BRSK Full Fibre Broadband

Hi,

Just signed up to BRSK Full Fibre Broadband 150mbps upload/download.

Just wondering if they would remove the BT wall socket and wiring from pole or just leave it as it is?

Thanks

With luck I'll know at the end of this month. The estate is fully wired, awaiting the one-mile link to the trunk on the A6.

I signed up in October and rang them a couple of weeks ago to ask when go live was expected to be.and they said end of November.

I think it might be earlier, as they've dug into the pavement then filled in at three places. Each end of the route and one in the middle.

The BT socket and drop cable is part of the Openreach network. Tis nothing at all to do with Brsk, so they cannot morally, ethically or legally touch any of it 😅

That may now depend on the specific site.

Network operator Openreach (BT) has announced that engineers working for alternative UK broadband networks (altnets) have finally gained a limited ability to replace existing copper drop wires with fibre optic lines on their telecoms poles. Previously, altnets had to wait on the incumbent’s own engineers before this work could be done.

One of the problems with poles is that they can only handle so many cables and related kit before weight becomes a problem (example), which can create a localised capacity issue that may also cause delays with connecting new customers (this can sometimes require the deployment of additional poles). One way of balancing this is by removing an old copper line as you add in a new fibre.
...

ISPreview link.

It reads as if it only applies where the pole is either defective or would become over-loaded, but whether that restriction will be applied in practice is a different question. "Out of sight, out of mind"?

Thanks @pluralist. That’s a very recent change, but as you say fairly limited in scope - basically in situations where the Altnet can’t otherwise install their drop in a fully loaded / defective pole situation, Openreach have allowed them to replace 1 for 1. That’s still very much the exception rather than the rule.

I suspect it will be widened given time. Done sensibly its a good idea but we know humans are humans and abuses will happen.

In reply to a post by Taras:

I suspect it will be widened given time. Done sensibly its a good idea but we know humans are humans and abuses will happen.

https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/t/4694421-re...

Chances are when asked to provide an extra 20 or 30 minutes ( or even longer ) of work for ‘free’ , many Alt Net employees or contractors ( more so with contractors ) will decline to do work they are not getting paid to do, why would they ….so chances are a conversation along the lines of ‘ can you recover the Openreach wiring and sockets , I won’t ever use them again ‘ will be answered as ‘No , we can’t touch that ‘

Edited by Iniltous (Wed 13-Nov-24 10:41:42)

Brsk fibre broadband uses a fibre connection to a brsk fibre adapter. It doesn't go anywhere near a phone line, so there is no reason to think it would affect any existing phone installation, any more than it would affect your gas supply.

We've found Brsk to be excellent, though we did pay the extra £5 per month for a fixed, non-cgnat IP address. That's a 24 month contract at £5 pm, whereas the same thing on Voneus (at another house) is a monthly rolling contract.

In reply to a post by Iniltous:

Chances are when asked to provide an extra 20 or 30 minutes ( or even longer ) of work for ‘free’ , many Alt Net employees or contractors ( more so with contractors ) will decline to do work they are not getting paid to do, why would they ….so chances are a conversation along the lines of ‘ can you recover the Openreach wiring and sockets , I won’t ever use them again ‘ will be answered as ‘No , we can’t touch that ‘

A visiting Brsk engineer (replacing a faulty router) reckoned that our connection was iffy. Seemed fine to us - easily exceeding the 500/500 we pay for, but he said he would get another engineer out to sort it.

Twenty minutes later the new engineer arrived. He checked our end of the fibre, then went off to check up the pole.
Eventually he came back to tell us it was sorted and to collect the gizmo he'd left at our end.
He had spent at least an hour and a half sorting it out, some in a cherry picker up the pole, some presumably at the cabinet up the road.
I got the impression that there was no rush: the task was to get things right, not to finish quickly.

obviously i'm being over optimistic 🙈🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂

Basically I agreed with you in my post about the possibility of the scope being widened. As per the cartoon link posted later than that.

To add to that, what are the possibilities of an Openreach drop wire and premises' socket ever being required again once an AltNet fibre line has been installed?

Of course a change of ownership of the property might require one but even then I don't think it's likely.

Great to hear that your experience of brsk support was so good. I'm looking forward to my upcoming installation and that has been one of my "fingers crossed" concerns.

Of course one swallow doesn't make a summer.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

To add to that, what are the possibilities of an Openreach drop wire and premises' socket ever being required again once an AltNet fibre line has been installed?

Two of my friends have had to have OR reinstall copper wiring in properties where previous occupants have cut back and erased all visible trace of former main socket in the home; having switched to cable. (Cable installers didn't do this, it was diagonally across the entire building, rooms away). As none of us have OR telegraph poles, this was a longer installation ; but I suspect may have helped one of my friends get much better FTTC/VDSL than he would have had otherwise.

These are late 60s, or early 70s built parts of town, and likely the OR cabling is D.I.G. and it will be interesting to see when FTTP arrives what OR can do in budget; as there are two AltNets in town, one of which has installed a lot of poles... plus Virgin Media whom have 1990s era ducts.

By cable, do you mean VM? I'm not aware of any other cable company.

I wonder if in areas like your friends' BT/EE/Plusnet might at some time bite the bullet of being just another competitor to the "smaller" AltNets and start to use the Wholesaling AltNetworks on commercial grounds rather than fork out to install FTTP to areas that already have plenty of it.

As you will be aware, several of the reputable long-term Openreach using CPs are also using those wholesalers.

The more time rolls on the more necessary that might become.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

By cable, do you mean VM? I'm not aware of any other cable company.

The technology installed by the approx 30 companies in the 1990s. Wight Cable may still exist separately, but the others are, as you say, now merged over time into VMED O2 UK Ltd trading as Virgin Media O2.

I wonder if in areas like your friends' BT/EE/Plusnet might at some time bite the bullet of being just another competitor to the "smaller" AltNets and start to use the Wholesaling AltNetworks on commercial grounds rather than fork out to install FTTP to areas that already have plenty of it.

Always possible, but I don't see it for years. Until Virgin goes wholesale over Coax (or FTTP) under their NetCo plans, the existing AltNets have cherry picked properties, and don't wholesale. (No CityFibre here).

As you will be aware, several of the reputable long-term Openreach using CPs are also using those wholesalers. The more time rolls on the more necessary that might become.

I believe even the big Sky ISP is now using non OR connectivity.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

I wonder if in areas like your friends' BT/EE/Plusnet might at some time bite the bullet of being just another competitor to the "smaller" AltNets and start to use the Wholesaling AltNetworks on commercial grounds

IMO, not a chance.

Firstly, BT are not going to grace the altnets with any appearance of being "good enough" by using them. Nor are they going to engage in labyrinthine technical integrations to pull traffic from small wholesale networks, nor build the contractual and installation/support processes. They expect other operators to use *their* processes.

Secondly, there's only one wholesaling altnet of any scale, and that's Cityfibre. Maybe Virgin will get there one day, but they haven't even started. The minnows are just not worth dealing with.

But most importantly, BT have told investors they plan to deliver 85% OR FTTP coverage by end 2026 and ~95% coverage by 2030. There's absolutely no point in BT retail brands integrating with other networks when at *best* they could pick up 5% extra users; and in reality, that 5% not covered by OR is also the least likely to have been cherry-picked by altnets.

VM started as loads of minnows. (Also it's nothing to do with Virgin itself except for licensing the name).

Several altnets in the UK sell wholesale, including:
CityFibre: A major altnet wholesaler that sells services to ISPs, including Sky
Netomnia: An altnet that sells services to ISPs
Community Fibre: An altnet that plays a retailer-wholesaler role
Jurassic Fibre: An altnet that plays a retailer-wholesaler role
Giganet: An altnet that plays a retailer-wholesaler role
Pulse Fibre: An altnet that joined The Fibre Cafe's connectivity aggregation platform and went wholesale

That's from:Altnets offering wholesaling. Note also the interesting Fibre Cafe link in there looks like an interesting idea but leads to a mysterious underlying business. I've spent twenty minutes or so delving and still haven't found an active Limited Company. Though I did find some names to search for later on Companies House.

brsk itself, the topic of this thread, is merging with Netomnia. Continuing trading under its own name as far as I know. Both are minnows of course.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

VM started as loads of minnows. (Also it's nothing to do with Virgin itself except for licensing the name).

It all ended with series of prior regional cable co. consolidations over a period of years (particular around the late 90's implosion of the telecoms world) - in the months prior to Virgin Media formation it was really a merger between two already large cable companies namely ntl and Telewest that formed the origins of what we know today as Virgin Media - itself a merger a few months later between ntl:Telewest and Virgin Mobile - almost 18 years ago now. Ancient history.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

Several altnets in the UK sell wholesale

Yes they do, but I said *at scale*. The next one is Community Fibre, and that has only ~5% UK coverage.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2024/08/top-20...

Edited by candlerb (Fri 15-Nov-24 16:13:42)

CF isn’t particularly national either. It’s pretty much just London with a few other SE pockets with Box

Yes I know. I also know how to suck eggs . My grandmother taught me.

In the end there will have to be a consolidation, as in the way VM came into being that I pointed out earlier. The only questions are how and when it will come about. Five years maybe. Almost certainly less than ten.

A slight chance of CityFibre and one other. It depends on when and where the big money lands.

The point is they weren’t minnows - ntl and Telewest were already large national players. The minnows had been swallowed up years prior (with ensuing loads of debt on the balance sheet).

Branson also did have a stake at the time, rather than just leasing them the trade mark as now.

Maybe time for that afternoon walk 😎😂

We’re already well in it. The music stopped a while ago. It’s just we’ve all got headphones on like a silent disco. 😂

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

The point is they weren’t minnows - ntl and Telewest were already large national players. The minnows had been swallowed up years prior (with ensuing loads of debt on the balance sheet).

That confirms what I've been saying. We are just at a much earlier stage.

Branson also did have a stake at the time, rather than just leasing them the trade mark as now.

So? Effectively sold his minnow to NTL like the others.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

VM started as loads of minnows.

in an era of more favourable financial lending; and the “minnows” ended up with a tonne of debt that is still being serviced and will be for many years.

(Also it's nothing to do with Virgin itself except for licensing the name).

Even Virgin Atlantic rents the name from Virgin Enterprises. That is how Branson always made his money; nothing new there. VM have more of a right to the name when the NTL:Telewest merged company purchased Virgin Mobile, which at the time was owned by Virgin Enterprises.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

In the end there will have to be a consolidation, as in the way VM came into being that I pointed out earlier. The only questions are how and when it will come about. Five years maybe. Almost certainly less than ten.

I actually think more will go bankrupt. If Virgin Media’s NetCo announcement works, and with their overbuild of the DOCSIS coax with XGS-PON gets into the same speed as Nexfibre’s growth then they could become the only real competitor to Openreach.

A slight chance of CityFibre and one other. It depends on when and where the big money lands.

CityFibre in two towns I visit has stalled; when the money went wrong (after Putin’s european war) over 50% of these towns has not been started or even look being installed. They may be a “busted flush”.

They aren't like Thames Water hat the government(s) daren't let go bust. If an AltNet goes broke another will buy its stuff for peanuts. That's how consolidation works.

PS: Jacob Rees-Mogg says Thames Water should be allowed to go under for that reason. Get rid of the debt burden.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

PS: Jacob Rees-Mogg says Thames Water should be allowed to go under for that reason. Get rid of the debt burden.

For once, I agree with him.

If it's a private company then the investors and banking backers should take the risks as well as the rewards, especially when it's been milked for years as a cash cow (dividends withdrawn at the same time as unsustainable debts building up)

Who exactly ends up with those assets is really the question - plus, what do you do to stop the new company ending up in exactly the same situation.

I don't remember minnows. I remember big foreign firms getting most of the franchises like Nynex, Bell Cablemedia, United Cable of Denver, Videotron, Eurobell, United Artists etc.

Edited by FibreBubble (Sat 16-Nov-24 12:27:57)

Yeah at the time that cable was first being used to deliver broadband to UK households - i.e. around 2000 - the regional UK cable companies were already 5-10 years into consolidation being swallowed up by the mega-corporates.

When ntl bought CWC in 1999 the deal was over £8 billion. In today's money that's over £18 billion: https://www.theguardian.com/business/1999/jul/27/1

Telewest acquired the rest of Cable London in 1999 and the next year bought Eurobell. Telewest passed almost 5 million homes.

By the time ntl and Telewest merged and then bought Virgin Mobile and got the naming rights to Virgin Media some 7 years later, it was Goliath meets Goliath with basically 3.5 million TV customers, 4.5 million mobile customers, and 3 million broadband customers. The minnows had disappeared 15 years prior.

The rough parallel in today's altnet universe would be CityFibre and CommunityFibre joining hands and then merging with Virgin Media.

That's the Administrators'/Liquidators' problem to solve. That's what they are paid for.

No doubt in a case such as this it would be with input from the government.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Yeah at the time that cable was first being used to deliver broadband to UK households - i.e. around 2000

In the trial area we had cable modems in July 1999. It was a very small rollout, couple of hundred, and paused - and then was relaunched in the early 2000s alongside an indirect unlimited/2hr dialup service. Telewest's Blueyonder service was faster to get going and upgrade speeds.

When ntl bought CWC in 1999 the deal was over £8 billion.

Remember when cableTel bought National Transcommunications Ltd and then sold that satellite uplink business to Arqiva? No interest other than how the NTL initials appeared.

Of course on the Isle of Wight the WightCable company didn't get swallowed by the mainland mergers, and ages ago renamed itself WightFibre. It is unclear if they still have coax/DOCSIS as well as newer areas on FTTP.

Seems like WF are very proud of their FTTP rollout...

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2024/06/report...

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Seems like WF are very proud of their FTTP rollout...

I actually think they've done well, having been over there a couple of times you can see why cable did the built up areas, but there are a lot of rural homes/farms too. It sounds as if they've pretty much covered the island, which is good news.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

We’re already well in it. The music stopped a while ago. It’s just we’ve all got headphones on like a silent disco. 😂

There's going to be lots more 'little' consolidations of true minnows like Spring Fibre, announced on Friday, before they are big enough to be worth bothering about for the likes of the big players, with the serious funding behind them.

So we're very much in minnow gets eaten by another (unheard of) minnow - or a couple of minnows, decide to pool financial resources under one umbrella co - time. Big player consolidation is a little way off yet.

Gosh and just catching up the news on ISPR, more of it from Thursday: this time Zzoomm and Freedom Fibre considering a merger.

Slightly bigger minnows. What's the next size fish up in the altnet food-chain? Minnow++ 🤣

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2024/11/broadb...

Pike?