Openreach costs

Close to me there are two MDUs - 6 & 8 flats. OR are finally installing FTTP into each block and I have so far seen 3 vans with 3 or 4 technicians doing the work, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday so far and it may be completed sometime tomorrow.

A total of potentially 10-15 man-days on-site at around £500/day so £5k-7k5. With full take up you are looking at £350-550 per dwelling and more if not all take any OR service. How many years will it take for OR to recover the overall costs of that install?

Everyone demands cheap services but fail to realise some of the costs involved.

Well done MHC, that was a very interesting piece and gives people food for thought.

Very true. All this whilst the company is hog tied by regulation.

Openreach aim for a cost per property passed in the range £250-£350 according to this article. That's across all properties, SDU and MDU. Therefore, what you calculate is in the expected ballpark.

In addition, the cost of connecting an individual property also around £300, although there is a £100+ charge back to the service provider for activating a line.

Yes, it will take quite a while to pay this back. WIth Openreach they can expect a very high take-up rate in the longer term, as they'll be mostly migrating their existing copper customers onto it. But for the same reason, that's why there wasn't a business case for upgrading before, since not many people take high speed services. It's only the competition from altnets which has forced them to do so, to avoid losing customers.

Ultimately they'll have a simpler and more reliable network though, and save money through the much lower fault rate.

£500/day on labour is a big overestimate for this type of work, unless I'm misunderstanding the number.

i was about to say the same thats £66 an hour based on a 7.5 hour day, image £15-20 a hour range.

In reply to a post by MHC:

Close to me there are two MDUs - 6 & 8 flats. OR are finally installing FTTP into each block and I have so far seen 3 vans with 3 or 4 technicians doing the work, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday so far and it may be completed sometime tomorrow.

A total of potentially 10-15 man-days on-site at around £500/day so £5k-7k5. With full take up you are looking at £350-550 per dwelling and more if not all take any OR service. How many years will it take for OR to recover the overall costs of that install?

Everyone demands cheap services but fail to realise some of the costs involved.

To try and get some perspective on the comments elsewhere in this topic is the £500/day a buy-in rate, a charge-out rate or an in-house rate with a substantial premium for in-house overheads?

I think with all due respect, it may be something of a wet finger the air. The amounts and numbers can’t be precise / known exactly (unless one is the Openreach estimator on the job). So the figures are not really definitive but pure ballpark - could be +/- 50% easily.

3 or 4 people each day?

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Very true. All this whilst the company is hog tied by regulation.

Aww, I feel so sorry for them.

NOT

For years, they have more or less had a monopoly and charged sky-high prices, now they have competition, and people start to feel sorry for the company

A few weeks ago I saw a couple of Openreach vans not far from me, 4 people, one looked like they were doing something, the others just standing around chatting. I don't know what they were doing, they had a manhole opened.
Just like the lot that came up here to fix a couple of potholes, 6 people and one doing something.

I don't demand cheap service, I demand a good service for a reasonable price.

Edited by zyborg47 (Thu 01-May-25 10:06:39)

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

A few weeks ago I saw a couple of Openreach vans not far from me, 4 people, one looked like they were doing something, the others just standing around chatting. I don't know what they were doing, they had a manhole opened.
Just like the lot that came up here to fix a couple of potholes, 6 people and one doing something.

I don't demand cheap service, I demand a good service for a reasonable price.

So you're always 100% flat out for your entire shift at work then? no time to talk?

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

A few weeks ago I saw a couple of Openreach vans not far from me, 4 people, one looked like they were doing something, the others just standing around chatting. I don't know what they were doing, they had a manhole opened.
Just like the lot that came up here to fix a couple of potholes, 6 people and one doing something.

I don't demand cheap service, I demand a good service for a reasonable price.

You don’t use an Openreach based provider , so why are you so bothered ? , BT/OR do seem to live rent free in your head, care to share the reason for your constant ‘need’ to comment negatively on them ? , did your wife / husband / partner leave you for one of their employees, was your pet cat/dog run over by an one of their vehicles, did you apply to work for them but were unsuccessful, presumably there must a reason for your antipathy, I’m just curious to the genesis of this pathological need to comment

Edited by Iniltous (Thu 01-May-25 11:09:04)

They've not had a monopoly in the era where home internet connections have been popular, anybody who wanted to build their own network to complete with BT has been able to do so for decades (see: all the cable franchises), and coming up for 20 years since the local loop was required to be provided to competitors for regulated prices.

If price is your concern, why are you defending Ofcom regulating their prices to not dip below a certain level?

Quite often utilities workers work as teams. A job might require one person, the next might require 4 or more. They may not know how many are required until they get there.

In reply to a post by MHC:

How many years will it take for OR to recover the overall costs of that install? Everyone demands cheap services but fail to realise some of the costs involved.

Any alt nets or VM cable already installed, or is this the first high speed to those MDUs?

With the fibre switch, I can actually OR shrinking footprint nationally, for their own financial survial. Of course if OR don't invest this, then they are taking a risk the customers of copper phone or FTTC services will move to a competitor and not come back.

Half my parents street in a town of 110,000, has moved to cable, and given up any home telephone. The local alternative to OR / VM is CityFibre and they haven't yet appeared in that half of town, I assume cost of installation unlikely to have a return on investment. Lots of elderly that just need relatively basic connectivity.

OR have to be looking at a national, 10 to 15 year (or more) viewpoint for replacing copper with FTTP, otherwise with the competition, even from just VM, the payback is insane.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Very true. All this whilst the company is hog tied by regulation.

Surely Ben Verwaayan (2003 to 2008) tried to get the company to start FTTP deployment, and the board was against, and focusing on FTTC deployment. If he had succeeded, things would look very different today.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

So you're always 100% flat out for your entire shift at work then? no time to talk?

Most of the time, yes, I certainly don;lt stand around watching other people work.,

In reply to a post by Iniltous:

You don’t use an Openreach based provider , so why are you so bothered ? , BT/OR do seem to live rent free in your head, care to share the reason for your constant ‘need’ to comment negatively on them ? , did your wife / husband / partner leave you for one of their employees, was your pet cat/dog run over by an one of their vehicles, did you apply to work for them but were unsuccessful, presumably there must a reason for your antipathy, I’m just curious to the genesis of this pathological need to comment

I wonder why people stick up for this company, a monopoly that have had its way for far too long and throw their toys out of the pram when things don't go their way.

I don't like companies that ignore people when contacted, I also don't like companies who have a monopoly and got their infrastructure for a pittance from the taxpayer and then did nothing to update it for years until they had to.
i am also not a lover of companies that use their size and power to try to get what they want, sadly that seems to happen a lot and not just openreach,

In reply to a post by jpm:

They've not had a monopoly in the era where home internet connections have been popular, anybody who wanted to build their own network to complete with BT has been able to do so for decades (see: all the cable franchises), and coming up for 20 years since the local loop was required to be provided to competitors for regulated prices.

If price is your concern, why are you defending Ofcom regulating their prices to not dip below a certain level?

What chance have alt nets got, when the majority of people on FTTC and ADSL for that matter will just stay with the ISP they are with to change to FTTP?

Say someone with Sky on FTTC, will stay with Sky when they go to FTTP, so stay on Openreach network, this is the advantage that openreach has.

BT/openreach have always been expensive, even before they started broadband, i remember they only included local calls with line rental because of competition, I realise they are regulated because of the advantages they have.

I think the network should have stayed government owned or be a non-profit-making company and split Openreach away from BT.

You forget that several of the big names also sell via Cityfibre where it's available.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I think the network should have stayed government owned or be a non-profit-making company and split Openreach away from BT.

Early Thatcher era decision ; and the much later response to try and give competition was the multiple cable companies (that had to merge to survive into VM) as the hope was fixed line phones from cable would compete with BT. Mobile phones killed that, and so eventually the Ofcom required split out of Openreach from the rest of BT Group happened. It isn't really worth revisiting, the 1984 privatisation was 41 years ago.

Hopefully if VM opens their network to wholesale (lots of talk, little action) on both VM and nexfibre owned parts, then this would be a true competitor to OR due to size/coverage. CityFibre is trying, but comparatively tiny in scale against VM in coverage (homes / businesses passed).

Edited by jchamier (Fri 02-May-25 10:21:03)

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

What chance have alt nets got, when the majority of people on FTTC and ADSL for that matter will just stay with the ISP they are with to change to FTTP?

Say someone with Sky on FTTC, will stay with Sky when they go to FTTP, so stay on Openreach network, this is the advantage that openreach has.

You've lost me with this argument, I suspect you're working backwards from your position of "Openreach are bad" and trying to fit arguments to that point, and you've successfully derailed yet another thread with your obsession. I'll take some of the blame for biting and will endeavour not to do it again.

Why is of any concern to you that a customer is happy enough with their ISP to choose to upgrade with them, and that ISP is happy enough with Openreach that they choose to use their FTTP product? What would you argue should happen instead of this upgrade path?

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I think the network should have stayed government owned or be a non-profit-making company and split Openreach away from BT.

None of this is relevant to how they are regulated *now*, and you seem to be arguing that they are expensive but also Ofcom should force them to keep being expensive.

Edited by jpm (Fri 02-May-25 09:43:16)

Probably because you have a very blinkered outlook and dont accept any balance to your arguments.
Sure they made many mistakes, and could of pushed for fibre earlier, but that completely ignores the political , financial , commercial and regulatory barriers that they have faced for 4 decades . Your very simplified outlook does you no favours and TBH you seem very naive.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

You forget that several of the big names also sell via Cityfibre where it's available.

No, I have not

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Early Thatcher era decision ; and the much later response to try and give competition was the multiple cable companies (that had to merge to survive into VM) as the hope was fixed line phones from cable would compete with BT. Mobile phones killed that, and so eventually the Ofcom required split out of Openreach from the rest of BT Group happened. It isn't really worth revisiting, the 1984 privatisation was 41 years ago.

Hopefully if VM opens their network to wholesale (lots of talk, little action) on both VM and nexfibre owned parts, then this would be a true competitor to OR due to size/coverage. CityFibre is trying, but comparatively tiny in scale against VM in coverage (homes / businesses passed).

But openreach have not split from BT, it is still owned by the BT group, it is a load of baloney just done to make us think they are separate, taking the BT name off the Van, what the use of that, it is still owned by BT.

We don't have Vm around here, suppose to be having nexfibre next year, we will see how that goes, not that i want much to do with Virgin either.

Zzoomm have merged with full fibre, or been taken over, or have taken over full fibre. They are a wholesale network, we will see what happens in the future, maybe the zzoomm network will be wholesale and Zzoomm will just be an ISP on that network.

I am happy with what I have got and while I never wanted to move to FTTP, I am glad I did now, even if it just to put the finger up to BT/Openreach, not that it will bother them, but makes me feel better.

it is the mobile networks that is going to be the problem soon, I am not fond of BT. so EE ios out, Vodafone is a complete and total waste of space, sadly they are merging with Three, which is the network I am using at the moment with Smarty and O2 is part of Virgin, we can't run a network to save out lives.
So I am stuffed, will just have to stay with Smarty and hope.

In reply to a post by jpm:

Why is of any concern to you that a customer is happy enough with their ISP to choose to upgrade with them, and that ISP is happy enough with Openreach that they choose to use their FTTP product? What would you argue should happen instead of this upgrade path?

Never said it was a concern, just said they had the advantage because of it

None of this is relevant to how they are regulated *now*, and you seem to be arguing that they are expensive but also Ofcom should force them to keep being expensive.

Ofcom should force the company to split, and I mean split, not the false stuff we have had for years, Get BT to sell openreach.

In reply to a post by witchunt:

Probably because you have a very blinkered outlook and dont accept any balance to your arguments.
Sure they made many mistakes, and could of pushed for fibre earlier, but that completely ignores the political , financial , commercial and regulatory barriers that they have faced for 4 decades . Your very simplified outlook does you no favours and TBH you seem very naive.

I know they have had restrictions, and so they should.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Ofcom should force the company to split, and I mean split, not the false stuff we have had for years, Get BT to sell openreach.

There were well described reasons why Ofcom didn't force this or refer to competition commission, including the likelihood it would fail in the courts when BT Group Plc appealed, and it would potentially cost the Treasury a large amount of money the UK taxpayer didn't want to spend. I would reasearch the reasons.

Altnets have a major take-up from my observation in London.
Just in my building alone 38 Flats out of the 81 have joined Community Fibre. Now, this does not seem like that much of a big deal but given the fact that there's not enough advertisement and not many people know of its availability, that's a pretty good number.

Some people (particularly tenants) remain with their FTTC provider out of the fear that should they move out they cannot move their existing Altnet to a premise where it is not available. FTTC gives them that peace of mind.

My problem with Community Fibre for example, is that they don't remove CGNAT for packages below 2.5Gbps or 5Gbps. Some people said they managed to get it removed with special request.
For reasons such as this and the fact that Openreach has far more wholesale options, I support Openreach FTTP being available. But I also don't like how much Openreach delayed their roll out over the years and indeed did milk cash using copper.

In other premises I see entire block of flats where everyone has either switched to Hyperoptic or Community Fibre. Perhaps here in London given that majority of the MDUs are served by either Hyperoptic or Community Fibre the take up rate is much higher as tenants don't need to worry about leaving their flat for another building.

The only reason I want Openreach FTTP is because I don't want to be restricted with a single Altnet or two. Maybe I might desire Virgin Media Nexfibre over another 2nd Altnet like Hyperoptic and only with the promise of it offering wholesale. I have the hope of having a provider that doesn't do CGNAT or has better quality router, 4 LAN ports and better customer service.

People are busy with their lives and it is inertia where people remain with old technology. For example, my dad should upgrade his old PC Windows 8.1, Quad Core 8400, 4GB RAM and old Hard Drive to SSD. He will benefit from it hugely but it is that hassle and inertia where time just flies and no initiative has yet been taken. I know I can search and perhaps even build a new computer. I upgraded my old faulty hard drive (that was throwing errors) to SSD a few months and can see huge improvement increase. I wished I did this years ago, but yet I had to have problems for me to be urged to do something about it. The hassle of replacing things and reinstalling Windows from scratch is what deterred me.

Now I know the same hassle I would have if I quit BT and joined Community Fibre. I run into the headache of not being able to port forward or have to find a way to mitigate this. Also, I have port forwarded a number of TCP/UDP ports that are required for certain games. I have to do this from scratch again even if I chose to switch to another provider on the same network.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Very true. All this whilst the company is hog tied by regulation.

Surely Ben Verwaayan (2003 to 2008) tried to get the company to start FTTP deployment, and the board was against, and focusing on FTTC deployment. If he had succeeded, things would look very different today.

Nice chap Ben, I met him several times when I was working on outsource network deals opposite BT about 20 odd years ago now. It was right at the end of the deal when we had done all the hard graft negotiations and contract documents and BT hosted us for drinks and canapés in the BT Tower.

Post deleted by seb

In reply to a post by BBHUB:

While Vodafone and O2 are merging, . . .

Thought it was Three and Vodafone - https://vodafoneandthree.uk/home.

That post smells like AI-generated advertising copy, I wouldn't spend much time on it