In reply to a post by zzing123:

If you're doing a Community Fibre Partnership, it's a no-brainer to do it via a shared leased line instead. You get a full SLA and fully symmetric low latency service to boot and depending on how many share the cost, cheaper too.

Openreach now add an extra charge for using their EAD links to aggregate FTTP to other properties.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/08/openre...

Getting a single leased line to feed a dozen or so other properties is not a cheap option.
It may initially seem a "no brainer" but the setup cost, equipment cost and running costs make it a very expensive solution.
That's without someone like OR overbuilding your bespoke network.

Sorry "J0hn83" but you are not in a position to judge what I do or do not know about.

I don't have to install FTTP to know that it is more productive and cheaper to install a block of say 33 properties that are fed via one underground chamber at the start of the road than it is to make, say 33 visits to do the same work - a silly example but it illustrates the point. You seem to forget travel time and the overheads of planning and starting each and every individual job - as well as the management of many smaller jobs.

To argue that "there's no extra work required by coming back later" is clearly ridiculous and overly simplistic..

OpenReach's targeted cost per premises passed of £250 is half or less that anyone else is looking to achieve, so it is hard to see how they can come close to that unless they greatly improve how the rollout is done.

As for knowing what is going on underground - I have had OR deny and lie to me in the past when a 400pair cable had been damaged by a contractor and OR re-routed the cable, making it 1Km longer and taking a whole estate from 5 - 6Mb ADSL down to 1 - 2Mb. OR said it never happened, but the whole estate lost phone and broadband for 3 days and I have met and spoken to the actual guys who did the work.

When my previous cab was put on its own phase of the fttc rollout, OR claimed its change of plan was due to a "New housing development". Said housing development was 5 years from breaking ground and the cab did not have enough capacity for the existing houses it was serving.

So if I have doubts about what OR tell me and how good their information is, it is not without good reason.

I use the example of doing a whole street as a general example - as it also relates to the general layout of the infrastructure in a lot of cases and is easy for people to grasp. A small street is also generally one or two postcodes and OR provide a postcode based checker. OBVIOUSLY this does not wholly translate to the underground infrastructure, but either way, it is far more efficient to do a lot of premises in an area, than to do a small number over multiple repeated visits. Travel costs - more small jobs cost more than fewer larger ones. It is the basic economies of scale, they apply at both small and larger ends of the spectrum.

Edited by TechGuyUK (Sun 14-Nov-21 14:22:54)

There is information within the industry we are not privy to.

I e.g. found out cityfibre are rolling out by exchange area and post code data, the part of my street that has cityfibre live has a different post code to me (20m or so away), my part of the street is at least a year away (from when I was told a few months back), I expected them to rollout in a spiral pattern from the city centre outwards as they already have their backhaul connected there, instead they going out like a star pattern and some one reported on another website the areas towards the outer of the city are stalled due to awaiting backhaul connection. My street even has fibre already laid but not been used in the consumer rollout as of yet.

Since I made my post a couple of days ago I think the reason the work might be stalled in my city now might be due to that.

So it isnt just openreach, its also VM, and altnets that have these seemingly strange rollout decisions.

I expect also permission objections and approvals may have an impact as well, a council may well even be able to influence a rollout by approving certain streets above others.

Openreach specifically are also politically impacted, they have areas subsidised by government schemes and is a possible reason why so many rural areas are getting Openreach FTTP, and the 11th biggest city in the country isn't in their plans.

Edited by Chrysalis (Sun 14-Nov-21 14:32:15)

In reply to a post by Fastman3:

the inference of your thread is very clear - your not happy the rest of the road has been done and you havent -- that a commercial reality - whether you like it or not -- , any operator has be very specific un connecting any premises via public money to ensure A it deliver what the requirement and B it does not then to commerical build the next bit using the public money bit as that could be see as an abuse of public money -- . this siuation will be more common than it already is and infererring bad management or profiteerting smacks "why have they not done me" clearly signpost your intention

This is interesting as it would suggest those immediately next to a public money build are at less likelihood of getting a commercial rollout due to the risk of the company been found risking abusing public money?

Whatever is going on, there is nothing wrong with been unhappy, and I expect many in the same position would be also, its very easy to be in a picked area to mock those who are not, so I dont support the bad remarks been given.

In reply to a post by TechGuyUK:

I don't have to install FTTP to know that it is more productive and cheaper to install a block of say 33 properties that are fed via one underground chamber at the start of the road than it is to make, say 33 visits to do the same work - a silly example but it illustrates the point. You seem to forget travel time and the overheads of planning and starting each and every individual job - as well as the management of many smaller jobs.

To argue that "there's no extra work required by coming back later" is clearly ridiculous and overly simplistic..

You're just wrong on that.

To assume doing it all at the same time must be cheaper and easier is being overly simplistic.
It will take the same number of man hours to complete the job no matter when they do it.

Rollout methods, technologies and efficiencies improve over time as the rollout progresses so it will almost certainly be CHEAPER to come back later and complete it.

OpenReach's targeted cost per premises passed of £250 is half or less that anyone else is looking to achieve, so it is hard to see how they can come close to that unless they greatly improve how the rollout is done.

The difference is Openreach already have a nationwide duct and pole network. It's considerably cheaper for Openreach to deploy FTTP than it is for other networks for that very reason.
Many other networks need to dig when Openreach don't, or need to pay Openreach to share their ducts and poles.

As for knowing what is going on underground - I have had OR deny and lie to me in the past when a 400pair cable had been damaged by a contractor and OR re-routed the cable, making it 1Km longer and taking a whole estate from 5 - 6Mb ADSL down to 1 - 2Mb. OR said it never happened, but the whole estate lost phone and broadband for 3 days and I have met and spoken to the actual guys who did the work.

When my previous cab was put on its own phase of the fttc rollout, OR claimed its change of plan was due to a "New housing development". Said housing development was 5 years from breaking ground and the cab did not have enough capacity for the existing houses it was serving.

So if I have doubts about what OR tell me and how good their information is, it is not without good reason.

Those comments tell me nothing about the FTTP rollout but just confirm that you have a giant Openreach shaped chip on your shoulder from past experiences.

A small street is also generally one or two postcodes and OR provide a postcode based checker.

They do not provide a postcode based checker.

Openreach provide an address based checker. You simply enter the postcode to narrow it down to the specific address.
You cannot check availability with a postcode alone.
Some postcodes cover many miles, over a number of cabinets and sometimes a number of exchanges.

but either way, it is far more efficient to do a lot of premises in an area, than to do a small number over multiple repeated visits. Travel costs - more small jobs cost more than fewer larger ones. It is the basic economies of scale, they apply at both small and larger ends of the spectrum

It will take the exact same number of man hours to complete the job no matter when they do it.
They aren't spending 5 days traveling to your street.
They finished at the end of 1 particular day. It makes no difference if they come back the next day or a year later.
They are not driving about all day and spending 5 minutes at each job.

At the end of the day someone has paid Openreach to cover the 11 properties.
While they were doing that job they will have surveyed the street and brought enough capacity to do the rest when they return.

If I ordered FTTPoD for my property you seem to think that Openreach should automatically do all 167 properties on my street at the same time, no matter what the cost to do each property is.
They would not.
They divert the minimum resources necessary to do the contracted work while the other staff get on with a nationwide rollout.
They pull enough fibre through the ducts (or along poles) so they don't need to repeat that particular bit of work.

You're making assumptions without a single cost in front of you. You have no idea how much it would cost to do the remaining 22 properties.
Doing them just because you are in the area isn't all that is involved in efficiencies and economies of scale. That's oversimplification to the extreme.
If it was really that simple, they would start at 1 end of a town and go street by street by street until the whole town was done. No rollout would every have an endpoint until complete.

300,000+ properties passed last month alone. I think Openreach know what they are doing better than you do.

The most recent KPI's from their quarterly results and the last months build progress put them now past (or very near) 6 million premises passed.

Only another 19 million to go to meet the target in 5 years... so they need to accelerate past an average of 310,000 P.P. per month to meet that. Thats going to be some going.

In reply to a post by zzing123:

It's stupid though. Because at £8k floor for FTTP, you may as well get a leased line and just share the link between other properties. Leased lines are heavily subsidised on install costs, so unlikely to cost as much to install.

There is no "subsidy" on leased line installations - they are entirely commercial propositions. You pay a hefty fee for the first 3 years service, which normally covers the build cost (more expensive builds will have ECCs). Beyond that, you continue to pay a high monthly fee and there's a lot of commercial cream to be made from that. It's the razor blade model if you like.

In reply to a post by zzing123:

If you're doing a Community Fibre Partnership, it's a no-brainer to do it via a shared leased line instead. You get a full SLA and fully symmetric low latency service to boot and depending on how many share the cost, cheaper too.

I think you'll find almost nobody does it that way, and for good reasons.

1. Of your cluster of (say) 12 properties, the users won't get *any* SLA: if they have any contract at all, it will be with their neighbour who buys the leased line. Nor will they get any consumer rights, Ofcom rights etc.

2. They almost certainly won't be able to run fibre directly to their properties, hence it would have to be shared using wifi or similar.

3. It's unlikely that 12 adjacent properties will all agree to take the service, so it will have to be shared over a wider area.

4. The person with the leased line has the contract with the ISP and is bound to pay for the line, but has to collect money from the individual users. They'll probably need to set up a limited company to cover their liability, and insurance if they are doing any installation work on the neighbouring properties.

5. The person with the leased line will be liable for any abuse which takes place from their subscribers.

So we are all wrong then, apart from you of course

Now that you have said your piece about how bad Openreach are what do you now hope to achieve from this thread?

Starting with the most useful response first...

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

1) your excess construction costs are nil for a leased line. Only true if you are effectively on-net and there is sufficient capacity near to you from one of the large providers and/or where they are willing to write this off over a three year deal. Outside of major urban metro areas the ECCs for leased circuits can be hefty.

ECCs are no different between FTTP and leased lines, so the point is moot.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

2) Whomever your agreeing to purchase that leased line understands that it is going to effectively be used as a sublet circuit for one to effectively act as an ISP. Could be especially problematic with Openreach tails.

Not really. You can run what you want on any leased line. Most people run an overlay network either by MPLS or SD-WAN, and you can do whatever the heck you want on it. Even on broadband. And leased lines are often 'sublet' even in office buildings, particularly when offices are sublet. How do you think the likes of WeWork works?

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

3) Actual monthly charges of leased lines vary massively depending on geography/location and capacity. getting a good deal in central London is easier than getting one in rural Suffolk for example, as I can attest.

Of course, but then again I'm based in London and leaning much more to metronets. But I know of several private networks on large estates and trust-owned properties that have a private network and a set of leased lines providing access to all properties on the estate, even in the darkest outreaches of rural Britain.

But the same model could easily apply to terraced houses, bigger blocks and such like.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

4) The costs and ease to reticulate some form of connection to your neighbours etc are not insubstantial and there are ongoing run costs which are not zero. This is usually the deal breaker with these sorts of notions.

Of course not, but this is easily amortised over even the 3-5 year leased line deal. But in fact you'd be using either Mikrotik or Ubiquiti Edgemax gear in this scenario realistically which is not at all expensive. And there are private network companies that would install and manage the whole affair for you.

I know this, because I did exactly that: easynetworks lit up 2x 1gbps Openreach EADs from fibre that was already installed to the main building on an estate in rural West Sussex (one using BTW and the other TTB, via separate paths), then hooked both up to 2 EdgeMax routers (£155 each) linked to a Ubiquiti OLT (£786) and an and trenched their own PONs to all the properties with each property having a Ubiquiti ONU (£35.11 each). Each of the 22 properties in this case pays £35/mth to easynetworks and everything is managed. Trenching costs of the PON and all equipment costs are all amortised in the contract. The contract for each property is 5 years of course, but no one argued as it was either this or 1-2mbps ADSL.

In fact, most properties were so happy they independently got easynetworks to further install and manage a UniFi system in their homes as well.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

There is no "subsidy" on leased line installations - they are entirely commercial propositions. You pay a hefty fee for the first 3 years service, which normally covers the build cost (more expensive builds will have ECCs). Beyond that, you continue to pay a high monthly fee and there's a lot of commercial cream to be made from that. It's the razor blade model if you like.

...but ECCs are the same as FTTP on Demand or a CFP.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

1. Of your cluster of (say) 12 properties, the users won't get *any* SLA: if they have any contract at all, it will be with their neighbour who buys the leased line. Nor will they get any consumer rights, Ofcom rights etc.

Says who? Surely that's an agreement between the company running the line and the other homes?

And anyone technical enough to run a leased line and associated equipment can quite easily provide support for it. But in such cases, it'd normally be outsourced to the company that lays the private network, such as easynetworks I quoted above.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

2. They almost certainly won't be able to run fibre directly to their properties, hence it would have to be shared using wifi or similar.

Why not? If it's an estate it'd probably be managed by a trust. If a cul-de-sac it'd be owned either by a single freeholder or commonhold so they can do what they want. And if it's adopted by the council, it's actually much easier than you think to get permission from the council to run your own cables in a public carriageway - after all, councils tend to respect their residents' wishes.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

3. It's unlikely that 12 adjacent properties will all agree to take the service, so it will have to be shared over a wider area.

It depends on the situation. There are many, many situations where properties are just leaseholders or tenants on a larger property, and this is purely a freehold or commonhold play.

However, in the context of a Community Fibre Partnership where they'd have to do that anyway, the issue is moot. I know most would much prefer to use a private company that works for them than use Openturd to herd such cats.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

4. The person with the leased line has the contract with the ISP and is bound to pay for the line, but has to collect money from the individual users. They'll probably need to set up a limited company to cover their liability, and insurance if they are doing any installation work on the neighbouring properties.

In such situations it'd usually be a freeholder and leaseholders or landlords and tenants. And even flats. There'd be a company, and if necessary start a company to run this matter as it's hardly a problem to run a company. But in most cases it'd be outsourced to a private network company who'd install the leased line, wire up the properties and provide the service to all the properties.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

5. The person with the leased line will be liable for any abuse which takes place from their subscribers.

If they're a CP and declared as a public ISP. But why would they need to be? Even so, this is trivial.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

Openreach now add an extra charge for using their EAD links to aggregate FTTP to other properties.

If you're an altnet and a customer of Openreach's with the ability to order PIA products or Dark Fibre, yes. But you wouldn't be.

In reply to a post by zzing123:

If you're doing a Community Fibre Partnership, it's a no-brainer to do it via a shared leased line instead. You get a full SLA and fully symmetric low latency service to boot and depending on how many share the cost, cheaper too.

Openreach now add a rather large charge for using their leased lines to aggregate FTTP to other properties.

I don't know anyone who's ever done what you think is a no brainer.
Who's digging this fibre to the neighbours? Joe public isn't allowed to dig on the pavement. Where are you getting an IPV4 block in 2021?
Who's doing all the legal work? Contracts, liability, billing etc.
Who's paying for and maintaining all the CPE required?
What do your neighbours do when the host is away and something goes wrong?

The cost to setup something like that is pretty eye watering.
At any point that investment can be flushed away by being overbuilt by a full fibre provider.

It's a stupid idea.
There are much cheaper and more logical ways to go about bringing fibre to a not spot.