BT To Invest £1.5 Billion Into Fibre Optic Broadband

[Horizon]

Well, it looks like BT are finally going to take the jump and launch fibre optic cable services to much of the country.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7506742.stm

BT is only investing £1.5 billion into this and estimates suggest it will take £15 billion to fibre up the whole country. I wonder where the other £13.5 billion quid will come from.

[Horace]

Maybe from other ISP's wanting a stake, maybe from the goverment. If this actually happens it could kill cable as an internet option in 4 years unless VM get fibre to the home quicker than BT does. I wouldn't doubt that BT would target cabled areas first too.

[Horizon]

VM don't seem interested in that option. Just upgrading their existing network to DOCSIS 3 to handle 50mb.

The Government/OFCOM have said to BT they will offer incentives/guarantee shareholder returns if BT and other companies invest in fibre. Although nothing in writing yet...

With H20 laying fibre in Bournemouth's and Dundee's sewers over the next two years with possibly more cities to come. And according to the Mail on Sunday, even Sky are experimenting with fibre, VM may find themselves in five years time with some real competition in the fast broadband arena.

(I know many people get fast broadband now from companies such as Be, but you have to live right next to a BT exchange to get those kind of speeds)

[Chrysalis]

BT also want VM to be made to wholesale their services so in other words open their network, time will tell if this happens there is a lot of ex cable people on the ofcom board.

On 3 different forums now tho this has been misunderstood as a FTTH rollout, in reality its a FTTC rollout with FTTH on new builds. It will massively improve BTs local loop but BT say the top end speed on the FTTC will be 40mbit.

VMs problem will be tho that BT have lots of isps reselling their services, BT dont generally charge more for higher burst speed so dont be surprised to see dirt cheap 40mbit packages on vdsl and that BT wholesale have much more backhaul capacity then VM

[ceedee]

Originally Posted by Horace

Maybe from other ISP's wanting a stake, maybe from the goverment. If this actually happens it could kill cable as an internet option in 4 years unless VM get fibre to the home quicker than BT does. I wouldn't doubt that BT would target cabled areas first too.

I'd have thought that BT would want to maximise their return on investment by prioritising the areas with the lowest ADSL take-up which would probably include those estates furthest from the exchanges. That it's those areas that are currently served (badly?) by VM would be purely co-incidental, I'm sure.

[SOSAGES]

the only problem i see is that BT are running the operation.

[ceedee]

Originally Posted by SOSAGES

the only problem i see is that BT are running the operation.

Well, BT *and* the excessive competition of the ADSL world that results in even sillier download limits than VM.
(eg. ADSL24's peak period is 8am to 10pm -- check their packages.)

Here's hoping that OFCOM force VM to allow wholesale access to their network!

[Horizon]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

On 3 different forums now tho this has been misunderstood as a FTTH rollout, in reality its a FTTC rollout with FTTH on new builds. It will massively improve BTs local loop but BT say the top end speed on the FTTC will be 40mbit.

But it's not even a FTTC rollout I believe. BT don't have street cabinets, certainly not in every street like VM.

VM's fibre doesn't go into every street cabinet but rather one "master" cabinet serving dozens of street cabinets via copper/coaxial cables on each housing estate.

My (limited) understanding of this rollout is that BT hope to extend the reach of their exchanges using a technology called GPON using the same method that VM does with it's fibre.

So there won't be fibre going into every BT street cabinet in every road for the simple reason that BT don't have street cabinets, only VM has them. Instead BT will just have a few master cabinets to extend out the reach of their exchanges.

So take me as example, I'm about 2.5 miles from a BT exchange and can get a maximum 4mb from BT or a BT reseller with ADSL2. With this new technology, I might be 1 mile from a BT master cabinet and may get speeds up to 20mb on a very good day. But I'm still too far away to get super fast speeds from BT.

(NB: the longer the broadband signal travels, the more power it requires to maintain the speeds and quality of the signals)

I'm 10 metres away from a VM street cabinet....and when I could afford it, got a 20mb connection all the time. VM will most likely install ethernet cables from their street cabinets to homes to achieve 50-100mb+ speeds. This will be impossible with BT, their master cabinets are too far away regardless of the fact that fibre cable will go into them.

So we'll see what the Government/Ofcom come up with to incentivise BT and others to offer fibre into the homes or into street cabinets. That and only that, will offer speeds to compete and perhaps better VM's future offerings.

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

VMs problem will be tho that BT have lots of isps reselling their services, BT dont generally charge more for higher burst speed so dont be surprised to see dirt cheap 40mbit packages on vdsl and that BT wholesale have much more backhaul capacity then VM

BT have told OFCOM that wholesale rates to resellers will need to rise otherwise their returns will be waffer thin, especially if they (as they seem to be starting) fork out billions laying fibre. This puts VM in a excellent position as they can compete on speed and price.

Made me chuckle when BT asked OFCOM to allow them to use VM's fibre optic network, there was a piece in todays Daily Mail.

[Chrysalis]

Of course BT have cabinets, they small but they do exist, my local one is at the end of my main road next to a set of traffic lights and unlike cable cabinets the majority of BTs cabinets do not piggy back of other cabinets they have their own feeds to an exchange, I agree with you on one thing tho I dont expect the cabinets that piggy back to have a fibre feed.. Indeed also I expect vdsl to cost more than adsl but I still expect a 40mbit vdsl package to be way less than VMs proposed £50 price point for 50mbit and it may even be cheaper than VMs 20mbit product.

Congestion, we know VM is very area dependent, when I was on ntl 10mbit I only had full speed for probably under 2 hours of the day 4am to 6am and in the evenings it was horiffic, so although the modem synchs at full whack on cable the congestion is far in excess to what I have experienced on dsl. Some people on VM dont have congestion which is fine but some have extreme congestion. This doesnt take away from the fact that VMs backhaul is now smaller than easynet and smaller than BT, easynet only have a 3rd of customers of VM so probably gives you an idea how undersized it is.

[Horizon]

BT have "master" cabinets in main roads as do VM, but BT do not have cabinets in every street in towns and cities like VM. If BT had such cabinets, why are they running services over ancient copper telephone wires? BT's cabinets link up different exchanges to each other and link to business' too. They're nothing to do with residential services, not in my area anyway.

---------- Post added at 21:40 ---------- Previous post was at 21:33 ----------

Originally Posted by Nidge

Made me chuckle when BT asked OFCOM to allow them to use VM's fibre optic network, there was a piece in todays Daily Mail.

BT are just playing games. Sky have said the same thing too.

VM's network was built with private money. VM is not a monopoly provider or a dominate provider in any field, so OFCOM has no powers to demand that VM's network be opened up to other players.

[Nedkelly]

What i read into this is BT are going to put a fibre cab in a area then feed the subs of that on copper for the last part of the journey .

[Horizon]

....that's how I see it too, but it's really unclear at the moment how it will work. Plus, will these cabs be operated by BT or their offshoot Openreach? Will the cabs be available to other operators to use? The last mile of BT's copper cabling, by law, has to be available to other operators to use through Openreach, but would that include these new cabs? Seems a very messy situation to me.

[ceedee]

Aren't BT hoping to be allowed to charge ISPs a premium for access to this 'extension' to their network?
So we end up with (yet another) ADSL tier?

I'd have thought they'd be able to make a reasonable return on the investment if they really can supply ADSL 2+ speeds to outlying areas that currently would only get around 4Mb/s.

I have a suspicion that the project is more about supporting BT's wimax project and the increasing backhaul demanded by 3G mobile providers.

[Fatec]

Originally Posted by Nedkelly

What i read into this is BT are going to put a fibre cab in a area then feed the subs of that on copper for the last part of the journey .

Which is how it's going to work for all current infrastructure, only new builds will get FTTH.

So for countryside area's they -may- see the upt "20mbit" speeds of adsl+2, wont be seeing 40-60mbit.

Towns/Cities will see 40-60Mbit though i feel this is somewhat lacking and is going backwards, they need to be offering 100Mbit symetrical speeds really, though as i'm sure your aware, they are only going to offer 2Mbit upload.

---------- Post added at 00:02 ---------- Previous post was at 00:01 ----------

VM's network was built with private money. VM is not a monopoly provider or a dominate provider in any field, so OFCOM has no powers to demand that VM's network be opened up to other players.

They have bought out practically every cable company possible leaving them as the only provider and if your in a place where your very far from the exchange your stuck with VM, that my friend, is a monpoly.

And yes, OFCOM do actually have powers to make them open up the network, thus VM's response to this today.

From what i know there is actually a slight chance of this happening as VM have too much of a monopoly in the UK now being the only cable provider.