In reply to a post by EddyTheDog:

If they do, competition should drive prices down. Good for consumers. Better if it's wholesale'd...

I don't understand how it being split off alone would create competition.

Mmm headline for next time someone moans on coverage - 'stop worrying about the villages'

Obviously not aware that Fujitsu UK is really the old GPO/BT fibre factory and my conspiracy theory is that they were a stalking horse bid and never intended to win. Did feature more FTTH, was really going to be about half fixed wireless and half FTTH

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

we need to stop worrying about the villages.

I would consider decent coverage of all the UK's cities reasonable national coverage and the villages been left on vectored vdsl2 would still have way better service than an average rural area in the world.

As for VM I see them as all talk, apparently their congested areas are just tiny pockets yet most people I know on VM happen to be by coincidence in these small pockets. Selling a 300mbps service doesnt mean much if it only has 10mbit throughput with latency in the 100s.

It seems to be from where i sit openreach do what BT retail wants, then they supply that to everyone and call it equal access.

As you seem to think that we should not worry about the villages I assume that you dont live in one. Why should where you live matter as to whether you can get good broadband speeds. everybody gets water/electricity/phone etc the same whether they live in a city or a village so in this day and age I dont see that broadband should be any different

If you check the requirements of the Undertakings that BT agreed to when forming the AS Division aka Openreach you will find a specific obligation to have common requirements process for all CPs that Openreach has to follow, specifically so as not to show favour to BT. http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/telecoms/p... Section 8.7

In reply to a post by threelegs:

As you seem to think that we should not worry about the villages I assume that you dont live in one. Why should where you live matter as to whether you can get good broadband speeds. everybody gets water/electricity/phone etc the same whether they live in a city or a village so in this day and age I dont see that broadband should be any different

You conveniently seem to have forgotten gas. I have lived in several villages where mains gas was not available. Where I live now I cannot get Virgin Media cable.

If any of the things that are missing are an absolute must have for you then don't move there.

Why should any company be forced to spend millions delivering "something" to an area where a handful of people would take it up when they could spend it elsewhere and benefits many times more people and consequently get many times more revenue and profit. Without profit a company will not survive.

It seems to be from where i sit openreach do what BT retail wants, then they supply that to everyone and call it equal access.

Its equal access because the terms and coniditons and pricing are the same to all providers

FYI there are in excess of 530+ service providers of which ariound 70 -80 offer GEA fibre services

Ethernet GEA Fibre costs and so if you are service provider bundling its broadband at low or loss making in order to gain / maintain your Paid TV you have a decision to make around fibre

you either offer fibre for small incremental cost same prices as copper in order to project your pay TV
You don't offer fibre and you risk losing your pay tv
You offer fibre fore free in hope of recovering some of your lost pay TV

this is all around margin / mark up and nothing to do with coverage. last 5% / better experience fot customer -- its all about the margin / profit

Yeah, didn't BT Retail launch Infinity way before everyone else offered FTTC services?

Sky and TalkTalk were slower but plenty of names that cannot afford tv advetising launched as soon as bt wholesale offered it

equality doesnt exist.

e.g. I dont expect my council to demolish all the ugly houses in front of me so I can live surrounded by peaceful fields, there is upsides and downsides to living in cities and villages. Typically wihout political intervention villages would get worse broadband coverage simply due to the economics. The uk situation is unique, and in my view has harmed the technology progression in city areas. Something is very wrong when cornwall has FTTP but not large cities.