BT Openreach locking Fibre modems is wrong

Was not sure where to post this so will do here.

Most people know that when we order a fibre service, BT wholesale provides, a modem so we can use the fibre service. Nothing wrong in that, it's self.

My beef is with BT wholesale locking the modems; so you can't get anything usefully, line stats or anything from the modem.

In this day, it's quite ridiculous that BT wholesale should be so short sighted and restrictive. Many people want to see the line stats and monitor there line, without having to rely on information from our isp's. Many isp�s are not always honest about it.

While it is possible to unlock the modem or buy a unlocked fibre modem, we should not have to do that. That is added costs to the consumer that should not be the case. How hard is it for flaming BT wholesale, to have unlocked modems? Not hard at all.

We never had this problem with ADSL.

It's of my opinion that, BT wholesale locks the modems and don't want you to know you line stats, deliberately. This is probably because, they want to keep their bandwidth and network charges down and so they can give the customer less than they should. That is also so they can juggle the wholesale network without to much trouble.

Time to pull your finger out BT wholesale and stop being so restrictive. I hope your reading this. Rant over

Superspeed note. I'm talking, ment to be about, openreach, not BT wholesale, as Mr Saffron explains in his post.

Edited by deleted (Wed 09-Jan-13 23:20:16)

Actually back in 2000 and 2001 there was the same problem with ADSL and locked routers from BT Wholesale.

The locking now is done by Openreach, but a wires only product is on the way. First stage which was doing away with the interstitial plate took place earlier this year

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/5213-openreach-in...

Sky uses a feedback mechanism to supply the sync speed information to their router.

The modem is supplied and fitted by Openreach, not BT Wholesale. Sky and TalkTalk have to use the same modem.

I expect during 2013 that the requirement to use the Openreach modem will be removed. ISPs already have the specification of connectability requirements for whatever modem or modem/router they then choose to recommend/sell to their customers.

BT wholesale openreach, same thing really. That what I mean.

In this case a big difference, as openreach only worry about the bandwidth between cabinet and exchange hand over node, which is multiple GigE fibres. Where BT Wholesale, TalkTalk and Sky pick up the data at the GEA Handover is where worries about capacity the other conspiracy elements kicking

BT Wholesale charges around the £30 to £40 per month per Mbps of capacity a customer of theirs buys over the WBC network.

Well I never had that problem thank god but then I was still on dial-up at that time you state.

If it was me, I would of had the modems, not locked right from the start. Bit stupid doing the same thing again, if they did the same back in 2000- 2001.

Thanks for the link.

Edited by deleted (Wed 09-Jan-13 23:21:39)

"Fibre broadband" would have probably been better.

For the experienced customer, the locked FTTC modem is a pain - but I can see why BT Openreach (not Wholesale) have adopted this approach. There is no 'wires only' FTTC product at present - you can only order FTTC with the Openreach modem and the presentation of that service is the Ethernet port on the Openreach modem. I have seen a post from AAISP arguing this is a good thing, because it avoids the "BT Wholesale blames the customer's equipment" scenario that can make ADSL faults so trying.

BT Openreach view the modem as managed equipment, and the usual approach is to lock managed equipment to prevent tampering. Having worked in networking R&D, I am aware that the number of faults and outages due to tinkerers is depressing, so keeping people out of managed equipment in the interests of uptime and keeping the settings correct makes sense.

The End User for the FTTC product from Openreach is your ISP, not you, and ISP can get some data from the Openreach systems. Some ISPs, including my own, Zen, make the sync speeds and profile visible in their customer portal.

The vast majority of users couldn't care about extracting technical information from their DSL modem or router as they neither frequent forums such as this one nor have the expertise to interpret the data themselves.

I agree its deliberate but not for the reasons you stated, I dont think BT are deliberatly capping sync speeds (unless they reducing transmit power at the cabinet deliberatly, is possible but hard to prove).

I think its more so they can fob off complaints easier, when someone is ringing up armed with error counts, snrm figures, sync speed figures etc. its harder for a support rep to deal with, now much simpler BT side when all people have is a speedtest result and maybe a ip profile.

eg. my line can be looked at in 2 different ways.

Without the unlocked modem I just have a 10% loss of speed on the downstream and am still above my estimated speed, no fault whatsoever. Can be blamed on internet congestion etc.

With the info from the unlocked modem my line has lost over 30% of its signal in both directions, very significant. But I am not supposed to have this information.

This will soon change anyway as I suspect modem/routers supplied from isp's wont be locked for the wires only installs.

Actually reading david's reply, makes a lot of sense as well. I can understand it for the purpose of locking settings.

Edited by Chrysalis (Thu 10-Jan-13 05:26:27)

Openreach don't pay anyone for bandwidth, they sell it, and have no interest in your line running slower.

It's their equipment, they elected to lock it down.

Annoying but not a big conspiracy. I've seen cable operators do much the same, and that's on services which cannot run at anything other than the maximum sync speed. It saves people calling in to their service provider with faults because they don't like the numbers they don't really understand on the modem.

Agreed. I think that once wires only gets the green light the ownership of existing modems will get passed to the ISP's, if only to absolve Openreach from further replacement costs.

The experience of Openreach with locked down modems is bound to be passed on to their customers and I would be surprised if ISP's did not also continue this with the kit they will supply.