well given historical events, eg. a new provider deploys in a location with no adsl. Then as ignition said suddenly BT find the area commercially viable, rollout to kill that supplier.

What do you think would happen if e.g. google fibre started been deployed in the UK? would FTTP suddenly become viable overnight and be rolled out by BT to the same areas?

end of the day capitalism dictates shareholders are priority, profit is king. From BT's point of view spending on FTTP is a waste of time, prices would be regulated low, they be forced to wholesale the services and revenue would be barely any higher as people will pay for the existing services anyway. BT would be disservicing their shareholders if they did a FTTP rollout in my opinion. Which is why I think state intervention is needed for this.

Edited by Chrysalis (Thu 08-May-14 12:56:25)

But wouldn't a tax on copper also impact on Virgin as I believe their coax network is running over copper? Or would Virgin be exempt from this tax? And if so for what reason? Are you really saying that anyone providing a service that isn't "superfast" should see increased taxation? But then you couldn't tax FTTC.

Partly playing devil's advocate but without careful thought anything done to BT could have an adverse affect on others or be seen as massively distorting a market or damaging BTs shareholders.

Suspect google wouldn't as it wouldn't be financially viable to do in the UK - for the same reasons as it isn't viable for anyone else. Google are very careful to pick where they rollout their services for either commercial or publicity gain. UK just isn't going to hit the mark for either.

they wouldnt, I just painted a theoretical example.

Only a business giant such as google has the capability to build a competing network with openreach from the ground up, such a thing needs deep pockets.

It would be interesting to do a proper analysis on the vampire roll-out ideas, since by the levels stated all those areas with Hyperoptic, IFNL and Gigaclear should also have at the very least FTTC available surely?

Google Fibre - if deployed to the same scale as in the US, would be like wiring up 60% of Bangor with FTTP. Don't have the link but some firm has done a door to door survey to judge take-up and estimates 50 - 60% in four to five years. Did not say what take-up level was now - and Google does not say.

BT can do nothing right, if it does not roll-out it is criticised, if it does it is criticised, if it attempts to compete it is criticised.

If things plan out as some believe, then we can look to 20% of York in 2015 having FTTP via Sky and TalkTalk, and the same properties also having FTTP from Openreach and probably the 20% who can already get DOCSIS 3 too.

It is not just BT sales/managers who over state things, have found competitors giving out mis-information too, i.e. it is a game they all play, but calling out the underdog when this is done is seen as bad form.

Indeed. And even then with regulations, issues with digging, other utilities in the ground, wayleaves, etc it is quite possible they could not cover 100% anyway - even completely ignoring the cost of doing so.

Like it or not we have BT and in my opinion they aren't doing too bad a job compared to many other countries (and better than most that have a similar history on telecomms).

We have the disbenefit of nice villages/towns/small cities in some lovely countryside that had very early rollout of telecomms that now has a significant cost to change. Most countries ahead of us have few of these barriers and therefore have advantages to rollouts (highly urban or no real infrastructure to speak of and therefore no investment to throw away).

however.

That's short term costs, over time FTTP costs should even out as is lower maintenance and less expense on short intermediate solutions.

One reason they get criticised they do it different to everyone else. They somehow manage to spend much more to deploy FTTP than other providers worldwide with no real explanation for it other than bodging it up or maybe cooking the books.

They very slow to deploy new technology, even if its cheap to deploy.

They have an adverse attitude to dealing with faults.

Gigaclear reckons on £1000 per premise passed and while B4RN may be lower that is down to the volunteer labour.

For those chasing numbers be aware some Europe figures role FTTB into the equation, which can be cheaper in large blocks as just blown fibre to each floor and then good old CAT5e or CAT6 to each apartment. Can be more in flats where utility ducting and space to house media converters is harder to find.

BT is never cheap, and once you get any large firm that was even larger once and has a big pension debt to service then costs are not going to be cheap.

Did the Broadband Stakeholders Group get its FTTH costs very wrong, when they said cities at around £1000 per prem, but getting higher on the more spread out suburbs and even more for the rural areas, where it tends to be small clusters outlying from a fairly dense village.

Deploying FTTP is not rocket science, but it takes time to do, and if you want it done in a short timescale you have to ramp up the amount of staff or contractors.

Should be lower, and am sure in the UK as we are seeing for FTTC that calls for lower wholesale prices would be along very soon.