How often does BT overbuild on other providers?

Hi I’m just wondering if BT has a habit of overbuilding on other FTTP providers or not.

Reason I ask is a few weeks ago I saw and spoke to a virgin engineer who said they were installing full fibre on our estates as they were pulling cable through the ducts etc but then yesterday I saw about 4 BT vans all pulled up round the area walking round etc which is a lot more than there is usually when they are just doing a bit of work on one of the cabinets.

Also all this started a month after I signed up and got Starlink after been left in the slow lane for so long. When it rains it pours 😂

Yes they do, all the time.

They are probably more likely to roll out to an area with another FTTP provider than to an area with only their own FTTC available.

there will be a reason why this is being done , what it asked for by a community , its it being covered by a commercial programme or is openreach doing for another provider under PIA -- , nothing is ever black and white

what utter rubbish and disinformation why would you overbuild something you have not made any return on -- - clearly someone with no understanding of the Openreach commercial case or its lead time to build and determine its roll out

dont beleive all the hard done by nasty BT and nasty openreach which is peddalled as fact on a number of forums

there is an example in ascot where tooli , Zzzzooom and gigaclear are all building the same area and premises

Can you repeat that in English?

Edit: i just can't get what your point is.

You say my comment is utter rubbish, then agree with it with examples of other providers overbuilding each other.

why would you overbuild something you have not made any return on

Return on what? Their own FTTC?

If OpenReach roll out FTTP to an area with no competition, only their own FTTC available, then they are only competing with themselves.

OpenReach would only make a small amount of increased revenue from each customer who takes FTTP.
Everyone's already an OpenReach customer.

In an area with an Alt-Net OpenReach are competing for customers.
Each customer who comes from another network to OpenReach FTTP makes more profit/revenue for OpenReach than from customers upgrading from FTTC.

The financial case for OpenReach rolling out FTTP is greater in areas with a competing provider.
Nothing to do with big bad OpenReach or whatever you meant above.

Edited by j0hn83 (Wed 26-May-21 14:23:18)

In reply to a post by Fastman3:

clearly someone with no understanding of the Openreach commercial case or its lead time to build and determine its roll out

Let's think about commercial cases then. If there is an area served by OR FTTC which then becomes part of the plan for another operator's FTTP service what will be the reaction of the customers for internet services in that area? A proportion will move away from FTTC service to take advantage of the benefits of the FTTP service. The net result is that BT OR's customers (the ISPs) will either migrate such customers to the new FTTP platform or lose such customers to another ISP supplying the FTTP. Either way BT will lose the revenue from the wholesale charges they levy for that traffic. Therefore there is a commercial case, not built on additional revenue as would normally be the case but built on protection of existing revenue.

Now let's think about an area where there is OR FTTC and no plans for any incursion by an FTTP provider. There is no commercial case to be made for BT to invest in supplying FTTP as they will not gain any customers, only see a switch in mode by customers to FTTP vice FTTC. If OfCOM have the charging regime correctly calculated the net revenue for BT will not rise because of this change of mode. Therefore there is no commercial case for BT to invest in FTTP where there is no competition.

Is this how you understand commercial cases to work or do you have some other commercial interpretation rather than a comparison of benefits and losses against investment? The only reasons for BT to invest in FTTP where there is no direct competition is if they are being paid or are under political pressure to create the infrastructure.

Edited by GonePostal (Wed 26-May-21 12:07:50)

Exactly this comment ^^^

Somewhat matches my edit above.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

Exactly this comment ^^^

Somewhat matches my edit above.

Both typing at the same time to try and introduce some commercial reality to the conversation!

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

Now let's think about an area where there is OR FTTC and no plans for any incursion by an FTTP provider. There is no commercial case to be made for BT to invest in supplying FTTP as they will not gain any customers, only see a switch in mode by customers to FTTP vice FTTC. If OfCOM have the charging regime correctly calculated the net revenue for BT will not rise because of this change of mode. Therefore there is no commercial case for BT to invest in FTTP where there is no competition.

Exactly this. Whilst there is a small and vocal minority who want to take Ultrafast services, the vast majority do not; they want cheap and reliable (in that order).

I had enough trouble convincing my dad to upgrade from 8/1 ADSL to 40/10 FTTC, even with a cabinet just around the corner. He did in the end, when Talktalk made the FTTC price the same as ASDL. Previously it was something like £1 or £2 per month more expensive.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

In an area with an Alt-Net OpenReach are competing for customers.
Each customer who comes from another network to OpenReach FTTP makes more profit/revenue for OpenReach than from customers upgrading from FTTC.

What take up rate do Openreach need in an area to make rolling out FTTP to be economically viable?

Do you know if the vice versa would apply e.g. Jurassic Fibre overbuilding on Openreach?

In reply to a post by Grimers:

Do you know if the vice versa would apply e.g. Jurassic Fibre overbuilding on Openreach?

Cityfibre has built out in Milton Keynes, which had very good pre-existing Openreach FTTP coverage. They must have a viable business case for this.

Ultimately, the altnets compete on price. They cherry-pick the places which are cheapest to build, and wholesale at a lower rate than Openreach. Because Openreach's pricing is regulated they can't reduce it in response.

If a Cityfibre reseller like Vodafone can undercut BT or other Openreach-based providers by 50p per month, people will take it. From this point of view it doesn't really matter whether they are competing with Openreach FTTP or Openreach FTTC - although in areas where FTTC speeds are poor or non-existent, this does give a stronger incentive for people to take the altnet service.

Altnets who build in rural areas have a different business model, charge more, and have a higher risk from when Openreach comes along.

Gotcha, thanks for explaining.

In reply to a post by Robin1989:

Hi I’m just wondering if BT has a habit of overbuilding on other FTTP providers or not.

Reason I ask is a few weeks ago I saw and spoke to a virgin engineer who said they were installing full fibre on our estates as they were pulling cable through the ducts etc but then yesterday I saw about 4 BT vans all pulled up round the area walking round etc which is a lot more than there is usually when they are just doing a bit of work on one of the cabinets.

Also all this started a month after I signed up and got Starlink after been left in the slow lane for so long. When it rains it pours 😂

I assume you mean Openreach.

Yes of course they will overbuild. Surely you’d expect them to?

yeah, wouldnt surprise me once cityfibre have done Leicester, Openreach will suddenly find the area has a business case for FTTP.

Yes, another operator taking business from them would change the business case considerably

In reply to a post by _Icaras_:

In reply to a post by Robin1989:

I assume you mean Openreach.

Yes of course they will overbuild. Surely you’d expect them to?

I'm confused this is controversial. They'll overbuild whenever they think it makes sense. A third party rocking up to compete and take business from them often makes it make sense.

A couple of quid a month per household extra from building FTTP isn't a great business case. Preventing loss of 40%+ of revenue in an area by building it is a lot more persuasive.

People thinking this is predatory or even getting defensive over it is a little weird. It's just business.

The business case for FTTP is much lower manintance costs in the long run. Openreach has been very public about high expenditure of the copper system. Openreach biggest expenditure is maintenance.
Expect in the next 5-10 years about 80% of people doing work for Openreach not being needed. It the very resion why a lot people are having a very easy time get job with them at moment. They need people to make transfer over from copper to fibre to happen.
Also do not be suprise when Openreach just turns off all copper services to customer in time (PSTN/ISDN/ADSL/VDSL/etc).You will not have a choice but to have FTTP.

In reply to a post by amiga_dude:

The business case for FTTP is much lower manintance costs in the long run. Openreach has been very public about high expenditure of the copper system. Openreach biggest expenditure is maintenance.
Expect in the next 5-10 years about 80% of people doing work for Openreach not being needed. It the very resion why a lot people are having a very easy time get job with them at moment. They need people to make transfer over from copper to fibre to happen.
Also do not be suprise when Openreach just turns off all copper services to customer in time (PSTN/ISDN/ADSL/VDSL/etc).You will not have a choice but to have FTTP.

Did you mean to reply to witchunt? They know all this stuff already, as do most of us on here.

I also wouldn’t say it’s “easy” to get a job with Openreach. Yes they’re advertising lots of jobs, but they’re also having a huge amount of applicants.

Yes indeed. Keeping two platforms, for duplicate services, running burns a bunch of cash and wastes a ton of resources.

Every subscriber that they move off firstly PSTN then eventually off copper completely, the burning platform burns ever brighter - so once started they need to move from one to the other and decommission relatively quickly. WLR / PSTN sunset is set in stone, however the cost to keep parts of the copper network running for a diminishing subscriber base could be huge.

I doubt they will have any incentive to sweat the FTTC asset..

Expect if the 25 million FTTP premises by 2026 goes to plan they will sunset copper entirely this decade.

In reply to a post by witchunt:

Did you mean to reply to witchunt? They know all this stuff already, as do most of us on here.

I also wouldn’t say it’s “easy” to get a job with Openreach. Yes they’re advertising lots of jobs, but they’re also having a huge amount of applicants.

In reply to a post by witchunt:

Yes, another operator taking business from them would change the business case considerably

Yes because as it made sence to there comment.

That isn't there main business case, it is cost cutting in the long run. They also have other legal issues as they where the official incumbent telecom service provider.
There main business aims is not down to actions of rival supplers.

Any long time operating business does not increase their employes to 34756 with an extra 3350 in 2020 an increase of nearly 10% in a year. They have been public for 5300 jobs for 2021. To do that need to make some changes to make it happen.

https://www.openreach.com/about-us/our-performance/k...
https://inews.co.uk/news/business/bt-openreach-staff...

Edited by amiga_dude (Mon 31-May-21 15:28:12)