Many of the plucky small altnets are actually owned by monster sized investment banks or oil rich sovereign wealth funds. So they are dripping in money and not too bothered about overbuilding. They are having a punt on very cheap access to BT's duct and pole assets.

Edited by FibreBubble (Fri 25-Mar-22 21:16:21)

In reply to a post by FibreBubble:

Many of the plucky small altnets are actually owned by monster sized investment banks or oil rich sovereign wealth funds. So they are dripping in money and not too bothered about overbuilding. They are having a punt on very cheap access to BT's duct and pole assets.

Could you explain the criteria you're using to state the access to the passive infrastructure is 'very cheap'? I believe it's at a similar level to the same products elsewhere.

On dripping with money, etc, of course altnet build is being done with an eye on being potentially acquired. You didn't think CityFibre and VMO2 were planning on hitting their coverage ambitions just by building their own networks, did you?

In reply to a post by CarlTSpeak:

Could you explain the criteria you're using to state the access to the passive infrastructure is 'very cheap'? I believe it's at a similar level to the same products elsewhere.

Openreach PIA (duct and pole access) is very cheap when compared to the cost of digging your own ducts or installing your own poles.

What do you mean by "the same products elsewhere"? There isn't really anything that competes with Openreach PIA in the UK. Or are you comparing with other countries - if so which ones?

In reply to a post by CarlTSpeak:

On dripping with money, etc, of course altnet build is being done with an eye on being potentially acquired. You didn't think CityFibre and VMO2 were planning on hitting their coverage ambitions just by building their own networks, did you?

Certainly that's how Cityfibre are building today, with a few exceptions (e.g. acquisition of KCOM national backbone).

The problem with buying up a hodge-podge of tiny altnets is that they are all built to different standards and with different equipment, making them very hard to integrate into a unified wholesale offering.

I expect eventually there will be a fire-sale, and someone will buy up the assets and try to do something with them, but both CF and VMO2 need to be building stuff *now*, not waiting for the bubble to burst.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

The problem with buying up a hodge-podge of tiny altnets is that they are all built to different standards and with different equipment, making them very hard to integrate into a unified wholesale offering.

History seems to be repeating itself, with the 1990s cable networks.

In reply to a post by FibreBubble:

F&W / Hey are also active in Burgess Hill and Giganet in Hurst.

Box Broadband spotted in Hassocks now. So Trooli are now facing competing builds of F&W, Giganet, Box as well as Openreach and Virgin and the council's vastly expensively built vanity broadband project all within a couple of miles.

Trooli are also seeing overbuild in East Sussex with, for example, Lightning in Heathfield.

Edited by FibreBubble (Sat 26-Mar-22 09:58:11)

According to one.network we've got Trooli laying in Hythe Hampshire (and surrounding area) and I've just seen a giganet cabinet going in too. Looks like Trooli and giganet are either fighting each other or working together?.

Fighting I would guess. Giganet are owned by the same monster investment bankers as Jurasic, Swish and Vorboss but from what I can make of it Trooli is backed by a different monster investment bank.

There must be a lot of consolidation coming! Oh well i won't complain if it means I can finally get fibre.

From what I see, Trooli are pretty much exclusively PIA and so have less to lose than those providers who are overbuilding by digging up a lot of Her Majesty's tarmac.

But take-up appears poor for all the players. Many who are having to sell their 'premium' product at basement prices. So this game could all be about who's monster investment bank bottles first.

Edited by FibreBubble (Mon 28-Mar-22 20:18:21)

In reply to a post by FibreBubble:

But take-up appears poor for all the players. Many who are having to sell their 'premium' product at basement prices. So this game could all be about who's monster investment bank bottles first.

It's mainly people on this forum who want a "premium" product. Almost everybody else wants as cheap as possible.

The altnets have the advantage that they are not constrained by Ofcom-regulated pricing, which means they can undercut Openreach; that's the only way to get scale and payback.

If they can offer an FTTP product which undercuts other players' FTTC by 50p per month, they will gain a substantial number of customers. If they charge a premium, then most people who already get a half-reasonable FTTC service (by which I mean 30M+) will stick with it, seeing no reason to pay more.

I suspect even Openreach and OR-based ISPs will have trouble moving people from FTTC to FTTP, given that the regulated wholesale pricing is a pound or so more for FTTP than FTTC. Maybe the ISPs will swallow it, on the basis of (hopefully) reduced support costs of dealing with dodgy lines.