Other providers using an Open Network

A few years ago we had a company come to our village and install FTTH for those of us that committed to a couple of years contract. At the time I was told by the company that the network they were installing would be an Open Network and that other providers would be able to use the network of they applied to do so.
How do I go about getting another provider? Is it likely that the network owner (my current isp) would charge another company an exorbitant amount, to discourage competition, or is it a fairly normal thing for other companies to use an existing network?
Thanks for any advice.

What is the name of your current provider ?

Is it https://www.ofnl.co.uk/service-providers/ ?

It's relatively unusual for an ISP to use another provider's fibre network, except for the major wholesale networks (Openreach and Cityfibre)

The problem is not whether your current provider will *allow* access, but whether some other ISP can justify the expense of using it.

Suppose your fibre provider has a footprint of say 5,000 properties. To use their network, the other ISP would have to:
- build out a fibre connection to that network, and interconnect to it somewhere
- integrate with that network's ordering/provisioning and fault management systems

That's a huge amount of work, just to pick up perhaps a few hundred customers. It's simply not worth it.

There have talks about the smaller fibre networks coming together to build an open wholesale platform that they can all integrate into, potentially giving a single point of ordering across all those networks. But it has not come to anything as far as I know. Plus, the problem of bringing connectivity to each network still exists - unless they all club together to build a national backbone, which would be very expensive.

Post deleted by the_moose67

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

What is the name of your current provider ?

Is it https://www.ofnl.co.uk/service-providers/ ?

No, it's C0unty Broadband.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

It's relatively unusual for an ISP to use another provider's fibre network, except for the major wholesale networks (Openreach and Cityfibre)

The problem is not whether your current provider will *allow* access, but whether some other ISP can justify the expense of using it.

Suppose your fibre provider has a footprint of say 5,000 properties. To use their network, the other ISP would have to:
- build out a fibre connection to that network, and interconnect to it somewhere
- integrate with that network's ordering/provisioning and fault management systems

That's a huge amount of work, just to pick up perhaps a few hundred customers. It's simply not worth it.

There have talks about the smaller fibre networks coming together to build an open wholesale platform that they can all integrate into, potentially giving a single point of ordering across all those networks. But it has not come to anything as far as I know. Plus, the problem of bringing connectivity to each network still exists - unless they all club together to build a national backbone, which would be very expensive.

Thank you. I did think it might not be as easy as I'd hoped, and that's a great explanation of why. Much appreciated 👍

In reply to a post by the_moose67:

Thank you. I did think it might not be as easy as I'd hoped, and that's a great explanation of why. Much appreciated 👍

Most likely is if they partner with a bigger neutral network operator, such as CityFibre or nexfibre. The smallish network builder in Hampshire (Toob) has a one-way partnership with CityFibre, which means people in CityFibre towns can get Toob service, but I can't get the other ISPs on the Toob network. (Not that Toob will serve my property yet).

Assuming the estimated premises passed was achieved, County Broadband have about 10k properties able to connect to their network.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2023/07/county...

Openreach build to 60k per week. Cityfibre are at about 20k. As has been said, it's just not worth the cost of integrating brand new systems (and likely ones that require a lot more manual work than the purely API-driven ones that large wholesale providers have) to pick up at best a number of customers in the high hundreds.

What also doesn't help a lot of these providers is that they frequently run promotions through their retail side that undercut the wholesale pricing which isn't a way to get support from the big brand ISPs that you might need on your network to keep the business viable.