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.

Hi there whilst BT are not coming in the very near future 4G is coming.

EE already offer it in London however the usage caps are low. Later this year 3 are coming into the game and they have promised no price increases. This means 3 are likely to offer all you can eat 4g at a reasonable price.

Who knows voda / o2 might even offer something unlimited. I think eventually EE will offer unlimited too as T-mobile already manages this quite successfully.

This is probably the best route for now. Get a 4G data package and plug it into a router so it's wirelessly broadcasted.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Hi there whilst BT are not coming in the very near future 4G is coming.

In a word, you jest.

In an ideal world not ruled by physics maybe. First there is the problem of the many sharing limited bandwidth unless you're suggesting that the mobile companies are going to provide cells every few metres around the development. Then there's usage. Personally I'm a heavy user and 4G is never likely to get close to meeting my needs, it's more for those browsing on the bus or tube. Not being a gamer I've no knowledge as to how well 4G would meet their needs whereas a fixed line solution suits them well. 4G is already starting to destroy our freeview signal here and I dread to think what it would be like if all the properties on the development were trying use 4G for their net access.

I'm from London and due to the transmitters being largely quite closeby I've seen no degradation of freeview.
With regards to the areas affected you can get a free filter from at800.

4G is likely to meet the needs of individuals not an entire area. This is assuming we have a decent offering in terms of unlimited etc.

I live very close to a university and I still see 13Mbps via 3G. 4G can certainly meet the needs of the odd individual. The issue is if everybody around you tries to use it as a fixed broadband solution which is unlikely unless you encourage them.

I've seen 4G offering speedtests of 30Mbps in central london. When I had EE (I switched back to T-mobile as I wasn't needing 4g) I got 35Mbps at kings cross station.

If your 4g coverage is high it can be a good individual solution but not one for everybody.

Sadly Three have limited 4g spectrum and we don't know the exact packages on offer just yet. I know a fair few people who use their 3G Three connection as their sole broadband. Some of them are seeing speeds of around 20Mbps already. 4G is likely to make that even better. I have a friend who pulls over 100Gb monthly on 3 currently and then 4 other members of his household use it too (so the usage will be even higher)!

Edited by ukhardy07 (Fri 19-Jul-13 02:05:42)

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

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

Ask the guy from UK Broadband

Sorry, I'll get my coat.

Yes, surely 4G isn't the answer for the OP.

Unless you're in a very large town or a city, 4G is non-existent and where I live, in the centre of a town which has a population of 10,000, you can only get plain GPRS, which is obviously almost completely useless now.

Point being that even 3G coverage for out-of-city locations is well off what adverts from, say, the launch of Three in the UK would have you believe, with people just strolling around streaming Match Of The Day in HD at their leisure.

When I'm in the right place, e.g. Colchester town centre, HSPA+ gives me a faster connection on my mobile than my 18Mb ADSL2+ landline net service.

So, back to the topic, if this is the state of 3G more than halfway through 2013, I don't think anyone should count on 4G for their permanent/sole net connection any time soon, unless maybe they live in a penthouse at the top of The Shard.

Edited by deleted (Fri 19-Jul-13 23:30:12)

wireless is shared. 20 MHz for an operator (at best) * 5 Bits/Hz (at best) = 100 Mbits/s for everyone in range of that base station on that operator.

Contention City, Arizona.

Even FTTC is a dedicated 30 Mbits/s capacity per user (on the <80M service).

They live in central london hence my suggestion.

I agree 3g is non existent largely out of cities on o2 and vodafone.
EE t mobile and orange have quite substantial 3g coverage even in remote areas.

It's not a solution for the whole area nonetheless. So probably not a good suggestion from me.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

They live in central london hence my suggestion....

...So probably not a good suggestion from me.

And possibly an overly pessimistic post from me, so we'll call it even

In reply to a post by gazzyk1ns:

Unless you're in a very large town or a city, 4G is non-existent and where I live, in the centre of a town which has a population of 10,000, you can only get plain GPRS, which is obviously almost completely useless now.

If its important to you, I hope you've tried all the networks.

So what speeds to the residents get now?

How will you fund your project if not all residents are willing to sign up?

I would suggest that you try and get some sort of commitment from other residents so as to measure the level of interest. Getting enough interest may well be the hardest part.

With regard to Hyperoptic, if they go broke you can probably find some one else to run the network, maybe more cheaply as the cables will be there.

When I asked a similiar question this is what the OP replied.

In reply to a post by MCM:

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.

As you are probably aware any leasehold property normally pays an annual maintenance charge, this I assume is what has built up, but would need approval from all involved.

But whilst it looks like this could mean it's effectively done for free, should any problems arise with the buildings then there wouldn't be much money in the kitty for repairs so to speak, and this could put people off the idea - blowing the whole reserves could leave them in trouble in the future.

I am a little puzzled. It is not that hard to write contract provisions that would protect you in the event of Hyperoptic either abusing its monopoly or going out of business. In any case, Hyperoptic only have a business if they do not get a reputation for overcharging their customers. The main problem, of course, is that they may not have a viable business at all, but once the fibre is installed all you need to ensure is that it can be transferred to an alternative operator.

In your position I would make it a condition of any contract with Hyperoptic that they would charge residents no more than the lesser of (a) £X per month, index-linked, and (b) their standard charge for other customers outside your development. You would also want to require that the fibre should revert to the residents association in the event of that Hyperoptic goes out of business. All of this involves a degree of up-front paperwork but the cost would be much less than £10,000.

Of course, considerations such as visual intrusion, etc might outweigh the saving and the additional speed but I would be somewhat sceptical about whether you have really got a final price ans schedule from BTOR. I hope so but the experience of some is that quotations come easily, whereas delivery on time and budget is a different matter.

does a contract with a company that goes out of business have any value, other than as a fire lighter ? It would be interesting to know how one stands if the official receiver or whoever is selling off the assets to raise cash to pay the accountants fees for winding up the company.

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

As you are probably aware any leasehold property normally pays an annual maintenance charge, this I assume is what has built up, but would need approval from all involved.

But whilst it looks like this could mean it's effectively done for free, should any problems arise with the buildings then there wouldn't be much money in the kitty for repairs so to speak, and this could put people off the idea - blowing the whole reserves could leave them in trouble in the future.

The reserve that would be used is that which covers the provision and maintenance of services on the development such as roadways, boundary fences, street lighting, CCTV and our gateway. This reserve is funded by contributions from freeholders and leaseholders alike. What makes this funding a possibility is the "Water Industry (Schemes for Adoption of Private Sewers) Regulations 2011" that came into effect on 1 October 2011 whereby Thames Water assumed responsibility for the sewers on the development that were formerly the responsibility of the residents. The amount involved is less than half of the current balance of this fund. The leasehold properties have a separate fund to which only the leaseholders contribute. If the directors decide to proceed we will issue a section 20 notice and all comments received taken into account before proceeding further.

PS. Returning to my original post, this was more to set out both BT's and the mayor's current policies regarding EO lines in London and to list the alternatives we have examined to date rather than how we may or may not contribute to any improvement. I should have mentioned in my original post that we dismissed 4G as a real alternative given the number of users on the development looking for better speeds.

Edited by deleted (Sat 20-Jul-13 22:21:39)

In reply to a post by gah789:

I am a little puzzled.

Of course, considerations such as visual intrusion, etc might outweigh the saving and the additional speed but I would be somewhat sceptical about whether you have really got a final price ans schedule from BTOR. I hope so but the experience of some is that quotations come easily, whereas delivery on time and budget is a different matter.

The directors taken together have in excess of 75 years experience of dealing with contracts and include an accountant, a solicitor and two with professional experience of property management.

You also appear to have totally ignored the effect of being tied to a single ISP. Many of the residents would prefer to continue with their existing ISPs such as BT, PlusNet and Sky.

It is important to be clear about what is being paid for. The 'gap funding' model is that a group A pays a company B to build fibre infrastructure which then remains the property of B but is used to provide a service to A on pre-agreed terms. The 'concession' (or franchise) model differs in that the infrastructure remains the property of A but B is allowed to use it - again on pre-agreed terms - to provide a service to A. Under the gap funding model, if B fails then the assets can be sold by the receiver, but under the concession model they revert to A since B only had the right to use the assets.

The distinction is crucial in many circumstances and corresponds to different ways in which private investment in infrastructure is managed in different parts of the world. In my view it is inadvisable for any small group to agree to the gap funding model unless there are very strong guarantees that the promised service will be delivered. That, in essence, is the problem in dealing with BTOR and similar operators. You pay them to construct assets that they (not you) own and for which they can vary the terms of service unilaterally in future.

None of this is new. The merits of alternative forms of contract for utilities have been debated repeatedly by lawyers, economists and others. The precursor to current concerns was the franchising of cable/CATV systems. It is just important to learn from past experience.

I have no view about what the value of access to multiple ISPs, etc is or should be worth to residents of a particular community. However, property experience is no guarantee that people understand infrastructure and franchising arrangements. In these circumstances, I do have a strong preference that a group should control the assets that it has paid for, but other people may take a different view.

The assets within the curtilage of the building would easily fit into the type of contract you describe, retaining ownership. They don't provide a service on their own, the vulnerability remains "outside the gate" if the supplier went titsup.com . It would be easier if a competitive market for supplying this type of service existed or evolved, but we aren't there yet.

Near me is a redundant shared gas supply system to houses which was a good idea at the time. The "common" arrangement came to grief somehow and was not taken over.

Personally I think managed multiple-occupancy buildings, business parks, etc should be provided with built-in LAN-style high speed connectivity infrastructure.

I would imagine Hyperoptic rent the fibre into the building from another telco, possibly even Openreach.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by gazzyk1ns:

Unless you're in a very large town or a city, 4G is non-existent and where I live, in the centre of a town which has a population of 10,000, you can only get plain GPRS, which is obviously almost completely useless now.

If its important to you, I hope you've tried all the networks.

No I haven't, and I admit that I made a mistake by not checking the 3G coverage of all the networks before I signed my current contract with O2 (My girlfriend at the time and my parents are all with O2, so that seemed sensible at the time). Their coverage in Suffolk is appalling, though, so whilst it allowed me to have a top-end phone at an acceptable monthly rate, most of the time I've got no basic 3G to even start to exploit its features.

What I do know is that one mate on Three and another on EE are in the same boat as me when they come back here (They're based in London). I can't really "try" all of the networks, either, virtually nobody can, surely? Breaking contracts and buying new phones just to "try" them all would be stupidly expensive. I suppose the cheapest way to test all of the networks where I live would be to buy an unlocked HSPA+ capable phone with at least Android 4.1, then get free SIM cards from all networks and do the £10 minimum top-up with all of them. That'd still be something like £300 minimum and several weeks of wasted time with different numbers just for the "testing", so... not really an option for anybody, is it?

Edited by deleted (Mon 22-Jul-13 06:13:34)

Easiest way

Get any 3G phone.
Get some free sims

No top up required. Pop the sims for all networks in.
If you see 3G you are good to go

My gamble is that t-mobile, orange and EE would have 3G in most of the area. They usually do. 3 would be 3G if it works (they have barley any 2g) but 3 is quite patchy often.

O2 is renowned for bad 3G out of cities. On O2 where I had 3G it was brilliant nonetheless.

If you private message me your post code I can look at coverage in your area and possible improvements on some networks & also locate your phone masts nearby.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Mon 22-Jul-13 06:17:51)

In reply to a post by gazzyk1ns:

not really an option for anybody, is it?

ukhardy07 has replied, but I was thinking borrow (or get a market stall to unlock) an android phone, and get the free PAYG SIMs that the networks will send you. Might cost you £10 for an unlock maximum.
Doesn't mean you'll find any network works, but its worth testing, the online maps are generally a complete guess. :-/

In reply to a post by Ribble:

I would imagine Hyperoptic rent the fibre into the building from another telco, possibly even Openreach.

It's owned by the same people originally behind Be isn't it? I was told once that Be's original network was built using the old Openreach BES/WES service so they have form.

Lol. Was just browsing the Hyperoptic FAQ and this caught my eye:

"Q: I have not heard of Hyperoptic, who are you?
A: Hyperoptic is the UK's new full-fibre provider, set to break the speed barrier with 1 Gig downloads. To put this glorious revolution in perspective that's 140 times faster than the UK average. The same team that are now launching Hyperoptic created the UK's breakthrough broadband provider Be Un Limited in 2005. With its full fibre-to-the-exchange network Be broke the upload and download speed limits, won countless awards (including Which? ISP and PC Advisor "Best Buy" year after year) and provided a 24/7 free customer support service that is still winning awards to this day."

https://www.hyperoptic.com/web/guest/faq

Is that 'hyper' as in 'hyperbole'? Are there any exchanges left (esp. those where Be has a presence) that don't use fibre for their backhaul?

Be was ground breaking, but I would not have used the fibre to the exchange idea.

No doubt there are some BT Wholesale only exchanges that are using radio backhaul, but I doubt any LLU operator would want to go to the expense of paying for their own radio backhaul at those sites, or the undoubtedly high cost of new fibre it that were even practical .

In reply to a post by gazzyk1ns:

I can't really "try" all of the networks, either, virtually nobody can, surely?

Manual selection of available networks on most phones does at least show you the coverage by listing available networks, but obviously not the performance. Rules out signing up in a notspot although you have 14 days or whatever return clauses in any case.

In reply to a post by MCM:

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.

What speed do you get on your 2km copper loop length? I'm guessing alot more speed than many people in the UK get. There are many stuck on 512k, 1mbit, 2mbit etc. So I'm glad that BT are choosing to improve the lowest speeds rather than improving the speeds of the shortest adsl lines etc.

Cheers for all the advice re: mobile networks, although for the moment I'm still tied to O2 unless I want to give them a couple of hundred quid for nothing. I did expect 3G in most places of any considerable size, but I don't rely on it for work or anything, so there's no emergency. I suppose in a few months I could get some free SIMs and then phone up the most attractive network and say "Right, look, I'm about to give O2 another 18 months and £450 because they'll give me a newer phone for next to nothing... or, you could match that offer...?"

Sorry to derail the thread, anyway.

Edited by deleted (Tue 23-Jul-13 05:06:06)

Hello MCM

I wanted to respond to a few points raised...

Hyperoptic is privately-funded, recently having secured funding of £50m, It's definitely here to stay.

We offer residents 3 speeds; 20Mb, 100Mb and 1000Mb, offering flexibility and true fibre speeds that are competitively priced, even compared to some ADSL2+ services! The 20Mb service offers, economically, the best value service available in the market today.

Choosing FTTP from Hyperoptic does not mean residents are restricted to just one service provider. If they wish to subscribe to an alternative provider, they are able to do so.

As you're aware, FTTC is not full fibre, the age old issue of speeds being impacted by the distance between the property and the street cabinet remain. There is a strong risk of speeds reducing over time, as mentioned in other threads:

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/f/4250327-syn...

Hyperoptic is already upgrading EO lines � we are not reliant on BTO.

In the case of this particular building, the structure of the building adds complexity to the installation process � without existing ducts and risers, there are limitations with regards to the cable route.

Best wishes

Sunita

Edited by deleted (Tue 23-Jul-13 17:32:31)

In reply to a post by Hyperoptic:

Choosing FTTP from Hyperoptic does not mean residents have a choice of one provider. If they wish to subscribe to FTTC, they are able to.

Unless I'm missing something, that's exactly what it means in this case. Either they fund a FTTC/PCP build, or a Hyperoptic build. Residents won't get both.

Post deleted by Hyperoptic

In reply to a post by hopkapi:

In reply to a post by Hyperoptic:

Choosing FTTP from Hyperoptic does not mean residents have a choice of one provider. If they wish to subscribe to FTTC, they are able to.

Unless I'm missing something, that's exactly what it means in this case. Either they fund a FTTC/PCP build, or a Hyperoptic build. Residents won't get both.

That's not the case, let me clarify. If Hyperoptic installs into a building - it's a separate FTTP solution that is independent from any FTTC service available to them. Residents do have the choice of both.

I have edited my original posting so it's clearer - sorry for any confusion!

Sunita

In reply to a post by Hyperoptic:

In reply to a post by hopkapi:

In reply to a post by Hyperoptic:

Choosing FTTP from Hyperoptic does not mean residents have a choice of one provider. If they wish to subscribe to FTTC, they are able to.

Unless I'm missing something, that's exactly what it means in this case. Either they fund a FTTC/PCP build, or a Hyperoptic build. Residents won't get both.

That's not the case, let me clarify. If Hyperoptic installs into a building - it's a separate FTTP solution that is independent from any FTTC service available to them. Residents do have the choice of both.

I have edited my original posting so it's clearer - sorry for any confusion!

Sunita

And who will fund the separate FTTC installation? Hyperoptic?

I, and probably most others, understand that the costs of either solution are so that the only way to get a reasonable price is to choose one or the other.

Or are you saying you would install just one or two premises at £300 each?

Ok - if it's a case that residents wish to fund their own cabinet then bottom line is that it's still FTTC - the speeds will be "up to x" and inconsistent especially during peak times.

If they wish to have an full fibre installation from Hyperoptic then residents can choose to either subscribe to Hyperoptic and experience consistent speeds or any other services currently available to them and in the future.

We have a growing number of customers who have moved from FTTC services so it's worth considering which option is really future-proofing the building.

Sunita

Incidentally, residents can choose when they subscribe to Hyperoptic, once the infrastructure is installed, subscribers are activated when they're ready to switch over.

Installation into individual premises is usually free of charge to the resident when they subscribe to service. We do offer an installation without subscription - usually £40 during the early phase of installation to the site. Many landlords choose the latter option to increase the attractiveness of their properties to potential tenants.

Sunita

You are totally missing the point. Read the original post again.

The management company - owned and funded by te residents will have to find around £20k to get the infrastructure in place for whichever solution they choose. They cannot afford to go down two routes and if your service is installed then each resident will be required to provide funding of over £300.

I understand your point, I cannot discuss the specifics of this particular building however can say that the installation costs for the majority of buildings is £0 - subject to survey and interest from residents.

So if there's interest and the survey confirms there are no issues for installation, then I'm confident the figures quoted do not apply.

Sunita

In reply to a post by Hyperoptic:

... however can say that the installation costs for the majority of buildings is £0 - subject to survey and interest from residents.

...But if residents don't want to be tied to Hyperoptic, then it's £40 per tenant for the installation, as you've just said.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

EE already offer it in London however the usage caps are low. Later this year 3 are coming into the game and they have promised no price increases. This means 3 are likely to offer all you can eat 4g at a reasonable price

Unfortunately all the hyperbole about 4G being a great solution for those in fixed-line broadband not-spots or places overlooked by NGA is exactly that - hyperbole.

Thee traffic manage their connections - and they traffic manage them with a sledge hammer. If you use more than 15GB a month (or 500MB a day - they average it out) expect your speeds to drop to circa 1Mbit/sec.

I've had this first hand on both "The One Plan" and a Data plan - full signal of DC-HSDPA, which achieves around 22Mbit throughput until said amount of usage is reached and then voomph, speed drops, 22 fold.

And as already touted whilst EE have phenomenal speeds (we achieved 45Mbit actual throughput on the outskirts of Bristol with a full LTE signal), they also have no tariffs above 8GB usage per month, rendering the whole point of having NGA mobile broadband null and void.

Next best thing? ...

Edited by deleted (Sat 27-Jul-13 17:56:13)

In reply to a post by izools:

Next best thing? ...

Yes, dedicated broadband LTE networks - not a general usage network (as our current mobile networks are). This would basically use LTE technology to reduce cost of deployment and so they can purchase retail equipment - but essentially be for 'wireless broadband' use only.

dedicated broadband LTE networks

Do you see them appearing eg in the 800 MHz area ?

Probably the 2600mhz that the BT owned company won a licence for. Don't need 800mhz if the receiving antenna is outdoors.

always nice to have the range, but for urban the cell site density probably matters more.

In reply to a post by yarwell:

always nice to have the range, but for urban the cell site density probably matters more.

Agreed - but urban shouldn't need LTE broadband as density means its cost effective for FTTC and may already have VM cable (FTTN).