Openreach FTTC and SLU prices

Numbers to illustrate the difference between someone like Rutland or Vtesse doing their own cabinet or taking an Openreach FTTC product :-

1. Sub Loop Unbundling

Sub loop connection £127.61
Sub loop new provide £106.62

Rent shared sub loop £11.47 pa
Rent full MPF £93.96 pa

50 pair tie cable £725.60 + £32.68 per year
CP duct connection to OR box £600

Sub loop cease charge £100.67

2. Openreach GEA FTTC

Connection £75
Rental 40/10M service £88.80 pa (40/15M will be £119.40pa)
Cease £5.22

GEA Cable link to CP network - £2000 connection, no rental.

Conclusion

Openreach will make more money (greater revenue) from a company like Rutland Telecom doing full MPF SLU than they will from doing their own GEA FTTC. This is despite them having to spend a lot less (!). Openreach should therefore be encouraging full MPF sub loop unbundlers.

There are some pricing anomalies - for example Openreach will make a tie pair connection to their FTTC and install a customer VDSL modem for £75 yet they would charge a SLU operator £127.61 just to connect the same customer to the competing cabinet. It costs 20 times more to cease an unbundled sub loop than an FTTC connection, which with shared path is the same animal.

Shared MPF is a lot cheaper than full MPF but the latter gives opportunity to profit from line rental and calls. Renting line out at a tenner a month is worth £20 pa in profit to the unbundler.

Those who have done SLU have generally gone belly up sadly. More profitable for Openreach but requires commercial risk on the part of the unbundler. Unless you can get someone else to pay for it of course per Vtesse / Rutland

Those who have done SLU have generally gone belly up sadly

bit of a small sample though, so far.

I noted on the Rutland site that they hadn't been able to get bank financing.