"Just nip up there and patch 'er in"

Local town has 2 PIA providers (plus OR and Virgin in the street). Lots of choice, but it does makes the poles a little....fussy. This is repeated right across the town, so every pole looks like it's ready to snap in the middle!

I wonder if there is anything that would stop another provider coming in and adding more clutter, or whether there are rules to say "enough is enough" at some point?

Anyone else spotted any more "buckaroo" loaded poles in their area?

Edited by daern (Thu 12-Sep-24 09:24:36)

It’s being repeated all over. The push to deploy seems to override all else. That pole would be almost completely unable to be worked on without a hoist.

The solution would have been a single fibre provider supplying the network, and service providers ‘renting’ network to use over that network. But others seem more worried by choice than aesthetics.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

The solution would have been a single fibre provider supplying the network, and service providers ‘renting’ network to use over that network.

To be fair, had this been the case, I suspect we'd all be stuck on GPON and I'd probably still be waiting for Openreach to deign to fibre up my street. While it's certainly a bit of a mess, at least it's delivering multiple options and, in other cases, actually delivering what the primary provider has not.

Interestingly, I've only ever seen my own altnet working with hoists. I'm yet to see them use a ladder. I suspect over time this will become the norm, partly out of H&S and partly out of necessity.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

The solution would have been a single fibre provider supplying the network, and service providers ‘renting’ network to use over that network. But others seem more worried by choice than aesthetics.

Service providers renting dark fibre, right?

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

The solution would have been a single fibre provider supplying the network, and service providers ‘renting’ network to use over that network. But others seem more worried by choice than aesthetics.

Service providers renting dark fibre, right?

Bit like your water, gas and electricity suppliers, then?

However, the great god competition means that a country on its financial knees is spending millions if not billions of pounds which could be better invested elsewhere on unnecessarily duplicating infrastructure.

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

Service providers renting dark fibre, right?

If everyone had a direct point to point link back to the exchange then this would make sense, but the whole "passive optical network" design means that groups of residences would inevitably have to share some degree of technology, more sophisticated than just dark fibre. It does sound good on paper, but we can already see that technology moves quickly and there's a risk that a "national infrastructure" would end up being stuck on older, obsolete tech because there's no incentive for the service provider to deliver anything more. I'm rather attached to my 1G upload, which I'm certain wouldn't have been an option had PIA not been made available. Actually, being honest, I don't think I'd have FTTP at all...

It's not an easy situation though and the waste is pretty obvious to see. How do other countries deal with this? Are shared fibre infrastructures the norm, or have we fallen into the "ring main vs radial" hole once again?

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

However, the great god competition means that a country on its financial knees is spending millions if not billions of pounds which could be better invested elsewhere on unnecessarily duplicating infrastructure.

The good news is the country (commercially) isn't on its knees. The public sector might be. Our current Government unfortunately assumes the public finances are the economy. The Sky News data journalist has tried to correct this a couple of times

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

The solution would have been a single fibre provider supplying the network, and service providers ‘renting’ network to use over that network. But others seem more worried by choice than aesthetics.

It would be wonderful, but for competition reasons, perhaps two, national providers, run by vastly different teams, both open access, and regulated. Unlike the copper days, there is more configuration choice in FTTP, and not all wholesale networks are interested in offering the latest options.

Heck the 2019 election, one party offered to nationalise all broadband... unsurprisingly they didn't get in.

Edited by jchamier (Thu 12-Sep-24 21:17:31)

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

The solution would have been a single fibre provider supplying the network, and service providers ‘renting’ network to use over that network. But others seem more worried by choice than aesthetics.

Service providers renting dark fibre, right?

Bit like your water, gas and electricity suppliers, then?

However, the great god competition means that a country on its financial knees is spending millions if not billions of pounds which could be better invested elsewhere on unnecessarily duplicating infrastructure.

Completely agree.

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

The solution would have been a single fibre provider supplying the network, and service providers ‘renting’ network to use over that network. But others seem more worried by choice than aesthetics.

Service providers renting dark fibre, right?

Whether it is dark fibre or lit fibre doesn't make any difference to the commercial fundamentals:

1. Someone has to build this network
2. Someone has to own and manage this network
3. Service providers need a way to interconnect to this network so they can rent it

We already have such a national, shared fibre network: it's the Openreach PON network. Sure, it's lit rather than dark. It could have been built dark, but it doesn't really make any difference to commercials. With a dark fibre network, providers would likely have to install their own equipment in the head-end exchanges - and there would be 30 times as many backhaul cables into the exchanges, and huge fibre patching areas required. Those are just practical difficulties, which the lit network avoids. The dark fibre would allow sale of ultra-high-speed services (like 10G); hardly anyone wants to buy those today.

Commercially though, it would be the same. Openreach, who already own the copper infrastructure had no financial incentive to run fibre alongside it to the same set of captive users, *until* competition forced them to do so.

Could you have a government-financed fibre network running *alongside* Openreach? No - look at how the Australian NBN turned out.

Could you have a commercially-financed national fibre network running *alongside* Openreach? No - who's going to pay for it? It would just be like having one giant monopoly altnet instead of multiple altnets.

In any case, if Openreach were left with a copper-only network it would die from irrelevance, so it would be forced to roll out fibre just to stay alive. Which is what's happening today.

We also have something close to a national dark fibre network: we have a national open access duct and pole network. If someone wanted to install a shared "last mile" network and rent it out to service providers, they would be free to do so. The reality is, nobody wants to build it, and even if they did, the service providers don't want to rent it. It looks better to their investors to say they own the asset, rather than rent it. The rental case would expose more clearly how dubious their business plans are to make money in the cut-throat retail ISP sector (which, frankly, nobody makes money out of)

the ability to shove multiple light frequencies down one fibre exists. The standards don't really support multiple frequencies for gpon/xg/xgs pon.

The olt transciever and ont would have be different.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

The rental case would expose more clearly how dubious their business plans are to make money in the cut-throat retail ISP sector (which, frankly, nobody makes money out of)

We have an entire parlimentary debate about telegraph poles being installed because Alt Nets are trying to avoid renting ducts from OR via PIA. Gives a bit of a clue how tight margins are.

So why are they building their own network and not renting OR FTTP? I agree, the small Alt Nets don't make sense, but the large (CityFibre, nexfibre) show that Ofcom is not incorrect in having competition for OR, the sad things is the Alt Nets may prevent the other two entering towns; so the country is worse off.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2024/09/teleco...

In reply to a post by jchamier:

We have an entire parlimentary debate about telegraph poles being installed because Alt Nets are trying to avoid renting ducts from OR via PIA. Gives a bit of a clue how tight margins are.

Not really. Poles are going in because PIA is unavailable or unusable. I know of one company that preferentially builds poles over using PIA, the others it's a last resort. PIA moves a bunch of what would be capital expenditure on a pole to operational expenditure: exactly what a business on low margins building with debt would want.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

<Snip>

Ummm, okay?

Openreach didn't build PtP because they knew they'd have to unbundle it per law so ran with PON.

On PtP Switzerland, Sweden and France would like a chat: it works.

I advocated a personal preference for PtP because it allows operators to innovate rather than selling what Openreach want them to, how Openreach want them to and paying the price Openreach want them to leaving them with few options to differentiate themselves or make money while also lowering the cost of entry and minimising duplicated infrastructure.

I gave zero regard to the business case for Openreach as I was answering a post positing a solution we aren't going to get. I wasn't suggesting it as an option any more than Zarjaz was, that ship sailed a long time ago.

Still hope you felt better for writing it and appreciate your opinion that the commercial fundamentals for dark versus lit are the same.

If an altnet installs poles then that will pretty much stop openreach from doing the same. In many areas that could stop any commercial openreach rollout . Tactically speaking, that maybe a good move for an altnet.

I love this the money could be spent else where its like me saying to you dont spend your money on your new roof and holiday you should donate it all to your hospital instead of spending your money on things you want to do

its silly to think if BT wasnt spending 15 billion on its business that it would donate it to an hospital instead.
same as the HS2 money that 100 billion got spent of other projects NOT.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

We already have such a national, shared fibre network: it's the Openreach PON network.

Really? Not round here we don't. And there's very little sign that we ever will have.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Openreach, who already own the copper infrastructure had no financial incentive to run fibre alongside it to the same set of captive users, *until* competition forced them to do so.

Not true either. BT wanted to install a national fibre network starting in 1990, according to a former CTO, but a certain M Thatcher put the boot into their plans, in the name of competition. We could all have had FTTP 20 years ago. Read about it here.

In reply to a post by pyarwood:

I love this the money could be spent else where its like me saying to you dont spend your money on your new roof and holiday you should donate it all to your hospital instead of spending your money on things you want to do

its silly to think if BT wasnt spending 15 billion on its business that it would donate it to an hospital instead.
same as the HS2 money that 100 billion got spent of other projects NOT.

I'm not arguing about the rights and wrongs of business cases. As a country rather than a business we would be better off if investment was going to where it is desperately needed rather than in duplicating infrastructure.

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

Not really. Poles are going in because PIA is unavailable or unusable. I know of one company that preferentially builds poles over using PIA, the others it's a last resort. PIA moves a bunch of what would be capital expenditure on a pole to operational expenditure: exactly what a business on low margins building with debt would want.

Gotcha, that’s a good point, so working assumption is poles is where no ducts. Cheers.