In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

How on earth were you only getting 2Mb/s upload?

You don't remember the Openreach 40/2 FTTC product then.

I remember it because it was all Sky offered when they first started selling FTTC.

My prediction is that basically all altnets (apart from some of the bigger ones like cityfibre and hyperoptic potenitally) fail this year and most of the builds get cancelled at some point.

Higher interest rates mean massively higher costs for these builds as it takes a while. At close to 0% central bank rates it was cheap to throw all this money in. Now they're not, the costs of financing the install will have went up enormously.

Secondly, and probably most importantly, takeup has been absolutely atrocious. GNetwork has covered nearly 500k properties but only has 10k customers from their figures from end of 2021.

It's clear most of these altnets have no idea how to attract customers to their service. Cityfibre and hyperoptic got this right - cityfibre can get customers from big brand name ISPs and customers probably don't even know they are using cityfibre. Hyperoptic also worked with loads of apartment buildings and often had it so you could enable it the day you moved in, whereas other providers took weeks.

Best case is they start being bought up by someone like cityfibre to expand their offering (I think this is more likely). Worst case is they get totally shut down - I can see this happening with some of the smaller ones though.

In reply to a post by mr_mojo:

My prediction is that basically all altnets (apart from some of the bigger ones like cityfibre and hyperoptic potenitally) fail this year and most of the builds get cancelled at some point.

Higher interest rates mean massively higher costs for these builds as it takes a while. At close to 0% central bank rates it was cheap to throw all this money in. Now they're not, the costs of financing the install will have went up enormously.

Secondly, and probably most importantly, takeup has been absolutely atrocious. GNetwork has covered nearly 500k properties but only has 10k customers from their figures from end of 2021.

It's clear most of these altnets have no idea how to attract customers to their service. Cityfibre and hyperoptic got this right - cityfibre can get customers from big brand name ISPs and customers probably don't even know they are using cityfibre. Hyperoptic also worked with loads of apartment buildings and often had it so you could enable it the day you moved in, whereas other providers took weeks.

Best case is they start being bought up by someone like cityfibre to expand their offering (I think this is more likely). Worst case is they get totally shut down - I can see this happening with some of the smaller ones though.

By all accounts the Altnet we have here, which is Zzoomm is almost at the end of their build here, so I have heard. The sad thing is that it is the city only, so people out in the sticks will lose out. Once the build is done that is the main cost. Not sure what you mean about alt nets having no idea how to attract customers to their service. Zzoomm here have been posting leaflets through people's doors almost every week, to be honest it can get annoying, they have a stand in high Town a couple of times a week and they have had people come around the doors. Not sure what else they can do. We have open reach FTTP as well and the only thing I have had is a letter from Vodafone saying that Fibre is now available to me. I think Openreach are having the same problems with getting people to change to FTTP. There are very few people in my street that have changed, I think there are four people that have changed to FTTP, two use Zzoomm and two using Openreach. I can tell the difference due to the splice box.

It is good to have Alt networks it is competition, certainly if they take some custom from Openreach, I doubt very much if we will have another network here, the city is just not big enough, I was shocked when Zzoom started up.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Never heard of 40/2m, as far as I know Plusnet offered two when I Joined, one up to around 40 and one up to 80. and what ever the uploads were for them.

To the consumer, they sold (and still sell) a single "40M" service - or "36M" these days.

But Openreach sell (and still sell) both a 40/2 and 40/10 wholesale FTTC service. There were times when Plusnet would buy the 40/2 one, and other times when they would buy 40/10.

You "never heard" that this was happening, and they didn't shout it from the rooftops, but it certainly did.

As for FTTP take-up: your anecdotes about what you see in your surrounding streets don't mean much. The aggregate quarterly stats from BT show strong take-up from their customers.

Admittedly some proportion of that is forced, either because it's FTTP in areas with terrible copper connectivity, or it's in areas with copper stop-sell, but right now those are still in the minority.

Some of it will be due to sweeteners from the ISPs to the customers, since the ISPs have offers from Openreach that require them to meet FTTP take-up targets. For example, I notice from another thread that Plusnet are offering you FTTP at a lower price than FTTC. Now is a very good time to take it.

Take-up amongst the smaller altnets is likely lower, but they are very secretive about those numbers because they show how poorly their investments are performing and how exposed they are financially.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

To the consumer, they sold (and still sell) a single "40M" service - or "36M" these days.

But Openreach sell (and still sell) both a 40/2 and 40/10 wholesale FTTC service. There were times when Plusnet would buy the 40/2 one, and other times when they would buy 40/10.

You "never heard" that this was happening, and they didn't shout it from the rooftops, but it certainly did.

Fair enough, I was on a wireless network before I went onto FTTC, I would have stayed on the wireless network if it kept going and offered the same service it did when I started. Then again, maybe not, 10Mb/s a second in this day and age is a bit slow.

As for FTTP take-up: your anecdotes about what you see in your surrounding streets don't mean much. The aggregate quarterly stats from BT show strong take-up from their customers.

You may be right, but it gives me some idea about what is happening in my own city. I live in an area where people are slightly better off than other parts, so if they are not bothering here, then the poorer parts will struggle. There are people who run their own business in their homes up here, and yet they have still not gone for FTTP, and yet I thought they would have
but I agree, it is a tiny amount of houses.

Also, BT have to make it sound good that people are converting to their FTTP, just like Zzoomm does here, but reading around the net on different article and also people I chat to online that don't live here, it seems like providers are having a hard time to get people to change

Admittedly some proportion of that is forced, either because it's FTTP in areas with terrible copper connectivity, or it's in areas with copper stop-sell, but right now those are still in the minority.

Some of it will be due to sweeteners from the ISPs to the customers, since the ISPs have offers from Openreach that require them to meet FTTP take-up targets. For example, I notice from another thread that Plusnet are offering you FTTP at a lower price than FTTC. Now is a very good time to take it.

I have said this before and I will say it again, providers are using it is faster line to try to get people to change to FTTP, people who have naff broadband or want something faster will go for it, but those that are happy with the speed they have will see no need to change.
Take my brother-in-law and my sister. They may stream the odd thing, I don't think they have any streaming packages like Netflix, so what they stream is from the main broadcasters, Iplayer, ITVX and that sort of thing. They browse the net, well my Brother-in-law does more than my sister, they use FaceTime to chat to their kids, two of them live away from the city. My brother-in-law may update his computer and maybe download some stuff to do with his synths as he is mucking about with that.

So I can understand why I asked him if he was changing to full fibre he said no as what he has got is fine.
So how would you sell full fibre to people like him? I know a fair few people who have said the same thing.

Plusnet is pushing full fibre 36Mb/s for £24.99 on a 24-month contract, I can recontract FTTC at the same speed for a quid less for 18-month contract. 74Mb/s for £26.99, again a 24-month contract. I don't want to go for a 24 month contract and also if I am not going to go any faster than 36Mb.s what is the point in going through the hassle of having fibre installed?

If I was going for fibre I would look at Zzoomm, certainly now they have gone to a 12 month contract, but It is £30 a month after the first 3 months which is £19 for their 150Mb.s package, so would be paying more for something I don't really need. Alsom, still not sure about their reliability, while it have calmed down now on their facebook page, they have had a lot of people complaining about their internet going down.

I will wait until the end of my contract, which is June and if Plusnet don't do something good, then I will move to now broadband

Take-up amongst the smaller altnets is likely lower, but they are very secretive about those numbers because they show how poorly their investments are performing and how exposed they are financially.

While I have no need to go for fibre, I am hoping that Zzoomm around here will do fine, after the hassle of them laying the fibre around the city, they better have. Hoping that people will see them as the better option and hopefully better service. I would like them to offer a lower package than their 150Mb/s, perhaps half that and lower the price, they may get people going for that, even I would look into it.

But these providers need to stop with it is faster thing, that is fine for some people, but a lot will say, like my brother-in-law said, "what I have is fast enough" and I hear that from a fair few people. That also includes me and I am a bit more up with the tech than these people.

Just to add my 2 cents... I just had an email from openreach saying they are no longer planning full fibre to my house. They had only emailed me less than a month ago to say they had planned it.

The availability checker went from saying by December 2026 to just not available so that to me suggests that they are currently not even planning to do it by the end of 2026. Its incredibly frustrating to say the least when you have been waiting seeing places nearby all around getting it but your told sorry sucks to be you and getting no reasons.

Could be. OR have just emailed me to say they are not bringing Ultrafast to my street as they have reviewed their build plans. They hope this is temporary...

However CityFibre dropped a flier through the letter box on Monday saying they are starting work in my street in 7 days.

I think what OR mean is they have ditched any attempt to cable my street, but they know someone else will and apparently CityFibre are that company. I see CF have updated their info and BT are no longer a partner.... Thank god Zen is and I am looking forward to that.

In reply to a post by blfamily:

I see CF have updated their info and BT are no longer a partner.... Thank god Zen is and I am looking forward to that.

BT are arch-competitors with CityFibre. Never the twain shall meet. For now anyway 🙃

In reply to a post by drefsab:

Just to add my 2 cents... I just had an email from openreach saying they are no longer planning full fibre to my house. They had only emailed me less than a month ago to say they had planned it.

Likewise with me on both counts, received the email at lunchtime today !

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I live in an area where people are slightly better off than other parts, so if they are not bothering here, then the poorer parts will struggle.

That's a big assumption and the complete opposite of my experience.

In my experience broadband take up is and has always been higher in lower income areas compared to higher income areas.
The same applies to taking higher/Ultrafast tiers. Take up is higher in lower income areas vs higher income areas.