Is there a limit to the number of FTTC cabs per PCP ?

Our original cabinet was full when I moved in to my house, it got extended 6 months later and then a year after that, a second cab was stood (Feb 18), both times capacity was reached in a couple of days.

The cabs are the small Huawei ones so I think cab 1 capacity will be 192 and cab 2 currently will be 96/128 ? So in total at the moment there could be 320 ports with a max possible of 384 (correct me if I�m wrong).

According to Codelook, there are 552 properties passed by cab 36 (G72 6PA), will they stand another cab if as I suspect an extension to cab 2 fills up ?

Yeap another cabinet is possible

And someone who worked out which type of cabinet to install in the first place, and then what size for the second one at BT/Openreach needs the sack for getting it badly wrong. If this was covered under BDUK then it is even worse.

The problem is that this cabinet seems very popular, but take-up rates are very variable, so what makes take up brilliant here is not going to be the case on other cabinets.

On BDUK installing a smaller cabinet is fractionally cheaper to the public purse, since the subsequent extra cabinets are fully paid for by Openreach. So there is actually an incentive for Openreach to install bigger than needed cabinets in BDUK areas - assuming local authority will pay the invoice.

Thanks for the replies, good to know at least that further cabinet is possible, should mean that everyone will be able to get FTTC eventually.

I know that Openreach try to minimise their outlay by installing smaller cabs if they can get away with it but 2 cabs so far with one extended and another extension required seems such a waste of resource when one big cab would have the same capacity and only one install !

Is the price difference really that much between the large and small cabs ?

I believe there are 64 port cards which take the capacity of the H100 cabinets to 256 ports

I take it this is quite a recent development, good news if so.

The issue is that BT/Openreach are very very bad at estimating demand for any broadband access product. You can see this in the original ADSL trials. They rolled out to a bunch of trial areas that included deprived council estates where computer ownership was low (this is before smartphones and tablets with WiFi) then claimed take up was too low for ADSL to be economically viable, and ADSL rollout in the UK was delayed. That was a miscalculation of epic proportions.

We have seen the same with FTTC, the scale of the clawback on the BDUK installs shows that yet again BT/Openreach got the calculations on what was commercially economic to install massively wrong again.

As such when BT/Openreach say rolling out an internet access product is not economically viable commercially, nobody in their right mind would believe a word they have to say on the subject.

Note it should be relatively easy to estimate the take up for a cabinet. Take a look at the number of lines on that cabinet that have an ADSL connection, look at the speed those lines can get with ADSL and then factor in something like Acorn profile for the area. Probably LLU makes this analysis more complicated but I doubt it makes it impossible. I further doubt this was properly done by BT/Openreach.

Jabuzzard

I Know the analysis wasn't done well, there were many upper rank managers who didn't believe that remote cabs on the outskirts of exchange areas towns would get far better penetration than ones close who already had 16-24Mb.

I tried to argue for the bigger cabs furthest from the exchange to be done first as they would get the best payback but was in the wrong area to have any influence. The parts of BT that were used to dealing with new technologies and customer profiles were not allowed to influence OR commercial policies by OFCOM mandate. Therefore OR didn't want to listen in case they were sanctioned by OFCOM, another case of regulation preventing the best solutions due to fear.

I tried for years to argue for new estates( especially those on the outskirts of towns/cities at the limits of Copper) to be fibred but again OFCOM didn't want to disturb the LLU market which was all copper based. With OFCOM support all the TPON sites ( Too far for copper voice so fibre to the kerb) could have been moved to FTTP instead OR were forced to provide Cu service over the top of the fibre and customers got a very poor BB service.

BT could have been rolling out FTTP from 2004 onwards if OFCOM had been prepared to grant it permission, but it was not to be so. Imagine if all estates from 2004 on had had full fibre, it would now be normal for builders to provide it everywhere!

Rant over....

In reply to a post by kitcat:

Jabuzzard

BT could have been rolling out FTTP from 2004 onwards if OFCOM had been prepared to grant it permission, but it was not to be so.

Perhaps, but the failure to do so reflects the company's arrogance from its previous monopoly existence, and karma is restored by the fact that BT's failure to invest in fibre and its myopic focus on driving out every penny of its copper infrastructure now means that there is now a massive focus on FTTP by other competitors and BT has completely missed a trick. I see that Wightnet is now offering FTTP all over the Isle of Wight and it would be good to see similar initiatives springing up in more rural areas that BT has been steadfastly ignoring for years.

I feel sorry for the 13,000 employees that BT has today announced will be made redundant, but that announcement - and the halving of its share price from £5 a few years ago because of fraud - is a sign that this dinosaur's health is failing, unless it can make a success of its pay TV.

Kitcat,

You may have been around some very knowledge-able people, but also there was a large amount of people there, who simply didn't get the internet. BT's stupidity has caused their landline business to be dead in many respects, with the voip move by 2025 just being a decade late.

We need fttp for multiple 4k streams, yet OR are now slowly realising the need for fttp. Yes Ofcom and the governements (lab and con) are also to blame. BT and OR should have split 10 years ago.

Sky' Q platform will likely be the last platform being powered by satellites. With netflix, nowtv etc being far more flexible and scaleable ..

BT became too big and to slow to innovate.

We need fttp for multiple 4k streams, yet OR are now slowly realising the need for fttp. Yes Ofcom and the governements (lab and con) are also to blame

You should also blame the buying public. Few people that have the option of FTTP take up anything other than the basic packages. That makes it very difficult to build a business case to put higher speed options in place when most people won't pay extra to get them.

Whilst in no way wishing to appear to defend BT it is you who appears to fail to understand that BT were prevented from moving to FTTP by OFCOM. As for BT ignoring areas remember that BT is limited by OFCOM in what it can charge and being a public company is answerable to its shareholders most of whom expect BT to obtain a reasonable return on any investment. As for sweating its copper, remember that it is the LLU operators who are sweating their investment in ADSL2 that are insisting that this be maintained and OFCOM who each year reduce the amount that BT can charge for that part of their network.

I acknowledge the history and I agree that Ofcom has a share of the blame for the present position. But nevertheless I can have no sympathy for a private sector company that is happy to exercise considerable control over UK telecoms infrastructure strategy based purely on the pursuit of profit... whilst of course "profit" is what a private sector company aims for, it's a situation that should never have been allowed to come about. Although it could have been remedied (as happened in New Zealand where NZ Telecom was displaced seven years ago by the 100% state-owned Crown Fibre Holdings), all that has happened here is that Openreach was required to be spun off as a separate company, a move that is of no significance whatsoever. Even its Web site still declares that it is run by "British Telecommunications PLC", a criminal offence under the Companies Act 2006 because the required statutory trading disclosure information is missing, and despite severe criticism of those omissions by a District Judge in County Court civil proceedings last year arising out of their unlawful storage and processing of personal data, the required information still isn't there, even after their registered office changed in December 2017.

And where we are, the only broadband choice is ADSLMax (NB not ADSL2) if there happens to an exchange close enough, or nothing at all, a situation that's highly unlikely to change any time soon.

Edited by deleted (Thu 10-May-18 17:02:22)

Why should BT provide you with a service where they are unlikely to ever see a return on their investment? Why not Virgin/Liberty Media, Vodafone, Gigaclear, Hyperoptic, or any other supplier, it's not as if BT is a monopoly and sole supplier. Have you considered doing anything about this yourself or are you relying on others to do this for you at little or no cost to yourself? I say this as someone who with others spent approaching £19K to enable us to receive an FTTC service on our previously EO lines.

As for OpenReach this is wholly owned by BT group and trades through the BT plc registered office. Nowhere does it state that it is run by BT but rather that it is independently governed by Openreach Limited with more than 90% of its business regulated by OFCOM.

In reply to a post by MCM:

Why should BT provide you with a service where they are unlikely to ever see a return on their investment? Why not Virgin/Liberty Media, Vodafone, Gigaclear, Hyperoptic, or any other supplier, it's not as if BT is a monopoly and sole supplier.

Yes, it is across the whole of the Isle of Skye. None of the exchanges are unbundled and only BTW products are available for broadband connections.

Have you considered doing anything about this yourself or are you relying on others to do this for you at little or no cost to yourself? I say this as someone who with others spent approaching £19K to enable us to receive an FTTC service on our previously EO lines.

Yes, we have spent two years on planning and building FTTP networks, only to be told in January by HIE that grant funding is no longer available because of the R100 procurement process. LEADER funding is not available for broadband projects and community networks are ineligible for funding under the 2016 National Broadband Scheme. VDSL/VDSL2 are inappropriate technologies for sparse rural areas because they can only provide superfast broadband to those living within half a mile of a cabinet.

As for OpenReach this is wholly owned by BT group and trades through the BT plc registered office. Nowhere does it state that it is run by BT but rather that it is independently governed by Openreach Limited with more than 90% of its business regulated by OFCOM.

It's a shame that you didn't actually check the facts... read the terms and conditions, and search the site for the company name, registered office, registered number, and the part of the UK in which it is registered. Openreach Limited's registered office changed to Kelvin House, 123 Judd Street, London, WC1H 9NP on 19 December 2017. Then check the requirements of The Company, Limited Liability Partnership and Business (Names and Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2015, particularly Regulations 24, 25, and 28. Many of its business communications (which includes e-mail) don't bear the legally-required information either.

The fact that Openreach Limited is wholly owned by British Telecommunications PLC (to give BT its legal title), which is also correctly declared as a "person with significant control" in its Companies House filings, doesn't absolve Openreach Limited, and its directors in default, of its criminal liability under the regulations. It's a shambles.

Edited by deleted (Thu 10-May-18 18:00:31)

In reply to a post by ian72:

Few people that have the option of FTTP take up anything other than the basic packages. That makes it very difficult to build a business case to put higher speed options in place when most people won't pay extra to get them.

This is the issue nobody wants to talk about in this parish. The demand is for ultra cheap not ultra fast. .

You clearly fail to understand that there are other suppliers and that BT owes you nothing. Why do you think that Vodafone, VM, etc aren't able to supply you? I'll give you a clue it is nothing to do with unbundling, it is simply that it is uneconomic for them to do so.

You appear to be more concerned about accusing BT of a criminal offence whilst sticking your head in the sand and doing nothing to solve your problems. My advice to you would be to forget about BT entirely and look to BARN and other self help groups as your model and get down and do something positive to help yourselves.

In reply to a post by MCM:

You clearly fail to understand that there are other suppliers and that BT owes you nothing. Why do you think that Vodafone, VM, etc aren't able to supply you? I'll give you a clue it is nothing to do with unbundling, it is simply that it is uneconomic for them to do so.

You appear to be more concerned about accusing BT of a criminal offence whilst sticking your head in the sand and doing nothing to solve your problems. My advice to you would be to forget about BT entirely and look to BARN and other self help groups as your model and get down and do something positive to help yourselves.

Rather a rant, probably because of your embarrassment about your previous response, but I will answer anyway. Our approach was largely based on the BARN model, but the key differences are that (1) BARN has huge backhaul capacity over the dark fibre (now owned by Zayo) that was laid with the Transco gas pipeline down the M6 corridor some years ago - back haul that doesn't exist in the Highlands (so "forgetting BT" isn't an option when I've already explained that BT has a monopoly on the island and across much of the Highlands), and (2) BARN's strategy is based on a village-by-village incremental build, with each 'wannabee' centre of population raising the cost of extending their trunk fibre... a model that doesn't work for sparse populations that have no easy option as regards backhaul.

Two formal consultation processes identified that no communications provider had any plans whatsoever to bid for State aid under the 2016 National Broadband Scheme to provide superfast broadband within the next three years.

So, we did indeed help ourselves. We produced a viable business plan to connect 800 premises across North Skye with an ultrafast FTTP fibre network that will break even with no debt after about 10 years, but commercial lenders weren't interested in such a timescale, and although we designed a showcase pilot/demonstrator project to connect 50 premises using �200,000 (around £170,000) of "de minimis" grant aid from HIE, as I previously mentioned this was withdrawn without any notice in January this year because of the commencement of the R100 procurement process. We had already hosted civil construction companies in a visit to the project area to quote for directional drilling (etc.) necessary for our build plan, and we had reached a firm agreement with a commercial partner based in Manchester to handle billing administration and first-line support. We were almost ready to go, despite having identified that only 400Mbps of capacity is available from the Dunvegan exchange for our backhaul, even though millions of pounds of public subsidy was given to BT to provide the BT-HIE Seg1.15 submarine fibre cable from Dunvegan to Carnan (South Uist).

Oops, there I go criticising BT penny-pinching in rural areas again...

Does that count as doing something positive to help ourselves? With no backhaul, no funding, nor any route to funding for at least a year, do you have any (sensible) suggestions?

You clearly have problems but I cannot for the life of me see how BT was in any way responsible for your loss of HIE grant.

As for my earlier replies to your various rants being embarrassing, not at all, what I do find embarrassing is your repeated and continued attempts to blame BT for all your woes. Why not have a go at VM and ask why they aren't prepared to provide you with the service you want, or Vodafone, or Hyperoptic or Gigaclear... You clearly don't like BT, there's nothing wrong it that, but direct your angst at those responsible and in your case it isn't BT.

I merely pointed out that BT continues to abuse its monopoly position in rural areas where other commercial providers have no presence, and that this situation could and should have been remedied years ago, in the way that NZ Telecom was stripped of its similar role to BT seven years ago and replaced by Crown Fibre Holdings, which is wholly owned by the NZ government.

Ofcom doesn't have the will to do the same here, and it is Openreach Limited that ought to be prosecuted, especially as last year it advised an investigator from Companies House that it wasn't responsible for its web site. That claim was subsequently proven to be completely untrue by an affidavit provided by BT's solicitors and consequently the Companies House investigation has been re-opened.

I don't "blame" BT for anything, I'm simply pointing out why the present problems exist, and I've just seen that its share price fell another 10% today because of market concern about its future. Luckily, I sold all my BT shares when they passed £4.90 each! One analyst pointed out that the UK lags well behind other European countries in respect of FTTP connections, and indeed the UK trails in last place in the table of over 30 OECD countries in this respect. I do blame BT for its contribution to that situation, and the markets appear to agree. Unfortunately, rural areas are without a doubt going to remain disproportionately disadvantaged by this mess and you can forget 5G outside metropolitan areas for decades to come, because 5G needs extensive fibre backhaul that simply doesn't yet exist across much of the UK.

Like I said, Openreach and BT are a shambles: let's wait and see what happens, but I'm not holding my breath!

I've found this thread very informative about subject areas I know little about, but I do have a question on the subject.

When the BTGroup (or whatever it's naming was at the time) was floated on the stock market, did it have certain criteria/responsibilities/obligations as per other State to Public infrastructure type companies have had in the past?
For instance, was it obliged to still provide a telephone service and possibly broadband to areas that were not neccesarily profitable to do so?

I'm starting to wonder if the telephone voice service may have been that obligation but not Broadband? Although I'm not sure of the timeline vs Broadband technology vs BT being sold..

Hi Vorlon,

Yes, Ofcom introduced a "Universal Service Obligation" or "USO" which, although it doesn't (yet) apply to broadband services, is surprisingly complex... you can read a summary of the USO on the Ofcom web site at https://www.ofcom.org.uk/consultations-and-statement....

There is presently a lot of discussion about having a broadband USO, but don't get your hopes up... those living in areas where they cannot get a broadband connection above a certain speed - likely to be 2 Mbps but possibly up to 10 Mbps - will get a voucher for the installation of a satellite connection, BUT the tariffs for these services are very expensive and have relatively small monthly quotas - if you are a gamer, the latency of the connection is huge and this makes most online games unplayable. So it's a question of how desperate you are to get connected and a satellite broadband service isn't really a practical solution for most people. All of the businesses (five in total) located in our pilot/demonstrator project area have satellite connections and they are all desperate to get rid of them as they are so expensive.

Edited by deleted (Thu 10-May-18 22:40:08)

Wow - so you have decided ahead of Ofcom announcing how the USO will work that it will a hand out of vouchers for a satellite connection.

I guess the firms doing things like 4G, TV white space, wireless and rural full fibre are going to be very upset.

If Scottish Government delivers on R100 though the USO should be irrelevant for Isle of Skye

FTTP may be the way to go but then look at how few are prepared to pay for more than the bare minimum of speeds and ask yourself who is to pay for this infrastructure.

As for BT being in a monopoly position that is only because no other provider is prepared to suffer the losses. BT is not a monopoly however much you may want to think that it is but it appears that you are unable to accept any other view other than your own however wrong or misguided that might be. Rather than moan about how BT has let you down complain instead to your MSP on how the Scottish Assembly reneged on their agreement to fund your upgrades.

In reply to a post by MCM:

FTTP may be the way to go but then look at how few are prepared to pay for more than the bare minimum of speeds and ask yourself who is to pay for this infrastructure.

As for BT being in a monopoly position that is only because no other provider is prepared to suffer the losses. BT is not a monopoly however much you may want to think that it is but it appears that you are unable to accept any other view other than your own however wrong or misguided that might be. Rather than moan about how BT has let you down complain instead to your MSP on how the Scottish Assembly reneged on their agreement to fund your upgrades.

MCM, I've read this thread with interest as it a subject I know little about in the specific details.
However I do "Understand" some of the criticism towards BT in as much as Todays BT Group was borne of the ashes of the GPO and hence the incumbent for decades. I suppose you could argue that decisions made back then still impact on some infrastucture issues today, however I do understand that Broadband wasn't quite a glint in BT's eye, particularly in 1984.

I'd like to think though that there are mechanisms in place for rural/remote areas to request broadband via Fibre.

I wonder that by the time some of these areas can be catered for via Fibre that 4/5G allowances will be much greater and prices cheaper.

In reply to a post by MCM:

FTTP may be the way to go but then look at how few are prepared to pay for more than the bare minimum of speeds and ask yourself who is to pay for this infrastructure.

As for BT being in a monopoly position that is only because no other provider is prepared to suffer the losses. BT is not a monopoly however much you may want to think that it is but it appears that you are unable to accept any other view other than your own however wrong or misguided that might be. Rather than moan about how BT has let you down complain instead to your MSP on how the Scottish Assembly reneged on their agreement to fund your upgrades.

Now you've got me puzzled... BT owns and operates all of the infrastructure on Skye and across most of the Highlands, and it was awarded a contract by HIE (the Scottish Assembly was proposed in 1978 by the then Labour UK government but it never came into being) in 2013 that provided over £126m of State aid to BT for the roll-out of superfast broadband in the Highlands and Islands. No other provider got a penny, so you don't regard BT as having a monopoly in this region? Hmmm... I guess we should be grateful for the ADSLMax that BT officially regards as having been obsolete for many years. Not. And many people on the island can't get broadband at all. I can't understand why you think I am unable to accept any other view than my own because all I'm doing is relating facts and explanations, not views nor moans - if you want to challenge any of those facts as wrong or misguided, please feel free to do so.

The business plan that I referred to in my last post was worked out on a cost of £25 plus VAT per calendar month for full FTTP (i.e. not GPON), thus capable of delivering 1Gbps symmetrical, as the basic service - the same service delivered by B4RN for the same cost although, as explained, Openreach presently can't provide more than 400 Mbps from the Dunvegan exchange!

May I suggest that you check the meaning of "monopoly" as you don't appear to understand the meaning of the word. BT is not a monopoly however I agree that it is the sole supplier in a number of areas, primarily those where other operators believe there is no expectation of seeing a return on their investment. However there is nothing whatsoever, other than having a pile of cash, preventing any other company that might wish to do so from installing infrastructure in Skye or elsewhere.

I understand your frustration but you are directing it at the wrong people/company. You now seem to be blaming BT for only have 400Mbps available from the Dunvegan exchange but BT isn't the only potential supplier of a connection. I'm guessing you are discounting alternatives because they would be too expensive whilst at the same time wanting BT to provide a link that is probably likely to give an unacceptable ROI. As for BT having received state aid this will or should have been, strictly audited with all monies spent supported by invoices for work done with claw back where take up exceeded that assumed in the contracts. If there weren't sufficient funds to meet all demands then that isn't the fault of BT.

Rural and remote communities need help to obtain acceptable broadband but that's not BT's responsibility but rather government be it in Westminster, Holyrood or Cardiff. It's hardly BT's fault that it was the only company that proceeded to tender for phase 1 BDUK projects. That's changed, at least in England, where other companies are tendering for and winning infill projects. Hopefully the same will be true in Scotland with R100 and the like.

In reply to a post by NorthSkye:

as explained, Openreach presently can't provide more than 400 Mbps from the Dunvegan exchange!

As an aside, I assume you actually mean BTWholesale here; as the only network operator in that exchange? It sounds like you were quoted what capacity they could provide on their existing back-haul. (Given OR only sell access circuits at ethernet rates i.e.10/100/1G/10G)

You can reach Dunvegan with an EAD from Portree, if that's where you need to be. From there its simple to get back to Glasgow or Inverness.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Wow - so you have decided ahead of Ofcom announcing how the USO will work that it will a hand out of vouchers for a satellite connection.

I guess the firms doing things like 4G, TV white space, wireless and rural full fibre are going to be very upset.

If Scottish Government delivers on R100 though the USO should be irrelevant for Isle of Skye

Andrew, HIE gave us a presentation in 2016 trying to "sell" a wireless approach... their technical advice came from a retained consultant who wasn't interested in anything that wasn't connected to an aerial. We pointed out that (1) even their own financial analysis showed that such a scheme provided insufficient revenue for any subsequent technical refresh whatsoever, so it certainly failed the "future-proof" test in the NBS2016; (2) the harsh environment on Skye mitigates against wireless schemes, as borne out by many instances of wind, storm, and corrosion damage to exposed telecoms infrastructure in the region; and (3) their retained consultant hadn't even checked any of his technical assumptions prior to the presentation, e.g. his claim that EAD10 circuits weren't available from the Portree exchange (they were, I had an e-mail from Openreach's senior products manager in Fibre Services, dated five months previously and confirming this). And so on. We've since discovered that the predominantly wireless "Connected Communities" scheme on the Western Isles had operating costs alone of over £450k in 2016/17, much of which we understand is being underwritten from public funds!

I appreciate that you were being less than 100% serious, but we've gone on record as saying that, in our view, R100 won't deliver to the hardest-to-reach areas because it's just "more of the same", being procured under NBS2016, with the aforementioned voucher offer for satellite connections where alternatives are still too expensive to provide and a broadband connection is requested (my emphasis). NBS2016 hasn't worked for those areas before now, and given that at least six VDSL/VDSL2 cabinets would be needed to provide adequate superfast broadband for the population in the Glendale area of Skye alone, I'll bet that there won't be more than three financed by R100 and thus there will STILL be many local people without any access to broadband thereafter. Hence why we believe that the B4RN "Third Sector" model has a role in truly reaching 100% of the population, but as already stated, not-for-profits cannot be funded via NBS2016.

In February 2016 the German Federal Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, Alexander Dobrindt, was saying that "... financial support must only be given for the roll-out of glass fibre [optical] networks". Frankly, anything spent otherwise is, in the long term, a waste of money, not least because it's widely accepted that 5G needs fibre backhaul. Skye only had patchy 2G coverage until a few months ago, and the arrival of 4G only occurred because the UK Government started heavily subsidising 4G masts to fill huge coverage gaps for ECN - the years-late replacement for the TETRA trunked digital emergency services network... and EE/BT got that contract, too. We are aware of a different mobile provider who needs to build more masts in rural areas as a condition of their licence and wanted us to provide fibre backhaul simply because it presently doesn't exist - yet SSE are upgrading their HV electricity network all the way from Fort Augustus to Dunvegan but won't be taking fibre along the route because "there's no demand".

Doh! The Highland Region is bigger than Belgium and our Council offices are 124 miles away, but despite broadband being regarded by many as the "third utility", there's still no strategic plan to provide it to those communities that need it most.

The information came from a consultant using his associated reseller's Openreach information and ordering systems... it would have been provided via an EAD 1G access circuit but, as mentioned elsewhere, with £28k ECCs to a building 100m from the Dunvegan exchange! So I guess your information explains the ECCs.

In reply to a post by NorthSkye:

The information came from a consultant using his associated reseller's Openreach information and ordering systems... it would have been provided via an EAD 1G access circuit but, as mentioned elsewhere, with £28k ECCs to a building 100m from the Dunvegan exchange! So I guess your information explains the ECCs.

Makes sense, would have been an EAD1G to a BTW MSAN node then, where the suggestion is that they have 400Mb left available on their back-haul to their nearest Core Node.

Did a survey ever get done for the EAD to identify those costs?
There's fibre to a few buildings near the exchange, fibre node nearby, No ECCs expected by desktop estimate.

Appreciate there are other hurdles to your plans per your posts, but happy to discuss options offline if there's interest. feel free to PM.

Edited by Blmcg (Fri 11-May-18 02:46:52)

In reply to a post by MCM:

May I suggest that you check the meaning of "monopoly" as you don't appear to understand the meaning of the word. BT is not a monopoly however I agree that it is the sole supplier in a number of areas, primarily those where other operators believe there is no expectation of seeing a return on their investment. However there is nothing whatsoever, other than having a pile of cash, preventing any other company that might wish to do so from installing infrastructure in Skye or elsewhere.

We're into semantics here, I should have said "effective monopoly". The nearest unbundled exchange is, I think, in Inverness, well over 100 miles away. Please don't claim that Openreach is independent of BT. It isn't, and never will be. Please see previous posts about how clueless Openreach Limited is, its failure to fulfil its legal obligations under the Companies Act 2006, and the fact that its company solicitors are BT Legal in Sheffield, who are well aware of its non-compliance and confirmed in writing in November 2017 that they advised their client accordingly!

It was a pyrrhic victory, but we wrote to Openreach some while ago advising them that we would not be going through their "customer establishment" process because they had failed our supplier "due diligence" procedures due to their criminal conduct by failing to provide statutory trading disclosure information...

A post from ignition on kitz is something I agree with.

It was something along the lines of that either FTTP should have been state sponsored(owned), or the telco should have been given a free reign to rollout without restraints.

Instead we have something in the middle with a telco expected to fund it by itself whilst in handcuffs.

We need to stop protecting LLU, allow BT to remove copper in areas it rolls out FTTP, remove price controls on openreach, and give BT a guarantee that for X years FTTP will not be regulated in any shape or form price wise. Any regulation in my opinion should be consumer side only, e.g. enforce 6 month contracts been available, cap install fees paid by consumers, that sort of thing.

In reply to a post by Blmcg:

Did a survey ever get done for the EAD to identify those costs?
There's fibre to a few buildings near the exchange, fibre node nearby, No ECCs expected by desktop estimate.

Thanks for the offer, but our de minimis funding from HIE has evaporated. Yes, a survey was undertaken, in fact two were done... the first survey report was based on the Openreach engineer thinking that we wanted an EAD 1G circuit between the community hall in Dunvegan and the general stores a few yards away, when in fact what we had in reality advised them - in writing - was that the latter was an alternative if the community hall was unsuitable for any reason!! Communications, eh?

Here lies the reality Isle of Skye is at the extreme end of rural and with a population of around 11,000 people it is a very small blip in the data

Harsh but that is the reality i.e. to get what you want you need to somehow make the case that your 11,000 people are a lot more important than 11,000 cheaper to supply people on the mainland.