Ta Mr Black Sheep.
It can be hard to find someone who has enough financial literacy to understand the money aspects, the technical literacy to understand the detailed tech aspects (and the intricate consequences) and can keep in mind the sheer darn scale of such a project. I'm not sure I qualify enough though.
My basic arguments, that try to take those issues into account, all work for a hefty proportion of the country. Whenever I come across a "fibre for all" campaigner, these arguments are the ones that comes to the fore. And that's really a crying shame ...
... because for some people, with Weaver a great example, the finances will *never* come together.
I would love us to be able to come up with a solution that gives Weaver his opportunity. A project with a long-term ambition, probably multi-decade, to get fibre into places that no sane company will touch. Acknowledgement that, while Ofcom have brought competitive choice to millions, they have relegated some people where the choice is for nothing that works. A project that is allowed to trade multi-year lock-in, possibly decades, for something that "just works", gives good user experience, and brings Chrysalis' reliability.
All these arguments between FTTP (as it applies to the masses) and G.fast (or equivalents, including Docsis 3.1) take away from the cases where the argument is actually valid.
So all in all, I agree with the government only partially. There is no consensus on FTTP - but only for the commercial majority of the country. For some, however, debate is still open.
I think it's a case of those who shout the loudest know they are unlikely to see FTTP, or are just trolling for arguments sake.
I think I posted elsewhere that I see it a little like army generals "fighting the last war".
For some people, the campaign for better broadband seems to be a never-ending battle to persuade BT to include them. In the past, it has focussed on exchanges, currently it is about cabinets. With G.Fast, it'll be about DP's.
For such people, fibre is the holy grail, because it means they can stop campaigning ... so it
becomes the target, and replaces the real target (which, of course, is just access at a suitable speed).
For them, the ongoing reliance of copper means the war still needs to be fought. But they don't see that, gradually, more and more of Joe Public are dropping out of the campaign, satisfied with what they've finally got.
Most BDUK Cabs won't even show a return on this cash for 15yrs (Prediction)!!!
I'm not sure this is true. I'm not being argumentative as such, but I think the economics shifted recently ... and you're the first person to make me query the return period.
The origins of the BDUK project, with BT winning, means we have a set of commercial cabs, where 20% takeup meant a 12 year return, and a set of BDUK cabs where 20% takeup meant a 15 year return. I thought ...
The terms of
most contracts, I thought, were such that takeup of greater than 20% resulted in the "extra profit" being shared 50:50 - and the council's share returned through clawback. The exception being North Yorkshire, apparently, where *all* the extra profit went back as clawback; lets ignore them for now.
With me so far?
In the last few months, BT has re-calculated with a baseline 30% takeup for BDUK cabs ... which has resulted in £192m being prepared as clawback.
But if BT takes a share of the "extra profit" too, doesn't that mean the period to make a return on the BDUK cabinets will then be reduced from 15 years? It would only happen when takeup actually goes over 20%, rather than just being planned to - but at least it is now seen as likely to happen.
Of course, BT could have changed other parts of the calculation too: that they have re-worked the "commercial viability" decision to be 30% takeup and still having a return period of 15 years. If they did, that would result in more cabinets becoming viable within the 15-year scope, instead of the original cabinets breaking even faster - but I've no idea if BT have chosen to expand the scope in this way.
Hmmm. It certainly makes me wonder... and realise I really don't know enough about the finances!