In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Many moons ago I dared to suggest that just one company should provide full fibre to all, and the various service providers would then just need cable links to the various head ends … made sense to me.

As long as that one company either provides point to point fibre or at very least is entirely independent of BT Group and is incentivised to offer cutting edge products to maximise revenue with no legacy business concerns agreed.

Why not Openreach? 1.8 Gbps downstream, 115 Mbps upstream on a 2.5 Gbps down, 1.25 Gbps up shared network, artificially asymmetrical to avoid PON threatening the incumbent's lucrative Ethernet portfolio. Doesn't really scream that the business is into the technology and should be the sole provider of full fibre to the nation, does it?

History says they'd sweat the nuts out of GPON for as long as possible and continue to act in the commercial interests of the group not the wider market. We don't need the sole provider sweating old technology as they did copper with competition from altnets being the only thing forcing their hand into a wider fibre deployment: isn't that long ago G.fast from the cabinet was the future for most and if too far away, probably tough. 3% more commercial FTTP coverage planned.

I don’t recall saying it ought to be Openreach ?

In reply to a post by Taras:

Because we moved some of the equipment from the exchange then to the cab, and now with the cbt's to the poles, we have lost the elegance of just having one line regardless of wholesale supplier. Long term i do think the industry needs to come together and work out a better solution to the high density areas.

I think we looked at the wrong reason for why poles can be a problem and not the real problem, safety.

If only there were some technology where a single fibre line could be switched between providers and they could use whatever they wanted be it PON or AON to light it.

Isn't going to happen. Openreach made their choice and the rest was inevitable.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

I don’t recall saying it ought to be Openreach ?

I don't recall saying you did, only that if it wasn't dark fibre it couldn't be them. Dark fibre, regulated, doesn't matter.

Edited by XGS_Is_On (Thu 18-Apr-24 20:33:35)

I’ll say it again ….. https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/t/4756185-re...

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

I’ll say it again ….. https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/t/4756185-re...

Lets hope it happens then!

The ship has sailed on that, you're not getting a single network of point-to-point fibre that goes back to the equivalent of a "meet me" frame in an exchange. The best hope for PIA is altnet consolidation and removal of equipment from failed providers to reclaim some space, and Ofcom allowing Openreach to impose some sort of minimum standards on the work being completed. The best angle for their lobbyists to attack this on might be to play on fears of the security risk associated with letting anybody open up chambers with fibres in without any sort of audit trail that matches the reality of the activities taking place.

In reply to a post by Taras:

Or just switch at the olt (in theory).

That is exactly how the Openreach wholesale FTTP service works today. CSPs buy "cablelinks" into a switch next to the OLT, which gives them the traffic for their customers.

I've noticed that round here, where we've got Netomnia building out over Openreach, with Giganet looking to be following behind, that the pole equipment is already looking rather...fussy. I suspect that it's already going to be tough for an engineer to go up the pole to commission a new customer and if one or two more providers start throwing up their own kit, this will become rapidly untenable.

That said, I also can't ignore the fact that Openreach failed to bring fibre up my street for 5 years after the initial "fibre is coming" email, yet an altnet have managed to do it in the space of 3 months, having a bit more willingness to break out the shovels when they find blocked ducts. While having a single provider (OR or another - I don't think it matters) delivering the underlying physical fabric sounds a good idea, that provider absolutely, 100% must not suck and must have a universal service obligation that goes beyond supporting fax machines. I'm not sure that, right now, I would want any single organisation to be doing this as if they refuse to tackle the tricky stuff (as OR have done round here), there are very, very few other options for homeowners that don't cost very large sums of money.

My assumption is that consolidation will probably happen over time anyway because of the vast cost in rolling out any physical infrastructure and that practical considerations will eventually align with commercial ones. I note that Brsk and Netomnia appear to be discussing a possible merger (they have relatively little network overlap) and I'm sure this will be the first of many to happen.

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Many moons ago I dared to suggest that just one company should provide full fibre to all, and the various service providers would then just need cable links to the various head ends … made sense to me.

But venture capitalists saw a way to pile it high, flog it cheap, then sell their network back to the highest bidder … welcome to the wild, wild west . Ye ha !

+1 and assisted by a Government with a fetish for competition, however unrealistic that may be in terms of the actual provision of a service.

If telecoms are a basic utility like electricity or gas why can the public not be served in the same way with a single electric connection, gas pipe and also a single telecom connection?

I think everyones missing a crucial part of the "Ye ha!" puzzle. You begin with stacks of companies, all named random "buzz" word + Fibre e.g. NextFibre, WeFibre, LitFibre, YESFibre, GoFibre, etc...

You churn them out of various off-shore locations with little to no accountability over who the real owner is. When the interesting accounting practices come to light and the auditors caught red handed drinking whisky on ice whilst shredding documents in the marriott business lounge, the fibre company picks up the phone to both "The cable cowboy" (great book) and our favourite private equity firm who own everything else. They purchase it for billions via debt, push up the prices 4 fold and 20 years later we have a single provider where at least half the bill goes on servicing the billions / trillions in debt.

Plus we scrapped the national roll out of fibre in 1990, as the governments "Cable Authority" was just fabulous in ensuring huge competition, lots and lots of companies (how'd that turn out) and no full fibre local loop monopoly over a single BT line. Looking back, it seems kind of dreamy. Ironic how the US ended up in the same situation when AT&T was broken up and their full fibre ambitions crashed in a similar manner.

Did we learn lessons from the past? Seems not. Maybe we need a government led "Fibre Authority." Or even better, can we get the wonderful Baroness Dido Harding to strategise over it?

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sat 20-Apr-24 09:06:35)