How NGA Expectations Have Changed

Page / Slide 8 of this BT Wholesale presentation is a real testament to just how much lower expectations are as far as Openreach's NGA deployment goes.

Yes, lots have FTTC available now but that slide shows how heavily the FTTP has been pared back, and the rest of the document gives away where a large part of the FTTP is - trials, a couple of greenfield sites and Cornwall's co-funded area. If the 40% figure mentioned is accurate 80,000 of the premises passed by Openreach are there, which would make the majority of the entire Openreach FTTP rollout subsidised. Quite a heavy drop from 10% of homes passed.

BT are making one hell of a case for full separation of Openreach given their reluctance to make long-term investments in infrastructure coinciding with their enthusiasm to spend huge amounts on short-term content deals.

Good to see the separation between Wholesale and Openreach though. That presentation is beyond comedy with the situation as it stands

Edited by Ignitionnet (Sun 02-Mar-14 16:56:45)

Amazing find Ignitionnet,
It's a shame we're relying on an incumbent telecom provider that seems to be fighting with "itself".

I'm puzzled.

That's a 2011 document and that page doesn't have timescales. We certainly haven't yet reached the final two stages. The 100Mbps includes vectored FTTC, and I would be surprised if the one before that wasn't based on the expectation of Profile 30a.

Ignitionnet

You are aware that this presentation was from late 2011 and thus is completely out of date.

It only gives the BTWolesale view which was/is based on the same info the rest of industry got/gets. This was based on Theory that has been proved to be incorrect over the ease and cost of doing FTTP ( especially in built up settings).

The FTTP in Cornwall never reached the 40% coverage level so didn't cover the number of premises, the cost of doing it has proved much greater than expected, this is prior to the two days work to enable each house where ducting was used was discovered!

In reply to a post by kitcat:

Ignitionnet

You are aware that this presentation was from late 2011 and thus is completely out of date.

Yes, hence the use of the word 'expectations' in the thread subject.

It is also true that many BDUK bids weren't settled until late last year so are running 18months later than expectations, so these haven't started any FTTP parts yet. These are likely to be late in the program in small ( overhead) locations. These are cheaper than ducted sites to provide and fit in where FTTC won't reach.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I'm puzzled.

That's a 2011 document and that page doesn't have timescales. We certainly haven't yet reached the final two stages. The 100Mbps includes vectored FTTC, and I would be surprised if the one before that wasn't based on the expectation of Profile 30a.

I am somewhat puzzled by this response. Did you read the document, which incidentally is from 2012 not 2011?

The slide I specifically referred to actually says:

Changes to the access network frequency band-plan will allow us to deliver up to 80Mbps on FTTC

This explicitly refers to the expectation of profile 17a, which indeed had begun in late 2011 - notice absolutely nothing in the range 50-100Mb prior to the frequency plan change and the announcement of 80Mb with said changes? Zero increase in >100Mb either, this refers purely to 17a.

Prior to this band change I see about 10% coverage at >100Mb as part of the commercial deployment, another 10% added as part of BDUK. I appreciate I'm not privvy to all the statistics but I'm not entirely convinced either of these will be the case given the commercial deployment hasn't managed 1/10th of that figure.

Anyway you entirely miss the point of my post it seems, which was to show how expectations changed in 2 years from 10% >100Mb coverage, implying FTTP, by end of commercial deployment to what we've actually seen.

In reply to a post by kitcat:

It is also true that many BDUK bids weren't settled until late last year so are running 18months later than expectations, so these haven't started any FTTP parts yet. These are likely to be late in the program in small ( overhead) locations. These are cheaper than ducted sites to provide and fit in where FTTC won't reach.

Which is again irrelevant to that the expectation in early 2012 was that 10% of the UK would have access to >100Mb by the end of the commercial deployment via Openreach with BDUK's first round, increasing NGA coverage to 90%, increasing that to 20%.

Commercial FTTP coverage has ended up being less than 1/10th of that and the vast majority of BDUK has been FTTC, the slide implies BDUK delivering to 23% of the UK with 40% of that being FTTP as was planned in Cornwall.

I'm not sure what's so confusing about this. I merely posted showing how expectations have changed in the space of 2 years and noting that BT have veered towards increased content spend while spending less than planned on infrastructure. I've no idea why this is even remotely controversial.

A bit further down these are pretty funny highlights too...

Regarding FTTP coverage:

Yes, it is concentrated, and likely to be less than 25%.

On data consumption:

By 2015, the average family might require 40-55Mbps; young single adults between 20-35Mbps

It's very interesting that 19Mbps is now presumed to be adequate well beyond 2015, towards 2020 and as was noted FTTP coverage looks likely to be less than 2.5% of the UK.

The PDF is an interesting snapshot into where Openreach's largest customer thought things were going and how wrong they've been.

Don't panic I follow what you are saying.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/factsheet/

We adjusted our 2015 a short while ago to reflect the expectation changes
e.g. http://www.thinkbroadband.com/images/factsheet/q4-20...

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/images/factsheet/q1-20...

Probably needs adjusting again and can be a little more accurate on the Virgin Media figures, which we have over time also reigned back.

The BT Wholesale forums are a good source of information and make it easier to ask the right questions on roll-out of BT.

I don't think the time/money issues from BT FTTP roll-out is unique to BT either, B4rn has if the figures mentioned being behind its original roll-out projections.

For those that hold to the FTTH/P or nothing rule, then
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/andrew-ferguson/fibr...

is worth a read, showing what can happen elsewhere once you get beyond the glossy headlines and conferences.