Kitz Forum
Announcements => News Articles => Topic started by: niemand on April 20, 2017, 09:06:27 PM
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Virgin Media just announced 350Mb, 'sync' rate 385 - 390Mb, will be available as a business service to millions of premises this year. They will sell with 3 different upstream speeds, but just as 100Mb is as slow as the residential service now goes, 350Mb will be the slowest downstream speed the business broadband services go.
This kind of thing is why I smile when senior Openreach people say that they don't concede the 'speed race' to Virgin Media. (http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2017/04/virgin-media-business-uk-launch-350mbps-voom-fibre-broadband-service.html)
The upstream speed is temporary. VM plan to beat G.fast's upstream speed this year too, and preparations to do so are ongoing.
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Sounds great ................... for the limited urbanites who VM will only entertain. :P
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Perhaps if they were given million's of public money then perhaps they would do non urban areas :P
This is good news, and looks interesting.Can anyone order a business service or are VM fussy?
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Just like Openeach, who were the only ones prepared to 'go to war' and see a ROI approximated to be in 25yrs time.
All the other contenders dropped out of "receiving millions of public money", at this prospect.
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Sounds great ................... for the limited urbanites who VM will only entertain. :P
~60% of the country by 2019. I believe that's more than Openreach have claimed they'll reach with >100Mb by 2025? (http://www.btplc.com/Sharesandperformance/Industryanalysts/Newsletter/Issue39/Feature/index.htm)
EDIT: These don't look too urban to me?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kippax,_West_Yorkshire
Kippax is a village and civil parish in the City of Leeds metropolitan borough, West Yorkshire, England. It is situated to the east of the city, near to Garforth and Great Preston.
Getting FTTP right now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garforth
Garforth /ˈɡɑːrfərθ/ is a village within the City of Leeds metropolitan borough, in West Yorkshire, England.
Getting FTTP right now.
Ossett /ˈɒsᵻt/ is a market town within the metropolitan district of the City of Wakefield, in West Yorkshire, England.
Just had an HFC build - very little of the town was covered, it's now ubiquitous.
I could go on, these are just three that I'm aware of and are near me. The entire FTTC and FTTP build done on BT's own tab from 2009 to 2016 cost about £1.5 billion. Virgin are spending £3 billion on their in-fill project. Before you quote the numbers I'm aware that BT claim it cost £2.5 billion. That includes the operational costs of the FTTC/P network so includes power for the FTTC cabinets, the NOC to monitor it, etc, VM's numbers are just for construction so are all CapEx.
Unlike Openreach the costs of the network build aren't so relatively insignificant they can be rolled into the existing CapEx budget with it hardly mocing. They actually require their own section in the reporting of the results as they represent a significant increase in expenditure.
Dealing with my own estate 4 cabinets pass, give or take, 1,300 premises. Two of those were enabled in commercial rollout, one of which I spent over a year working on. That cabinet has 2 DSLAMs serving it, one is paid for, the other one if not already will be covered by the end of this year. The other commercial one isn't far away. The other two were enabled via BDUK. The total cost of the 5 DSLAMs to BT, including install, was about £100k, despite the ridiculous claim that it was £100k a pop. No additional construction for fibre routes was required, only cost of DSLAM, ducts to PCP and power. Virgin are spending over £1 million on the 1,300 premises and, unlike BT, are covering it all. When they start in urban areas they finish, they don't hold their hands out for taxpayer subsidy because a cabinet doesn't pass enough premises for them as they aren't tied to legacy cabinets.
Were BT willing to wait the length of time VM are for ROI they'd have deployed FTTP to this entire estate as it's fully ducted, swept t construction, and MDUs excepted could easily be covered for £200 - £300 per premises. As it is by 2020 there'll be a G.fast deployment that doesn't benefit half of the estate as they are too far from the cabinet and Openreach have no plans to deploy fibre deeper into the plant until at least then.
Given the difference in expenditure and even taking account of the difference in incomes between the two it's very clear which of them is willing to wait the longest period for a return on investment and which is putting in the serious money. So let's not have an appendage showing competition on which out of the two is most willing to invest and is actually laying the money down, eh?
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Just like Openeach, who were the only ones prepared to 'go to war' and see a ROI approximated to be in 25yrs time.
I have no idea where you got that number from but neither the commercial rollout or BDUK were based around an ROI of 25 years. The higher than expected uptake, the expectations were pretty conservative, has ensured the ROI is in single figures. The original plan was in the 10-12 year area.
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This is good news, and looks interesting.Can anyone order a business service or are VM fussy?
VM don't care. As long as you can pay you're more than welcome to order.
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I could go on, these are just three that I'm aware of and are near me. The entire FTTC and FTTP build done on BT's own tab from 2009 to 2016 cost about £1.5 billion. Virgin are spending £3 billion on their in-fill project. Before you quote the numbers I'm aware that BT claim it cost £2.5 billion. That includes the operational costs of the FTTC/P network so includes power for the FTTC cabinets, the NOC to monitor it, etc, VM's numbers are just for construction so are all CapEx.
Virgin is effectively also benefiting from a public subsidy as its funding is covered by the Government's UK Guarantee scheme (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-guarantees-scheme-prequalified-projects/uk-guarantees-scheme-table-of-prequalified-projects) - unlike BT's commercial investment - as well as no requirement to wholesale its network
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Virgin is effectively also benefiting from a public subsidy as its funding is covered by the Government's UK Guarantee scheme (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-guarantees-scheme-prequalified-projects/uk-guarantees-scheme-table-of-prequalified-projects) - unlike BT's commercial investment - as well as no requirement to wholesale its network
What does that mean in layman's terms? The documentation doesn't say clearly.
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I think it is like a guarantor for a mortgage - it means the lender faces less risk when lending money to VM, because the UK government guarantee it will be returned if VM goes bust.
The advantage to VM is that it gets lending on easier terms - possibly longer return periods, or lower interest rates - which makes the business case a bit easier (or even makes it plausible).
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As WWWombat suggests there are are least two advantages for Virgin:
- HMG guarantees that the capital and interest will be repaid to investors in full if Virgin don't pay; and
- Virgin effectively benefits from HMG's credit rating borrowing money at the same (very low) rate that HMG does than paying a much higher commercial interest rate which would more accurately reflect the real risk of lending to such a company.
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Thanks, that makes sense.
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I think any new roll-outs and speed increases will benefit the end user.
It looks like as time goes on that VM are preparing to go toe-to-toe with BT/OR.
I think for BT/OR to keep up they will need to be deploying more fibre in ducts at every opportunity as we're going in to the G.fast phase. That way the network will have the reach to eventually offer more fttp solutions.
Who actually has the bigger network that's capable of 100Mbps speeds, real speed not just the advertised speed, BT/OR or VM ?
The advantage of FTTP over VM Cable is the contention and congestion situation. From what I've read nobody as any contention/congestion issues using FTTP, at least to the degree we see them on VM's network.
Will VM's new DOCSIS 3.1 solve node congestion issues for users?
My only issue with VM's service is its potluck on the service you get. So someone might have bought vivid 100 and be getting 3Mbps download, and so far there doesn't seem to be the same voices raised about this like they do when similar issues occur on BT/OR services. I think if VM could fix that situation then they would get a LOT of customers.
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Again, I would humbly suggest that take-up of these sooper-dooper high speed products, will be minimal ..... compared to the larger market.
I work (as you all know by now) on FTTC on a daily basis, and my own findings are that the 40/2 and 40/10 products are by far and away the biggest seller.
I do take Ronski's (I think it was he ??) point, that by the time the service gets to the EU they may only have 15/20 meg etc etc, but I still maintain cash is king in this sector ..... the amount of people willing to fork out extra dosh for 330, or 1G speeds will probably fall into the 10-15% of total consumers ...... with most of that being businesses.
Let the willy-waving continue though .....
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It was probably me, as that is the bug bear with me that the fttc deteriorates over distance, and as I don't live on top of the cabinet my speeds suffer. VM doesn't suffer so much with distance, but of course it's pot luck as to whether you suffer with congestion, and of course you can't have a different ISP on VMs network.
I think the higher packages may well get higher demand as it's the only way to get a decent upload speed on VM.
I will certainly be looking closely at VM when our area goes live later in the year, especially as it's full FTTP.
PS Willy waving is good, as does help drive things forward.
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As WWWombat suggests there are are least two advantages for Virgin:
- HMG guarantees that the capital and interest will be repaid to investors in full if Virgin don't pay; and
- Virgin effectively benefits from HMG's credit rating borrowing money at the same (very low) rate that HMG does than paying a much higher commercial interest rate which would more accurately reflect the real risk of lending to such a company.
VM were pre-approved but haven't actually used it, at least yet.
Their most recent borrowings were at between 5.0% and 5.375%.
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Again, I would humbly suggest that take-up of these sooper-dooper high speed products, will be minimal ..... compared to the larger market.
I work (as you all know by now) on FTTC on a daily basis, and my own findings are that the 40/2 and 40/10 products are by far and away the biggest seller.
I do take Ronski's (I think it was he ??) point, that by the time the service gets to the EU they may only have 15/20 meg etc etc, but I still maintain cash is king in this sector ..... the amount of people willing to fork out extra dosh for 330, or 1G speeds will probably fall into the 10-15% of total consumers ...... with most of that being businesses.
Let the willy-waving continue though .....
You're quite correct, though I'd point out this is a business product.
Given Ofcom, with the ASA either following suit or pre-empting, seem set on changing the advertising regime from what the top 10% can get to what the top 51% can get I strongly suspect that we're in for a few changes. CPs will be climbing all over Openreach alongside changing how they handle orders to mitigate this.
From that point of view the willy-waving should push Openreach to invest more. BT Group investors have told BT Group management they would be willing to accept higher CapEx, as in actually spending more than the planned budget on copper anyway, in return for regulatory certainty and better optics. The change by Ofcom / ASA would certainly tick both of those boxes.
As I understand it there is some confusion as to why Openreach are happy to keep hiring engineers to work on the copper network, increasing ongoing operational expenditure, rather than trying to come to an accommodation with Ofcom to replace with fibre, in return for a strong VULA package, and have a one-time hit in terms of CapEx with lower OpEx, and hence higher profits, going forward, especially given how cheap commercial borrowing remains.
The 51% thing is basically a done deal. The debate now is between whether it'll be 51% across the entire 24 hours or during the peak period only.
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You'll get no argument from me here re: willy-waving/investing ...... in whatever form that is (Cu or Fibre ??), I'm all for it.
The reason as I see it, as to the mass-explosion of engineering staff is two-fold ...... 1) To meet the constant pressure of commitment times laid out by Ofcom ....... and 2) To ensure the roll-out of G.fast is met.
I will openly admit that at this moment in time, in my personal opinion, we seem to be a dis-jointed business at the minute. Again, this is just my personal opinion ... but meeting stats (Both industry set and home-grown ones), has crucified this once great company.
Don't get me going on the lower management tiers. ;) :-X
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good news on the 51% first i heard of it, the 10% was nonsensical
it really should be peak times imo.
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G.fast rollout can be done almost entirely by contractors and needs fewer resources than the original FTTC deployment. No surveying for a fibre path, no search for power, no survey for where to put a new cabinet.
FTTC didn't need more engineering staff, additional cabinets didn't, deploying a G.fast pod is less work than a new FTTC cabinet.
This will be why the business is okay with it, how cheap it is while ticking at least some of the political boxes.
Of course there's the minor issue that due to taking such economies reach will be dicey and a move to 51% advertising will harm the business case.
Ultrafast being set at 300Mb rather than 100Mb will mess up the optics of the ultrafast count too.
Might lead to some serious CapEx. Stranger things have happened.
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I should have elaborated further ......... by G.fast, I meant the FTTn (DP), which will likely be ramped up at some point in the very near future, I would imagine ??
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Last I heard it was all pods on PCPs until at least 2020, no deeper fibre at all apart from some FTTP that'll be mostly confined to commercial areas and new build.
I welcome correction, Sir.
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Just wondering if there was anything more on G.fast from distribution points that could be shared?
Certainly zero announcements have been made in public or to CPs regarding deploying FTTdp. Some AIOs for VDSL intercepting copper deeper into the network but nothing even close to distribution point level.
Openreach certainly have no need to deploy fibre deeper into the network to hit their target. It would be very unlike them to spend any more than absolutely necessary intentionally.