Kitz Forum
Announcements => News Articles => Topic started by: Black Sheep on September 22, 2015, 11:27:50 AM
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Just announced today by our CEO ........... in a nutshell ...........
Today I’m really pleased to be launching the Openreach Charter, outlining our future ambitions for building Britain’s connected future. Our charter is a set of commitments which we are sharing with industry, the media and our customers this morning to further demonstrate we can be trusted to deliver.Our Charter comprises of six commitments for building Britain’s connected future, which underpin the cornerstones of our strategy and show the steps we’ve already taken and those we will take in future to make them a reality:
•Coverage: We aspire to go beyond the UK’s 95% target for fibre broadband.
(Customers - Trusted to deliver)
•Speed: We will work to provide the speed people need, including our proposal to give 10 million homes and businesses access to ultrafast broadband by the end of 2020.
(Network - Nationwide, reliable and fast)
•Service: We will raise our service standards, offering quicker installations and faster fixes.
(Customers - Trusted to deliver)
•Trusted Partner: We will be a trusted partner for communications providers, continuing to guarantee fair and equal treatment for all.
(Customers - Trusted to deliver)
•Contribution to our community: We will make a difference to the communities we serve, inspiring over half our people to become volunteers in the community.
(Stakeholders - Appreciated by society)
•Investment: We will invest to sustain Britain’s digital leadership.
(Shareholders - Competitive and investable)
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Thank you for sharing Joe's words. :)
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Welcome, Mr Cat.
Just got this which is a link to the page ..... I hope it works ....... http://www.homeandwork.openreach.co.uk/Our-responsibilities/
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The link works, exactly as expected. ;)
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As usual, empty words from BT Openreach.
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As usual .... negativity from the off. :no:
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The link works, exactly as expected. ;)
Cheers B*Cat.
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The increase in speed due to his words looking good for Huawei cabs not good for ECI cabs like me.
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Welcome, Mr Cat.
Just got this which is a link to the page ..... I hope it works ....... http://www.homeandwork.openreach.co.uk/Our-responsibilities/
Thanks for the Linky, was a really interesting read actually :) Was particularly interesting to see those graphics showing the stats of the engineers and their jobs and the network!
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Cheers Jamie. I have to be honest though, I haven't delved into completely ...... just the splash page for now. :-[ :)
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Thank you BS for sharing that info :)
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Speed: what a load of rubbish.
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Speed: what a load of rubbish.
Please expand why you feel that
"We will work to provide the speed people need, including our proposal to give 10 million homes and businesses access to ultrafast broadband by the end of 2020."
is a load of rubbish.
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Because BT will force the taxpayer to pay for it like they always do and then spend even more money on sports rights.
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I'm afraid I fail to see what BT Sport has to do with a statement about Openreach speed. BT Sport is a BTretail product.
BT consumer & retail services have absolutely nothing to do with Openreach. BT retail is chinese walled (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_wall) from Openreach and BTwholesale.
The statement about forcing the taxpayer to pay for it is another sweeping statement.
Its not that I object to you having your opinion on BT, youre entitled to that, but it does get a bit monotonous when every time there is a post or announcement about Openreach some one chirps up unfounded one-liners. If you have an issue or valid concern then feel free to say so.
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Openreach are fundamentally failing to do their job, that is shown by the horribly long wait times for new line installations, the lack of engineers caring about the job they do, engineers taking too long to fix a fault.
Openreach need to be split off and properly regulated as under BT they are doing a very poor job.
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Openreach need to be split off and properly regulated as under BT they are doing a very poor job.
If that was ever to happen you could see Openreach morphing into Kellys Networks due to lack of funding needed to keep the UK Phone and Broadband infrastructure at reasonable working level.
I'm happy with the status quo as it is but if your goodself has a better alternative UK networking structure that won't massively increase ISP fee's onto the end-user i am all ear's.
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The way I See this its all about funding. Openreach are getting slagged off in England for lack of roll out etc etc.
I live in Wales, and here we have Superfast Cymru - which is funded heavily by the Welsh government, they're aiming for the biggest coverage they can, and recently they've rolled out FTTC to some quite remote towns and villages high up in the valleys - quite a challenge but its been done.
This whole debate about speed is related to money - if there's the investment, Openreach can basically reach anywhere (pardon the pun). They fill the gap for the cabinets and exchanges that BT don't roll out FTTC or FTTP to. They've also funded connections of those who are Exchange only lines.
It's a clever way of providing funding, and one of the few things the Welsh government have actually got right. So I think it's not necessarily Openreach that are to blame, its the funding available.
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I think most of the industry agrees with Alec openreach standards are pretty bad. Anyone who isnt a openreach employee who disagrees I only suggest to check how well companies perform over sea's e.g. in europe its not uncommon to get an installation within 24 hours and a same day callout for faults (without premium fees).
This leaves two questions.
1 - Would splitting of openreach improve their performance?
2 - Is this artifical split of BT divisions working as it was designed?
The two questions are tied to each other because if #2 is no then it should mean #1 has a big case for yes.
My belief is that its clear openreach does what BT retail wants, e.g. when BT retail decided it needs to provide higher speeds than adsl2+ provides, by coincidence openreach decides to rollout FTTC. As to the sports rights spending and openreach investment levels are there any affects? It doesnt seem like this an obvious affect, but it is logical to conclude that if BT are spending billions on sports rights then it affects openreach's spending power, as the credit line is for the whole BT group, openreach is just a division not a company in itself. We have to remember the sandbox is artifical from ofcom, These are still the same company.
Certain events only highlight this.
e.g. BT retail are known to write off high FTTPoD costs, only they can do this because to them its not a real cost its only a paper cost given they the same company as openreach, been able to write off those sort of costs gives them an advantage over competitor isp's such as sky and talktalk. Likewise BT retail will much more willingly expedite orders for the same reason, its just a paper cost.
I am in the pro split off court, I think the industry will benefit if openreach is no longer part of the BT group.
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Openreach need to be split off and properly regulated as under BT they are doing a very poor job.
If that was ever to happen you could see Openreach morphing into Kellys Networks due to lack of funding needed to keep the UK Phone and Broadband infrastructure at reasonable working level.
I'm happy with the status quo as it is but if your goodself has a better alternative UK networking structure that won't massively increase ISP fee's onto the end-user i am all ear's.
I suggest you check openreach's financials, they make a decent profit.
page 48 http://www.btplc.com/Sharesandperformance/Annualreportandreview/pdf/2014_BT_Annual_Report.pdf
Financial performance
Year ended
31 March 2014 £m 2013a £m 2012a £m
Revenue 5,061 5,115 5,187
Operating costs 2,460 2,473 2,569
EBITDA 2,601 2,642 2,618
Depreciation and amortisation 1,406 1,428 1,416
Operating prot 1,195 1,214 1,202
Capital expenditure 1,049 1,144 1,075
Operating cash ow 1,492 1,475 1,514
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The other thing is that is no parity between engineers at Openreach. Some are well trained, others aren't. The number I've met who don't have a clue what they're talking about is ridiculous.
The whole company needs to be completely reformed, I believe it should be far more consumer oriented, rather than being kept behind closed doors essentially.
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Well this site I am hoping has not turned into a BT/openreach fan site, things seem to have changed a lot in the past couple of weeks, if I do get banned then goodbye everyone.
and yes I agree with your most recent comment as well Alec.
The problem is I am not sure if they badly trained or they just "playing dumb". They are under pressure to not fix faults that are not severe to save openreach money. So if they want to avoid doing work on a line they will say what they feel they need to say to do that. e.g. I have had an engineer turn up and tell me he isnt trained in broadband and he was sent out in error, then the next week he turned up again as a broadband engineer looking a bit embarrassed.
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It seems as of late if you don't like Openreach, you get shut down rather than being allowed to state your opinion.
I think the majority of people don't like Openreach.
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Come on you two. You know perfectly well that this forum is not an Openreach fan site, and you don't get shut up for stating your opinion. The idea is frankly insulting.
What we object to is the way that every mention of Openreach in a thread like this is used as an opportunity to bash them. This often derails the original subject which was to inform us of something happening in the organisation. I particularly object to the cynical one-liners which say in various ways "Openreach is rubbish" every time a company announcement is made. It's not surprising that Openreach employees wonder why they bother to provide information to us.
So express your opinions by all means, but don't derail informative threads by using them as an excuse for another bash. If you think that Openreach should be sold off (for example) then why not start a separate thread on that subject so there can be a proper focused debate on the subject.
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The problem is I am not sure if they badly trained or they just "playing dumb". They are under pressure to not fix faults that are not severe to save openreach money. So if they want to avoid doing work on a line they will say what they feel they need to say to do that. e.g. I have had an engineer turn up and tell me he isnt trained in broadband and he was sent out in error, then the next week he turned up again as a broadband engineer looking a bit embarrassed.
could be a combination. I've seen BS say on several occasions that the training for new hires isn't really up to par, and also the job scheduling being rather unforgiving, which could well lead to excuses being made to get off site quickly if it looks to be more than a simple fault.
IMO technical companies like openreach should be mostly run by technical people, not beancounters.
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Speaking as someone who has a love hate relationship with Openreach and BT Group in general, I went through a period of despising BT after the Phorm scandal. Nothing to do with the Openreach division.
But it's boring, unnecessary and usually off-topic hearing repeated one-liners that amount to "BT is rubbish" over and over again. We get it. That doesn't make anyone necessarily pro-BT.
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I don't like BT Group - I think that the majority of BT Group companies live off Openreach like a leech/tick.
I believe Openreach is run as a cash cow - Liv Garfield ran it into the ground & I have no doubt she'll do the same with Severn Trent.
I think that were Openreach floated off then I believe their revenues would go through the roof - much the same as has happened with Chorus in New Zealand.
Chorus was pretty much Openreach when attached to the retail incumbent - doing the bare minimum to keep the regulator at bay while maintaining the monopoly - but now they're actually talking to end-users as their customers!
A mate of mine (lives way the hell out of anywhere, volcano a couple of miles away, tremors every day for 20 years etc) has had a visit from them recently as he said he didn't want fibre (proper fibre) due to the install cost. Basically its a 500m long "drive" to his house from the road, he has diggers/etc so he wasn't going to pay the 22,000NZD to get a trench dug etc, which was what was quoted before the split. Now there's some common sense - he digs/fills the trench, Chorus lay the ducting/fibre & the total cost to him is 800NZD. Job done & everyone's happy. Edit - of course he's not since the Singapore cable from NZ/Aus has been broken again. Nightmare or what - you get fibre then the whole of Oceania goes tits up again :D
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Your analogy happens every single day within BTOR.
We have a ceiling on provisioning costs, (I genuinely cant think what it is, but somewhere around the £2K mark springs to mind ??), anything over and above the benchmark and the survey officer/planner has to involve the EU to determine the best way forward. This will usually be exactly the same as your mate's scenario in NZ.
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Personally, I've mixed feelings.
On an individual basis, every soul I have met from among BT employees has been a sterling character, eager to do well not only for his employer, but also for customers and the industry in general. This extends not just to the odd engineer who has visited my home, but to the various people I met in my career which included several visits to work in test labs at Adastral Park at Martlesham, home of BT's Global R&D HQ.
But... (There had to be a 'but') I do sometimes feel that the success of these individuals is not helped, and probably even hindered, by executive level decisions, such as off-shoring help desks to Indian centres. Yes I know off shore help desks are common, but BT ought to be able to rise above what's 'common'.
I also think that their marketing tactics are tacky and shoddy of late, knowing at least one OAP who was sold an FTTC package that she really didn't need, using what I can only describe as 'scare tactics'.
Sadly BS, tbh, I can't help feel that the 'charter' may have been composed by those senior execs who makes the decisions I don't like. Put bluntly it could all be utter BS, but not as in 'Black' or 'Sheep'. :)
Nonetheless I think all of BT, OR included, and even the wooly head executives, are still head and shoulders above any contemporaries elswhere in UK tech industry, in every way. :drink:
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Somewhat OT, but I have been looking through bits and pieces relating to BT Group. I cannot find any reference to Openreach as a subsidiary company of either BT plc or British Telecom plc.
Does anyone know its legal status; a company with a number, or something else? :-\ :hmm:
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See this http://www.btplc.com/Thegroup/Ourcompany/Groupbusinesses/index.htm (http://www.btplc.com/Thegroup/Ourcompany/Groupbusinesses/index.htm)
BT Group is the parent of all BT companies.
See Annual Report 2015 for further Info.
http://www.btplc.com/Sharesandperformance/Annualreportandreview/pdf/2015_BT_Annual_Report.pdf (http://www.btplc.com/Sharesandperformance/Annualreportandreview/pdf/2015_BT_Annual_Report.pdf)
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Personally, I've mixed feelings.
On an individual basis, every soul I have met from among BT employees has been a sterling character, eager to do well not only for his employer, but also for customers and the industry in general. This extends not just to the odd engineer who has visited my home, but to the various people I met in my career which included several visits to work in test labs at Adastral Park at Martlesham, home of BT's Global R&D HQ.
But... (There had to be a 'but') I do sometimes feel that the success of these individuals is not helped, and probably even hindered, by executive level decisions, such as off-shoring help desks to Indian centres. Yes I know off shore help desks are common, but BT ought to be able to rise above what's 'common'.
I also think that their marketing tactics are tacky and shoddy of late, knowing at least one OAP who was sold an FTTC package that she really didn't need, using what I can only describe as 'scare tactics'.
Sadly BS, tbh, I can't help feel that the 'charter' may have been composed by those senior execs who makes the decisions I don't like. Put bluntly it could all be utter BS, but not as in 'Black' or 'Sheep'. :)
Nonetheless I think all of BT, OR included, and even the wooly head executives, are still head and shoulders above any contemporaries elswhere in UK tech industry, in every way. :drink:
Hey 7LM, no worries at all. We all have an opinion, usually based on personal experience or that of someone we know. Plus, constructive criticism is always welcomed, (whether acted upon is another matter ;D ).
I posted up the 'Charter' as an awareness only, sadly I too feel the upper echelon are somewhat detached from the middle to lower tiers of management. That however, doesn't detract from the fact the vast majority of individuals are trying their best at what they are tasked to do within the business.
The issue at my level (engineering) is that we are considered to be equal in all capabilities (Physical and mental). Whether you are a young 21yr old lumping a set of ladders and a gas bottle over rough terrain, for acres and acres of fields ...... or you're 50yrs+ doing the same job ....... you still get the same 'Task Time' allocated on the job.
There are also those who just don't 'get' DSL technology, and get proper stressed and upset when their personal stats start to go downhill because of it.
With any business the size of BT/OR they are going to get many things skew, as what works in London may not necessarily work in the village of Dunsop Bridge for example ..... but it's not brought in to be antagonistic, the intentions are for the most part good and true.
I know this, as I've worked for them for many decades and see, hear and read what's happening on a daily basis. As I say, I may not agree with everything they do, but there is never any intended malice at the back of it, as some folk on here think there is.
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Your analogy happens every single day within BTOR.
We have a ceiling on provisioning costs, (I genuinely cant think what it is, but somewhere around the £2K mark springs to mind ??), anything over and above the benchmark and the survey officer/planner has to involve the EU to determine the best way forward. This will usually be exactly the same as your mate's scenario in NZ.
Its not an analogy - the guy is a techie (if you use VoIP in Oceania then you are likely paying the company he works for). Edit - I get to see some of his "spats" with Cisco, they do make me smile :D
He also has all the "civils" (certs for working on public property) but up until the point at which Chorus were created he got told "eat 20k of install costs".
Chorus came back to him after the split & made him an offer.
Thats the difference - Chorus chased him to sort it out.
Again OR are not (IMHO) the issue, BT Group are.
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I was given a demand of ~£2k to install a certain modest length of copper, and presumably trench it then run it up a pole. I suppose I could easily have dug my own trench, now I think about it, not that that would necessarily saved me any money, as BT would still have had to finish things off, and I wouldn't want to risk knackering existing cable in the process either. That seemed a bit steep for two extra phone lines, so I just gave up. Perhaps I should ask politely a second time as now a number of years have passed.
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Your analogy happens every single day within BTOR.
We have a ceiling on provisioning costs, (I genuinely cant think what it is, but somewhere around the £2K mark springs to mind ??), anything over and above the benchmark and the survey officer/planner has to involve the EU to determine the best way forward. This will usually be exactly the same as your mate's scenario in NZ.
Its not an analogy - the guy is a techie (if you use VoIP in Oceania then you are likely paying the company he works for). Edit - I get to see some of his "spats" with Cisco, they do make me smile :D
He also has all the "civils" (certs for working on public property) but up until the point at which Chorus were created he got told "eat 20k of install costs".
Chorus came back to him after the split & made him an offer.
Thats the difference - Chorus chased him to sort it out.
Again OR are not (IMHO) the issue, BT Group are.
Sorry, I didn't mean you'd made it up. 'Analogy' has many meanings dependant on where you look, but one of those is ...... 'A similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be based' .......... this is the intended meaning I was aiming for.
I don't know the comings and goings of Chorus though, I do know however that BT do have a set business model that is, and has to be, fair to the EU and the business itself.
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I was given a demand of ~£2k to install a certain modest length of copper, and presumably trench it then run it up a pole. I suppose I could easily have dug my own trench, now I think about it, not that that would necessarily saved me any money, as BT would still have had to finish things off,mand I wouldn't want to risk knackering existing cable in the process either. That seemed a bit steep for two extra phone lines, so I just gave up. Perhaps I should ask politely a second time as now a number of years have passed.
BT won't let you (a consumer) do the trenching yourself or if they do then that's very recent (last 18 months or so).
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I was given a demand of ~£2k to install a certain modest length of copper, and presumably trench it then run it up a pole. I suppose I could easily have dug my own trench, now I think about it, not that that would necessarily saved me any money, as BT would still have had to finish things off,mand I wouldn't want to risk knackering existing cable in the process either. That seemed a bit steep for two extra phone lines, so I just gave up. Perhaps I should ask politely a second time as now a number of years have passed.
BT won't let you (a consumer) do the trenching yourself or if they do then that's very recent (last 18 months or so).
Dependant on the premises, BT have always allowed the EU to do their own 'trenching'. If it requires doing so in the public highways and byways, then that is, and always has been, a matter to take up with the local council. But, if it the EU's own land, or permission has been given from a neighbour etc etc .............. then BT would never insist on trenching in cable/duct themselves !!
We would of course insist on making the ends off on the cable, for obvious reasons.
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Interesting as a builder mate of mine was told exactly the opposite of that in 2013 - I saw the letter from the "Plant Protection Officer" which I found kind of amusing as there was no plant to "protect" :)
NB - he was told this as an end-user, not as a builder.
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He must have his wires crossed ..... literally. :)
It wouldn't be a PPO attending site, or shouldn't be. it would be either a 'Planner' or more likely, a 'Survey Officer'.
This small extract is taken from our ISIS document. In other words, it's equivalent to the 17th Edition regs for electricians.
'The end user or developer then asks for Openreach to revisit the site to discuss an alternative route that may reduce the cost, e.g. by laying duct or buried cable themselves.'
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Nope it was the PPO who sent the letter - I told you I thought it was amusing as the trench was across a field this guy's family have owned for a couple of hundred years. NB - there's no wayleaves ever been granted on the land so there's no BT plant there (or anything else).
The gist of it was "we want to use our own contractors as that fits in with our own timescales, we won't reduce the price if you dig the trench & we'd have to survey the trench for H&S reasons". Having said that I don't believe the letter actually said that BT wouldn't allow him to do it but that was the VERY strong inference a reasonable person would have drawn.
He "solved" his problem by granting permission to a mobile operator to site a mast in the field & giving BT the two fingered salute. I haven't the heart to tell him that BT are buying EE :D