In reply to a post by CarlTSpeak:

One phrase: 'Significant Market Power'.

Agreed. Openreach's physical infrastructure is a legacy of their history as the nationalised, monopoly telecoms network.

(That's not to dismiss any concerns about altnets bodging up Openreach cabling and other infrastructure when they install their own fibre in/on Openreach's ducts and poles.)

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

I wasn’t talking about lead ins particularly …. more between network boxes. If they have used 300m of our ducts to get their fibre this far, why should they begrudge Openreach replacing a length of DIG cable via the new duct the Altnet put in ?

This is ignoring that it seems every box they pass their kit through, they have removed existing copper joints from the fixings and left them in the water.

They don't begrudge the access to the duct specifically. They begrudge all the investment needed to support access to their ducts. It'll rapidly break their business case.

If Openreach actually want this access BT Group should lobby for it. It'll rapidly chill investment and competition but that's perhaps what Openreach employees would like to see? A return to the monopoly of the past is definitely in their interests.

The current arrangements deliver better value for the consumer but at the expense of pay and conditions as Openreach have to reduce costs to match their new competitors.

PIA is fine. Openreach should be allowed to retire copper faster though for sure, however longer term employees may not be fans of this.

In reply to a post by binary:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

It comes down to two different flavours of competition -

(a) Competition between distinct fibre infrastructure networks, e.g. Openreach and an altnet (or indeed multiple altnets in competition with one another

(b) Competition between ISPs on the same fibre infratstructure network, e.g. different ISPs on Openreach, or say on CityFibre.


Of course with (a) one can argue that with PIA, altnets that use Openreach physical assets aren't necessarily completely distinct infrastructure networks, as they are making use of the same ducts and/or poles.

The government of the 80's and 90's encouraged the building of new cable networks as a way of spurring on competition with BT. They also largely prevented BT from offering their own television services, to stop BT snuffing out those nascent cable networks.

But if all you have is an alt network, then there is no competition at all. It is like people who can only get Virgin cable, it was virgin or ADSL at the time, now they can get VDSL.

While there is Opereach fibre in a tiny section of the city, most of the city don't have it, so Zzoomm will be the only one, they have already put their prices up, and they have not even done a Quarter of the city, so if you want FTTP, you pay their prices.

i did think about going to Zzoomm when they eventually get up here, but I decided now to stay with FTTC, i don't require 150Mb/s and if Plusnet don't do me a decent deal when my contract runs out next year I can go elsewhere, I am certainly not going to pay £33 a month for broadband, i don't really want to pay £23 to be honest


i don't want a television service, I can get video services with any network.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

i did think about going to Zzoomm when they eventually get up here, but I decided now to stay with FTTC, i don't require 150Mb/s and if Plusnet don't do me a decent deal when my contract runs out next year I can go elsewhere, I am certainly not going to pay £33 a month for broadband, i don't really want to pay £23 to be honest

There are three main target markets for Altnets:

1. Those who don't care about the speed of the broadband, or how it is delivered, but just want the cheapest possible service.
2. Those who currently get terrible service over copper, due to distance from cabinet or exchange, and will happily pay for something that is usable.
3. Those who want more bandwidth than can be delivered over FTTC, and are happy to pay for it.

For example, Cityfibre primarily target (1), and Gigaclear target (2). It sounds to me like you're in group (1).

Group (3) is relatively small. Those companies who aim for (1) or (2) will also pick up some (3) as a bonus.

However if Zzoomm are aiming primarily at group (3), then I think they'll have a hard time making any return on their outlay.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

if Plusnet don't do me a decent deal when my contract runs out next year I can go elsewhere, I am certainly not going to pay £33 a month for broadband, i don't really want to pay £23 to be honest

Excellent news.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

There are three main target markets for Altnets:

1. Those who don't care about the speed of the broadband, or how it is delivered, but just want the cheapest possible service.
2. Those who currently get terrible service over copper, due to distance from cabinet or exchange, and will happily pay for something that is usable.
3. Those who want more bandwidth than can be delivered over FTTC, and are happy to pay for it.

For example, Cityfibre primarily target (1), and Gigaclear target (2). It sounds to me like you're in group (1).

Group (3) is relatively small. Those companies who aim for (1) or (2) will also pick up some (3) as a bonus.

However if Zzoomm are aiming primarily at group (3), then I think they'll have a hard time making any return on their outlay.

I do care about speed to a certain degree, I have just done a speed check, and it was around 36Mb/s, which to be honest is fine for everything I do, more than fine to be honest, upload is a bit naff, 9Mb/s, but that have never been good anyway.
Sure, if there was someone else living here and two lots of wages were coming in, I would think differently.

When I heard that we were going to have FTTP here, I thought great, that is what we need, and I still think that, plenty of people will find use for the higher speed, but there are loads of people like me who don't feel the need for it. so far of all the people i have spoken to and i have spoken to a fair few, only a couple is interested in Zzoomm, like me they don't see the point in paying more for something that is nto going to make any difference.

if VBDSL was unreliable here than it would be a different thing, but apart from the problems I had a couple of years ago, reliability have been fine, gets a little slow now and again due to congestion, but who is to say that will not happen with FTTP?

I do agree with your points, all of them.

I think Zzoomm is betting on that they are the only FTTP here, for most of the city and people will go to them, but looking at their Facebook pages, there seems to be a fair few people having problems with speed or the lack of it.

At the end of the day, I still have until June Next year with this contract, lots of things can happen.

In reply to a post by CarlTSpeak:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

if Plusnet don't do me a decent deal when my contract runs out next year I can go elsewhere, I am certainly not going to pay £33 a month for broadband, i don't really want to pay £23 to be honest

Excellent news.

what is?

When people say "there's no competition for this FTTP provider", they tend to forget that the primary competition is FTTC.

If they provide FTTP at a higher price than FTTC, most people won't take it, even if it's faster or more reliable.

In reply to a post by binary:

Openreach's physical infrastructure is a legacy of their history as the nationalised, monopoly telecoms network.

Yeah 38 years on and people are still bringing it up as justification for BT Group being treated different.

I look at wages at BT now and find a fair few employees are being paid less than what I was on 25 years ago when I worked for them, shame some here believe the bar at BT should be lowered to the same level as those companies entering the industry today who just want to make a fast buck.

Edited by deleted (Tue 12-Apr-22 11:24:15)

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

what is?

That your months long contemplation of whether or not to take FTTP has been made: you'll take whatever is cheapest.