Kitz Forum
Announcements => News Articles => Topic started by: WWWombat on August 31, 2016, 07:00:03 PM
-
Love the tweet from BT, agreeing with Tom
https://twitter.com/BTGroup/status/770893717209288704
The tweet itself has a link to an FT article, which appears to bypass the paywall
Tom Mockridge, chief executive of Virgin Media, which is investing £3bn to expand its cable and fibre network to reach 17m homes, has called on BT’s rivals to stop carping and to invest in fibre themselves. “Some have said we need to ‘fix’ Britain’s internet. I would urge them to pick up a spade,” says Mr Mockridge.
There might be the odd fact wrong, but the article isn't a bad summary of the differing positions.
-
Link to article - Openreach and critics locked in debate over faster broadband (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/54cea27c-6b79-11e6-ae5b-a7cc5dd5a28c.html#axzz4J6a43V5F)
The replies to the tweet make some interesting reading too.
-
paywall, I'm afraid
-
Hmmm I got the paywall at first too.
Try this one https://t.co/x0QadHiWPN - Nope as soon as you try linking from anywhere else it sends you to via the paywall.
Go direct to the tweet and click on the link there.
-
I tried playing with the other links to get past the paywall. In the end, the tweet was all I could get to work; That FT website has some clever stuff protecting it.
The replies are good ... with consistent answers too, especially over reaching more people. I'm really looking forward to seeing where things go with the coming battle of LLU vs LR-VDSL.
-
To read FT articles without the paywall you need to do the following - put the full title into Google search, this should pull up the article(on the FT site) in the results, click the search result for the article on the FT site - this will present you with the article sans paywall(they may make you answer a short survey to view). For anyone that doesn't work for(no reason why it shouldn't really), here is the article-
http://imgur.com/a/4iotM
-
sadly FT it seems have got a bit more aggressive, they used to allow a few views per month free to everyone, then free registered users would get about 10 views, seems now both those options have gone. :(
Ok a fix for ublock origin users.
Disable first party scripts on ft.com
Allow inline scripts in no-op mode on ft.com
Then the free registration access works again, if you have no account it will offer to allow you to make one for free.
To do the above you need to be running ublock origin in advanced mode, also make sure you allow cookies.
-
I agree with Tom, though his comment regarding a spade may well be best aimed at his own work force who don't like burying cables....
I too am sick of hearing about Sky, TalkTalk and all the rest of them complaining about BT not doing this or BT not doing that.... personally I think they're lucky that BT allowed them to use the newer generation networks that they installed.... if it wasn't for this country having so many regulations around sharing the infrastructure I would of recommended BT lock down next gen services to their own products instead of letting other providers continue to benefit from their network and investment.
Openreach have now opened up their ducts for 3rd parties to feed fibres, yet complaining still continues... do I think Openreach needs to be nationalized... Yes... If it is to be run as a shared network but ISP's are only in favor of this because it would be kicking BT in the plums... they would still have to invest the same amount of money to push the technology further.
Also... I would like to know how we can compare our service to that of those abroad.... Broadband oversea's costs a lot more than it does in the UK (AFAIA) and infrastructure is private and locked down... a tweeter moaning about his friend using Movistar in Spain and getting a 300mb service might want to ask his friend how much that costs him and if he could keep that speed if he moved to another provider (if he can).... I corrected his comments regarding BT though.... he claimed BT only did up to 76mb.... I have a friend that has 300mb... :cool:
-
I have to differ, but only in parts, with mlmclaren :no: :)
-
Pretty sure it would be illegal for a nationalised openreach to roll out FTTP as it would classify as state aid.
That and VM would go absolutely mental.
-
@S.Stephenson I can but live in hope.
-
Ducts.
I may be wrong but a major cost of extending fibre reach is the digging up and ducting? if so, there is no reason why the Govt could not invites tenders from ducters to install extra ducting.
Said ducting is then leased to all who wish to use it - BT VM Sky TT and so on.
Financing the ducting would be a good long term investment for Pension Funds and so on.
-
That's where the biggest chunk of the cash would be taken ...... the civils. It's ok for folk to just say 'Just install FTTP', with no clue as to the enormity of that statement. :)
-
Very true, most of the cost is in the civils.
So about all the fully ducted areas with swept tees that had FTTC deployed.
-
I agree about other companies moaning all the time, particularly Sky who are the main big ISP still using BT/OR network that are capable of delivering their own network. If smaller companies like CityFibre and Hyperoptic can do it then Sky could do it as well, on a bigger scale.
I do think there is a case for at least a centralised body to just operate the network. This problem seems to be the same one with the railways too when British rail was privatised.. who owns the network has a built in advantage. It's very difficult moving that 'advantage' around without it ending up even more unfair or holding up investment.
I understand that its expensive to put in fibre. But I've never understood who is setting the price. Who are BT/OR paying for it to be so expensive? If its for materials then why can't they either cut a deal with the maker of the materials, or bring them in-house (which would have been a good option to have had as far as cabinets with the ECI ones lagging behind)?
BT/OR, Sky and others seem like a group of old men muttering about price and "do you really need the speed son? can't you get by with 2Mb?". It seems to be a stagnent debate all the time with the same companies trying to one up each other, while at the same time not doing too much.
It always seems to be someone else holding things up. But yet nothing is ever done by them to get around the problem.
Sorry for the rant but progress seems to be crawling along at a snails pace.
-
I understand that its expensive to put in fibre. But I've never understood who is setting the price. Who are BT/OR paying for it to be so expensive?
Its not the materials/equipment (where BT are indeed in a position to negotiate good prices) that makes installing FTTP so expensive but the amount of manpower needed.
-
Its probably a combination of two things.
1 - They simply are not very efficient, as proven by the cornwall rollout where their costs per meter are many multiples of what other providers achieved overseas.
2 - A hyping up of the cost so they can probably claim more subsidies etc. for any rollouts.
A urban only rollout would be way cheaper than the quoted figures.
-
Perhaps needs to be hived off to a large specialist subcontractor who does nothing but. The government needs to audit its detailed implementation, to make sure we're not being ripped off.
-
Perhaps needs to be hived off to a large specialist subcontractor who does nothing but.
Not sure about that. Subcontracting doesn't always work out and all it ends up doing is lining someone else's pocket.
The thing I have against subcontracting is quite often the 'real men' who do the digging or whatever get paid peanuts and no job guarantee. These workers are less likely to take pride in their work.
Take for eg the subcontracting to Kelly/MJQuinn. Seriously do you breathe a sigh of relief if an Openreach engineer turns up rather than a contractor? How many times with FTTC installs did OR end up having to send out their own guys to fix mistakes by the contractors?
Subcontracting is cheap primarily due how much is paid to the worker, nor have to worry about permanent contracts or pensions etc.
One of the plus points for me about BT is that they provide real apprenticeships and not use people as cheap labour , then lay them off when they arent getting the gov subsidy (https://www.gov.uk/take-on-an-apprentice/overview). I personally know several young people who despite being hard working, gets kicked out of a job with a pathetic excuse as the term of apprenticeship draws to a close. Then a few weeks later the company is recruiting more cheap labour. Its exceedingly hard for many youngsters these days to enter into a decent job.
/rant.
-
I agree with kitz, sadly as evidenced by recent projects like the NHS PFI and the DWP outsourcing the work programme, these schemes seem only intent on making someone rich using public funds, sadly there is corruption in governments we have. Someone no doubt will be getting very rich from the hugely expensive overpriced HS2 project as well.
The only way I agree with state funding is when none of it is contracted out, so no leakage of money into private hands.
If it was me considering funding a new infrastructure, the likely plan would be to build the network, employ everyone directly for the job and then lease it out. With the option of selling it at a later date.
-
@kitz - I hear you, Kitz. Good point, couldn't agree more. The most important word in my comment was intended to be the word ‘specialist’, rather than ‘subcontractor’ which as you say is undesireable, on reflection. A specialist team within BT would fit the bill, with people who do trenching and duct-wrangling all the time and people who are experts at handling fibre, which I believe is quite a skill. If these people do it all the time, then they might get faster and more efficient at it, given good management and provided they make sure to retain the best staff members.
-
Lots of valid points here about undesirable business practices with which I agree.
My point of view is that we should separate out the provision of the physical ducting from anything that gets put inside it.
Once built the private sector can compete to use it - analogous to selling radio bandwidth.
Given this approach, we would need to
decide where the ducting is to go
decide who should do it (including considerations of quality of employment for staff)
decide how to fund it
The Govt should own this trunking.
-
@stevebrass :- good plan
-
Uh oh. Liberty are about to buy F1, and add it to a stable including the Eurosport and Discovery TV channels.
Are VM about to be slated for the amount of money they're spending on sport rather than on digging implements?
-
Given it's not them spending the money and they are continuing to invest heavily both in passing new premises and upgrading existing infrastructure I doubt it.
VM continue to spend money like water passing new premises here, funds already allocated.