A few weeks ago I saw a couple of Openreach vans not far from me, 4 people, one looked like they were doing something, the others just standing around chatting. I don't know what they were doing, they had a manhole opened.
Just like the lot that came up here to fix a couple of potholes, 6 people and one doing something.

I don't demand cheap service, I demand a good service for a reasonable price.

Edited by zyborg47 (Thu 01-May-25 10:06:39)

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

A few weeks ago I saw a couple of Openreach vans not far from me, 4 people, one looked like they were doing something, the others just standing around chatting. I don't know what they were doing, they had a manhole opened.
Just like the lot that came up here to fix a couple of potholes, 6 people and one doing something.

I don't demand cheap service, I demand a good service for a reasonable price.

So you're always 100% flat out for your entire shift at work then? no time to talk?

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

A few weeks ago I saw a couple of Openreach vans not far from me, 4 people, one looked like they were doing something, the others just standing around chatting. I don't know what they were doing, they had a manhole opened.
Just like the lot that came up here to fix a couple of potholes, 6 people and one doing something.

I don't demand cheap service, I demand a good service for a reasonable price.

You don’t use an Openreach based provider , so why are you so bothered ? , BT/OR do seem to live rent free in your head, care to share the reason for your constant ‘need’ to comment negatively on them ? , did your wife / husband / partner leave you for one of their employees, was your pet cat/dog run over by an one of their vehicles, did you apply to work for them but were unsuccessful, presumably there must a reason for your antipathy, I’m just curious to the genesis of this pathological need to comment

Edited by Iniltous (Thu 01-May-25 11:09:04)

They've not had a monopoly in the era where home internet connections have been popular, anybody who wanted to build their own network to complete with BT has been able to do so for decades (see: all the cable franchises), and coming up for 20 years since the local loop was required to be provided to competitors for regulated prices.

If price is your concern, why are you defending Ofcom regulating their prices to not dip below a certain level?

Quite often utilities workers work as teams. A job might require one person, the next might require 4 or more. They may not know how many are required until they get there.

In reply to a post by MHC:

How many years will it take for OR to recover the overall costs of that install? Everyone demands cheap services but fail to realise some of the costs involved.

Any alt nets or VM cable already installed, or is this the first high speed to those MDUs?

With the fibre switch, I can actually OR shrinking footprint nationally, for their own financial survial. Of course if OR don't invest this, then they are taking a risk the customers of copper phone or FTTC services will move to a competitor and not come back.

Half my parents street in a town of 110,000, has moved to cable, and given up any home telephone. The local alternative to OR / VM is CityFibre and they haven't yet appeared in that half of town, I assume cost of installation unlikely to have a return on investment. Lots of elderly that just need relatively basic connectivity.

OR have to be looking at a national, 10 to 15 year (or more) viewpoint for replacing copper with FTTP, otherwise with the competition, even from just VM, the payback is insane.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Very true. All this whilst the company is hog tied by regulation.

Surely Ben Verwaayan (2003 to 2008) tried to get the company to start FTTP deployment, and the board was against, and focusing on FTTC deployment. If he had succeeded, things would look very different today.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

So you're always 100% flat out for your entire shift at work then? no time to talk?

Most of the time, yes, I certainly don;lt stand around watching other people work.,

In reply to a post by Iniltous:

You don’t use an Openreach based provider , so why are you so bothered ? , BT/OR do seem to live rent free in your head, care to share the reason for your constant ‘need’ to comment negatively on them ? , did your wife / husband / partner leave you for one of their employees, was your pet cat/dog run over by an one of their vehicles, did you apply to work for them but were unsuccessful, presumably there must a reason for your antipathy, I’m just curious to the genesis of this pathological need to comment

I wonder why people stick up for this company, a monopoly that have had its way for far too long and throw their toys out of the pram when things don't go their way.

I don't like companies that ignore people when contacted, I also don't like companies who have a monopoly and got their infrastructure for a pittance from the taxpayer and then did nothing to update it for years until they had to.
i am also not a lover of companies that use their size and power to try to get what they want, sadly that seems to happen a lot and not just openreach,

In reply to a post by jpm:

They've not had a monopoly in the era where home internet connections have been popular, anybody who wanted to build their own network to complete with BT has been able to do so for decades (see: all the cable franchises), and coming up for 20 years since the local loop was required to be provided to competitors for regulated prices.

If price is your concern, why are you defending Ofcom regulating their prices to not dip below a certain level?

What chance have alt nets got, when the majority of people on FTTC and ADSL for that matter will just stay with the ISP they are with to change to FTTP?

Say someone with Sky on FTTC, will stay with Sky when they go to FTTP, so stay on Openreach network, this is the advantage that openreach has.

BT/openreach have always been expensive, even before they started broadband, i remember they only included local calls with line rental because of competition, I realise they are regulated because of the advantages they have.

I think the network should have stayed government owned or be a non-profit-making company and split Openreach away from BT.