Alt.nets v. BT

A discussion on TheRegister forums has lead me to wonder how many times BT has actually 'gazumped' an Alt.net by installing FTTP (or even FTTC) after the Alt.net has committed to upgrading the area.

Have there been (m)any cases of this actually happening?

0.19% of UK premises have Openreach and another full fibre provider, the majority being Hyperoptic and Openreach both in new build apartments or Virgin Media on new estates.

Given specific locations can be more specific and that is the fun part of most of these debates, the veracity is greater than the reality.

Ah but is that because Alt.Nets keep having to give up and abandon projects when BT arrives (as quite a few people claim)?

I'm sure I've heard of one or two cases where that has happened but I've always assumed it's pretty unusual and probably the result of miscommunication rather than BT trying to prevent Alt.Nets from setting up.

Look at Woolhampton and it�s environs in Berkshire ....

Openreach had done FTTC, but Gigaclear have come along with FTTP....

It�s a CP eat CP world out there.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

0.19% of UK premises have Openreach and another full fibre provider, the majority being Hyperoptic and Openreach both in new build apartments or Virgin Media on new estates.

Given specific locations can be more specific and that is the fun part of most of these debates, the veracity is greater than the reality.

The % of fibre enabled premises that have double provision might be the more interesting figure here.

@Andrue: I'm sure Ofcom would start getting interested if BT deliberately targeted alt nets but general overlap is inevitable and not inherently sinister.

The % is 0.19% where one is Openreach as stated above.

Also have this at local authority/constituency levels

Not just Ofcom but clear targeting like this is a gift for press coverage as saying things bad about big corporations is always going to get plenty of coverage

Possibly happening and people give up,

BUT

With many altnet projects there is often one key person driving it forward and its easy for things to not happen for many reasons

Needs people to say the places concerned to be able to say more, otherwise just sits in the gossip folder

Not being pedantic Andrew but you said:

"0.19% of UK premises have Openreach and another full fibre provider"

There is clearly a diff between:

the % premises that have OR + another

And

the % of fib premises that have OR + another

In so far as we can see more easily what the degree of overlaps and therefore competition is.

Aha % of fibre enabled premises...

Knowing uk fibre coverage is 7.33% lets you work that out...though might be 7.34% or higher tomorrow and overlap may change as new build home 30tracking keeps changing it.

2.6% of fib premises that have OR + another and if you remove Hyperoptic and Virgin Media it will look even smaller

In terms of absolute numbers looking at 57,000

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Aha % of fibre enabled premises...

Knowing uk fibre coverage is 7.33% lets you work that out...though might be 7.34% or higher tomorrow and overlap may change as new build home 30tracking keeps changing it.

2.6% of fib premises that have OR + another and if you remove Hyperoptic and Virgin Media it will look even smaller

In terms of absolute numbers looking at 57,000

Thanks thats what I meant. Its quite hard finding the numbers for those comparisons.

To add some numbers to the new build overlap i.e. new homes with two or more FTTP where one is Openreach

2018 UK wide this was around 12,000 premises
2017 9000 premises
2016 6700 premises
2015 3700 premises
2014 3700 premises

So new build makes up 35,100 of the overlap. So impact on alt-nets once outside the competitive new build arena is smaller than original numbers and hence why I don't bang about it apart from talking about the new build picture.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

2.6% of fib premises that have OR + another and if you remove Hyperoptic and Virgin Media it will look even smaller

In other words - a very low amount of overbuild.

The original question though was whether an altnet had planned to come to an area, and then changed their mind after OR came along.

If the altnet had *publicly* committed to covering an area, and then *publicly* withdrew after OR announced or started building, then I think that would have raised a big stink. I don't remember seeing anything like this.

Many of the 'altnets' are owned or bankrolled by firms that are much larger than BT. Such as Gigaclear, Vodafone and CityFibre for example. Indeed CityFibre build has benefited from extensive State Aid.

These firms are owned by or bankrolled by big boys who are not strangled by regulation and should be able to withstand competition from smaller firms like BT and Virgin Media.

Edited by deleted (Fri 10-May-19 22:01:14)

According to the report regarding the release of BT's annual results in The Times published on 10/05/19, Philip Jansen, the new Chief Executive, quoted a historic figure of from £300 to £400 per premises for the delivery of FTTP. Openreach forecasts that it can complete about half UK premises, mostly in urban areas, within this range, More rural locations could cost ten times a much.

There is an edited version of the article behind The Times paywall at https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2019-05-10/.... However the edit has removed a lot of the detail (including the indicative costings) which was published in the printed version.

PS Don't shoot the messenger. "Premises" is exactly as per the wording of the printed article in The Times and is not my choice of words.

In reply to a post by partial:

Many of the 'altnets' are owned or bankrolled by firms that are much larger than BT. Such as Gigaclear, Vodafone and CityFibre for example. Indeed CityFibre build has benefited from extensive State Aid.

These firms are owned by or bankrolled by big boys who are not strangled by regulation and should be able to withstand competition from smaller firms like BT and Virgin Media.

Most is ott. Some certainly but many are small.

Not sure of the point?

I covered the ramp up of the ambition to 15 million and commitment change from 4m to 3m in news.

This thread is talking about overlap

Certainly I've seen cases where Openreach suddenly advance their timetables (by years) when fixed-wireless operators announce they are going to cover an area; or overbuild existing FWA networks which, whilst not classed as superfast due to opaque OMR assessments, provided more than adequate speeds.

In reply to a post by partial:

Indeed CityFibre build has benefited from extensive State Aid.

Do you have any further information on the 'extensive' state aid that CityFibre's FTTP build is receiving?

CityFibre certainly built metro networks with local authorities as anchor tenants but that's definitely not state aid.

Thanks.

Many of the 'small' altnets engage in restrictive practices such as OFNL and builder specific providers and lock out Openreach from new developments.

Virgin Media engage in this lock out too. This restricts choice for residents and is probably the most anti-competitive practice in Telecoms today.

>>FWA networks which, whilst not classed as superfast due to opaque OMR assessments, provided more than adequate speeds.

I've known of FWA providers active in my locale that are too lazy to bother to engage with OMR assessments and are surprised when other providers come to the party.

I reckon 'more than adequate speeds' is down to the the market to decide rather than incumbent FWA providers.

No provider has the right to build on private property. Developers can and do choose the providers of all 4 utilities. Not being contacted to build isn't really being locked out. VM aren't in every development within their passed areas.

Nothing stopping Openreach or anyone else building once roads are adopted and become publicly maintainable.

I'm moving to a new build that is Openreach only. It's FTTP but due to the equipment in use offers lower data rates than Virgin Media or any alternative FTTP provider that I'm aware of.

New builds are a weird and woolly thing.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

I'm moving to a new build that is Openreach only. It's FTTP but due to the equipment in use offers lower data rates than Virgin Media or any alternative FTTP provider that I'm aware of.

Can you describe this further? And can you show the output of the dslchecker for your property?

I've never heard of Openreach doing any sort of FTTP other than their standard FTTP build, and it seems very unlikely they would build something intentionally crippled.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

I'm moving to a new build that is Openreach only. It's FTTP but due to the equipment in use offers lower data rates than Virgin Media or any alternative FTTP provider that I'm aware of.

Can you describe this further? And can you show the output of the dslchecker for your property?

I've never heard of Openreach doing any sort of FTTP other than their standard FTTP build, and it seems very unlikely they would build something intentionally crippled.

Not recently at least. Whatever happened to the fibre built in the late 90s (Cambridge area?) where the residents petitioned to have copper overlay so that they could benefit from ADSL?

Virgin are now offering upto 500Mbits and most other FTTP providers offer gigabit services. Many openreach FTTP areas are limited to the 330Mbps service still.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Can you describe this further? And can you show the output of the dslchecker for your property?

I've never heard of Openreach doing any sort of FTTP other than their standard FTTP build, and it seems very unlikely they would build something intentionally crippled.

ECI OLTs. Openreach have no intention of decommissioning them any time soon. They only have gigabit CableLink capability so, despite being GPON facing the home or business, they are restricted by this.

Openreach do not sell above 330Mb on them for this reason.

Openreach provided specifications, ECI delivered equipment to them. Those specifications evidently didn't include 10G ports.

The TPON - still ongoing

Some now have VDSL2, some now have FTTP, some now have ADSL2+ a very small number may still be as they were

What IgnitionNet is referring to is the ECI areas with 330 Mbps maximum service on FTTP

NOTE:

Not all new build roads get adopted - e.g. gated community dev's with private roads

The move to builder owned/run alt-nets is interesting and not impressed at all about lack of hard information they give, other than a nice bit of PR fluff.

In most cases there is likely to be a lock in of some sort, e.g. no satellite or TV aerials, so in early years while road is not adopted the builder will be the only option other than mobile.

The length of time before a road gets adopted will vary but on an estate of several phases it may not happen until last property is done and council is happy with the standard of road build and paperwork done at which point code powers kick in and others can roll-out if they want to.

Preaching to the converted on that one. You know better than most the issues around our current property with both broadband and telephony.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

ECI OLTs. Openreach have no intention of decommissioning them any time soon. They only have gigabit CableLink capability so, despite being GPON facing the home or business, they are restricted by this.

Openreach do not sell above 330Mb on them for this reason.

Openreach provided specifications, ECI delivered equipment to them. Those specifications evidently didn't include 10G ports.

Yeah slightly mind boggling why Openreach opted for ECI rather than Huawei hardware in some cases on their FTTP rollout. But in reality, the average Joe Bloggs won't require more than 330 Mbps on FTTP for many many years yet (I'd say at least a decade) so its a bit of a non-issue for the majority of users on ECI FTTP kit at present.

Agreed, however I'm not Joe Bloggs so reserve the right to be irritated I am moving from a hybrid network to full fibre and can't purchase the same tiers.

Sometimes the local authorities won't adopt a new build estate for financial reasons. Mine has block paved roads and the authorities have decided it could become too costly to maintain so won't adopt it.

In reply to a post by simon194:

Sometimes the local authorities won't adopt a new build estate for financial reasons. Mine has block paved roads and the authorities have decided it could become too costly to maintain so won't adopt it.

After Virgin Media's experience network builders probably wouldn't be wanting to go near a block paved road anyway, sadly

Openreach nearly cost me my house because there was a delay in getting the duct work done which meant the developer couldn't lay the road and I was getting towards the end date of my mortgage offer. Luckily my FA managed to get a 2 week extension on the offer.

Back in 2004 when FTTP was first being looked at by BT ECI was one of the only suppliers to meet the technical requirements BUT 10G ports were not even available on the edge routers then! ( Just coming in on Core routers) People forget how fast technology has moved on.

BT wanted it for new builds that were a long way from the exchange ( No FTTC then) but didn't start building FTTP then as OFTEL wouldn't agree to no LLU so BT would have had to do copper as well. Ebbsfleet (New town) was the first area to get agreement to FTTP only but house building stalled during the recession in 2008/9.

Even in 2010 people were not foreseeing 1Gb to residential Premises being required so 10G ports were still not on the radar.

In reality it is only a select group of home workers that need 1G, those that are video editing, satellite mapping or dealing with very large databases. These are really business connections done on the cheap not residential that GPON FTTP was designed for. Most large offices still don't have 1G paths as most don't stream large quantities of HD ( or above) Video.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

ECI OLTs. Openreach have no intention of decommissioning them any time soon. They only have gigabit CableLink capability so, despite being GPON facing the home or business, they are restricted by this.

Openreach do not sell above 330Mb on them for this reason.

Openreach provided specifications, ECI delivered equipment to them. Those specifications evidently didn't include 10G ports.

Except all the evidence is that the 500Mbps and 1Gbps FTTP tiers are delivered using XGPON which requires replacing the GPON OLT anyway. This is the reason that has been given for the £500 installation fee in the past. So the fact that your current service is delivered using a ECI OLT is entirely irrelevant.

All that said until the last couple of weeks availability outside specific geographic areas was none existent anyway as no ISP was selling speeds higher than 330Mbps nationally. Even now the costs are eye wateringly high, but I would be highly surprised if they are not already available higher speeds become available soon.

Nope.
500Mb and 1Gb services are delivered over GPON, until capacity is reached.
Only then are XG-PON upgrades done.

The £500 install fee is banked until upgrades are required.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

Nope.
500Mb and 1Gb services are delivered over GPON, until capacity is reached.
Only then are XG-PON upgrades done.

The £500 install fee is banked until upgrades are required.

What John said - thanks man. You can regrade to 1G and move to it instantly - no upgrade to the GPON-only ONT in your home.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

No provider has the right to build on private property.

Telecoms providers can provide for access using Code powers.

Which covers the public highway and not a private road/land

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

Telecoms providers can provide for access using Code powers.

If they go to court to get it of course, which is likely unrealistic. They have no right to build on private property without court permission, only to seek access through the legal system.

In the event that agreement cannot be reached with the owner or occupier of private land, the Code allows an operator to apply to the Court to impose an agreement which confers the Code right being sought or for the Code right to bind the landowner or occupier.