BT offer Full Fibre in parallel to another FullFibre ISP

The postcode EX10 9DH is covered by https://jurassic-fibre.com, they are live for this postcode, for certain other areas of Sidmouth/Devon, they're still building it by digging up the roads.

How come that BT sends offers of Full Fibre 900 to people in this postcode? I always thought that only one ISP puts fibre cables in the ground.

Is this overbuilding? Really?

Some areas have 4 different FTTP providers. They are all private companies and there is nothing stopping any private company putting in services even if there is already a service there - free market and consumer choice.

Wow, that postcode is close to me! We also have Openreach, Airband and Jurassic Fibre building in Newton Poppleford, so yes this is normal, unfortunately!

In reply to a post by ian72:

Some areas have 4 different FTTP providers. They are all private companies and there is nothing stopping any private company putting in services even if there is already a service there - free market and consumer choice.

By the end of 2025 I should have a choice for 3 other FTTP provider as well as Openreach if all their planned build outs come to fruition. So far 2 have already run ducting to the top on my road.

In reply to a post by mHm:

How come that BT sends offers of Full Fibre 900 to people in this postcode? I always thought that only one ISP puts fibre cables in the ground.

Is this overbuilding? Really?

Overbuilding based on business realities. Let us say that you are BT and have lots of customers in an FTTC area for VDSL and ADSL services. You are also making money from other ISPs using the Openreach infrastructure to get their versions of VDSL or ADSL to the end customer. Along comes an AltNet offering FTTP and looking to take all of those VDSL/ADSL customers off your network substantially reducing your income. The only way you can mitigate that loss of customers is to give the same offering of FTTP (either through BT or sub-contracting ISP) as the AltNet is providing. That maintains the BT income stream in an area where there is competition. If there is no FTTP competition, BT have a "guaranteed" income stream from the VDSL/ADSL service which will not markedly change if they spend money in putting in FTTP. There is no commercial imperative to use their resources doing that when they can be defending their business by overbuilding.

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

In reply to a post by mHm:

How come that BT sends offers of Full Fibre 900 to people in this postcode? I always thought that only one ISP puts fibre cables in the ground.

Is this overbuilding? Really?

Overbuilding based on business realities. Let us say that you are BT ............. defending their business by overbuilding.

I do understand the business case, but struggle a bit with accepting the waste of resources, including public money that must have gone into delivering FullFibre to these remote towns and even smaller groups of houses. No doubt subsidising is the right thing to do. CDS (https://www.connectingdevonandsomerset.co.uk) has an appalling history and BDUK (Broadband Delivery UK) doesn't seem to know whether they should rename itself once in a while and appoint new chairs etc or actually work on Broadband Delivery. But let's not get too deep into the politics.

If an AltNet (like Jurassic Fibre in this case) builds with substantial investment, and then Openreach throws all their much bigger resources at the same pool of target households (by overbuilding) the AltNet wouldn't stand a chance. I have seen these discussion over and over again, people have never heard the name of "Jurassic Fibre", limited or no trust in the brand, so they book what they know which is BT. This includes being ripped off on price, but let's ignore this for the moment.

As for Airband, I have seen their marketing teams targeting areas near Axminster/Devon. BIG promises, but once you look at details, you realise that they only resell Openreach's VDSL, not their own FullFibre which is only available in few locations.

Are we sure there is no behind-the-scenes fibre cable sharing, even between arch rivals like OpenReach and Jurassic Fibre? I have seen the Jurassic branded cabling teams working here for many many months, but never similar teams of OpenReach.

In reply to a post by mHm:

If an AltNet (like Jurassic Fibre in this case) builds with substantial investment, and then Openreach throws all their much bigger resources at the same pool of target households (by overbuilding) the AltNet wouldn't stand a chance. I have seen these discussion over and over again, people have never heard the name of "Jurassic Fibre", limited or no trust in the brand, so they book what they know which is BT. This includes being ripped off on price, but let's ignore this for the moment.

I'm not too sure about that. A lot of people in Sidmouth have signed up to Jurassic Fibre because they got there before Openreach did, which until recently, had only VDSL available to 99% of postcodes there.

In reply to a post by mHm:

As for Airband, I have seen their marketing teams targeting areas near Axminster/Devon. BIG promises, but once you look at details, you realise that they only resell Openreach's VDSL, not their own FullFibre which is only available in few locations.

Airband are only building their FTTP network in this area.

In reply to a post by mHm:

Are we sure there is no behind-the-scenes fibre cable sharing, even between arch rivals like OpenReach and Jurassic Fibre? I have seen the Jurassic branded cabling teams working here for many many months, but never similar teams of OpenReach.

No, the only sharing they do is through PIA which is limited to poles and ducts only, not actual fibre, they use completely separate fibre cables.

In reply to a post by mHm:

I do understand the business case, but struggle a bit with accepting the waste of resources, including public money that must have gone into delivering FullFibre to these remote towns and even smaller groups of houses. No doubt subsidising is the right thing to do.

Public money/subsidies aren't available anywhere that already has access to full fibre or anywhere that has commercial plans for it.

The system is set up in such a way that only those areas with no access to faster broadband should have access to public funds.
Though there's nothing to stop a commercial operator spending their own money on an area after it has received public funds which does happen.
More often than not this happens when Openreach say they have no plans, an Alt-Net claims public funds, starts a build, then Openreach decide it is commercially viable after all.

Some rural areas will require public funds to bring a single network.
On the flip side some urban areas are densely populated enough to maintain 3 or 4 different networks.

Jurassic fibre almost certainly used their own money to deploy to you and Openreach will have done the same.

Are we sure there is no behind-the-scenes fibre cable sharing, even between arch rivals like OpenReach and Jurassic Fibre? I have seen the Jurassic branded cabling teams working here for many many months, but never similar teams of OpenReach.

No sharing of fibre or other infrastructure between Openreach and Alt-Nets. Only ducts and poles.

Edited by j0hn83 (Tue 07-Feb-23 10:56:35)

I think it is a mistake to think that BT as the nation's 'flag carrier' telco will not have a UK wide fibre access network.

Maybe a mistake that many altnets have made thinking it was going to be easy money. To be fair Jurassic are ultimately owned by Octopus Investments who probably have more money to burn than BT.

The most interesting thing in this particular case was now this:

BT offered the Full Fibre service for just £1 more, for a new monthly price of £34.
It turns out that this ONLY means that they put you on a waiting list, absolutely no commitment whatsoever when they would install FullFibre 900.

I also find it unfair that BT now calls all broadband packages Full Fibre, we all know that only services above VDSL speeds (i.e. 70 Mb) are real FTTP services.