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How are Altnet ISP's able to offer relatively cheaper FTTP internet vs BT Wholesale based ISP's ... without the midyear RPI increases etc...?
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Good question.
I think this may be because BT are looking to maximize immediate profit, whereas altnets are looking to maximize their value as ongoing businesses.
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You forgot Ofcom in that equation! 😁
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Alnets don't have a long term survival plan, other than trying to build a limited market share and then consolidating.
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Altnets need to make a land grab before the oil state venture capital runs out, and competing on price is the decision they have made in order to achieve this.
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Altnets need to make a land grab before the oil state venture capital runs out, and competing on price is the decision they have made in order to achieve this.
Agreed, a quick return, then flog the lot to someone else.
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As stated , it’s a ploy to get customers signed up , chances are they lose money on every sign up , but if the price were not cheaper than the incumbent then their take up would be even worse than it is now.
Edited by Iniltous (Wed 29-May-24 14:12:47)
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The established big boys could afford to not do the annual RPI + x% increase, but they choose not to as a business decision.
I think the best answer I would give to your question is the companies are in different places in terms of their development.
BT, VM etc. are established big known brands who will want to maximise profit for their shareholders, the long contract lock in combined with these increases facilitates that.
Whilst someone like Yayzi, they will want to maximise growth, so will forego profit per user to try and achieve that. I agree with earlier replies many of the altnets seem to be planning to be flipped.
There is providers on the middle ground like AAISP, Acquiss and Idnet who wont increases prices during contract. (or in AAISPs case even out of contract), but they may have higher prices as a starting point.
Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 29-May-24 18:01:53)
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The established big boys could afford to not do the annual RPI + x% increase, but they choose not to as a business decision.
I think it's the other way round. The established big boys never did annual RPI + x% increases. But as soon as one did, the others had to follow.
This is because that formula distorts the price seen by the consumer at signup time: instead of saying "£27 per month" they can say "only £25 per month! (*)"
Once the increases are taken into account, the total paid by the consumer over the whole contract period is the same or higher. However the headline figure is what people use when comparing ISPs, perhaps (not unreasonably) expecting them to be a like-for-like comparison.
If the ISPs quoted the total cost over the contract period, that would be a fair comparison *and* encourage shorter contract terms. But sadly not.
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This is because that formula distorts the price seen by the consumer at signup time: instead of saying "£27 per month" they can say "only £25 per month! (*)"
Of course, this leaves a gap for an ISP to advertise "£26 per month, NO HIDDEN PRICE RISES!!"
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The Altnets are backed by monster venture capitalists and foreign sovereign wealth funds who were sucked in by the promise of easy money.
The promised demand failed to appear and so the Altnets are now scaling back build and selling at a loss in the hope that they can stimulate demand.
BT are prevented from selling at a loss by regulation designed to encourage investment by monster venture capitalists and foreign sovereign wealth funds.
Things were better under Labour.
Edited by FibreBubble (Wed 29-May-24 21:30:32)
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There's no ploy or strategy dictating why 1 is more expensive.
Quite simply as the incumbent monopoly, Openreach pricing (and in turn BT Wholesale pricing) is highly regulated by OFCOM.
Openreach have to run consultations and pretty much get OFCOM approval to lower their prices.
See here for example.
Alt-nets have to price aggressively to take customers away from the Openreach network. Openreach cannot lower prices to compete without jumping through hoops, which the Alt-nets try block through OFCOM.
Openreach's recent Equinox 2 pricing that was eventually approved lowered FTTP pricing a small amount, still nowhere near as low as many Alt-nets are selling to customers for.
It's why providers like Zen default to only offering Cityfibre in areas where both CF & OR FTTP are available.
OFCOM has significantly limited price restrictions on Openreach till 2031 (I think?) during the large scale FTTP rollout to encourage the rollout. They allowed Openreach to RAISE pricing on FTTP £1.70 more than it's copper equivalent.
So they could raise FTTP prices, but need to consult to lower them.
Edited by j0hn83 (Wed 29-May-24 22:44:32)
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How are Altnet ISP's able to offer relatively cheaper FTTP internet vs BT Wholesale based ISP's ... without the midyear RPI increases etc...?
Regulation. The RPI stuff is irrelevant but more widely a reasonably efficient third party must be able to undercut BT Business.
If Openreach and BT generally could charge as they pleased in these segments there would be no competition and we'd all end up paying more for less.
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Interestingly here, Zen refuse to sell CF.
So Zen as an example have a choice of selling me CF FTTP or OR FTTC, they only offer OR FTTC. This is for my entire FEX not just my individual address.
Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 29-May-24 22:35:37)
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Zen simply don't have a connection to your FEX yet. They aren't refusing to sell.
A provider like Zen might choose to wait until Cityfibre have "x" number of properties connected to their FEX before spending money making their services available from that area.
What I mentioned is only relevant where both CF & OR FTTP are available to an individual property. Zen only show CF FTTP packages online.
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Alnets don't have a long term survival plan, other than trying to build a limited market share and then consolidating. Which as I've said all along make the overlapping of cables rather silly. By the end of the year (supposedly) I my property will be passed by three cables. What's the betting that in five year's time there will only be two operators? And the street only ever needed one as long as it carried a wholesale service.
---
Andrue Cope
Brackley, UK
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Alnets don't have a long term survival plan, other than trying to build a limited market share and then consolidating. Which as I've said all along make the overlapping of cables rather silly. By the end of the year (supposedly) I my property will be passed by three cables. What's the betting that in five year's time there will only be two operators? And the street only ever needed one as long as it carried a wholesale service.
Only three? Hope you're out in the sticks to be so starved of options!
Only way we'd have had one fibre network nationally would have been if it were dark. Bitstream wholesale from a single company in the absence of infrastructure competition probably wouldn't have gone well given how they compete with it now.
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Alnets don't have a long term survival plan, other than trying to build a limited market share and then consolidating. Which as I've said all along make the overlapping of cables rather silly. By the end of the year (supposedly) I my property will be passed by three cables. What's the betting that in five year's time there will only be two operators? And the street only ever needed one as long as it carried a wholesale service.
I completely agree. We need the government to tell us which network residents should be allowed to connect to -- it's silly to think that residents might be able to decide for themselves.
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They might do this, they might do that, we can speculate to make them look as good as possible.
But for whatever reason they have made a decision to not connect the FEX then yes they are refusing to sell the product in the area, I dont see how it could be interpreted in any other way unless you have a vested interest in defending the industrial player. This decision might change, in which case I will change what I report, but as of this moment it is what it is, they are not selling CF FTTP in my CF area, and there is nothing wrong with informing the community of that.
I accept I am not responding on your exact point though which is OR FTTP vs CF FTTP.
Edited by Chrysalis (Fri 31-May-24 01:42:16)
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Unfortunately, residents have no power to say, which network provider they want to go for.
For example, I am a Hyperoptic Champion of my building here in Central London. My initial ambition was to get Hyperoptic wayleave agreement by getting all the residents to register their interests between August 2014 to February 2015. Even after gathering 30+ signatures my management company did not agree a wayleave with Hyperoptic. That's despite that at the time we didn't have FTTC and our ADSL EO Line service was dreadful.
I would've got 1 year free Hyperoptic 1Gbps if this had happened. But me as a resident of my building have no power to persuade them to choose what Altnet I want.
In the end the wayleave was done with Community Fibre 6 years later, which to be fair is an excellent choice but not something the residents voluntarily chose. There's no voting system to ask residents what Altnet they want.
The Altnet is able to offer cheaper deals because they become the established monopoly by getting all the Openreach customers to switch to theirs.
It's all about the authority that manages those properties and buildings. It's ridiculous that some properties and MDUs have 2-4 FTTP overbuilds including Openreach FTTP and some of us only have 1 FTTP network. In this respect I support the Openreach FTTP wholesale network as it gives us a variety of ISPs to choose from. Now that I have only Community Fibre I will be stuck with them for the foreseeable future. If they price hike, I really won't know what to do other than to try and haggle or temporarily return back to FTTC. Because naturally no one will want to downgrade back to FTTC. Altnets know this and so they are also taking advantage of it and throwing all sorts of offers to get us to switch.
I'm still with BT FTTC and recently had a door sales person from Community Fibre try to entice me to join. He gave me a leaflet promising me 3 month free promo code if I call him along with vouchers. I did not opt through his sales and instead I am thinking to join via Uswitch or MoneySuperMarket instead. As you get Amazon vouchers that sometimes the sale reps don't offer you.
This is a free market economy and the government doesn't care, which network provider wants to come and connect their cables. Because I'm sure their philosophy will be that no one is forcing you to join their service.
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Unfortunately, residents have no power to say, which network provider they want to go for.
For example, I am a Hyperoptic Champion of my building here in Central London. My initial ambition was to get Hyperoptic wayleave agreement by getting all the residents to register their interests between August 2014 to February 2015. Even after gathering 30+ signatures my management company did not agree a wayleave with Hyperoptic. That's despite that at the time we didn't have FTTC and our ADSL EO Line service was dreadful.
I would've got 1 year free Hyperoptic 1Gbps if this had happened. But me as a resident of my building have no power to persuade them to choose what Altnet I want.
In the end the wayleave was done with Community Fibre 6 years later, which to be fair is an excellent choice but not something the residents voluntarily chose. There's no voting system to ask residents what Altnet they want.
Is it the management company (in which case you could go down the right-to-manage (RTM) route to replace the management company), or the freeholder?
Freeholders are often predatory and have zero interest in anything except their own profit. Whilst that's understandable from the perspective of a commercial business, the way they work is hugely problematic. They have backhander deals which they can pass costs through to residents. Whenever the paying party is not making a decision there's a conflict of interest which in this case is structural.
FWIW in a building I used to live in, Hyperoptic did a great job putting cabling above dropped ceilings. Then Virgin Media did a hugely bodge job when they ran cables. Again freeholder couldn't care one bit what the building looked like as it didn't affect their revenue.
This particular issue could be solved by having a right for residents to get wayleaves approved by default under some conditions. Better still, abolish the freehold system completely.
This is a free market economy and the government doesn't care, which network provider wants to come and connect their cables. Because I'm sure their philosophy will be that no one is forcing you to join their service.
It's a free market when it comes to freeholders, not residents.
seb
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The author of the above post is a thinkbroadband staff member. It may not constitute an official statement on behalf of thinkbroadband.
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Better still, abolish the freehold system completely.
Do you mean "leasehold"? Abolishing freehold could be quite interesting.
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Better still, abolish the freehold system completely.
Do you mean "leasehold"? Abolishing freehold could be quite interesting.
sorry yeah.. I was thinking about freeholders who are being twits 
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The author of the above post is a thinkbroadband staff member. It may not constitute an official statement on behalf of thinkbroadband.
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Cityfibre and Netomnia(Youfibre) both offer a wholesale platform to allow pick and choose of ISPs. Cityfibre have multiple ISPs who signed up as partners, although obviously none of the BT group ISPs and Sky who sadly didnt take part. Sadly Netomnia despite launching such a platform has no 3rd party partners yet. The ISPs that use their own back haul like Zen and Talktalk also dont cover 100% of CF areas. ISPs that use the Cityfibre network I assume will cover all the CF areas though, so Idnet, AAISP, Acquiss etc.
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Yes, the management company is the housing estate association EastendHomes.
The building I live in last 32 years since 1992 formerly was owned and managed by the Council. But in 2005 East End Homes was formed through a partial stock transfer from Tower Hamlets Council in 2005 and currently manages around 3,800 homes. My parents are the leaseholders of the flat. Their office is located right next to the block and have leaseholders meetings scheduled every 1-3 months approximately. But there's a technical services manager who never attends any of these meetings. If anything technical is mentioned like broadband the housing estate manager will say that is for the technical services manager to deal with but if you contact him via email, he will ignore and never respond. Nor can you get hold of him in person.
In 2015 when I spoke to the housing estate manager in the office regarding Hyperoptic and I showed him evidence of the number of registered interests. He told me he will call me 2 days later, which he did but told me at that time following his discussion with the technical manager that if they are going to sign wayleave for FTTP they'll do it with another provider and not Hyperoptic!
6 years later... A new UK law was introduced in March 2021 https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/03/new-uk...
Exactly 2 months later wayleave agreement finally happened!! https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/05/commun...
But it was Community Fibre instead. Frankly, I'm not sure if my management team from EastendHomes was ever going to voluntarily sign the wayleave agreement. It was only because of this new government ruling to force wayleave agreement made the difference and sped up this process. Now this is highly unlikely to be a coincidence considering that this has happened only 2 months later yet no wayleave was agreed all these years prior that.
All residential buildings owned by any particular management are therefore affected and can only go by what is being agreed.
Till this day many housing associations view Fibre broadband more as a luxury than a priority. They couldn't care less that my old ADSL would constantly drop out! I only luckily got upgraded to FTTC in Oct 2019 that resolved all these problems. Now my FTTC connection up time is stable several weeks onwards but that's not a credit of my management but Openreach who agreed to upgrade us.
Now with FTTP we basically need a new wayleave law where residents and leaseholders should be able to have the power to request what provider they want. The freeholder that manages those buildings shouldn't have the power to deny permission for FTTP or select only what they choose.
Unfortunately, this present government law only helps for the first FTTP network to go live for a premises without full fibre. For example, if I want Openreach FTTP, Hyperoptic, G.Network, CityFibre, Netomnia, etc I won't get any support because I already have Community Fibre.
Management is no longer obliged to agree a wayleave for a second FTTP provider and will not be penalised for refusing. That way you are stuck with an Altnet and that Altnet now becomes the monopoly.
Wholesale networks are indeed a better idea. We don't need multiple FTTP networks, all we need is one fibre cable and that's it. But the problem with the present Altnets is that we artificially require multiple Altnet providers to avoid being stuck with only one monopoly! Yes, they are cheaper for now compared to Openreach but in future things can change. Any second overbuild agreement will be at the hands of discretion of goodwill. We have no say on what we want and we can't do anything if such request is refused. Perhaps a new legislative law in parliament will change that in future.
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Similar problem where I live. Small block of flats, owned by a "registered social landlord" (non profit making) Housing Assocation. 90% of the flats were bought under RTB, and then sold on the open market, we are thus "leaseholders" legally.
It appears that only legacy Openreach copper, and worn-out/faulty Virmin Media coax are my options. The new FTTP AltNet in the street is unable to get the housing association to even acknowledge their existance, nevermind sign a wayleave.
I assume when Openreach FTTP appears (our town is in this week's list); that they will ignore this as well; and probably when Virgin come round to replace coax with FTTP (by 2030) that will be ignored.
That law doesn't seem to have achieved much.
24 years of broadband connectivity since 1999 trial - Live BQM
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Yes, that's because you already have Virgin Media and even though it is coax but because it is gigabit capable, that's why your housing association isn't obligated to sign wayleave for another FTTP provider.
This law is flawed and only addresses gigabit capability broadband that's available in an area. It doesn't priorities Full Fibre as long as the service is capable of delivering gigabit download speeds whether via 5G or Coax. FTTP no longer becomes a mandatory requirement.
But in our case we don't have Virgin Media and most of the premises do not. Frankly the system is daft and doesn't fully resolve the issue for many. Again, even if Virgin Media can deliver gigabit it is still not the solution for many as for example Virgin Media are notorious for their price hikes. Their broadband packages on average are more expensive than most of the Altnets and even compared to Openreach FTTP. Leaseholders are paying a lot of service charge to their housing association and deserve better choices and not be stuck with only one provider.
If this law doesn't change then it is very difficult to see how all of those MDUs will get FTTP from Openreach by December 2026 especially in London where Hyperoptic and Community Fibre are the dominant providers.
From my observation some housing associations are very easy to grant wayleave like Tower Hamlets Homes. In many buildings I see Hyperoptic, Community Fibre and either G.Network or Openreach FTTP. They of-course aren't obliged to grant these wayleaves but they happen to be granting them without any fuss unlike my housing association EastendHomes.
Probably one of the biggest hindrance for this permission is because the UK was slow to upgrade to FTTP. Because Openreach made FTTC available and most people are happy with 80/20Mbps the urgency to grant permission for FTTP has not been taken seriously. If in the first place this jump happened from ADSL to FTTP then there would've been greater progress.
Those Altnets would never have appeared in such great numbers if we had a single wholesale network provider like Openreach or CityFibre. Now Openreach are more desperate to upgrade to FTTP as the Altnets are stealing their existing ADSL/FTTC customers and are enticing those customers with significantly cheaper packages.
But of-course that doesn't excite me too much because the risk of price hikes is still on the agenda! If those Altnets establish themselves then they will eventually price hike once they acquire all their old Openreach customers! The way to break this potential monopoly is either to have a second FTTP Altnet overbuild or to have Openreach/CityFibre FTTP. Without competition the Altnets will eventually become expensive as well as they will take advantage of being the only provider and that's not good for anyone of us who is being served by only one provider.
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This law is flawed and only addresses gigabit capability broadband that's available in an area.
Agreed.
Probably one of the biggest hindrance for this permission is because the UK was slow to upgrade to FTTP. Fully agree, the problem with DSL is that generally there is the thought they are getting a good service when in a significant number of cases there is twin copper planned for voice in really poor location for high speeds. My flat started off with 55 down, 9 up, but when I left DSL I was managing 38 down and 3 up; apparently due to crosstalk from all the flats moving to VDSL. (Thanks to competitive pricing tempting customers from other services).
Without competition the Altnets will eventually become expensive as well as they will take advantage of being the only provider and that's not good for anyone of us who is being served by only one provider. It is painful, and one for your MP, when you know whom that will be !
24 years of broadband connectivity since 1999 trial - Live BQM
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I think you might be ok on the VM, apparently the law allows someone with existing installations to update it under old wayleave agreement, providing they only accessing the same areas.
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Not all Altnet's are cheaper than ISP's offering FTTP vi BT Wholesale. For example the Altnet serving my area (GoFibre) are noticeably more expensive especially if you don't want CGNAT.
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Not all Altnet's are cheaper than ISP's offering FTTP vi BT Wholesale. For example the Altnet serving my area (GoFibre) are noticeably more expensive especially if you don't want CGNAT.
Indeed. The one serving the houses opposite my parents want something like £60 for what Youfibre will sell me for £30 (indeed, £27 for the first 2 years!)
I'll be honest, I was less worried about cost here than I am about the fact that Openreach completely ignored my street for years until it was finally fibred up earlier this year by an altnet. This is why I remain convinced that, however wasteful it is to have duplicated fibre runs, it's *always* better to have competition at every level - without this, there is no incentive for the existing incumbent network provider to move any quicker than it does now.
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How are Altnet ISP's able to offer relatively cheaper FTTP internet vs BT Wholesale based ISP's ... without the midyear RPI increases etc...?
By making massive losses in the hope of getting enough customers to be valuable to be sold. The majority of altnets are not in the 'profit making' stage - but the 'customer acquisition' phase.
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But for whatever reason they have made a decision to not connect the FEX then yes they are refusing to sell the product in the area, I dont see how it could be interpreted in any other way unless you have a vested interest in defending the industrial player.
That's a ridiculous arguement....
Are you refusing to chop your balls off and call yourself Shirley or are you just choosing not to?
There's a difference between choosing not to do something and refusing to do something.
Zen don't have the infrastructure/connections necessary on your FEX. They have chosen not to make that investment at that time or they may be waiting for Cityfibre to install something. They aren't refusing to sell anything.
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But for whatever reason they have made a decision to not connect the FEX then yes they are refusing to sell the product in the area, I dont see how it could be interpreted in any other way unless you have a vested interest in defending the industrial player.
That's a ridiculous arguement....
Are you refusing to chop your balls off and call yourself Shirley or are you just choosing not to?
There's a difference between choosing not to do something and refusing to do something.
Zen don't have the infrastructure/connections necessary on your FEX. They have chosen not to make that investment at that time or they may be waiting for Cityfibre to install something. They aren't refusing to sell anything.
Choosing to not do something and refusing to do something are exactly the same thing. If I have chosen to not do something then I have refused to do it.
Whilst I accept your point there may be some delay of getting connected directed locally, they have still chosen not to provide a service over the CF national network in the mean time which is currently connected. This will be my last reply to you in this thread as well, I get no fun in this and its already drifted away from the topic.
Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 05-Jun-24 08:30:28)
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I am in agreement - this happened in my street.
I was told various things by Openreach from ”no longer in plan” to “October 2025” to “July 2025”.
Earlier this year I then out of the blue received a bizarre email confirming I was back in their plans (even though at this stage I was told we WERE already in plans after I asked my MP to find out) and within a month I was able to order Openreach FTTP and indeed, now sat on AAISP 1Gbps as we speak.
Funny then how only a few months previous Nexfibre built the area and OR had no interest in my street because I think the duct infrastructure was off putting for them.
Now I can order 2Gbps symmetric from VM if I wished. Before February i was using Starlink to get decent speed!
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Hi. But for whatever reason they have made a decision to not connect the FEX then yes they are refusing to sell the product in the area, I dont see how it could be interpreted in any other way unless you have a vested interest in defending the industrial player.
That's a ridiculous arguement....
Are you refusing to chop your balls off and call yourself Shirley or are you just choosing not to?
There's a difference between choosing not to do something and refusing to do something.
Zen don't have the infrastructure/connections necessary on your FEX. They have chosen not to make that investment at that time or they may be waiting for Cityfibre to install something. They aren't refusing to sell anything.
Choosing to not do something and refusing to do something are exactly the same thing. If I have chosen to not do something then I have refused to do it.
Whilst I accept your point there may be some delay of getting connected directed locally, they have still chosen not to provide a service over the CF national network in the mean time which is currently connected. This will be my last reply to you in this thread as well, I get no fun in this and its already drifted away from the topic.
Usually the word refuse is only used where someone has been asked to carry out an action. For example, I don't think that you would consider murder to be a good idea but you have so far refused to condemn it, to use your somewhat unusual usage of the word.
Refuse also has (rightly or wrongly) some connotations of unreasonableness in some peoples' minds (a quick poll says about half of people I've spoken to since reading your post see using the word "refused" as indicative that someone has been unreasonable so this is not universal). For example, it might be sensible to use the word refuse to refer to a supermarket choosing not to sell you milk but less sensible when referring to the same supermarket deciding not to come and mow your lawn. I don't have a firm view on this connotation but your usage does give the impression that you are attempting to infer that Zen is being unreasonable.
In this case, unless you have asked a suitably senior member of Zen staff (someone who actually has the authority to decide to serve the area in question) then I suspect that most people wouldn't use the word refuse. Of course, there may be a customer service issue in that your question isn't reaching a suitably senior member of staff, but that is incompetence, or a refusal to engage with you, not a refusal to serve the area.
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For your supermarket analogy I think something slightly different could work in context.
The supermarket may have milk on the shelves. If you pick up a bottle and take it to the check out but they won't sell it to you then they are refusing you. If the supermarket decide they are no longer going to sell milk then they are choosing not to stock it. One is a positive decision to tell you that you can't have it. The other is a choice not to supply it to anyone.
For this specific case Zen might say they won't supply to a property even though they have the infrastructure in place - in that case they are refusing the person (not sure that happens often). However, Zen have made a choice at present not to put the infrastructure in place (and I am sure there could be any number of reasons why).
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Funny then how only a few months previous Nexfibre built the area and OR had no interest in my street because I think the duct infrastructure was off putting for them.
Mmm, quite. Round here, OR seemed far more intent in chasing VM's dig around the town, doubling-up FTTP capability, rather than looking at those areas than had zero coverage. It is somewhat annoying to see poles overloaded with kit from three or even four fibre providers when some areas still have none. Moreso when I've been able to watch the process of our altnet deployment and see that there's nothing that tricky - what little groundworks they had to do to work around the dodgy ducts was done in a couple of days in my street. I'd be extremely surprised not to see OR chasing them up the street before the end of the year, but the ship has sailed for me now and I'd doubt I'll be in any hurry to return to GPON when it's finally offered.
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We have just signed to an Alt-net as there are no openreach plans to fibre up, for a 1Gb/300 connection for £29/month fixed.
Happy with that!
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We have just signed to an Alt-net as there are no openreach plans to fibre up, for a 1Gb/300 connection for £29/month fixed.
Happy with that!
May end up rising in cost over time, but still sounds like an awesome service
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The author of the above post is a thinkbroadband staff member. It may not constitute an official statement on behalf of thinkbroadband.
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I signed up to an Altnet just over 18 months ago. £35pcm for 1Gb/1Gb.
Just renewed for another 18 months. £29pcm for 1Gb/1Gb!
Hey!Broadband 1Gb Fibre - Live BQM
Asus AC86U - Asuswrt Merlin
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I signed up to an Altnet just over 18 months ago. £35pcm for 1Gb/1Gb.
Just renewed for another 18 months. £29pcm for 1Gb/1Gb!
Most are building market share. I suspect the prices will go up a bit in longer term
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The author of the above post is a thinkbroadband staff member. It may not constitute an official statement on behalf of thinkbroadband.
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I'm sure in the long term the altnets be bought/merge into a few big players, then the pricing will inevitably go up.
What I can't understand is why they'd give the the same service cheaper on renewing, when they're currently my only option for FTTP for now, and it's cheaper than a decent VDSL service provider!
Not that I'm complaining! I'll enjoy it whilst it lasts.
Hey!Broadband 1Gb Fibre - Live BQM
Asus AC86U - Asuswrt Merlin
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I'm sure in the long term the altnets be bought/merge into a few big players, then the pricing will inevitably go up.
What I can't understand is why they'd give the the same service cheaper on renewing, when they're currently my only option for FTTP for now, and it's cheaper than a decent VDSL service provider!
Not that I'm complaining! I'll enjoy it whilst it lasts.
Logically it makes sense, acquiring a customer has costs attached such as marketing and setup costs, so logically new customer would pay more.
Edited by Chrysalis (Tue 11-Jun-24 11:23:04)
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Logically it makes sense, acquiring a customer has costs attached such as marketing and setup costs, so logically new customer would pay more.
You're assuming customer acquisition costs are borne in first term. Experience shows that's not the case
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The author of the above post is a thinkbroadband staff member. It may not constitute an official statement on behalf of thinkbroadband.
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Logically it makes sense, acquiring a customer has costs attached such as marketing and setup costs, so logically new customer would pay more.
You're assuming customer acquisition costs are borne in first term. Experience shows that's not the case
Well I assume a utopia situation yeah, reality is of course customers constantly move about and ISPs are fighting for the movers, like in elections swing seats getting the focus.
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What I can't understand is why they'd give the the same service cheaper on renewing, when they're currently my only option for FTTP for now, and it's cheaper than a decent VDSL service provider!
TBH, I'm in the same boat with Youfibre. No other FTTP available and they are the first altnet up the road, but I'll be paying 30% less for 1000/1000 than I was paying for 35/5 with Voda, frozen for two years.
I assume they have standardised pricing regardless of competition, which is pretty cool TBH.
Edited by daern (Tue 11-Jun-24 15:23:49)
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Most are building market share. I suspect the prices will go up a bit in longer term
The one outside my door has had the same price for 6 years, and only just moved from £25/m to £29. They only have the one product, can't see the point in variable speed tiers, so its 900 / 900 Mbps. I can see their point, hope the infrastructure and run costs are sustainable at that price. Under half of what I pay for 250/25....
24 years of broadband connectivity since 1999 trial - Live BQM
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The one outside my door has had the same price for 6 years, and only just moved from £25/m to £29. They only have the one product, can't see the point in variable speed tiers, so its 900 / 900 Mbps. I can see their point, hope the infrastructure and run costs are sustainable at that price. Under half of what I pay for 250/25....
Since OR-based ISPs can sell FTTP packages that retail at £30, then in principle yes. But it depends on (a) network take-up, and (b) scale, when running or outsourcing their ISP network, billing systems etc.
You're right though that the speed makes no difference: it costs them the same to support a 900/900 or a 100/100 service, except possibly for the odd person who fileshares and fills the uplink 24x7 (but they're taking a chance that there aren't too many of those)
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You're right though that the speed makes no difference: it costs them the same to support a 900/900 or a 100/100 service, except possibly for the odd person who fileshares and fills the uplink 24x7 (but they're taking a chance that there aren't too many of those)
I remember the days of NTL launching cable modems in 1999 when some people would flood the “128k” uplink (actually was around 90k most of the pilot) and the ISP management were unhappy. 🙄
The smaller, more nimble, companies may have a march on the older organisations that have had to cope with many technology shifts.
24 years of broadband connectivity since 1999 trial - Live BQM
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Most are building market share. I suspect the prices will go up a bit in longer term
The one outside my door has had the same price for 6 years, and only just moved from £25/m to £29. They only have the one product, can't see the point in variable speed tiers, so its 900 / 900 Mbps. I can see their point, hope the infrastructure and run costs are sustainable at that price. Under half of what I pay for 250/25....
I've heard from providers (who won't go on-the-record) that 900Mbps or 100Mbps services won't hugely affect usage so it doesn't cost more to provide faster services (when you're talking altnet full fibre) in the sense of actual data usage.
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The author of the above post is a thinkbroadband staff member. It may not constitute an official statement on behalf of thinkbroadband.
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As I noted not all Altnets are cheaper than BT Wholesale, but even still looking at the work done by GoFibre one of the reasons they might be cheaper than BT Wholesale is the quality of the work is putting it politely poor. Certainly not up to Openreach and Nextfibre work which I have personally seen. So one has to wonder how reliable their networks will be in 20 years time. My guess is Openreach and Nextfibre/Virgin are planning for the long term. Some of the altnets not so much. Quality work costs more.
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There will always be heavy users who are unprofitable
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The author of the above post is a thinkbroadband staff member. It may not constitute an official statement on behalf of thinkbroadband.
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Some of the altnets not so much. Quality work costs more.
The companies that pre-date Virgin Media is >30 years old in most cases, and some of the original installs were pretty poor, but the network is still around. I suspect the same for "poor" alt-net installs, somehow they will be made to work.
24 years of broadband connectivity since 1999 trial - Live BQM
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Some of the altnets not so much. Quality work costs more.
As it happens, I've had Youfibre / Netomnia installing in my house today and the install is exactly the same quality as an Openreach one would have been. In fact, it's indistinguishable apart from it obviously being installed in parallel as they can't touch the existing service. The engineer was very clear that working under PIA means no shortcuts - everything has to be by the book.
As with all of these things, I suspect a lot of it is down to the engineer you get and how willing they are to work with the customer to achieve their satisfaction. For me, this was "give me 30m of fibre and when you come back later today, I'll have it routed through the house with two ends for you to commission". I think both of us won here 
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As it happens, I've had Youfibre / Netomnia installing in my house today and the install is exactly the same quality as an Openreach one would have been. In fact, it's indistinguishable apart from it obviously being installed in parallel as they can't touch the existing service. The engineer was very clear that working under PIA means no shortcuts - everything has to be by the book.
Then GoFibre is in a whole heap of trouble because I am quite sure using cable ties to secure hardware to the poll and I am been generous there, more like hanging hardware from the pole is not by the book. Though I guess technically my pole is yet to be "enabled" so maybe they will properly attach it at that juncture. However when Nextfibre used PIA around my mothers everything was properly attached to the poles from day one. I fact the first thing they did was attach brackets to the polls to attach their equipment which is what alerted me to something going on.
When it comes to installation I have 8m of 25mm flexible metal conduit from the back of my house to my "computer cupboard" along with a stainless steel eye in the wall all ready and waiting. No string in the conduit as I have a 10m length of proper fish tape I can push through in under a minute
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We have just signed to an Alt-net as there are no openreach plans to fibre up, for a 1Gb/300 connection for £29/month fixed.
Happy with that!
I've done the same. It is running in parallel with BT (offered for £1 per month until my BT contract runs out in November). My BT bill last month was £145. Granted, that includes my mobile and football, but it's still pretty eye-watering.
My package with Grain is going to be £19 per month for a 150 up/down connection, plus £5 for a fixed IP address, plus whatever I end up paying with I port my geographic landline number to a VoIP provider. By the time I port my mobile number out of BT mobile and find a way to add the sport back in, I expect to be paying less than half what I pay for BT right now.
Will it go up? Absolutely, but it's a lower point to start going up from.
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As it happens, I've had Youfibre / Netomnia installing in my house today and the install is exactly the same quality as an Openreach one would have been. In fact, it's indistinguishable apart from it obviously being installed in parallel as they can't touch the existing service. The engineer was very clear that working under PIA means no shortcuts - everything has to be by the book.
Then GoFibre is in a whole heap of trouble because I am quite sure using cable ties to secure hardware to the poll and I am been generous there, more like hanging hardware from the pole is not by the book. Though I guess technically my pole is yet to be "enabled" so maybe they will properly attach it at that juncture. However when Nextfibre used PIA around my mothers everything was properly attached to the poles from day one. I fact the first thing they did was attach brackets to the polls to attach their equipment which is what alerted me to something going on.
[...]
(My bolding.)
I wonder if this might be GoFibre 'reserving' their place on the poles, pending a proper installation. I think I've read about this sometimes happening with PIA, a kind of altnet 'race for (pole) space'.
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I've heard from providers (who won't go on-the-record) that 900Mbps or 100Mbps services won't hugely affect usage so it doesn't cost more to provide faster services (when you're talking altnet full fibre) in the sense of actual data usage.
Sorry for replying to something so late. I guess it makes sense they won't want to go on the record but it's pretty well known in capacity planning. The major expense is having to have the empty capacity there for users to burst into. As cable companies found out when providing tier uplifts usage doesn't go up proportionally to burst and after a point doesn't budge. Almost everyone does the same things faster.
Init7 in Switzerland epitomise this. Same price for 10 or 25 Gbit, customer just pays for the SFP28 optics.
Edited by XGS_Is_On (Sat 15-Jun-24 14:28:04)
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I've heard from providers (who won't go on-the-record) that 900Mbps or 100Mbps services won't hugely affect usage so it doesn't cost more to provide faster services (when you're talking altnet full fibre) in the sense of actual data usage.
Sorry for replying to something so late. I guess it makes sense they won't want to go on the record but it's pretty well known in capacity planning. The major expense is having to have the empty capacity there for users to burst into. As cable companies found out when providing tier uplifts usage doesn't go up proportionally to burst and after a point doesn't budge. Almost everyone does the same things faster.
Init7 in Switzerland epitomise this. Same price for 10 or 25 Gbit, customer just pays for the SFP28 optics.
This is what I expected, but didnt post it given I am not an industry insider, but to me saying no cost at all felt wrong, as there needs to be the ability to burst (AAISP e.g. spent on FB9000 to support gigabit services), your explanation makes sense and am glad you posted it.
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I wonder if this might be GoFibre 'reserving' their place on the poles, pending a proper installation. I think I've read about this sometimes happening with PIA, a kind of altnet 'race for (pole) space'.
I doubt it. There was a report in late September 2022 on ISPreview that Axione was in build in Tayport but frankly, that was a total lie and there still has been zero evidence of them doing anything in the intervening 21 months.
GoFibre surveyed Tayport in August/September 2021, I signed a contract with them in December 2021. They started doing some actual work last year, but I am still waiting to go live. The box has been hanging from the telegraph pole with cable ties for months now. But they work at an utter snails place. There is a draw rope for a pole that was fitted in August 2023 going by the label on it that is waiting to be used and the likely reason I still don't have service.
Openreach announced three weeks ago that Tayport was now in their plans but that is years after GoFibre started in the area. Even their own extra poles that are in service are substandard. Let's not bother with metal caping on the fibre coming out of the ground. Hey, let's not bother even getting it straight and clipped to the pole!
My view is they are generally incompetent, the build quality is abysmal, the product offering is poor (CGNAT) and expensive. I just hope Openreach enable me before they go bust.
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GoFibre surveyed Tayport in August/September 2021, I signed a contract with them in December 2021. They started doing some actual work last year, but I am still waiting to go live. The box has been hanging from the telegraph pole with cable ties for months now. But they work at an utter snails place. There is a draw rope for a pole that was fitted in August 2023 going by the label on it that is waiting to be used and the likely reason I still don't have service.
Good grief, that's pretty dreadful really. We had the first "coming soon!" from Openreach in Dec 2020, but obviously they don't take any pre-availability orders. As of today (June 2024), Openreach have still not come up the street and we're still not in any build plan from them. I'm extremely glad that we now have an alternative (or, at least, we should do by tomorrow!) or I'd be going insane with our rubbish FTTC provision and lack of other options.
Have you contacted them to ask for an update?
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Most of the area around me has service ready to order. I have figured out how they are going to supply my pole which will not be like Openreach which is underground and probably direct buried across the church grounds. I guess they didn't stick a new pole in around this church as it is category C listed (think grade III if you are in England/Wales) like they have done elsewhere.
It looks very like they are going to bring it in from different pole, but that pole is also supplied buried across a different churches grounds. Instead they have recently strung some blue polypropylene rope from another Openreach pole to that though it goes through some trees so not sure how happy I am about that. This pole is the one with a pull rope presumably to the pavement chamber a couple of metres away with a label suggesting it was fitted in August 2023.
As for contacting them total waste of time they have no idea when anything is going to be done. I will just keep an eye on the pole with the blue rope and when that gets replaced with actual fibre I will know service is likely to be soon.
Fortunately for me I have a good FTTC connection, but the download has over the years fallen from a full 80Mbps to ~70Mbps.
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