In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

Is that strictly known to be the case?

Yes, hence why smaller capacity cabinets relative to homes passed are planned for VM heavy areas.

I've not seen evidence of that around here. The cabinets all seem to be the same size, no matter the proportion of VM around - all of them are the larger variant.

About 2/3rds of VM customers are triple play. Takes a tad more than offering broadband speeds inferior to those they can already get from VM in the downstream direction to make most people change their TV and phone service.

I didn't know the 2/3 figure, so that's useful to know.

I agree entirely that triple-play customers are indeed harder to shift. My personal perception is that in triple-play providers, the broadband element is always the weak service. Cheap & cheerful. High speed figures, but appallling latency & support figures. Those triple-play customers who have no more serious demands on their broadband will stay hooked up until there is serious triple-play competition.

However, I don't know how long it will stay that way. How many people will start feeling dissatisfied at poor broadband performance? And for VM, it seems that their weak link is indeed the poor operational performance of their broadband. certainly *some* people will do that.

You say it is "blatantly obvious" that FTTC will take fewer customers, but I'm less convinced. Unfortunately, the whole of your argument is cost-based, while mine is quality-based. In the short-term your cost-based argument probably wins, but in the longer-term, quality will play its roll. Especially as FTTC brings out more triple-play competition.

All 3 of the big TV-offering ISPs are starting to offer IP-based TV propositions. That means that VM will start to face competition against the full triple-play, and not just at broadband level. Quality of all 3 elements will come into play more then.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

Disagree all you wish, we had a price from BT for 2 cabinets, when we pursued the matter we were blanked. This was before any BDUK procurement had taken place.

I'm not sure you understand why I'm disagreeing with you.

The point I was trying to make is that the mere presence of BDUK stops *any* non-standard installation stone-dead, and was pretty much bound to. Nothing has to be signed to make this happen - all that was really needed was for someone within BT to see the scale of the opportunity that BDUK opened, and to then decide that it needed to play a straight, consistent bat to *everything* going on *anywhere*.

Convenience has nothing to do with it - it is sheer consideration of the scales involved. BDUK funding potentially allows BT to bring an extra 20,000 cabinets into the FTTC rollout - the extra 25% of the country.

In essence, they chose to disengage with you over 2 cabinets to help ensure they're seen to be straight over the other 19,998.

I suspect that they had (have) to appear to be absolutely lilly-white on this, to allow the EU to approve funding - and it is in their (self-)interest to ensure that there is nothing (at all) that would allow Fujitsu, Virgin, Sky, Branson, or whoever, from appealing some small issues in the EU, and strangling the whole thing from red-tape.

I suspect that there are *big* political games at issue here. And I have little doubt that some smaller projects took a hit because of it.

Incidentally you contradict yourself by initially claiming you disagree with my comment that there's nothing binding on Openreach until procurement essentially saying that it's purely a commercial Openreach decision that they do not wish to continue to entertain private finance.

I guess it depends on your take of the word "binding". No, I don't think there is anything contractually binding OR in the strictest sense of the word - but I do indeed think they have to take a sensible self-binding approach. A different take on the word, I think, but not contradicting myself.

Plenty of people, you included, are demanding that BT's numbers be published, if they are going to be allowed to dip into the public purse. It would make sense if BT, even while attempting to avoid this action, planned for its inevitability.

In fact, some of the numbers would need to be available for the post-installation clawback monitoring. It wouldn't surprise me if BT saw the disclosure as inevitable (and indeed, planned for it), but would prefer not to until later. Any disclosure helps their competition.

Likewise you don't give any kind of indication why private subsidy would threaten the BDUK process.

Because it isn't "blind" private investment, where BT have operational choice over what to do with the funds. The private investment in this case is targetted at a specific pair of cabinets.

In that sense, it is far closer to BDUK funding than the commercial rollout. It sets a precedent. It sets a flag in the ground that the competition can compare with, complain about, and use as a staff.

The simple answer, overall, is that it is a risk factor. And someone, somewhere, decided it was a risk that wasn't worth taking; that the upside wasn't worth it.

Look at it another way: For your project to have gone forward, it needed to be a win-win proposition. Where was the 'win' for OR?

If that were the case Openreach wouldn't be deploying anything on a commercial basis while BDUK procurements - they are.

Not the same thing at all. They take the investor's money, and are free to choose what to do with it. There is no third party to deal with over justifying every last aspect of 2 cabinets out of 80,000.

BDUK isn't an umbrella beyond being a project name and Whitehall quango; each council is given a set amount of money to be spent as they see fit. There is absolutely nothing preventing a council from demanding cabinet level numbers from any bidder to ensure value for money.

I agree.

Except for the point that *all* of the BDUK funding, and *all* of the council-based match funding, has to be approved by one organisation - the EU.

The EU, in turn, has to be convinced that the application of state aid to a near-monopoly is worthwhile. And it is *hugely* in BT's favour if this is granted without a huge kerfuffle instigated by Fujitsu, Virgin, Sky et al. BT in turn will not want to give even a hint of discordance out to allow this to happen. I don't think the UK Government wants it to happen either.

I'm absolutely convinced that the politics behind *this* aspect of the BDUK project - getting EU approval - is what is shaping the SFBB landscape for the next 2 years. Both for good & bad - absolutely *everything* that OR touches is going through this lens.

For BT to take custom from VM is a tough ask. So I doubt they are taking much business away. The most likely ones that might are gamers who are always looking for the very cheapes price and hoping for low latency. I doubt though they will find it any better.

I think you're right, I don't understand.

If those issues were such major issues and Openreach had such a strong need to seem whiter than white they have ceased their commercial rollout too which they haven't.

It isn't things like this that are causing problems with EU approval and various other interested parties so much it is Openreach refusing to supply data on the subsidies they need by cabinet and in turn permit private investment.

I'm sure you can see why a private company locking out the private sector in order to obtain public sector funding based on a cost model rather than actual costs as they are under no obligation to provide them would be seen less than favourably by pretty much anyone apart from Openreach.

Have you actually read the 'Value for Money' DCMS Power Point? Do. Openreach have still not presented substantive answers to it.

The whole point about the commercial rollout is that that is the bit that helps define the black areas (in conjunction with other operators plans submitted in the OMR stage). These are the areas that are then excluded from public matched-funding.

That cabinet is not enabled

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

THere is no way they will be doing cabinets with just 20 or 30 subscribers. It would make no economic sense. I doubt that BT even have cabinet that small.

Cae to name the exchange and cabinet number(s) that have been enabled with only 20 lines?

Apparently there is an ECI Minicab which appeared in an Openreach video, it's the one on the left, which according to ECI's website has 64 pairs and can also be powered off the -48V on a phoneline. I guess Openreach may be looking at it as an option for the areas which have low numbers of subscribers.

Hi everyone, This seems to be a very interesting debate!
I wonder if BT actually look at these forums? If they did maybe some transparency about their decision making may be in order so that people could clearly work out which cabinet would be viable for upgrade and which ones would not meet the "commercial criteria"
Anyway as an update on my situation (that started all of this!!)
I have been in touch with the local council I am awaiting a phone call from the councillor again about the possibility of BDUK funding.
I have also been contacted by the local paper. They want to come an interview me and publish a story about the inconsistencies of the BT decisions to upgrade certain cabinets.
Im am also tempted to contact local radio to see if they would be interested in the story!
I'm still fighting for this!!!

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

That cabinet is not enabled

It will be very soon.

In reply to a post by simon194:

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

THere is no way they will be doing cabinets with just 20 or 30 subscribers. It would make no economic sense. I doubt that BT even have cabinet that small.

Cae to name the exchange and cabinet number(s) that have been enabled with only 20 lines?

Apparently there is an ECI Minicab which appeared in an Openreach video, it's the one on the left, which according to ECI's website has 64 pairs and can also be powered off the -48V on a phoneline. I guess Openreach may be looking at it as an option for the areas which have low numbers of subscribers.

Since some people consider the scenario to be so unbelievable I'll try and get a picture of it. The cab is going live in Dec. Civil engineering is being done at moment to get duct to it.

Exchange: Woburn Sands

https://maps.google.co.uk/?ll=52.031284,-0.64472&spn...



Regards,

Gareth