In reply to a post by 961a:

Sky and TalkTalk are really just mithering on without bringing anything constructive to the party. And Ofcom are falling for it

No they're not. Sky and TT are retailers who want a wholesaler to supply them with products they can sell, not compete with them.

OR will have limits on the number of people they are prepared to employ (and train of course) as they still have cost limits that they have to work to. There's not an unlimited number. However, from the evidence that I've seen (partly on this board from would-be recruits), there isn't an overwhelming number of suitable applicants about. The Jointer in the local pub says as much - the junior member of his team is, from memory, Spanish, and is far from alone. Experience staff are in short supply and are under a lot of pressure. Almost universally the OR people I come across like the work. What they don't like is the constant management pressure to get more done without regard to circumstances. Many problems are much more complex to sort out than OR management (and Ofcom's) assumptions on the matter. All too easy when working at some distance to oversimplify and invent all sorts of procedures and metrics that don't fit neatly into a messy world.

Agreed, there's not many people in the company that don't like the actual work.

I can tell you what I want from openreach, but I know its not what ofcom wants, as it goes against the principle of why ofcom setup openreach in the first place.

My opinion is that openreach needs to deal direct with consumers, no middle men CP's this makes them accountable and also removes the fluff added by CPs onto line rental.

The CPs service would then be for actual calls only (for voice services) and data transit but nothing to do with xDSL openreach rental.

Of course openreach want us all to continue to have no direct contact with openreach to keep the CPs happy.

In terms of investment I think a cabinet only g.fast rollout is a insult, its also a insult that ECI cabinets have no g.inp and vectoring is not planned unless BDUK pays for it in BDUK areas.

To me the future should be a combination of vectored VDSL and FTTP. G.fast shouldnt have a place.

I also think there needs to be concentration on cities, instead of all the focus been on rural to satisfy political objectives. The UK market is really unbalanced right now with urban been under developed as the focus is always on rural. It is just really weird that rural has more FTTP than urban,

My ADSL lack of mention is no accident either, ADSL should be retired, which means also the power cutback can be removed from VDSL improving VDSL services and allowing VDSL to have same range as ADSL.

Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 30-Nov-16 16:36:45)

crysialis you might want that but CP's don't !!!! and have made that very clear
as ts easy to blame someone else

Almost universally the OR people I come across like the work. What they don't like is the constant management pressure to get more done without regard to circumstances. Many problems are much more complex to sort out than OR management (and Ofcom's) assumptions on the matter. All too easy when working at some distance to oversimplify and invent all sorts of procedures and metrics that don't fit neatly into a messy world.

Well said.

I couldn't comment on some of the proposals, but I suspect BT will have some wilder alternatives to ponder.

In reply to a post by TheEulerID:

but I'm not sure the government would like the prospects of the BT pension scheme not being tied into a very large company.

I get the feeling that this will now play a bigger part than ever predicted.

The most recent actuarial value has plummeted. Other valuations seem to have followed the pound down a cliff-face since Brexit.

It wouldn't surprise me if the trustees took one look at the risks, and period, and started asking for topups of a couple of £billion per year for 5 years, instead of the (roughly) £600m for the next 15 years. So much for upgrading anything then.

Very true , but most do hate the stat bods that pass for management . They find it hard to get good new guys as the new contract is so so if near London / SE . How do i know ? a OR trainer told me so.

Why should OR do the work of the SPs ? Taking calls and doing all the fluffy stuff is their work not ORs

In reply to a post by MC31:

Why should OR ... ?

There is one part of the worldwide internet that touches, enters, my house: the twisted pair supplied by Openreach. There's one company's engineers that I need to arrange appointments with: Openreach. Yet I cannot deal with them.

Sometimes, I tend to think that I should have the right to deal direct with Openreach regarding this little bit of metal.

Sometimes, it seems ridiculous to have to deal with Openreach at 2 steps removed, with a game of chinese whispers. It all feels backwards. That the ISPs just get in the way. That ISPs just delay things.

And ... the more that the service over the wire swaps away from separate voice and data services, and turns into one VULA bitstream ... the more I think we should give serious consideration to changing the way that OpenReach interfaces to end-users.

Compare with 1994. BT had responsibility for my phone line; my ISP dealt with what happened at the far end of the line - though the line was circuit-switched through the telephone network. Is it so hard to figure that BTOR should deal with my access line, and my ISP deals with what happens at the far end of that?

Yes, it would be a drastic change. No, it wouldn't be perfect. It wouldn't solve every issue.

When Openreach wanted to be able to contact end-users, the likes of Sky complained and the idea scrapped. If Openreach is forced to split, then that should be reversed.

Dreams, eh?