Lack of Small Business Fibre/Options

Out of 34 business sites that my company supports, only 13 can obtain any kind of FTTC service. Of the 19 that cannot, 8 of this sites have no reasonably affordable alternatives and are effectively stuck on sub 4-5Mbit ADSL2 connections.

These sites are fairly scattered and randomised, some are rural, others are town or city centre.

It is clear that on some sites, BT have intentionally avoided business parks (even when located near to dense residential areas) - I can only conclude this is to force businesses into buying leased lines.

Most of these sites are between 3 - 10 users and the cost of leased lines is too expensive, so they are forced to lumber on with totally inappropriate broadband performance.

I'd be interested if anyone has any links illustrating BT's commitments to SMB, Or if anyone knows of any community alliances or projects around small business broadband 'not spots' please let me know.

Personally, I think it's pretty disgusting that BT are allowed to force business onto leased lines in this way. They desperately need much tougher regulation and/or nationalising.

BT is allowed to in the same way that Virgin Media and other commercial operators are allowed to. They operate where they think there is a profit.

Reality is that cabinets serving business parks are generally less premises per cabinet and thus chances of a reasonable ROI period are worse. In essence the same spread out nature and sometimes the need to deal with a park landlord i.e. normal code powers do not always apply can make things more difficult for not just BT.

Which county are you in? Most BDUK projects are addressing the business parks via gap funding and there are various chunks of EU dedicated to helping businesses too.

In reply to a post by DoktorEddie:

Personally, I think it's pretty disgusting that BT are allowed to force business onto leased lines in this way. They desperately need much tougher regulation and/or nationalising.

Regulation is already pretty tough but perhaps it could be improved. But nationalisation.. what is it about the current government (or indeed any prior government) that makes you think they would be the best custodians of our vital telecommunications infrastructure?

Is it the way BDUK has blundered and bumbled its way along?
Is it their determination to spy on every aspect of our lives?
Are you too young to remember what an expensive shambles the network ended up as under the Post Office?

BT aren't perfect but at least their network is reliable and cheap and you have a lot of choice about what equipment you can use.

Edited by Andrue (Thu 30-Oct-14 11:35:51)

Would an FTTC cabinet be cost effective? Looking at our local trading estates there are two types of company. The larger ones who have leased lines and probably run their voice over ISDN 30 or similar so do not go through the cabinets.

The smaller companies have maybe 5 to 10 lines from the cabinet which in itself will be sparsely populated. They probably have ADSL2+ running on one of those lines or maybe two

So when a cabinet is considered for an FTTC twin the number of potential customers will be well down to start with and even if a 100% take up of customers was achieved, it would still fall well short of being viable.

However, if enough companies are will to part fund an upgrade, then BT will consider it.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Which county are you in? Most BDUK projects are addressing the business parks via gap funding and there are various chunks of EU dedicated to helping businesses too.

Primarily Hertfordshire, but a few in Essex and Cambridgeshire. When I last checked, there were no voucher schemes covering the areas and the BDUK roll out maps (that you have to squint at along with a bit of guess work) show no plans for most of the sites.

Have you contacted the projects to enquire about future plans for those estates?

For example in Essex, Severals Industrial Estate, Colchester has benefited, but a lot will depend on what projects current goals are and how far the money will spread.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

Regulation is already pretty tough but perhaps it could be improved. But nationalisation.. what is it about the current government (or indeed any prior government) that makes you think they would be the best custodians of our vital telecommunications infrastructure?

As it would be a non-profit organisation, there would be more money (however many billion pounds) to re-invest. There would also be less of a need to market/put spin on everything and more of an incentive to be seen supporting small business (and therefor jobs, economy etc). Ok, perhaps a very naive view, but I can't see how it could be any worse.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

Is it the way BDUK has blundered and bumbled its way along?
Is it their determination to spy on every aspect of our lives?
Are you too young to remember what an expensive shambles the network ended up as under the Post Office?

I am too young, in my early 30's, to remember the PO running the network.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

BT aren't perfect but at least their network is reliable and cheap and you have a lot of choice about what equipment you can use.

But there's no other choice for providers in 99% of cases. Virgin business cable is not available in all my cases, there are no superfast offerings like Hyperoptic as we're not in the capital and there aren't many rural/community schemes as we're not remote enough! People seem to assume that because we're bordering London, then we must be getting very good broadband options. This is not the case at all.

BT should be forced to offer better packages - paid for by cutting bonuses, re-investing profits and increasing business broadband prices to narrow the divide between FTTC (~£40) and leased lines (~£400). Perhaps a basic business FTTC package at £50 and a more advance/unlimited plan for £100? Would this not raise enough cash to enable BT to be able to provide a reasonable broadband service to more than the current 35-40% of businesses?

Why should a 5 man business pay £400 a month to get suitable broadband? Internet connectivity isn't a luxury or 'nice to have' for business - its essential.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Have you contacted the projects to enquire about future plans for those estates?

No I haven't. I'll give this a go, but from past experiences of this kind of thing my expectations of a useful response are very low.

You claim to be speaking/asking for business but seem to have no idea as to how a business operates.

As it would be a non-profit organisation, there would be more money (however many billion pounds) to re-invest.

Where exactly are all of these billions supposed to come from? A non-profit is no guarantee of low cost, salaries still have to be paid and can be no different from those in business.

I am too young, in my early 30's, to remember the PO running the network.

No surprise then that you don't know how dire it was when the Post Office ran the phone system. It was nothing to have to wait for six plus months for a new line.

But there's no other choice for providers in 99% of cases

What are you trying to say? With an Openreach connection you have the choice of literally hundreds of ISPs, quite unlike Virgin, Gigaclear or Hyperoptic where there is no choice.

BT should be forced to offer better packages - paid for by cutting bonuses, re-investing profits and increasing business broadband prices to narrow the divide between FTTC (~£40) and leased lines (~£400).

As I've already stated you clearly have little understanding for business.

Just to pick on one of your points.

£400/month or £90/week or £18/week/person for a 5 man person company. Look at what you are paying them in salary and other benefits, is £18/week actually that much? How much do each of them cost the company in phone charges? A good leased line will allow you to put all of them on a digital or VOIP connection and remove any fixed line rentals which will save further costs so the £18 drops ...

To nationalise the government would need to effectively compulsory purchase the company and pay the shareholders, apart from the political fallout I don't think that sort of money is available even if the spirit is willing.
You may not be young enough but there is history, even on the internet of the issues of long provision times, lack of choice and things like shared-service.
You mention Virgin and Hyperoptic, but why should one company be forced to provide service to what is in the most likely event uneconomic location, when others are currently also declining to do so?
Most business parks have few businesses on copper connections suitable for broadband, so if it does not make economic sense to provide the fibre twin why should they? Just to turn around your last question - why should a business be forced to loose money to provide suitable broadband in areas it believes is uneconomic? Nothing is forcing the ISPs (as opposed to Openreach) not to charge more, but Ofcom IS mandating how much Openreach can charge everyone.

How about this for useful further information http://www.btplc.com/Thegroup/BTUKandWorldwide/BTReg...

In reply to a post by DoktorEddie:

BT should be forced to offer better packages - paid for by cutting bonuses, re-investing profits and .......

I could say the same about NPower, Scottish Power, Eon et al........

I'm afraid capitalism doesn't work like that.

Exhausted the fixed wireless options?

e.g. http://www.fibrewifi.com/ in Essex

and/or bonding copper lines to give more speed.

In reply to a post by MHC:

Just to pick on one of your points.

£400/month or £90/week or £18/week/person for a 5 man person company. Look at what you are paying them in salary and other benefits, is £18/week actually that much? How much do each of them cost the company in phone charges? A good leased line will allow you to put all of them on a digital or VOIP connection and remove any fixed line rentals which will save further costs so the £18 drops ...

Very selective statements to illustrated that £400 is reasonable amount for an SMB to pay for a connection speed better than 20Mbps. Well it might well be but installation costs run into thousands of pounds which knocks that idea on the head.

High speed internet connectivity is now just as essential as an electricity supply. The difference in costs between those two utilities to provide a service to a new build in even a semi-rural location is considerable. Why is that?

Upgrading a cabinet where the number of subscribers may be very few is deemed to be uneconomic so why aren't there alternative technologies out there to serve the few at a price similar to FTTC? Overhead FTTP surely is the answer?

Fixed wireless?

If it is essential for a business, £100 a week is reasonable for a essential service.

If there is scope for a provider to make money, I am sure Virgin, Hyperoptic, Gigaclear, Vodafone and any number of altco would be very interested in helping out.

If the government ran Openreach, there would be no investment, the money would be sucked out of Openreach and invested in running schools and hospitals badly.

Edited by deleted (Thu 30-Oct-14 21:38:50)

You may get somewhere if you ask around all the other businesses on each estate. If all commit to taking the service Openreach may be willing to talk. They might require a contribution to the capital cost of the cabinet installation shared amongst the businesses, but the ongoing rental and usage should be at standard ISP prices.

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

Very selective statements to illustrated that £400 is reasonable amount for an SMB to pay for a connection speed better than 20Mbps. Well it might well be but installation costs run into thousands of pounds which knocks that idea on the head.

When my employer moved offices, the ISP were are with gave the company free installation on a 100Mbps fibre ethernet circuit. The only problem was Openreach being totally unable to organise the necessary work they had to do so we were running on a 6Mbps ADSL backup for 3 weeks after we moved in.

price similar to FTTC? Overhead FTTP surely is the answer?

Do you think overhead FTTP would be the same cost as FTTC. They have to do exactly the same work to bring fibre close as they would for FTTC and then would also have to run FTTP to the premises. I can assure you this is not cheaper.

As MrS suggests fixed wireless could be an economical solution but it depends on distances and topology.

There are considerable savings that can be made using a leased line especially for medium/large companies and VoIP is definitely one of them.

I work for a medium sized company with offices all around the world. All our offices are connected using VoIP so it's essentially "free" calls between offices. The three UK offices as a whole have seen savings of around £30K per month on phone calls alone.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

You may get somewhere if you ask around all the other businesses on each estate. If all commit to taking the service Openreach may be willing to talk. They might require a contribution to the capital cost of the cabinet installation shared amongst the businesses, but the ongoing rental and usage should be at standard ISP prices.

Been there, done that and the gap funding quote came in at £32K.+ VAT. Diving up among the business users on the estate would be around the sub £2000 mark assuming all made a contribution. Those that didn't would get the benefit of the fibre twin at the expense of others who would have to each make a larger contribution. Remember we are talking about SMBs employing around 10 people.

Now the estate is very close to an enabled cabinet, about 440 metres, whereas the cabinet our copper service comes from is deemed uneconomic to upgrade. So stringing up a bit of overhead fibre to the few business that need a better internet connection must be a cheaper alternative. And as the estate is pretty near to the exchange maybe a micro wave link might be the answer. Nobody seems to want to think outside the box to bring costs down.

Businesses contribute to the local economy and yet are denied the very tools to operate efficiently, paying through the nose for essential services whereas nearby domestic subscribers to FTTC have a decent service for money in their back pocket. The OP has a point in what he says.

Now the estate is very close to an enabled cabinet, about 440 metres, whereas the cabinet our copper service comes from is deemed uneconomic to upgrade. So stringing up a bit of overhead fibre to the few business that need a better internet connection must be a cheaper alternative.

I'm sure that BT will be only too happy to carry out the necessary network rearrangement. Just be prepared to pay and don't expect it to be cheap. I'm unclear why you expect BT, or any other company come to that, to provide something at a loss. Is this something the SME's on the park are doing? I suspect not.

In reply to a post by MCM:

Now the estate is very close to an enabled cabinet, about 440 metres, whereas the cabinet our copper service comes from is deemed uneconomic to upgrade. So stringing up a bit of overhead fibre to the few business that need a better internet connection must be a cheaper alternative.

I'm sure that BT will be only too happy to carry out the necessary network rearrangement. Just be prepared to pay and don't expect it to be cheap. I'm unclear why you expect BT, or any other company come to that, to provide something at a loss. Is this something the SME's on the park are doing? I suspect not.

I just want ideas and quotes for alternative technologies to see if any could bring down the cost of providing a decent internet service that doesn't require a mortgage to be taken out. The trouble is that today any investment by BT seems to be require an instant profit rather than a ROI over a reasonable period of time. There is profit there in the long haul, not a loss as you suggest.

Who owns the business park? Guess they would be pretty miffed if people left for a competing park that had better broadband service?

Nothing stopping a park owner getting in a leased line and reselling portions of it, which is what a good number of serviced offices do these days.

Businesses that grow can out grow an office building and move to somewhere that suits their needs, perhaps if more business did that with broadband landlords and councils would wake up and be pro-active.

It sucks as a business who is happy where they are, but until a legal obligation to provide everyone with a certain broadband speed is enacted this will always be the case, and as telecoms is a competitive commercial market who gets lumbered with this obligation is a difficult thing to answer. Since if it goes to BT Group then it will underpin their monopoly potentially even more than the BDUK process has done already in the areas where Virgin Media is not already present.

For the original poster, if outside the Virgin Media cable footprint, it may be worth getting a quote on one of their business fibre service.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

.......
Nothing stopping a park owner getting in a leased line and reselling portions of it, which is what a good number of serviced offices do these days.
.......

A business park near me has done just that. On offer is 80 down and 20 up to end users for £250 + VAT a month; a 3 year contract and a connection fee not less than £150.

If needs must, then the SMB might shell out but its a bit galling when an equivalent home service is a tenth of the price and generally with no connection charge.

So an ideal serviced office accommodation for a start-up company has a jaw dropping moment followed by an extend search for a "better connected" office accommodation.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Nothing stopping a park owner getting in a leased line and reselling portions of it, which is what a good number of serviced offices do these days.

Yup that's what we did at my previous job. £16k install shared between four of us then £250 a month for guaranteed minimum symmetric 20Mb/s with ability to use up to the full 80Mb/s if it was available. That was for a converted farmyard about two miles outside a large town.

Edited by Andrue (Fri 31-Oct-14 17:56:57)

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

If needs must, then the SMB might shell out but its a bit galling when an equivalent home service is a tenth of the price and generally with no connection charge.

A home service will not have an SLA and probably not the low contention of a business connection. It certainly won't compare to a leased line.

Businesses ought to understand that you get what you pay for. If not, they won't be in business for very long.

Edited by Andrue (Fri 31-Oct-14 18:02:00)

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

The trouble is that today any investment by BT seems to be require an instant profit rather than a ROI over a reasonable period of time. There is profit there in the long haul, not a loss as you suggest.

If that was was true, there'd have been no FTTC roll out anywhere. BT are very used to taking the long view. The reason no-one else can compete with BT is because only BT are big enough to persuade the banks (and their shareholders) to lend them money over such a long period of time.

The real problem here isn't BT. It's geography, demography, economics and technological capabilities. No company can do what you seem to want for the price you want. BT are best placed due to their size and experience but even they have limitations.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

The real problem here isn't BT. It's geography, demography, economics and technological capabilities. No company can do what you seem to want for the price you want. BT are best placed due to their size and experience but even they have limitations.

"Caveat emptor"!

Trolley -- intererested to know whch cab you are referring to - = drop me a pm - for the avoidance of Doubt you cannot use BDUK vouchers to enable cabinets, and you can only get a FTTP servcie from a cab that is already enabled

Edited by deleted (Sat 01-Nov-14 13:20:33)

those cabs that were not commercially viable (as part of tth 2.5bn investmet where then eligbile (where BDUk contracts exits) however they are a high cost per premises due to low number of premsies and as BDUK programmes are about Coverage / Vs money spent they are seen as not good value for money for public funding - Herts / have enabled some under BDUK as they had some specificl money set aside to do that

trolley bus for the avoidance of doubt-- paback on funding cabs is 15 years (and that to break even)-- so that 2029 !!!!! - BDUK i think is even longer

Edited by deleted (Sat 01-Nov-14 13:26:50)

But you are not tied to using the vouchers with BT, all many of options for fibre based or fixed wireless solutions and a few firms can club together to pool vouchers.

In reply to a post by Fastman2:

Trolley -- intererested to know whch cab you are referring to - = drop me a pm - for the avoidance of Doubt you cannot use BDUK vouchers to enable cabinets, and you can only get a FTTP servcie from a cab that is already enabled

PM sent as requested.

please also when you are checking to see if the cabinet is enabled please use your broadband number not the front of house / PBX number as that may not provide a fibre reading (venig if the cab is enabled - please check the BT wholesale checkr with the the number or address as it may be the cab is enabled and either your not put the broadband number in or the servce provdier you are with does not offfer FTTC - thisis not uncommin to find a angst communty / business and find out the coud have add FTTC 3 years ago they just never bothered to check propertly

In reply to a post by MCM:

Now the estate is very close to an enabled cabinet, about 440 metres, whereas the cabinet our copper service comes from is deemed uneconomic to upgrade. So stringing up a bit of overhead fibre to the few business that need a better internet connection must be a cheaper alternative.

I'm sure that BT will be only too happy to carry out the necessary network rearrangement. Just be prepared to pay and don't expect it to be cheap. I'm unclear why you expect BT, or any other company come to that, to provide something at a loss. Is this something the SME's on the park are doing? I suspect not.

Let's suppose I wanted to have a phone service from a pole a third of a mile away, how deep would my pocket have to be?

Trolley you cannot migtrate from an unenabled cab to enabled cab for the improvement of Broadband experience -- the option is euther get the cab enabled by the managing agent wait fo next pahse of HCC project to see if gets done or look at something else

Edited by deleted (Sun 02-Nov-14 18:47:56)

Let's suppose I wanted to have a phone service from a pole a third of a mile away, how deep would my pocket have to be?

You would be required to pay all costs in excess of £3,400 assuming that no other phone line is already installed in which case the full cost would be charged. This is part of the USO however this is currently irrelevant to the provision of broadband and even then the proposal is for just 2Mbps so of no help to your speed loving business friends. The current requirement is that the line support a minimum speed of 28.8Kbps. Knowing no different I am assuming the USO applies equally to both residential and business lines, if not then the cost would be whatever BT choose to charge.

Don't forget USC also only applies to the first line to a property not subsequent lines

And if that first line can be supplied inside the £3400 figure from nearer infrastructure it will be done that way.

In reply to a post by Fastman2:

Trolley you cannot migtrate from an unenabled cab to enabled cab for the improvement of Broadband experience -- the option is euther get the cab enabled by the managing agent wait fo next pahse of HCC project to see if gets done or look at something else

I was thinking of an additional line from another pole four spans away. The total run from an enabled cabinet would be under 1/2 mile with the "new" connection being 1/3 mile.

I always thought you could have whatever you wanted from Openreach provided you paid their full costs, although it might take quite a while for it to happen. The question was what would be the likely cost.

It has always been possible to have out of area numbers with the incoming line routed differently from the primary line. I can think of unattended essential installations that has had this facility, so what's changed to suggest what I have in mind is not possible?

They may not want to run fibre from a different cab because it makes the network more complex. Do it often and they would end up with a spaghetti of lines - one of the issues some people get now is that their phone line was taken from a different cab for convenience but has caused problems further down the line.

The more complex the network the more difficult it is on the ground to maintain it.

In reply to a post by Gadget:

Don't forget USC also only applies to the first line to a property not subsequent lines

Hence my stating "assuming that no other phone line is already installed"

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

Let's suppose I wanted to have a phone service from a pole a third of a mile away, how deep would my pocket have to be?

You'd be expected to pay the full cost of installing the line (all the way back to the exchange if the capacity isn't already available at the cabinet), charged at the rate set out in the Openreach ECCs. Expect it to be several thousands of pounds.

I have seen a quote for excess construction at around £360K for a new line (copper or fibre). That was an extreme but we had probably 10% of connections having in excess of £10K excess construction costs.