, rather than residential premises, so as to maximise the economic impact of the intervention in London. BDUK is planning to conduct voucher pilot scheme in the summer and following this pilot it is possible that the voucher scheme availability may be extended to a limited number of residential premises. This decision lies with BDUK and the way this may be applied in London is not yet clear, however we will be sure to inform you if we believe your area could benefit from the voucher scheme.

Hyperoptic.
I had earlier contacted Hyperoptic and they subsequently visited the site, carried out a survey and proposed an FTTB solution at a cost of £19K plus VAT with I believe much of this cost being the expense of fitting trunking to the face of the properties to carry gigabit ethernet around the development and also to fit at least two catenaries to carry the ethernet across roadways. This works out at just over £300 per property

BT.
Thanks to Andrew Ferguson who contacted BT on my behalf, BT have now submitted a quote for a network rearrangement that would involve the enablement of a new PCP (Copper Cabinet) and DSLAM (Fibre Cabinet) serving the development and they confirm that the development is outside of their planned commercial deployment for fibre broadband in London. The cost of work for the provision of fibre broadband (provision of Customer Network Services) will be approximately £25K + VAT which works out at £400 per property.

BT's letter refers to this as being a "gap funded" estimate and that if we go ahead, whilst unable to take into account external factors such as power provision, the typical timeline for such deployments is approximately between six and nine months.

Pros and Cons.
Hyperoptic is the cheaper option and would also allow the BT haters on the development to get rid of their BT landlines for good. However there are also a number of disadvantages including being locked in with a single small supplier with a short corporate history, the use of external trunking that some residents consider visually intrusive, and importantly users having no choice as to their ISP.

BT is the more expensive option and being FTTC rather than FTTB speeds would be lower than with Hyperoptic and dependent on the location of the new PCP and its fibre twin. BT haven't yet said where this might be. Visually BT is the more attractive option since it would use their existing trunking. Another significant advantage of going with BT is that residents could use any ISP that connects using BT Wholesale, Sky or TalkTalk.

Conclusion.
We have yet to decide how we should proceed and I am aware that some residents have little interest in faster broadband although hopefully that will change in due course. It appears from what both BT and the mayor have told me that those on EO lines in London are out of luck and will only see NGA broadband if they dig deep as no-one else looks to be willing to help.

thanks for that. Interesting.

Hi, Thank you for posting your story. I am on EO lines also, and BTO attitude is "TUFF".
They also said to try and get BDUK funding, just so they don't have to fork out. I still cannot get my head around how BTO are allowed to get away with this attitude, when the goverment are saying there should be NGA for "EVERYONE".
Hope you get your EO lines sorted, I know if I was in your position I would go with "Hyperoptic" and tell BTO where to go.

Good Luck.

When has the Government said their should be NGA for everyone?

Latest target is 95% by 2017, and a later EU target of all by 2020

BT are a commercial operation and therefore responsible to their shareholders. They are not obliged to provide NGA to anyone unless they see a profit in it for them so it's not so much a question of them not forking out but instead that they consider any update required to give you NGA as not being commercially viable.

As for our going with Hyperoptic, beautiful as having up to 1Gbit available might be, the various downsides including the visual intrusion and lack of choice as to ISP looks to making them a no go here.

If you are not in London then contact your local authority regarding BDUK funded upgrades. You might just be in luck. I assume that you don't have VM in your area either. If in London, contact the mayor and get in the queue for any vouchers that might be on offer in 5, 10 or whatever number of years it might be until the government decides to help.

I presume that the £25k is not the out right cost, but what BT would need to make it viable, and that is what 'gap funded' means?

If it was me, I would pay the £400, but for each person that doesn't want to pay the price goes up for the others, but said person will still be able to order FTTC once installed, sounds like a tough job to organise, but good luck.

Interesting to see that at last people are starting to realise that with BTOR solutions you get a choice of ISP but with all the other operators you are locked into them for ever and you become a captive customer with no other option. This has all sorts of implications for future pricing and service issues.

You are swapping a semi-monopoly for a total one
Out of the frying pan and into the fire springs to mind

This aspect has worried me for some time but up to now no one has seemingly been interested in the long term implications. Companies like hyperoptic and gigaclaer turn up and everyone thinks it's going to be wonderful.

'twas a very interesting post and costing details. Thanks indeed for posting

Did you not ask BT to quote for the provision of a fibre aggregation node on the development? If BT are to run ducting for the FTTC provision then the cost of the additional hardware will be low and would then give residents a choice of FTTC or FTTP.

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

I presume that the £25k is not the out right cost, but what BT would need to make it viable, and that is what 'gap funded' means?

I don't know but the wording does suggest that the £25K could be the marginal cost. This is something we will be taking up with BT before coming to a final decision.

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

If it was me, I would pay the £400, but for each person that doesn't want to pay the price goes up for the others, but said person will still be able to order FTTC once installed, sounds like a tough job to organise, but good luck.

I'm recommending the BT solution to my fellow directors and residents however it is all or nothing. What will hopefully help is that we have built up reserves over time and most if not all of the £25K could be met without recourse to surcharging property owners. If this wasn't the case I don't think we would have a snowball's chance of moving forward. One of our arguments is that the availability of NGA broadband whilst not necessarily increasing the value of a property should nevertheless offer added value to anyone purchasing or renting a property on the development.

In reply to a post by MHC:

Did you not ask BT to quote for the provision of a fibre aggregation node on the development? If BT are to run ducting for the FTTC provision then the cost of the additional hardware will be low and would then give residents a choice of FTTC or FTTP.

Good point. At present I have no details as to even where the proposed new PCP cab and its fibre twin are to be located. I'll bring up the question of a nearby aggregation node as this would certainly help for those who feel that FTTC speeds and possibly latency could be avoided by going for FTPOD.