Vodafone Fibre Network?

Anyone have any opinions on the Telegraph article where Vodafone suggest they're interested in a national fibre network?

The chief executive of Vodafone has suggested broadband operators should club together to build an ultrafast broadband network for Britain.

Vittorio Colao said his company would be willing to invest with rivals in laying fibre optics into homes and businesses. It came as he continues to hold talks with Liberty Global that could see Vodafone�s UK mobile network combined with the Virgin Media cable network.

He backed calls for BT to be forced to sell off its network division Openreach, dismissing its plans for a multi-billion pound upgrade to broadband technology, called G.fast, as �yesterday�s vision and the vision of a monopolist�.

G.fast aims to squeeze higher speeds from the copper wires that currently make the final connection into premises, saving billions compared with replacing the wires with fibre optics.

�I think Britain needs more fibre, not more expensive football, which is what is happening now,� said Mr Colao.

�We would be prepared to put some equity in a vehicle that could deliver fibre at good conditions to us and also to others, whether that is an independent Openreach or another company.

�If the investment is big it is much better to share and then compete at the level of service.�

He declined to provide any update on talks with Liberty, which were announced last month. They are believed to focus on combining assets in the UK, German and the Netherlands. Vodafone said it was discussing assets swaps, although it is understood that a more complicated merger also remains a possibility.

A combination with Virgin Media would not preclude the possibility of further investment in ultrafast broadband, as the cable network covers only around half the country. Cable coverage is due to rise to two-thirds by 2020 as a result of �Project Lightning�, a £3bn investment by Liberty in filling in gaps in towns and cities where Virgin Media already operates.

Mr Colao floated the idea of a joint investment with rivals as Vodafone reported first-quarter results that showed the operating trends for the company continue to improve after years of decline.

Total organic service revenue, the key measure of its network sales, increased 0.8pc. Within that Europe was down 1.5pc, mainly due to a 5.5pc drop in Spanish sales, but the results were warmly received.

Vodafone shares closed up 2.8pc.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/medi...

If Colao builds a national fibre network I believe the UK should award him the honorary title of "Italian Stallion".

How many years before it would be national?

One presumes this FTTH too

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

How many years before it would be national?

One presumes this FTTH too

I'd rather have a slow roll-out than no roll-out. Who else is suggesting something of similar ambition?

Well vm has a national network expected to be offering 200-300 Mbps next year and expanding
TalkTalk talks of 10 million

Question is what percentage does national mean?

But the thing is, these companies are rolling out in cities where there already is competition.

What we need is a roll-out to happen in rural areas - it would create a real competition to BT and both customers and the companies themselves I believe would benefit.

I know that but most talk big but big only means cities for them

We had Fujitsu but the Government favoured BT!

Such a disaster BDUK is. We've saved ourselves a bit of money that we'll then have to spend again in five years time.

we need to stop worrying about the villages.

I would consider decent coverage of all the UK's cities reasonable national coverage and the villages been left on vectored vdsl2 would still have way better service than an average rural area in the world.

As for VM I see them as all talk, apparently their congested areas are just tiny pockets yet most people I know on VM happen to be by coincidence in these small pockets. Selling a 300mbps service doesnt mean much if it only has 10mbit throughput with latency in the 100s.

It seems to be from where i sit openreach do what BT retail wants, then they supply that to everyone and call it equal access.

Edited by Chrysalis (Sun 26-Jul-15 00:33:33)

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

I would consider decent coverage of all the UK's cities reasonable national coverage and the villages been left on vectored vdsl2 would still have way better service than an average rural area in the world.

Unlikely as the cabinets are not at all in the right places for that to be beneficial.

In my village for instance, there are two cabinets. One is about a km away from most residents. The other is about 1.5km away from most residents.

Vectoring isn't going to help massively with that, what would help I suppose is G.Fast but if you're going to run fibre to the DP why not just run it all the way to the home...

If they do, competition should drive prices down. Good for consumers. Better if it's wholesale'd...

In reply to a post by EddyTheDog:

If they do, competition should drive prices down. Good for consumers. Better if it's wholesale'd...

I don't understand how it being split off alone would create competition.

Mmm headline for next time someone moans on coverage - 'stop worrying about the villages'

Obviously not aware that Fujitsu UK is really the old GPO/BT fibre factory and my conspiracy theory is that they were a stalking horse bid and never intended to win. Did feature more FTTH, was really going to be about half fixed wireless and half FTTH

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

we need to stop worrying about the villages.

I would consider decent coverage of all the UK's cities reasonable national coverage and the villages been left on vectored vdsl2 would still have way better service than an average rural area in the world.

As for VM I see them as all talk, apparently their congested areas are just tiny pockets yet most people I know on VM happen to be by coincidence in these small pockets. Selling a 300mbps service doesnt mean much if it only has 10mbit throughput with latency in the 100s.

It seems to be from where i sit openreach do what BT retail wants, then they supply that to everyone and call it equal access.

As you seem to think that we should not worry about the villages I assume that you dont live in one. Why should where you live matter as to whether you can get good broadband speeds. everybody gets water/electricity/phone etc the same whether they live in a city or a village so in this day and age I dont see that broadband should be any different

If you check the requirements of the Undertakings that BT agreed to when forming the AS Division aka Openreach you will find a specific obligation to have common requirements process for all CPs that Openreach has to follow, specifically so as not to show favour to BT. http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/telecoms/p... Section 8.7

In reply to a post by threelegs:

As you seem to think that we should not worry about the villages I assume that you dont live in one. Why should where you live matter as to whether you can get good broadband speeds. everybody gets water/electricity/phone etc the same whether they live in a city or a village so in this day and age I dont see that broadband should be any different

You conveniently seem to have forgotten gas. I have lived in several villages where mains gas was not available. Where I live now I cannot get Virgin Media cable.

If any of the things that are missing are an absolute must have for you then don't move there.

Why should any company be forced to spend millions delivering "something" to an area where a handful of people would take it up when they could spend it elsewhere and benefits many times more people and consequently get many times more revenue and profit. Without profit a company will not survive.

It seems to be from where i sit openreach do what BT retail wants, then they supply that to everyone and call it equal access.

Its equal access because the terms and coniditons and pricing are the same to all providers

FYI there are in excess of 530+ service providers of which ariound 70 -80 offer GEA fibre services

Ethernet GEA Fibre costs and so if you are service provider bundling its broadband at low or loss making in order to gain / maintain your Paid TV you have a decision to make around fibre

you either offer fibre for small incremental cost same prices as copper in order to project your pay TV
You don't offer fibre and you risk losing your pay tv
You offer fibre fore free in hope of recovering some of your lost pay TV

this is all around margin / mark up and nothing to do with coverage. last 5% / better experience fot customer -- its all about the margin / profit

Yeah, didn't BT Retail launch Infinity way before everyone else offered FTTC services?

Sky and TalkTalk were slower but plenty of names that cannot afford tv advetising launched as soon as bt wholesale offered it

equality doesnt exist.

e.g. I dont expect my council to demolish all the ugly houses in front of me so I can live surrounded by peaceful fields, there is upsides and downsides to living in cities and villages. Typically wihout political intervention villages would get worse broadband coverage simply due to the economics. The uk situation is unique, and in my view has harmed the technology progression in city areas. Something is very wrong when cornwall has FTTP but not large cities.

Spelthorne 25% FTTP
Waltham Forest 17% FTTP
Milton Keynes 11%
York 8%
Lewisham 8%
Newham 2.6%

A sampling of the Openreach availability in city areas

Prices are fine. They can stay where they are or rise in return for quality.

I imagine the big effect would be increased investment from Openreach to keep up.

Cornwall had ERDF money and some FTTP get done where its hard and complex and small places

not sure what that has to do with cities !!!!

more dense areas / FTTC much cheaper to do -- why would you do an FTT{P in a city where most will be apartments blocks and massively difficult to deploy and expensive

it was launched as Same time for everything -- has to be as part of the undertakings -- then a commercial decision what you as a cp do with it

In reply to a post by Squirrel:

You conveniently seem to have forgotten gas.

Also trains and buses.

I thnk this is absolutely spot on and the people to do it would be an independent Openreach (separated from BT and mutually owned by all the service providers)

I don't think we ought to leave the villages out at all.


The challenge would come in covering areas like the Pennines due to the terrain but in any case I think it should be done and maybe with a little public backing for the difficult areas.

It would help businesses to locate where they wished to rather than having to take into account the availability of high speed connections which are of course vital to an increasing number of businesses.

In reply to a post by arobertson545:

Vectoring isn't going to help massively with that, what would help I suppose is G.Fast but if you're going to run fibre to the DP why not just run it all the way to the home...

I guess the answer comes down to cost, and lead time.

Averaged everywhere, the cost of fibre between all homes and the DP makes up the biggest portion of the engineering cost ... including all the nasty parts such as MDUs and direct-buried lead-in.

It isn't a long distance, averaging 35m, but there are 28m leads needed. Conversely, there are only 4m DPs, averaging 350-400m from the existing cab.

But BT appear to be driving longer-range G.Fast, so I suspect they'd aim at 500k nodes, not 4m, averaging 250-300m from the existing cabs.

Still, I imagine the numbers allow for FTTP in easier, cheaper places.

As for lead time... if Openreach swapped to FTTP in 2018, you'd probably find a 15-year+ rollout is the result. Those places at the tail of the queue, likely today's notspots, will find they have to live with today's super fast solution.

One touted benefit of a hybrid solution is a faster rollout ... and BT think g.fast will still be a 10-year rollout. Will rural areas cope with 24Mbps for the next 10 years?

Vectoring helps too. Not everywhere, but some places, certainly. Perhaps 85-90% of premises. It helps speeds, sure, but better, it improves speed consistency and range.

techguy

service provider want cheap prices so they can make money

openreach support 530 + service providers in a equal and equivalent way of which circa 430+ not consume or sell Fibre (FTTC) only interested in copper broadband serviices

Interesting language in there ... A carrot, with a promise of investment money, rather than just the complaints of Sky and TalkTalk. However, there's a stick with the threat of going with VM instead.

A question for those who think Openreach should be split off: are you happy for VM to be left as-is? They'll become the closest thing we'll then have to a monopolist, without need to offer wholesale access, but the ability to still only cherry-pick, and no USO to offset this.

I'm concerned that the resulting market (at least the competitive portion) will lurch from being slightly lopsided in BT's favour to heavily lopsided in VM's favour. I think something needs balancing there, but I can't think what's best. Force VM to create their own 'Openreach' division? Split it off too? Merge it with BT's Openreach?

And I see that lurch to be unfavourable to rural areas. The current favour to BT in general is what justifies the USO quid-pro-quo, which is of primary benefit to rural areas. Splitting Openreach is likely to constrain the final third to forever depend on government largesse.

Vodafone's idea of FTTP investment is still only going to work for the existing competitive areas.

Companies roil out networks where there is a prospect of a return. Spending huge amounts of money in order to just provide competition isn't going to be attractive to any company. There are prospects for niche roll-outs (such as Gigaclear do) to some concentrations of relatively affluent villages, but that's a wildly different thing to a comprehensive rural network.

I there was money to be made, then it would already be happening. The reality is that networks will be loss making in many areas of the country. The phone network was maintained through a system of internal cross-subsidy through using excess profits in urban areas supporting more expensive rural areas. However, that phone network is old, and the monopoly system under which it was installed (over many, many decades) is not going to get repeated given the fragmented nature of control of telecommunication infrastructure in this country whereby operators can choose to "cherry pick".

Yes of course they do, but if the wholesale price is low then it means there is more scope for competition depending on how on much margin an individual business is prpared to accept.

So by that logic, why don't TalkTalk and Sky have their own networks in London?

I'll tell you why, it's because it is easier for them to use Openreach's network.

@TheEulerID

Take the ownsership model of the Internet Exchange Points such as LNX, the members pay a membership fee and for the services they use, the company itself is non-profit and invests any money it does make back into lowering prices.

Why shouldn't openreach operate in this way, for the benefit of BT and all other telcos in the UK?

I bet BT Openreach will bite back with roll out FTTP / FTTH in the next 10 years! FTTC could be replaced to FTTP/H by 2025. I think G.fast will be pointless in most case. I do welcome the news of more companies will offer Fibre to put more pressure on BT.

Whatever the criticisms of the current arrangements with Openreach isn't it about time the bulk of GEA FTTC CP providers sorted out their own ordering systems to enable them to process orders from those lucky (?) enough to have native GEA FTTP available.

Currently, as far as I'm aware, the only provider you place a standard order with is BT Retail for 'Infinity'. Plusnet will also provide if you ask the right questions but not via their standard order process.

As both FTTC and FTTP are GEA what is the difference for the likes of Sky and Talk Talk, etc - isn't even the wholesale prices the same for 40/10 & 80/20?

How can they criticise what Openreach provides when they won't resell the FTTP that is currently available?

If you dig the answer will be that people end up with an Openreach branded ONT, so dilutes the Sky/TalkTalk brand, notice how they only got big on FTTC once they could roll their own CPE with built in VDSL2 modem out.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

If you dig the answer will be that people end up with an Openreach branded ONT, so dilutes the Sky/TalkTalk brand, notice how they only got big on FTTC once they could roll their own CPE with built in VDSL2 modem out.

I don't disbelieve you but that seems a weak argument for leaving a sizable minority without choice of supplier especially as until recently all FTTC installs had the similar looking branded Openreach modem. Plus, unless the customer is blind they'll have probably noticed the Openreach van/uniform when the install was done. Or the rather unsubtle Oenreach logo on recently installed NTE5 sockets!

OK, so now they send their own VDSL2 cable box of tricks for wires only so customer doesn't see any Openreach bod (or worse still, Kelly's!) - can't see how FTTP is ever going to be self install, so is going to involve Openreach (or their successor) doing install work.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

If you dig the answer will be that people end up with an Openreach branded ONT, so dilutes the Sky/TalkTalk brand, notice how they only got big on FTTC once they could roll their own CPE with built in VDSL2 modem out.

But as far as I know, TalkTalk and Sky would still have a router plugged into that device so their brand would still be visible?

And why does it make any difference anyway? If you've bought a service from TalkTalk for instance, you're only advertising that to yourself if you have one of their routers.

Seems like a very odd argument I must say.

On top of which I wonder whether the failure of other CPs to use the existing FTTP is a factor in Openreach deciding whether to deploy FTTP (low ROI as a result). Wasn't the bulk of EO lines going to be FTTP eventually. Instead you have Openreach putting large amount of effort to rearrange existing copper for additional FTTC cabinets (often, ridiculously, directly outside the exchange). With any luck, within 15 years we will see FTTC cabinets and their older PCP twins being removed for scrap - so all this effort now will have a short life.

As for any new housing built since the early '90s with ducting all the way to the front door the money would be much better spent now on FTTP (if BT's critics could be bothered to use it!).

and you think thats good?

ask the question to all the other isps worldwide who have done just that. As everywhere else rolling it out in cities is deemed more economic.

Notice a lack of emotive words in my post was just information

For now Openreach is largest uk ftth provider

The other providers don't use Openreach FTTP because they don't want it to succeed. If Openreach's FTTP footprint doesn't grow then they can say Openreach's products are slow and not up to scratch. It's very clever really.

In reply to a post by AL66:

With any luck, within 15 years we will see FTTC cabinets and their older PCP twins being removed for scrap - so all this effort now will have a short life.

Nope, they'll just be left there to rot. That's what they do now, most of the cabinets they've decided to stop using over the last few years are still there.

Edited by deleted (Mon 27-Jul-15 09:21:10)

A little bit of sense! Although I wonder if they realise how much it will actually cost!

Put this with the Openreach Inside/Outside BT question.

Get BT to demerge Openreach into a new company - owned by BT, VF, Sky, Talk Talk and others - share ownership restricted to ISPs or others with "good reason". Initial proportion of company based on a valuation of the UK base (not overseas) size of each company and BT made to return the funds from the new owners/partners directly to shareholders.

Then get each of those companies to provide the capital funding for investment - a bank guarantee for two years funding at day1, of which 1 years worth will fund the next 12 month programme at which point another 12 months worth is required. Continue with that until 98% or premises are covered.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

ask the question to all the other isps worldwide who have done just that. As everywhere else rolling it out in cities is deemed more economic.

It's more economical than rolling FTTP out to sparsely populated areas but nowhere near as economical as rolling out FTTC in urban areas. That's what you're comparing against.

Discussing FTTP as far as Openreach goes in most of the country is largely irrelevant as the vast majority of FTTC areas were never under consideration for FTTP. FTTC was considered good enough.

In reply to a post by arobertson545:

But as far as I know, TalkTalk and Sky would still have a router plugged into that device so their brand would still be visible?

And why does it make any difference anyway? If you've bought a service from TalkTalk for instance, you're only advertising that to yourself if you have one of their routers.

Seems like a very odd argument I must say.

Sky / TalkTalk would have to either use BT Wholesale or purchase their own CableLink to a different layer 2 switch for the FTTP customer bases, which in many cases are very, very small.

Add that to the issues around deploying VoNGA and it's not really worthwhile.

of course FTTC is more economical than FTTP but I wasnt arguing that point.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

ask the question to all the other isps worldwide who have done just that. As everywhere else rolling it out in cities is deemed more economic.

Fastman2 is wrong in one crucial respect - our cities don't consist of mostly apartment blocks. The UK has one of the lowest proportion of flats in Europe, second only to Ireland **. We're incomparable with a lot of Asian cities too.

A lot of places doing FTTP have a lot of flats, and are really doing FTTB. It is nice of the good old' boys in the fibre council to consider FTTB as FTTH - they know what side their bread is buttered on.

G.Fast and FTTdp, when the DP is within 50-80m, isn't really much different from FTTB, but the ftth council won't include it - too many vested interests and history to contemplate inclusion of the mortal DSL enemy. They're already smarting from the fact that clever EU political target - 100Mbps to 50% - was meant to force FTTH deployment, by excluding DSL, but failed at that.

** For example, Latvia has 72% flats, Switzerland has 58% flats, we have 18%. Those places need good FTTB solutions; we have 59% in terraced or semi's ... we need the equivalent to FTTB to work in urban & suburban streets of such houses.