BT trying to get people to fibre by not fixing problems.

Someone I know have been having problems with their ADSL for a couple of months, according to what BTOR told their supplier there is a problem with a main cable and this is why his broadband is so slow and they do not seem to be in a rush to fix it as it would mean digging up the road. So they told him he should change to fibre.l

I think this is a disgrace, we pay line rental that is suppose to go towards the maintenance of the network and yet when it needs doing BT seems to not want to do it.
Fibre would work yes because it by passes the cable. He is not impressed and this is why BTOR needs to be separated.

Fibre would work yes because it by passes the cable. He is not impressed and this is why BTOR needs to be separated.

Still not convinced separating OR would make them any more likely to want to spend their profits. Replacing a long section of cable to fix a single users broadband is not very profitable - and likely to cost more than the line rental that they got over a large number of years.

I am not saying they shouldn't fix issues but that whether they are part of BT or not they will still be driven by profits. And if they became non-profit then they would be driven by balancing the books.

Sounds like a e side cable fault . By fault do they mean the cable is just to long ?

How would separation help? Exactly the same cost drivers would remain.

What speeds do they get on ADSL (i..e what does 'slow' actually mean)?

How do you know that OR don't want to fix it? I imagine OR would want to fix any fault especially if its affecting lots of customers (i.e. in a 'main cable')

But it may simply be the case that OR may not be able to dig up a road - for instance the council would need to give permission - which could take months..

Separation would make no difference to this at all..

In reply to a post by ian72:

Fibre would work yes because it by passes the cable. He is not impressed and this is why BTOR needs to be separated.

Still not convinced separating OR would make them any more likely to want to spend their profits. Replacing a long section of cable to fix a single users broadband is not very profitable - and likely to cost more than the line rental that they got over a large number of years.

I am not saying they shouldn't fix issues but that whether they are part of BT or not they will still be driven by profits. And if they became non-profit then they would be driven by balancing the books.

That is the problem, all down to paying share holders, they to be honest give a monkeys about the customer.

In reply to a post by MC31:

Sounds like a e side cable fault . By fault do they mean the cable is just to long ?

No the cable is old and falling apart, the last time there was a problem they swap to another pair, but they can't do that again for some reason. The problem is that the whole network is old and have been bodged up for years, BT got it for a song and done nothing to it until the last few years.

But that is the case whether Openreach is separate or not.

The other thing for me is if Openreach was spun off then Ofcom may force reductions in charges and that could remove any profit margin.

Personally I think companies making excessive profits should have to answer as to why they aren't using those profits to either reduce charges or to invest. Especially some of the big energy companies who love making massive profits and then put up prices to maintain those profits when costs go up (oh, and don't reduce prices when the costs come down).

But, regulating profit goes against this countries ethos. Perhaps we should charge 100% tax on any profits over a reasonable percentage?

In reply to a post by gt94sss2:

What speeds do they get on ADSL (i..e what does 'slow' actually mean)?

How do you know that OR don't want to fix it? I imagine OR would want to fix any fault especially if its affecting lots of customers (i.e. in a 'main cable')

But it may simply be the case that OR may not be able to dig up a road - for instance the council would need to give permission - which could take months..

Separation would make no difference to this at all..

Slow is 2Mb/s, sometimes it does get up to 4 now and again. but they used to get 8 until they had the problem.
They was told by their supplier that BTOR is dragging their feet as it is a pretty large job. There are a couple of other people in the street having the same problem by all accounts, i presume most of them have gone for fibre.
But this person says he do not see why he should pay more to get faster speed he do not require when the service he had was working fine until recently.

He would go for fibre if the price was the same as what he is paying now, strange thing is phone is ok, apart from a bit of cracking.

And Openreach could easily show that the revenue from fibre networks is still running at below investment levels, i.e. take-up still needs to increase.

Or put another way the build it and they will come model has some issues. Oddly you can get vastly different take-up levels in the same town for cabs that had similar broadband speeds before, so it is not as simple as saying its those who can only get 1 to 2 Mbps buying it in large volume, since in some areas even that is not happening.

If speed and reliability is that much of an issue then it makes sense to upgrade to FTTC. The prices are getting closer and closer as time goes on.

The problem will most likely be as you've said, the copper is old and there are no "broadband capable" good spare pairs to switch to. Remember, Openreach only have an obligation to provide a working telephone service, not broadband.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

They was told by their supplier that BTOR is dragging their feet as it is a pretty large job.

Sadly, you can't believe everything ISPs tell customers - they won't know how 'large' a job is or have details of the faults of other ISPs in that area

He would go for fibre if the price was the same as what he is paying now, strange thing is phone is ok, apart from a bit of cracking.

Could I suggest:

a) He shop around - there are lots of special offers for fibre and prices are coming down;

b) If there is noise on he line he should report it as a voice fault - not a broadband one.

I'd concur. There's a legal obligation to deliver a voice line, so if there's an obvious fault that way, then report it as such. Broadband is a different issue in that (apart from a minim functional speed requirement which is about 28k from memory), there's no service obligation I'm aware of for any given speed.

My experience is that if the problem is audible then it helps get a resolution. If the problem is a major e-side cable change I suspect it's a major job.

Sounds like a rather long line... is the line noisy at all?

I had a long line with ADSL this time last year, first off it operated at around 1.5mbps... then I had it looked at becuase of noise, it increase to 2.5mb but there was still noise and I wanted a bit more speed as ISP said 3.5mb...

After Openreach visit, he found a spare pair that acheived 3.8mb and alot less noise (though still some) and eventually the line settled on a 3db SNR and I could get 4.8Mb from it...

However this was a very rare case and was helped by the small ammount of broadband connections on the phone lines as most had opted for Virgin Media Cable in tha area... which I returned too in the end.

Some stats of the line would help us get an idea of the fault but to be honest unless the sync speed is outside the estimates on BT Wholesales checker, there's a extremly small chance of any cables being replaced...

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

....according to what BTOR told their supplier there is a problem with a main cable and this is why his broadband is so slow and they do not seem to be in a rush to fix it as it would mean digging up the road....

Although I have some sympathy with your mate, it's simply not a matter of just turning up and digging a hole. All sorts of permissions have to be gained first. These permissions can take a long time to obtain and considerable expense can be incurred during that process.

The return on Openreach is regulated though. It's not excessive in that sense, it is meant (by Ofcom) to represent a market rate on the value of the asset (not turnover). So the idea is that if the network is valued at (say) £20bn, and 5% was an allowed ROI it would mean £1bn could be regulated (I seem to recall that Openreach actually fall a bit short of the regulated ROI rate). The principle is meant to be that if an investor could put the value of the network into some other comparable investment, then that's the regulated rate of return. The actual value of the Openreach network (something that is less easy to calculate than people might think) was subject to a huge amount of controversy (Ofcom considerably reduced the value).

Note that the value of the asset is not as simple as whatever capital has been spent on it over the year less accumulated depreciation, it's a market value. A bit like people's houses. Just because somebody has paid off the mortgage doesn't mean it doesn't have an asset value.

So all this talk of margins is something of a red herring. It's the ROI that matters as shareholders buy on a market capitalisation basis, not on turnover.

Your friend should first try to establish where the "cracking" is arising. Use the Quiet Line Test.

If the cracling is arising on the outside line, it should be reported to his Phone Services Supplier (the company he pays the Phone Line rental diirectly to) as a PHONE Fault, avoiding mentioning Broadband of any variety.

If it is between the PCP and his premises, then FTTC/VDSL is unlikely to provide a cure; and may be worse, as FTTC/VDSL makes use of that length of existing copper, plus a relatively short length of new copper.

It may be in a "main" or multi-core cable from the PCP, via overhead or underground to a phone pole, from which the pairs radiate to the various local premises, including those near-neighbours.

If it is that, it could be more readily replaced than a truly "main" cable etc.

-----------------------

Possibly his ADSL Stats from his modem may help throw some light on the matter.

Edited by deleted (Thu 25-Feb-16 19:07:40)

Well two of us here have been waiting for a pavement dig since last August. Taking time to arrange has nothing to do with it when they categorize it as a PAT fault, where they can take years if they feel inclined. In my case FTTC did not fix the poroblem as the earth fault was my side of the cabinet, so dropped back to ADSL 2+

A "PAT fault" is a fault that doesn't affect service whatever that may mean. That's probably why your dig didn't happen.
I find PAT a bit of an enigma; if it doesn't affect service then surely, as far as the end user is concerned, it isn't a fault.

Edited by Deadbeat (Thu 25-Feb-16 22:38:12)

In reply to a post by Deadbeat:

A "PAT fault" is a fault that doesn't affect service whatever that may mean. That's probably why your dig didn't happen.
I find PAT a bit of an enigma; if it doesn't affect service then surely, as far as the end user is concerned, it isn't a fault.

So tell me - What about a PAT fault that has been diagnosed as an earth fault that DOES impact service - Especially one that even the engineers state has been wrongly categorized? - All of which is not helped by an ISP that would not chase it up as requested by an engineer, which has led to it dropping off the radar altogether.

In reply to a post by professor973:

... What about a PAT fault that has been diagnosed as an earth fault that DOES impact service...

Well if there is any common sense left in the world, it can't be a PAT fault! Communication breakdown maybe? And I'm not referring to your line!

That's the thing with PAT faults, the line must test OK to SIN 349, so OK on a remote test before they'll raise a PAT fault.

It's kinda like it meets contractual requirements but something above and beyond is required, like a very minor broadband issue for instance.

In my case, the engineers equipment pinpointed the earth fault 15m the other side of last pole. Order went in for walkway chamber and 15m of trunking ancable from chamber to top of last pole. Also last pole junction box to be replaced as in bad state, the same as cable from ground to top. Pulse8 stated this was causing my high number of errors which left me with an interleave depth of 64 up until my switch on Tuesday. Not checked what it is now, but surprisingly mu minimum latency is much lower for the same resold service - gaming latency having been my biggest problem. According to Pulse8 the job has now fallen off the system after months of not being chased.

to be honest if a service is subpar, a decision shouldnt be based on profits, it should be based on doing the right thing for your customer.

If everyone worked to that principle e.g. insurance companies then there would be no insurance payouts because "it isnt profitable to do so".

There needs to be some kind of enforced standard that forces openreach to keep a local loop up to scratch, obviously its unreasonable to expect complete network rebuilds, removing of all ali everywhere etc. without a case for it, but on the other hand I think openreach should be forced to spend whats necessary to get poor lines up to the standard of other lines with similar distance.

Who should pay for it? the shareholders, however BT will argue of course the shareholders shouldnt pay for it and this is why we have the openreach we have today.

I think the claims of "cannot do anything about the laws of physics", or "you get what you get xDSL is a lottery" need to be branded as unacceptable.

Edited by Chrysalis (Sat 27-Feb-16 05:37:26)

Roads can be dug up with very short notice in emergencies. For example my neighbour had a power outage. Turns out it was a faulty cable outside the house on the pavement. Within 24hrs of reporting it the pavement had been dug up to fix the cable

If the Government want broadband to be treated the same as any other utility isnt a broadband outage also an emergency?

I would say that the time taken for a fix depends on where the fault actually is. I would think that no-one has the right to descend on someone else's property and start digging holes everywhere. Gas supplies may be different because of the obvious dangers but I wouldn't know about that.

I very much doubt that a broadband outage for Joe Public could ever be classed as an emergency but a telephone outage might well be.

What reasons would a cable buried underground 'go bad' as is the case with the OP? I get that cables can deteriorate over time but that is usually due to external factors like the weather. Cables buried underground are well insulated and are put out of harms way of external elements. So what would cause them to suddenly fail?

Edited by bobble_bob (Sat 27-Feb-16 10:55:13)

still not seen any stats or BTw line checks for this line...

As far a we know it may be operating within estimates and the stats may say its fine...

Maybe at a joint ? If in duct can get damaged when new cable is pulled in. Buried cable can be damaged by 3rd partys , tree roots ect.

insurance companies then there would be no insurance payouts because "it isnt profitable to do so".

and

Who should pay for it?

The major difference here being that insurance companies can and do increase the premium where an individual makes a claim. Openreach charge nothing.

openreach charge millions of people line rental, that revenue as a whole should be used for profit/loss not individual cases.

The vast majority of line rental doesnt pay for maintenance etc. they charge it just because they can.

The vast majority of line rental doesnt pay for maintenance etc. they charge it just because they can.

There's a lot more than simply maintenance to pay for, for example paying for the current FTTC/FTTP roll out. It's the larger ISPs that are milking line rental rather than Openreach.

Notice tho there is no equivalent fee for mobile's?

I dont pay mast rental

And the relevance of your reply is what exactly? The cost of maintaining some 24 million or so land lines is just a little bit bigger than that of maintaining around 52,500 base stations by several orders of magnitude.

except they not maintaining, they just apply a plaster fix when something breaks bad enough.

Whilst true that few Al cables are being replaced by Cu I'm sure you will find BT are maintaining as far as is possible their old network with the funds available to them whilst also extending fibre as far as they can into their network. Now if Openreach were to receive more for the use of their network I'm sure they would be happy to improve the standard of maintenance. The problem being that the retailers/ISPs try to pay as little as possible and retain as much of their income as possible as profit for themselves, be they BT Consumer, BT Business, Sky or TT.

If you, as probably a mobile user, are not paying for the mast, in some manner, whether declared in the "Line Rental" manner or not, who is paying?

All companies have to recover there costs, whether capital or running, otherwise they go out of business.

Whom do those companies recover the costs from?

From their customers - YOU, I and all the OTHERS!

Ultimately the cost is probably paid via call revenues and the like, which seems better than charging people who dont use a line, line rental with record breaking annual price increases.

I think one would have to be naive to think all 100% of line rental is used on copper/ali line maintenance.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

I think one would have to be naive to think all 100% of line rental is used on copper/ali line maintenance.

It is not. It pays for maintenance of the line, maintenance of the switch in the exchange, maintenance of the building, maintenance of the green cabinets, contributes towards the business rates on the exchange, the cabinet and the underground copper network.


So, if you take it off the line rental you increase call costs and increase cost of a broadband connection. And what will be the average cost per customer? A: the same as it is now. Yes, some will gain, some will lose and the overall benefit is zero.

and what does the following fund?

call connection fees
call per minute revenue
call connection charges
xDSL port rental

You sitl have failed to understand my main point, openreach dont do routine preventative maintenance of lines, I have heard this directly from the engineers working on the street. A line only has work done on it "if" something is found needing to be fixed (typically from a fault report).

Obviously if line rental were to cease to exist I know the revenue would be recovered from elsewhere as BT would do to protect their shareholders.

Openreach charge CPs something under £90 ex vat pa for line rental. So any ISP charging £19inc vat pm is ripping the customer off.

You need to detach the two figures.

Taking our Electricity Supply arrangements, we pay 20 Pence per day, Standing Charge, whether we use the actual Electricity or not.

The only way to avoid it, is to NOT have an Electricity Supply.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

and what does the following fund?

call connection fees
call per minute revenue
call connection charges
xDSL port rental

What is the difference between connection fees and connection charges, or did you just accidentally include it twice?

Openreach don't charge anything for calls. Nothing to do with them.

My phone provider charges me £14pm inc vat, including caller display and 1571, no call connection/setup charge, per second billing, 1ppm at peak times, 0.8ppm at off-peak.

What are you paying to some rip-off firm, and why?

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 02-Mar-16 16:42:57)

And gas and water too ...

"openreach dont do routine preventative maintenance of lines"

As in what ? If nowts gone wrong what is there to do ? Change a good cable for a good cable at a cost of ££££s in a world were folks are looking to save a few £ a month.

yes I am just talking about the wholesale side here which I know is a much lower figure, but its still above 0.

I am done here tho, me and MHC will be going in circles.

Retail side of course has their own fingers in the ATM machine and also using line rental for cashflow.

not by mistake, BT make money also for inbound calls by charging the other network as well for connecting the call.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

You sitl have failed to understand my main point, openreach dont do routine preventative maintenance of lines, I have heard this directly from the engineers working on the street. A line only has work done on it "if" something is found needing to be fixed (typically from a fault report).

Have you read this?

Its mainly to do with BDUK and USOs but Q2 covers Openreach capital spend.

Openreach do do preventative maintenance where they think its needed and they have the resources/capacity to do so. However, the way they are regulated (ironically) provides a disincentive for them to do this. (i.e. the staff cuts they needed to make)

I accept that OR probably did scale it back a lot years ago but I know I have seen statements from them recently saying that they have been able to increase this again..

Chrysalis

Have you seen the termination rates?

Last time I saw they were around 0.01 ppm with no connection charge, this hardly covers the cost of the electricity to keep the call up let alone the ringer to apply ringing current or the switching or the Call control required to get the call to the correct port. ( An ex BT auditor suggested to me that there was a view that it would be cheaper to have the terminating calls at 0p because you wouldn't have to do all the billing of them between operators)

All the call charges for originating calls are the taken by the Service provider and not Openreach. They pay for all the equipment except the edge port on the local exchange, including but not only:
The Concentrator switching equipment,
The transmission cost to the Call control site,
The Call control switch ( Digital Local Exchange),
Core transnission,
Core Switches that interconnect with other DLEs and with other operators.
Payments to other operators for terminating calls
Network resilience.
Electricity bills for 24h per day regardless if you use the phone.
Billing, Faults, Business rates, etc and Network management that keeps it all running without anyone noticing. ( Plus costs of all the regulatory reports / accounts for OFCOM to prove you don't cross subsidised).

You will have noticed that the only faults you tend to see are the final leg where there can be no resilience but tend to affect few people. This is why OR get all the flack.

This is why Line rental goes up at a retail level, even as OR price goes down.as call numbers drop as the economy of scale disappears, ( You need it all even if you don't use it!)

well hopefully you right and it starts happening again.

I have heard some woeful things from the engineers,. they under a lot of pressure to keep any type of work low.

" they under a lot of pressure to keep any type of work low."

But is that not the situation with most forms of work, especially the "mass-production" variety?

About 20 years back when a large supermarket opened in Swansea, the cashiers/till workers were expected to scan 27 items per minute.

What do you find difficult about understanding that Openreach get absolutely no revenue for carrying calls. Nothing. Zero. The only revenue it gets for a copper loop is the (closely regulated) charge it makes to the service providers of £87.48 a year. Openreach was deliberately set up by the regulator in that way.

As for where the revenue goes (which is about £2.5bn a year - the rest is largely from private circuits and FTTC), then it has to pay for staff costs, buildings, power, vehicles, regular maintenance such as pole replacements, dropwires and so on. Then there are overheads for human resources, planning, R&D, accounting, IT systems and a host of other things.. A certain (regulated) amount is allowed as an return on investment (ROI) as the value of the passive infrastructure, cable and so on is deemed to be worth a certain amount by Ofcom. That represents a capital investment owned by shareholders which they could have invested elsewhere (and is related to the cost of captial). The asset value of the network will be in the region of perhaps £25-30bn, and it was bought, by shareholders, off the government.

So, given that the only revenue source that Openreach has for line rental, how else would you propose that it be financed or should all the staff be sent home?

However, if you accept that OR have to be paid something for provision of the line, then maybe you'll also accept that it is the service providers who decide how they package it. They could, of course, decide to give you the line for free and over the costs of that with call charges. However, as fixed line call revenues are collapsing, there's not much mileage in that approach.

nb. when looking at retail prices, don't forget the government adds 20% in the form of VAT. That's not revenue to the companies. The government is just using them as unpaid tax collectors.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

In reply to a post by ian72:

Fibre would work yes because it by passes the cable. He is not impressed and this is why BTOR needs to be separated.

Still not convinced separating OR would make them any more likely to want to spend their profits. Replacing a long section of cable to fix a single users broadband is not very profitable - and likely to cost more than the line rental that they got over a large number of years.

I am not saying they shouldn't fix issues but that whether they are part of BT or not they will still be driven by profits. And if they became non-profit then they would be driven by balancing the books.

That is the problem, all down to paying share holders, they to be honest give a monkeys about the customer.

Without customers there would be no revenue, and therefore no profits to pay dividends to shareholders.

So companies live and die by ensuring that the majority of their customers are satisfied with their product and/or service, or customers leave and the company goes broke.

In reply to a post by JonDav:

So companies live and die by ensuring that the majority of their customers are satisfied with their product and/or service, or customers leave and the company goes broke.

Having a monopoly helps in this situation though.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

Who should pay for it? the shareholders, however BT will argue of course the shareholders shouldnt pay for it and this is why we have the openreach we have today.

What an excellent idea.

Got any ideas how shareholders should be forced to subsidise this? Maybe shareholders would just dump their BT shares?

Out of interest; How much money do you think the dividend pay out is to shareholders in a company like BT?

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by JonDav:

So companies live and die by ensuring that the majority of their customers are satisfied with their product and/or service, or customers leave and the company goes broke.

Having a monopoly helps in this situation though.

Not heard of Virgin Media?

In reply to a post by JonDav:

Not heard of Virgin Media?

Not available in my part of the UK, nor many other parts of the UK.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by JonDav:

Not heard of Virgin Media?

Not available in my part of the UK, nor many other parts of the UK.

That still doesn't mean BT has a monopoly over all the UK.

If people that had access to both BT and Virgin only used Virgin, then BT would have a rather serious issue with their bottom line (i.e. the figures would mainly be red).

BT also has regulators crawling all over it to ensure they perform to certain standards.

So my point still stands: Excessive numbers of unhappy customers would result in BT losing a lot of those customers.

My main point though was about shareholders paying to make Chrysalis happy. I am curious as to what he thinks BT shareholders actually get as a return on their investment in the form of dividends, plus how he thinks shareholders would react to being robbed to make Chrysalis happy.

http://www.btplc.com/Sharesandperformance/Dividends/...

In reply to a post by JonDav:

]That still doesn't mean BT has a monopoly over all the UK.

I never said "all over the UK".

Openreach have a monopoly over fixed line broadband where I live, the same is true in many parts of the country. My indirect custom to Openreach is guaranteed, I have no choice in terms of fixed line broadband.

In reply to a post by Apprentice:

http://www.btplc.com/Sharesandperformance/Dividends/...

As your link shows those "greedy" shareholders got the grand total of 12.9 pence per share for a year in dividend payments. That represents a return of 2.78% based on BT current share price today of approx. 464.40 pence.

I was enquiring from Chrysalis what he thinks shareholders get, as I think he believes the return is zillions of pounds, and also why would shareholders even bother to invest in BT if they were going to get an even smaller return than 2.78% just to make Chrysalis happy?

IMO Chrysalis obviously thinks shareholders should be robbed of that massive (that is sarcasm BTW) 2.78% return on their money just to make him happy, and possibly thinks shareholders wouldn't then dump BT shares?

Edited by deleted (Mon 07-Mar-16 15:15:34)

3% isnt bad actually, remembering you still own the shares and can sell it when you choose.

Not sure why you have took my comments so hard tho, it was days ago.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

3% isnt bad actually, remembering you still own the shares and can sell it when you choose.

Not sure why you have took my comments so hard tho, it was days ago.

Simply because the reality of your suggestion is nonsense.

It would be impossible to implement because sharehoders aren't going to return any dividend cash. The way companies fund improvements to their products/services is by using available cash (or borrowing cash) to do them. Dividends are paid out from profits after tax by a company.

Anyway the amounts shareholders get as dividends aren't that large (as demonstrated in an earlier post by me).

Very few companies pay out dividends of greater than 4%. Plus obviously shareholders always run the risk of the actual share price decreasing that effectively not only wipes out whatever gain they get from dividends, but can also erode the original capital invested.

So your idea about shareholders shelling out is a complete non-starter from many many perspectives, including logistics and simple maths.

Edited by deleted (Mon 07-Mar-16 22:57:59)

In reply to a post by Deadbeat:

Although I have some sympathy with your mate, it's simply not a matter of just turning up and digging a hole. All sorts of permissions have to be gained first. These permissions can take a long time to obtain and considerable expense can be incurred during that process.

i know this and he certainly does, but still annoying.

In reply to a post by eckiedoo:

Your friend should first try to establish where the "cracking" is arising. Use the Quiet Line Test.

If the cracling is arising on the outside line, it should be reported to his Phone Services Supplier (the company he pays the Phone Line rental diirectly to) as a PHONE Fault, avoiding mentioning Broadband of any variety.

If it is between the PCP and his premises, then FTTC/VDSL is unlikely to provide a cure; and may be worse, as FTTC/VDSL makes use of that length of existing copper, plus a relatively short length of new copper.

It may be in a "main" or multi-core cable from the PCP, via overhead or underground to a phone pole, from which the pairs radiate to the various local premises, including those near-neighbours.

If it is that, it could be more readily replaced than a truly "main" cable etc.

-----------------------

Possibly his ADSL Stats from his modem may help throw some light on the matter.

Seems to have sorted itself out now for some reason, broadband is now back up to a ok speed and crackling have gone, not sure how long it will last mind you. It could be because it have been dry for a few days, lets see what happens if we have the rain tomorrow that is forcast.

In reply to a post by bobble_bob:

What reasons would a cable buried underground 'go bad' as is the case with the OP? I get that cables can deteriorate over time but that is usually due to external factors like the weather. Cables buried underground are well insulated and are put out of harms way of external elements. So what would cause them to suddenly fail?

Those cable are main trunk cables, i have been told by a BT engineer that they are over 60 years old. Copper gets brittle over time, traffic and vibration over that amount of time must have some effect.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

Notice tho there is no equivalent fee for mobile's?

I dont pay mast rental

i used to, when I had my first mobile phone, if I paid a tenner on PAYG, £5 went for talk and text messages and the other fiver was for line rental.

In reply to a post by JonDav:

Without customers there would be no revenue, and therefore no profits to pay dividends to shareholders.

So companies live and die by ensuring that the majority of their customers are satisfied with their product and/or service, or customers leave and the company goes broke.

The problem is Openreach have a monopoly,k if do not matter what provider I go to, money will got to Openreach. The only way around it is if Virgin is around and even then I expect Virgin have to pay Open reach something. So the only way really is a wireless broadband service.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Copper gets brittle over time

Apparently not

In reference to www.copper.org/applications/plumbing/restools/bst_buy_plmbng.html:

Copper doesn�t become brittle with age.

I don't believe Virgin pay Openreach anything as Openreach are only the last mile and Virgin own their network outright (unless it was Virgin ADSL but I don't think Virgin do that any more). It is possible Virgin might pay BT Wholesale for some backhaul circuits but I'm not sure they even do that.

It is a distinctly different grade and size etc of copper used for plumbing/water pipes; and in the majority of cases it is installed indoors and all of the protection from gales etc implied by being indoors.

Taking mains water supplies, ie effectively relatively exposed by being underground, the material used originally was Lead (Roman era), Cast-Iron (Victorian and up to about 1960s); and from then heavy duty Plastic.

So not really comparable at any stage with Telephone Wiring.

Also Gas Piping is not comparable, originally being generally Lead, followed by "Compo" (Composition - identified by a sealing ridge along its length); and copper piping in more recent times.

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I am not sure of the diameter of individual Phone Wires; but suggest that it is about .012 of an inch ("12 Thou" or about 0.03 mm), so lacking the typical robustness of copper water pipes.

The typical tin-plating does give some protection against corrosion; but it is only microns thick, so definitely does not add any mechanical protection or robustness - I have also had to use passivated silver-plated, copper wires in highly critical electronics equipment.

Although there are varying degrees of protection, from the basic electrical insulation on individual wires, again it does not provide any significant mechanical protection or robustness.

Only as the quantity of wires starts to build up significantly in a distribution cable, does the robustness start to increase.

Phone wire is mostly 0.5mm or 6.5lb per mile in old money. Large eside cables can go down to 0.4mm or rarely 0,32mm. This is down to duct size restrictions.

Other poundages in use are 0.63 and 0.9 copper and 0.6 and 0.8mm ali.

Thanks, Partial.

So confirming a lack of general robustness, compared to hard-drawn, copper pipes and their plastic equivalents in plumbing generally.

And I suspect that there will be some sort of Licence Fee some-where amongst the charges, Plus maintenance of the Mast, Transmitter and Receiver etc - just like Mobile Phones.

So although probably not to BT/OR, in effect there will be effectively an equivalent.

Also, aren't many Mobile Phone Masts physically connected to the BT Network?

Certainly the local one is clearly connected on to the adjacent BT/OR Overhead, which otherwise goes to the nearby farm.

In reply to a post by eckiedoo:

And I suspect that there will be some sort of Licence Fee some-where amongst the charges, Plus maintenance of the Mast, Transmitter and Receiver etc - just like Mobile Phones.

So although probably not to BT/OR, in effect there will be effectively an equivalent.

Also, aren't many Mobile Phone Masts physically connected to the BT Network?

Certainly the local one is clearly connected on to the adjacent BT/OR Overhead, which otherwise goes to the nearby farm.

i think it annoyed them more that their supplier told them that going for fibre would probably solve the problem.