Change how openreach charge

Like a lot of people my internet is really poor currently I get 2mbps if I'm lucky. I'm not rural and I'm surrounded by villages with both Fttc and Virgin. Fttc is supposed to be coming via connecting Cheshire but it keeps getting delayed.

I was reading some comments on bbc page and someone suggested openreach should have to charge on what the line is capable of. So have tiers based on max speed. Is this not a possible solution? it would certainly make upgrading cabs like mine a lot more attractive.

Already happens

ADSL/ADSL2+ is cheaper than the faster FTTC based products and the faster products are split into two downstream speed groups.

Reality of broadband is its not how fast you get the data that costs, but how much data you transfer.

Lots of problems on how you admin variable charging based on speed delivered, the admin needed might actually result in a real scenario where your price does NOT go down, but others that are faster go up.

It kind of does but not to a level which helps someone like me. Why should I pay the same for sub 2Mbps as someone who is getting 18Mbps?

There is no real alternitive for people on my estate so Openreach have zero incentive to upgrade it. They are getting good money for only having to provide 2Mbps.

You miss the point, ADSL2+ is ball park £5 to £10 per month, FTTC services are £15 to £30 so if the incentive to make more money by providing more speed would really work then the price differentials do exist.

LLU providers have had a big degree of freedom in pricing, but when for examples they do stuff like ADSL2+ is free how do you fit differentials into that

I guess only way is on line rental. openreach could be forced to reduce line rental when Fttc / fast adsl Indy available. Imagine if they were made to half the price for less than 10mbps capable lines all of a sudden I think some estates would see Fttc cabs popping up.

ADSL/ADSL2+ is cheaper than the faster FTTC based products and the faster products are split into two downstream speed groups.

I'm not sure that's really the point. BT for example will sell a 17Mbps service, which if you're lucky to be in a city for example you may get close to the max speed. If you live in a rural area you may be lucky to get 1 or 2Mbps. Yet we all pay the same irrespective of how much data or how fast we can download.

Reality of broadband is its not how fast you get the data that costs, but how much data you transfer.

Not sure I understand that. It would appear to me that the driver for costs - apart from the obvious ;it's what people will pay for it' is the equipment cost, overheads and profit margin BT expect. I don't understand why the amount of data would affect the cost.

Either way BT will know your speed and how much you are downloading over a period of time. BT already have capped services and know when you go over your limit. Mobile phone companies do it already.

Because the more you download the higher the 95th percentile charging for the capacity to the ISP goes up.

Some products are capped, but generally they are not the popular products

And knowing human nature, the people getting 11 Mbps would be the next to complain that they have to pay full price.

UK broadband prices are vastly lower than they were 15 years ago, even though speeds have gone up for the vast majority.

Differential pricing is a nice idea, but can foresee lots of moans and groans and admin headaches.

Also a side effect given there is not legal requirement on Openreach to provider anything more than 28 Kbps internet access is they may withdraw products from areas, LLU almost does this now by its picking and choosing of where to unbundle.

I guess my point is there is zero incentive at the minute for cabs with no competition. What's better for openreach me paying £5 more and having 40Mbps or paying what I'm currently paying and only getting 2Mbps. Probably providing me 2mbps and not having to do any work. They know I'm not going anywhere and I cost them very little as even if I had my 2Mbps line downloading every day of the week at maximum capacity it still wouldn't download a lot.

Something needs to be introduced to incentivise openreach to upgrade cabs like mine. I'm not rural it's not a big job and connecting Cheshire have it as part of the plans. But because openreach know it has no completion and they aren't going to lose me as a customer they really aren't interested in upgrading it.

Edited by kingbiscit (Tue 18-Aug-15 10:56:46)

In reply to a post by Spuriousfish:

I'm not sure that's really the point. BT for example will sell a 17Mbps service,

To whom? I'm pretty sure they sell no such thing. They will sell an up to <some value> which incompasses 17Mb/s as a possibility for some people

The problem for BT is that the costs are the same regardless of the connection speed (and do note what Mr Saffron says as well). If BT only charge by connection speed it will end up doing one of two things:

* Overcharging customers on 'short lines'.
* Losing money on customers on long lines.

Given the costs involved in 'shortening' lines BT will likely just refuse to supply a service beyond a certain line length so you'll get nothing.

And it really is the ongoing bandwidth demands that drive costs. That's why leased lines are so much more expensive per month. The 1:1 contention means that you get to see the true cost of data transportation. Heck - even looking at a business grade DSL connection shows a price jump due to the lower contention/higher priority.

Edited by Andrue (Tue 18-Aug-15 11:38:39)