Openreach Employment - Board Level

It seems that BT have appointed a "Chairman of the Board" for Openreach, choosing an ex-Ofcom-board member.

Interesting that they've chosen to go ahead with their own allocation here, even before Ofcom have decided what to do with Openreach.

While Ofcom has announced legal separation a few hours later, there is a single olive branch being waved, but a large full split sat in the background, so Ofcom is seeing its legal separation as a middle ground already.

So new board is going to be busy, wonder if Sky or TalkTalk CEO will end up on it.

I believe the sad truth in all this is that what we'll end up with is an entirely toothless company trying to dance to the tune of too many taskmasters ...... and the only ones to suffer in the long term will be the public.

Everyone wants it as cheap as chips .... and low cost is NOT the way forward for a progressive telecoms infrastructure.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

I believe the sad truth in all this is that what we'll end up with is an entirely toothless company trying to dance to the tune of too many taskmasters ...... and the only ones to suffer in the long term will be the public.

Everyone wants it as cheap as chips .... and low cost is NOT the way forward for a progressive telecoms infrastructure.

Totally agree with that. Everyone calls for upgrades and te fastest access but not prepared to pay for it - and OLOs are always demanding price cuts.

This is likely to backfire - extra costs within OR from the management side, a requirement to report to the Stock Exchange, potential for corporation tax ... and those will be passed on.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

While Ofcom has announced legal separation a few hours later, there is a single olive branch being waved, but a large full split sat in the background, so Ofcom is seeing its legal separation as a middle ground already.

I have to say that, once the July result was announced,I saw the remaining "full split" threat as one that Ofcom could not hope to action. They give the reasons for it themselves. I think it has turned into a non-threat.

Looking at the reactions today, I don't see that Ofcom have quite "announced" a legal separation yet either. Just that they've kicked off the next leg. But both Ofcom and BT say they're continuing to work towards an agreed solution

Ironically, kicking-off EU consideration of the "legal split" option makes me even more certain that the "full split" option is off the table.

For those of us without Fibre BT/Openreach have done a poor job - maybe the future Openreach will be better.

Couldn't be any worse speed wise.

In reply to a post by kebabselector:

For those of us without Fibre BT/Openreach have done a poor job - maybe the future Openreach will be better.

But at what cost.
Overall people as has been said, want more for less. Fine in area's with high populations. When you start getting out into the sticks. Then the cost starts to rocket.
So perhaps the option's for rural area's is not fibre, say, something like 4G.
Hell even some remote area's do not have mains water/gas/electric yet.....

In reply to a post by JohnR:

In reply to a post by kebabselector:

For those of us without Fibre BT/Openreach have done a poor job - maybe the future Openreach will be better.

But at what cost.
Overall people as has been said, want more for less. Fine in area's with high populations.

What about Central London and Central Manchester, to my knowledge? Notably GEA-ignored until very recently.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 29-Nov-16 19:15:33)

Certainly won't be worse speed wise but will only be better with more grant funding. Many of the areas left will never justify economic investment so if seperate will not justify borrowing money to do. I think that actually more likely to get the investment if it remains together as they will accept the USO and invest just to keep OFCOM off their backs.

Once seperate OFCOM won't have any levers left to make them invest especially with the price caps they have already placed on BB products ( RPI -x is not encouraging investment in marginal areas without subsidy)

And alternates are making plenty of moves in central London, and its interesting hearing some of them speak about the wayleave issues and the time it takes to convince some landlords the difference a decent connection can make.

Most want a Rolls -Royce Phantom for Nissan Micra money and no why will that happed whatever happeds with OR / BT Group.

....Yep, and all that topped off with impractical fiscal penalties based on unsupportable service guarantees.

you cab is not Viable- the gap would be significantly less now -- which you have been advised --

Who do think should pay for you to be able to have a faster broadband connection given that the cost of providing such is commercially unviable?
a) You and your neighbours?
b) The state?
c) BT Openreach
d) AN Other?
If your answer is b, c or d why do you consider others should pay for a service from which you will benefit? Does this extend to other items and services that you would like to have available but do not at present? Should everything be free and if so who should pay?

In reply to a post by kebabselector:

For those of us without Fibre BT/Openreach have done a poor job - maybe the future Openreach will be better.

Ah - the Brexit/Trump gambit: We don't know what we're voting for, but we don't like what we're voting against.

What I say next isn't going to be very palatable:

Those people living in places where comms is not viable (or not very viable) will always be at this end of the financial spectrum. It will always be hard to justify rolling out a service, at least until society as a whole feels sorry for them.

There is little that can happen to make these places more viable, unless they hand over more money. They will always be last to be dealt with ... and will always be handled when costs have finally diminished to a palatable state. And, of course, this will also always be in parallel with the rollout of higher-specification stuff back in the profitable areas.

This is a financial fact of life. It is true for Openreach. It is true for VM. It will be true for Ofcom's desired "third way" company.

It was true for the GPO too. In the 1930's, line rental would be a set amount for distances of 1.5 miles. Then add that amount on again for each extra half mile. The cost was extortionate: you needed party lines of 4+ to make it reasonable. And, even so, it still wasn't profitable for the GPO.

So what is it about splitting Openreach that changes this state of affairs? Just when BT had finally reached the point of self-funding the USO work?

I just don't see any circumstances where Openreach see it as worthwhile to continue paying that attention to borderline places. No-one will know the outcome of a split - so the cost of borrowing will go up for a few years. All those questionable, borderline-viable places fall out again.

This will be a young organisation. It might have had to justify budget-keeping inside BT, but that isn't the same as keeping sales and marketing going as a standalone organisation that has never had to sell a thing in its life. It will be seen as risky, with questionable decision-making.

If Openreach is going to be more palatable to the money markets than BT currently is, it is going to need to demonstrate that it is a competently-led, trustable organisation. That trust takes time to build ... and what will Openreach be doing to build that trust? By concentrating on profitable areas first - where there is room for mistakes to be made.

IMO, a split pretty much ensures that those being left out will have the attention they were about to get (and certainly deserve) taken away. For a long time.

Rather like the Brexit vote: the country has turned into a riskier proposition for years to come.

In reply to a post by kebabselector:

Couldn't be any worse speed wise.

One plausible worse-case outcome: You see no change for 10 years, while all those profitable places get 4x - 8x speed improvements.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

This will be a young organisation. It might have had to justify budget-keeping inside BT, but that isn't the same as keeping sales and marketing going as a standalone organisation that has never had to sell a thing in its life. It will be seen as risky, with questionable decision-making.

I'll just add an observation on this front:

Openreach has already demonstrated this exact problem. On their initial creation, they changed the systems to offer equivalence to CPs but forgot the end-user's experience. They took engineers away to be "profitable" enough.

Now they've realised they need to do things differently, but it will have taken 10+ years to ultimately settle down into a reasonable pattern.

Expect some of this to happen again. And expect trust levels to be questionable for that long.

Well said Wombat, completely agree.

Again, wholeheartedly agree.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

Ah - the Brexit/Trump gambit: We don't know what we're voting for, but we don't like what we're voting against.

What I say next isn't going to be very palatable:

Those people living in places where comms is not viable (or not very viable) will always be at this end of the financial spectrum. It will always be hard to justify rolling out a service, at least until society as a whole feels sorry for them.

I live in urban Birmingham, you know that second city. Openreach decided because we are on a smaller cabinet they didn't upgrade us. Every double cab in the area is upgraded, not the small ones. I find it hard to accept that areas in large cities in the UK are being classed as not viable.

I'm not asking for cheaper (i'm a Zen user so not exactly known for being cheap) - in fact I hope it will be clearer to the public what you are actually paying for. Sadly Ofcom are now allowing ISPs to hide the true costs by bundling it all together.

There is almost certainly some reason why the cab does not have a good return on investment. Could be the costs of getting power to it or maybe there isn't an easy place to put the cab (remember don't know the place so am just postulating possibilities). It may be that there are a number of collapsed ducts stopping them bringing in the backhaul.

It may even have been an adverse effect of the vouchers scheme that I believe was available in Birmingham.

All issues add up to increased costs and those costs may not be recoverable in a sensible period.

All the smaller cabinets have the same problem. They installed them originally - why do we have to suffer because of their cost savings from 50 years ago.

Probably the main reason is too few customers and that's because 5mb ADSL is slow compared to the alleged 200mb available from Virgin. If customers had a reason to switch then they probably would.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.4679655,-1.7934389...

Cab 50

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.4675371,-1.7977547...

Cab 49

Of the two locally Cab 49 has plenty of room.

Are you saying that BT should make a loss or others should subsidise because the precursor to BT made a design decision 50 years ago that was likely very sensible but just doesn't happen to support a technology that didn't exist until 40 years later?

You can't blame something that happened 50 years ago for this. It does not change the economics.

BT are happy to make a loss and subsidise Mayfair so why not Yardley Birmingham.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/7494-3-000-busine...

We're not asking for FTTP, just the same as folks 200 metres away.

Who or what says they are making a loss and subsidising it?

The thing is no one knows as they don't disclose the viability criteria, but based on the costs of FTTP and it mostly being funded by others I'm guessing it'll be a loss.

Edited by kebabselector (Wed 30-Nov-16 11:51:53)

not sure what your refereeing to

but for the avoidance of doubt - the business will only enabling cabs are meet the commercial case regardless of whey there are or how long they have been there - those that don't wont without additional funding of some sort

your cab will require some additional funding --which will need to be private

that note is a based on a press release that allow equiement to be able to serve that amount of premsies -- it is not to deliver an actually FTTP service to those premises

In reply to a post by Fastman2:

your cab will require some additional funding --which will need to be private

Unless 10mb USO turns up then they are legally obligated to provide it - it'll still fail the economic case but it'll be done because they have to.

Locally Virgin must be loving Openreach's economic case. Most when I look at wifi in the area it's Virgin, the bean counters don't seem to understand if competition exists then people will switch back.

Openreach is currently failing 200 residents on cab50 - it might continue to fail as a separate company - but it's not a case of voting for Brexit or Trump the position has been forced. We had no say as consumers. We have to live with the result and make it work.

Will Sky/TalkTalk be on the board? Maybe they are tired of customers not being able to get Fibre either, they have a product to sell 30% of residents in this area of Birmingham cannot buy it.

I wish the new organisation all the best - I hope it delivers what everyone wants and doesn't chase the speed crown because BT's own ISP relies on it.

you could ask your ISP to fund it

I did say it wasn't going to be very palatable.

In reply to a post by kebabselector:

the bean counters don't seem to understand if competition exists then people will switch back.

That is one aspect that the bean counters do take into account. The presence of competition changes the way that subscribers will behave, and whether the loss/gain of a subscriber is at retail level only, or at the wholesale level, or at the physical pair level.

The fact remains that, for whatever reason, your cab stubbornly stays below the threshold.

Here, there was a problem where 3 cabs were going to be withdrawn from the commercial plan because it would cost over £90,000 to upgrade the power supply to handle them. Its hard to overcome a financial handicap like that.

For that handicap, blame the people who chased after the cheapest possible electricity prices: nowadays, that next power connection that takes a transformer over-spec gets to pay for the full cost of an upgrade, rather than it being spread throughout everyone's electricity bills. £90,000 instead of £1,000.

Incidentally, in the whole county (massive, very rural county) those 3 cabs were in the middle of a significantly-sized town. All the other problem cabs had a solution worked out, but not those 3.

I didn't describe the problem as exclusively rural. Just exclusively financial.

In reply to a post by kebabselector:

Unless 10mb USO turns up then they are legally obligated to provide it - it'll still fail the economic case but it'll be done because they have to.

Legal obligation? Where does that come from?

The government appears to have one provider that is offering to do any work under the the USO scheme: BT.

IMO, this is part of BT's "quid pro quo" offering. If the split happens, this offer falls off the table, and BT will be happy for Ofcom to have to construct a mechanism that works for altnet supply.

BTW - how many of the 200 can get Virgin? There'll be no USO for them...

In reply to a post by kebabselector:

Openreach is currently failing 200 residents on cab50 - it might continue to fail as a separate company - but it's not a case of voting for Brexit or Trump the position has been forced. We had no say as consumers. We have to live with the result and make it work.

You're right: the 200 haven't had a direct say exactly. You are just a consequence to nationwide attitudes. In America, there were 10 million more votes against Trump, but they're still getting him as a president.

Ofcom has, like the electricity market, chased the "cheapest price" path to such a great extent, that BT has lost the ability to justify (even internally) the means to subsidise your cab from the rest of the country.

Feels unfair, doesn't it? But rest assured that millions of people are getting broadband 2p cheaper because you don't have an upgraded cab. Gotta love that Ofcom, eh?

In reply to a post by kebabselector:

Will Sky/TalkTalk be on the board? Maybe they are tired of customers not being able to get Fibre either, they have a product to sell 30% of residents in this area of Birmingham cannot buy it.

The one thing you can be assured of: Sky and TalkTalk aren't doing this to bring you fibre. They have a vested interest in selling copper services, not fibre ones.

Do they care they can't sell to you? Not really. They've both reached the end of LLU activation, so they're obviously happy that 10%+ of the country (~50% of exchanges) can't use them. If they can't get worked up over 3 million properties, will they even notice 200?

The only reason that Sky and TalkTalk have joined in the crusade is because they both want to reduce BT's power. In the court of public opinion, they can't lose.

After this is all over, and you still don't get fibre, who will you blame? Sky and TalkTalk for reducing your chances? Or Openreach, out of habit?

And if you do get fibre, who do you thank? Not openreach, out of habit ... you'd thank the people who forced Ofcom to make changes.

Apologies if I misunderstood the USO at 10mb. Virgin I assumed wouldn't be obligated to provide a connection as that would fall to Openreach.

Openreach keep talking of the cab not being in current plans, but to keep checking. Maybe if they were honest and just said it's not going to happen and just find another supplier that might finally settle it.

As for blame, well currently it's BT, next year it'll be Openreach (or whenever they are incorporated).

If fibre turns up then it'll be BT currently and Openreach in the future.

if the area is already has 10 mbps by an operator I cant see why the USO would be required as there would be 10 m/bps - I guess that's one of the things that be fleshed out on the Detail about what and where it has to be deployed

I'm curious to know who you, and others, feel should pay to upgrade commercially unviable cabinets. I don't see why it should be BT any more than we should expect Marks & Spencer, Tesco or any other company to pay. If fast broadband is thought to be a "public service" it should perhaps be paid for by local or central government or perhaps even some charity if not the actual users who will benefit from the upgrade.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

I believe the sad truth in all this is that what we'll end up with is an entirely toothless company trying to dance to the tune of too many taskmasters ...... and the only ones to suffer in the long term will be the public.

Everyone wants it as cheap as chips .... and low cost is NOT the way forward for a progressive telecoms infrastructure.

openreach dont know what everyone wants, as wrongly its CPs who are their customers not the consumers.

Which is evident by the fact you think wrongly that everyone only wants the lowest price.

Market research repeatedly shows that the single largest factor for people in choosing a service provider is value for money.

Of course, majority does not mean every single person. But there is a very logical explanation why the largest ISPs are so aggressive and competitive on their broadband pricing.

The USO is only for places that cannot get 10Mb/s by some method - not just those that can't get it from BT. The other thing is that the current USO for fixed line telephony has a price cap - if the cost of over about £3K then BT do not have to provide and if a user wants it then they pay the extra to enable it. USO does not mean what many people think it does.

I've misread what USO was all about - although it's not exactly clear.

On a related note you have mentioned that some in your area are able to get Virgin cable - can you?

The government paid for BDUK so why not them. Although I mentioned earlier BT decided to upgrade the poor people of Mayfair so their criteria depends on who the chairman is friends with. Maybe the Duke of Westminster could adopt Yardley.

The one thing the public do not know is what the viabiliy criteria is, unless you happen to work for Openreach or maybe know people that work in that area.

Yes, had them for 3 weeks and it was utter carp - Highly congested and Virgin wont do anything about it because they don't have to - where else are their customers going to go? I go back to what I've mentioned before about competition.

BDUK was a limited fund pot and it was down to local authorities working with BT to decide on the best places to spend the money. To do 100% seems to be beyond anyone's current budgets - government or private sector. We don't know how much it would cost to get BT into your area but it may well not currently be feasible for anyone to fund it.

OK, well in that case you aren't going to get anything from public funds as you already have available a service that is "faster" than around half the country can get. Public funds are specifically not allowed where there is already an incumbent supplier at the "superfast" level - and Virgin fall in to that camp.

It also makes it more difficult for BT to do a business case as they would already have competition and therefore are fighting over a slice of the pie rather than getting the whole pie.

PS - why won't Virgin provide service to me as the only service I can get is BT wholesale/OR based therefore no real competition. So, I think the government should pay for Virgin to rollout to the rest of the country in order to ensure there is competition in the market.

Edited by ian72 (Thu 01-Dec-16 09:59:18)

Exchange is Fibre enabled, other BT cabs are in fibre enabled in our area.

https://flic.kr/p/PLp6Mk

Blue dots are Fibre Cabs. Red are Cabs 49 and 50.

Not sure what difference that makes? An enabled exchange doesn't necessarily mean anything for individual cabinets as the costs for a cabinet can be excruciatingly high as has already been covered in this thread.

In reply to a post by ian72:

PS - why won't Virgin provide service to me as the only service I can get is BT wholesale/OR based therefore no real competition. So, I think the government should pay for Virgin to rollout to the rest of the country in order to ensure there is competition in the market.

You have a point, but you have competition if you have fibre via openreach - you can chose a number of different fast providers. I can't, Virgin have a 'Speed' monoploy in the area.

In reply to a post by kebabselector:

Yes, had them for 3 weeks and it was utter carp - Highly congested and Virgin wont do anything about it because they don't have to - where else are their customers going to go? I go back to what I've mentioned before about competition.

Have you considered a Virgin Media Business connection? Their blurb seems slightly confusing though they clearly state

Traffic Management is not enforced on business broadband connections but is enforced on others to help protect network resources. To further protect bandwidths and speeds we operate a fair use policy which is detailed within our Acceptable Use Policy and can be viewed here.

http://www.virginmediabusiness.co.uk/help/s/article/...

I imagine users downloading P2P torrents 24/7 would fall foul of their AUP/FUP policy otherwise you've probably got nothing to worry about.

Being in your shoes (with no chance of FTTC in the near future) I would seriously consider them. Might be worth asking VM business users in your area about their experience?

Edit: Also VM Business have signed up to the 'Ofcom Voluntary Business Broadband Speeds Code of Practice' which clearly states that VM can let you leave penalty free if they can't resolve any speeds issues. Might be worth a punt...
http://www.virginmediabusiness.co.uk/Documents/help_...

Edited by deleted (Thu 01-Dec-16 10:49:49)

I was being somewhat comedic but actually I can't - the wholesale level is the same for all so if OpenReach don't perform well then I have no choice. The ISP can affect additional services and their own parts of the network but not the performance of the connection itself.

There are also people who only have a wireless provider or only have a specific fibre operator and none of those are covered either. If the government were to force BT to rollout to you (or fund them to) then Virgin would sue them as it would be against state aid rules and would be subsidising a company to compete with them - that is not how things work.

Quite a proportion of the country choose to have Virgin even though they also have access to BT or other providers - so Virgin can't be all bad.

The upshot of it all is you are not going to get anyone to force BT as you already have a superfast alternative (and a superfast that is significantly faster than most areas not covered by Virgin can get).

Thanks - something to consider. However they tell me no traffic management is only Monday-Friday 8am-6pm. So potentially out of hours it'll be just the same old Virgin congestion.

In reply to a post by ian72:

Quite a proportion of the country choose to have Virgin even though they also have access to BT or other providers - so Virgin can't be all bad.

I do believe some people on Virgin actually get what they pay for. Especially when checked against the ookla speedtest.

Edited by kebabselector (Thu 01-Dec-16 11:38:25)

In reply to a post by ian72:

Not sure what difference that makes? An enabled exchange doesn't necessarily mean anything for individual cabinets as the costs for a cabinet can be excruciatingly high as has already been covered in this thread.

You said 'We don't know how much it would cost to get BT into your area' they are in the area, just not to those cabinets.

If Openreach didn't promote messages such as 'exploring solutions' and were just honest and said no way - it's too expensive then we'd have closure on the matter. But to constantly dangle the carrot of 'it might happen' or as in their latest email to me 'There are projects to be initiated in 2017, however, we do not have a particular timescale at this moment' is taking the pee.

You are honest in your assesment of the situation - maybe if Clive Selley turns round and tells me to sod off elsewhere I'll shut up. Whilst the carrot is there I'm the donkey trying to reach it.

Don't spoil your arguments by posting stupid comments. BT is a company answerable to its shareholders and if upgrading a cab in Mayfair was considered commercially viable they had every right to do so. Your comment only makes sense if you can prove that an update in Mayfair or elsewhere was commercially unviable.

In reply to a post by MCM:

Don't spoil your arguments by posting stupid comments. BT is a company answerable to its shareholders and if upgrading a cab in Mayfair was considered commercially viable they had every right to do so. Your comment only makes sense if you can prove that an update in Mayfair or elsewhere was commercially unviable.

It wasn't a cab it was 3000 properties and business addresses upgrading to FTTP.

Another option to consider is clubbing together with other residents & self funding a FTTC cabinet. You said there's around 200 homes in your vicinity not served by vdsl2, if a new FTTC cab was to cost £25k (a figure I've seen bandied around) then that could work out as low as £125 per household which isn't bad at all. Obviously the trick is managing to convince all/majority of the residents to pay into the pot.

http://www.communityfibre.bt.com/

So what, please provide evidence that this was carried out a loss to BT. As it is you are coming across as little more than a whinger saying gimme, gimme. Someone who from their sig has a better connection than many whilst also having the option of VM.

If you want to do something about this get your local community together and put your hand in your pockets rather than expect others to do so. And before you reply I'm coming from a position where I live in central London, have no VM and until recently was, together with my neighbours, on long exchange only lines on the Vauxhall exchange with speeds in most cases worse than yours. Upset yes, but we didn't whinge, instead we put our hands in our pockets and community gap funded the installation of an AIO cabinet to serve us all.

Our new gap funded AIO cab and consequential network rearrangement serving 75 properties here in SW9 on the Vauxhall exchange in London came in at a fair bit less than £25K.

Looked at that solution, was quoted around 18k + vat I would pay towards it, but as Virgin are present getting people to move is tricky as a VDSL solution 'appears' to be slower.

Thanks for the pointers I'm am greatful for suggestions. I've mentioned to BT in the past about the possibity of a 2nd ADSL connection for consumers in my situation provided at a lower cost as we wouldn't need to use the phone service - but alas nothing.

In reply to a post by MCM:

Our new gap funded AIO cab and consequential network rearrangement serving 75 properties here in SW9 on the Vauxhall exchange in London came in at a fair bit less than £25K.

SW9, ouch I can see why paying £333 (based on 25k) for internet wouldn't seem too bad. Just checked the Zoopla prices in that area.

In reply to a post by MCM:

So what, please provide evidence that this was carried out a loss to BT. As it is you are coming across as little more than a whinger saying gimme, gimme. Someone who from their sig has a better connection than many whilst also having the option of VM.

I have no evidence, but we have no evidence of the viability study for that area either. As for whinging, yes I am. I just would like something that people 200metres away can have. As for you case in Central london - that just shows how bad the network is. A major city with a poor internet infrastructure. It's good that you've self funded the cabinet but are you happy that you had to do it when others get it for free?

Edited by kebabselector (Thu 01-Dec-16 12:36:35)

Yet another remark where you display your ignorance. SW9 is far from a wealthy area of London nor one with high property prices. Stockwell and Brixton aren't quite in the same league as your beloved Mayfair.

May I suggest you stop whinging and do something. At least you can get VM which is more than we can here so why not give it a go and give us a rest from your continual griping.

In reply to a post by MCM:

Yet another remark where you display your ignorance. SW9 is far from a wealthy area of London nor one with high property prices.

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/property/london/bri...

O.k.

By "your area" I meant your very local area - those on your cab. It is irrelevant that the exchange is enabled or that other cabs are - most of the costs at this point are in enabling the cabinet as has been said a few times in this thread. They are continually updating the way they do things and it could be that a change in the electricity market or something else could change the numbers to make your cab viable - that is why you are still on the "possible" pile. Other people's cabs have gone from not being viable to being implemented as things have changed.

In reply to a post by kebabselector:

Looked at that solution, was quoted around 18k + vat I would pay towards it, but as Virgin are present getting people to move is tricky as a VDSL solution 'appears' to be slower.

Again, you make the argument against BT doing anything. If it is going to be tricky because VDSL appears slower then what business case do you think BT have for doing anything? You argue that BT should do it because Virgin are rubbish and then tell us they won't actually sell it to most people because Virgin "appear" better.

based o0n the amount of premises the current gap would be like to be less that 50% -- I have clearly indicating it would signicantly less !!! but that assume the someone has engaged the community -- this only workjs where a community is engaged --

y

small cabinet of fail

If you want a better connection then you need to do something practical. We did something because we had poor broadband speeds and had no alternative. In your case you have a viable alternative, VM, but rather than use VM you complain because BT won't upgrade your cab at a loss. If you want a better BT based connection you know what you have to do, others have done so not just the community where I live. If you aren't prepared to engage with your neighbours you are going to get nowhere fast.

In reply to a post by MCM:

small cabinet of fail

If you want a better connection then you need to do something practical

I have used Virgin, they couldn't out perform a 5mb adsl line - so why bother with them again.

As for community, I have muted the idea but as with most people it all sounds good until you start asking for money. I accept it's not going to happen soon, however Openreach stated 'There are projects to be initiated in 2017, however, we do not have a particular timescale at this moment' so maybe it'll magically be viable then.

So why spend money now if the carrot of openreach is being dangled again.

that your choice to see if any happens but nothing as far as I understand so would not be surprised o be having the came conversation this time next year

Probably, hope not though.

I have asked the community Fibre team for an updated figure just in case it's come down.

Edited by kebabselector (Fri 02-Dec-16 14:03:54)

I have used Virgin, they couldn't out perform a 5mb adsl line - so why bother with them again

Why aren't you pursuing this option and chasing VM? If VM is as bad as you say, and I don't disbelieve you, then I would assume that many of your neighbours are experiencing the same problem and that together you should be collectively pushing VM to resolve the problem. Instead what I am seeing is complaints regarding BT failing to upgrade your commercially non-viable cabinet when your speeds would be considerably enhanced if VM, which is available, were to provide their advertised speeds.