FTTP Needs BDUK Funding - Apparently

Hi,

I live in an area where there is quite a bit of commercially deployed FTTP. However, none of the areas are completely covered. So essentially we have weird scenarios where one house can order and the next door neighbour can't yet 5 doors down they can order.

We've now got a message from a local politician who now appears to be saying that BT require state aid to connect the houses which have been missed. In many cases these houses are on the same cabinet, on the same exchange, in the same street as houses that can already have FTTP.

I have a theory the issue surrounds the costs of installing manifolds into chambers where only 1 or 2 houses are connected and some vague mutterings from Openreach engineers that they can't connect through from one chamber to another - but that could be wrong.

Does anyone have any idea of both the legal (state aid) position of this scenario and also how the hell BT have managed to get into this stupid situation.


Regards,


Gareth
PS. Yes I am talking about Milton Keynes and the problem exists in trial and non-trial areas. Also in the case of the area where I live the ducts are NOT blocked as BT have deployed all the way down the road.

Edited by deleted (Sun 19-Apr-15 12:40:24)

The BDUK projects do butt right up to the commercial areas, i.e. there is no DMZ between them.

The FTTP roll-out was going well until the accountants looked at the costs in terms of labour it was taking, and rolled things back. The BDUK funding may help to bridge some of this gap and see you get FTTP.

All a consequence of once money was likely to be available, that the slightly difficult bits would get left until someone else was willing to pay maybe 10%,20%,30%,40%,50% of the cost.

One option is for the council to ignore the partly built areas, and BT won't panic until a competitor appears.

Mr S,

Thanks for the reply. I need to be clear. I'm talking about where the not covered by FTTP and the properties covered by the commercial rollout are next to each other and intermixed.

So the postcodes for the people that can and the postcodes for people that can't completely overlap.

In an extreme example, I believe we have situations for semi-detached or terrace houses where one neighbour can order and the other can't. In these properties the ONT's would be mounted either side of the same party wall.

So some people a literally inches away from getting FTTP but BT will not install it without subsidy.

Regards,


Gareth
PS. Other providers.... Interesting you should mention that.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

One option is for the council to ignore the partly built areas, and BT won't panic until a competitor appears.

I can assure you that BT won't panic even WHEN a competitor appears.
I know several Oxfordshire villages where Gigaclear have rolled out FTTP and BT have done nothing whatsoever.
So that is BT has not installed even any FTTC much less any FTTP leaving the place on ADSL2 and in some cases the exchange/village never even got that still being on ADSLmax.

Edit:
The problem of service areas and their boundaries affects many people. There are umpteen stories on the net about how property x can get FTTC while next door on a different cab' can not. This either becasue one cab has been upgraded and the other not or simply because one is right at the end of the line and so far away the service level is dire while the neighbour on the other much closer cab gets a good service.
I know some of the latter examples.
It is all a matter of chance and how the network was laid out in the 1950's and 1960 when none of this broadband was even invented

Edited by deleted (Sun 19-Apr-15 13:33:47)

this is not at straightforward at it seems -- this is bradwell abbey and so was FTTP pilot of circa x thousand homes -defined area- . so you have a number of developers who have come along and built houses since the FTTP was built -- no conversation with infrastructure provider about how they moight benefit from the FTTP and be included in the FTTP and now wonder why they only have copper and no FTTP -- -- so those premises were never part of the Commericla programme as they did not exist when the FTTP deployment was completed

You can get similar situations with fttc too

Either council pays or works hard to get bt to do it all commercially, no obligation on bt yet

the specific diifernce difference is that with FTTC any new DP's were built aftern the FTTC cab was enabled and and those DP in range of that FTTC cab they woud get uplift by default (via the copper wire) as they were connected to an FTTC enabled cab in FTTP they wont get an upgrade as there will be infrastructure between DP and Premise

Edited by deleted (Sun 19-Apr-15 15:38:40)

In reply to a post by Fastman2:

this is not at straightforward at it seems -- this is bradwell abbey and so was FTTP pilot of circa x thousand homes -defined area- . so you have a number of developers who have come along and built houses since the FTTP was built -- no conversation with infrastructure provider about how they moight benefit from the FTTP and be included in the FTTP and now wonder why they only have copper and no FTTP -- -- so those premises were never part of the Commericla programme as they did not exist when the FTTP deployment was completed

No sorry. Whilst this scenario does exist we have 20 year old houses in NON-TRIAL areas on the SAME CAB on the SAME EXCHANGE where one house can order the other can't.

We see the same problem in trial areas.

We do have houses where they were built after the trial. But this isn't the bulk of the problem. Requesting subsidy for these may actually be reasonable. This isn't the scenario I'm discussing.

Regards,

Gareth

Edited by deleted (Mon 20-Apr-15 00:59:22)

As Andrew has already suggested it is quite likely that BT, having reviewed the cost of installation, have now decided that further work is not commercially viable and as a result stopped their installation with any further installation, regardless of whether the properties are old or new, depending on an element of BDUK funding.

BT, like all commercial companies, is free to make such decisions and has no legal obligation to carry out further work at a loss.

I was referring to the ability for cabinet boundaries to not be precise, but interlace due to historical reasons

New builds in FTTP areas - developer has a significant part to play