How much are Openreach charging providers for this line rental and how much has it increased over the last few years?

Edited by deleted (Sat 12-Jul-14 21:54:14)

Well I assumed so as like you said it was in the T & C, but like you said later on it says its rate adaptive, fired off an email anyway to find out.

A lot of ISP's only check via post code only if you don't have a phone line (he doesn't move in until next month so doesn't have a active line there) which is annoying as FTTP doesn't show up on the post code checker but it shows up fine on the address checker.

Do ISP's not just offer FTTP packages for the same as the FTTC ones then?

say 40/10 costs £25 for FTTC, can they not just offer 40/10 for FTTP? for the same price.

If someone can get 40meg via FTTC then someone on 40meg via FTTP can't get it any quicker, or am I missing something?. I understand ISP's would be reluctant to offer unlimited on the higher end packages but surely there is no issues offering it on the standard 40/10 80/20, I realise not everyone can get max speeds on them on FTTC but a lot of people are close enough to get 40.

There must be some complication, as Plusnet have been trialling FTTP for ages. I agree with your logic, but if it were correct then apart from CS training there is nothing to trial.

BT Retail do supply FTTP and FTTC at the same price for the 80/20 and lower products. The Openreach prices are also identical.

You sort of raise the subject of the speeds. I don't think we see many here opting for FTTC at 40/2 or 40/10 when they can get 80/20, though there are a one or two looking at the new PN 40/20. As the FTTP products do run at the rated speed, not "up to", I suppose there may be an issue at times of heavy demand, as they will hit the pipes at full speed, not the FTTC assortment of speeds.

This applies particularly to things like Apple IOS downloads or a new blockbuster film coming online. FTTP users will go at full speed. Congestion for all users could be caused. It would be OTT to provide extra bandwidth at the nodes for the purpose, and unacceptable to allow the congestion. A rock and a hard place for the ISPs.

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 12-Jul-14 22:26:28)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

You sort of raise the subject of the speeds. I don't think we see many here opting for FTTC at 40/2 or 40/10 when they can get 80/20, though there are a one or two looking at the new PN 40/20.

I took 40/10, there's only me and 40Mbps goes a long way. IIRC (it's a while since I looked so I may just be wrong) there's a noticeable step change at 40Mbps in the national broadband survey data which suggests I am far from alone. I considered 80/20 and even FTTPoD but I decided that either would be basically just showing off rather than delivering any noticeable value. Service has been live for about a month now, never thought "I wish I had more bandwidth" yet.

As the FTTP products do run at the rated speed, not "up to", I suppose there may be an issue at times of heavy demand, as they will hit the pipes at full speed, not the FTTC assortment of speeds.

No reason that would be any more of a problem for FTPP realistically.

This applies particularly to things like Apple IOS downloads or a new blockbuster film coming online. FTTP users will go at full speed. Congestion for all users could be caused. It would be OTT to provide extra bandwidth at the nodes for the purpose, and unacceptable to allow the congestion. A rock and a hard place for the ISPs.

In reality very few events make a noticeable difference because people vary. Your household may have six iPhone, the neighbours have none. You watch the world cup avidly, next door they're only interested in Wimbledon, and so on. Apple doesn't have infinite bandwidth either, so they will stagger the iOS availability (as do Microsoft for Windows, Google for Nexus Android updates, and so on)

There will be exceptional things that cause congestion but a properly managed backhaul will see only rare hiccups, and customers shrug those off.

For WBC the backhaul isn't even the ISP's problem, it's supplied with the service, they only have to buy enough transit bandwidth, and if they can't manage that then they're probably also going to struggle with logistics like billing and remembering which shoe goes on which foot. Of course choosing not to manage it properly to save money is another matter as the US ISPs have illustrated.

(edited to add)

As to why many ISPs don't offer it: My theory would be it's because it's a minority product; bigger companies can't support minority products well because they like to train all customer service people identically and then treat them as interchangeable. Training fifty people about FTTP would be a waste (so few customers have it, many agents would never take a call that used the training) but training Bob about it but not Sarah means that when a customer calls Sarah and the screen says "Customer has FTTP" she has to know to forward to Bob, assuming he's even in today.

If you're A&A this doesn't matter, small team, everybody knows the deal, if something comes up that one person doesn't know about they've a good idea who to pass it to, and they can banjo if they need to. But if you're a bigger firm it's a nightmare. If the UK had a million potential FTTP customers, they'd all fall over themselves, but if it's more like 5000 why even bother?

Edited by deleted (Sun 13-Jul-14 00:31:28)

So you'd think BT Group would realise this and put in more FTTP because it's basically just BT Retail selling it for now.

I'm not sure about plusnet, but watch out for BT's minimum spend on landlines...

If you sign up to BT's line rental saver, you have to make two chargeable calls a month, otherwise they add something like £2.50 onto your bill.

They count 03 non-geo as a chargeable call, however these are included in my weekend package, so I just ring an 0330 number every other week.

I think we are also forgetting that even standard FTTP is subject to survey, and possible excess costs/charges to the end user.

That's more order processing, provisioning team and CS training issues.

In reply to a post by partial:

How much are Openreach charging providers for this line rental and how much has it increased over the last few years?

Completely irrelevant and regardless it remains profitable.

@Icaras

As Robert says, the devil is in the survey. The trial area I'm in has numerous problems with it being extended to the next local area due to blockages in the ducts. The housing stock is 25 years and younger but in some streets, the access is blocked in every duct. Very dodgy builders in some areas.

Openreach have scaled back from expanding the tests due to the excessive amount of time it takes to install the FTTP into these relatively new properties. Instead the resources are been used to work on the BDUK projects elsewhere instead.