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.