Kitz Forum

Broadband Related => ISPs => Topic started by: NewtronStar on February 18, 2018, 07:31:41 PM

Title: High and Low cost areas
Post by: NewtronStar on February 18, 2018, 07:31:41 PM
Have always been in a high cost area for broadband which costs £7.50 more per month than a low cost area on all ISP's, think I have ranted about this inequality before on the these forums.

Still don't understand why Exchanges in another parts of the country is classed as either High or Low cost just seems odd that some are paying more for a Broadband service than others yes market 1 2 3 or A B C

Is there anyone else here having to pay that £7.50 more a month for Broadband ?
Title: Re: High and Low cost areas
Post by: ejs on February 18, 2018, 07:49:38 PM
It's not all ISPs. I think it's just Plusnet.

Last time I looked at this, I got the impression that there are no different wholesale costs for WBC FTTC and ADSL2+ for Market A/B areas.

Nobody has to pay £7.50 more per month for their broadband. If they choose a particular ISP (Plusnet) and agree to those prices, then that's what they may end up paying.
Title: Re: High and Low cost areas
Post by: NewtronStar on February 18, 2018, 07:57:48 PM
Funny enough that was the ISP I was talking to via online chat. the advert says £31.99 for 38Mb unlimited & phone stuffed my my postcode & phone in then it turns to £39.99 a month, reason is because I am in a High priced area  :(
Title: Re: High and Low cost areas
Post by: ejs on February 18, 2018, 08:22:18 PM
There may also be changes from 1 April depending on Ofcom's latest market review:
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/consultations-and-statements/category-1/wholesale-local-access-market-review

Although Plusnet will probably continue charging more based on their non low-cost areas for as long as they can get away with continuing to do it. It won't matter if Ofcom's Market A/B designations no longer exist, they never made any difference to FTTC anyway (apart from the zero cease fee in Market A).
Title: Re: High and Low cost areas
Post by: aesmith on February 19, 2018, 12:55:48 PM
Is there anyone else here having to pay that £7.50 more a month for Broadband ?
We're in a high cost area as well, that affected Plusnet pricing when I was with them, but we ended up leaving before the end of their free broadband period in any case.  If we'd stayed it would have been £17.50 for broadband, plus £17.99 for phone line.  A&A actually worked out cheaper at £25 for broadband and £10 for the line.   When I was looking to see what options exist if A&A ended up ditching 20CN customers, I think only BT didn't charge a premium for high cost areas.
Title: Re: High and Low cost areas
Post by: ejs on February 19, 2018, 05:42:51 PM
I think the wholesale costs varying is that 20CN IPSC costs more than 21CN WBC, and the Market A "high cost" areas tended to only have 20CN.
Title: Re: High and Low cost areas
Post by: NewtronStar on February 19, 2018, 08:39:45 PM
My local exchange is 1.3Km for just the phone/voice side it has WBC ADSL Max and WBC ADSL2+ the WBC FTTC comes from a larger head end exchange 4.4Km away can see no mention of WBC 21CN

edited due amendments in my post
Title: Re: High and Low cost areas
Post by: ejs on February 19, 2018, 08:41:55 PM
21CN is WBC.
Title: Re: High and Low cost areas
Post by: NewtronStar on February 19, 2018, 08:55:05 PM
21CN is WBC.

I didn't know that EJS thanks.
Title: Re: High and Low cost areas
Post by: kitz on February 20, 2018, 12:09:58 AM
As ejs says WBC/WBMC is 21CN.   

20CN exchanges are provisioned as  IPSC (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/wbc_wbmc.htm#IPSC) which took over from the old IPStream by joining the 21CN core at the bRAS.   

Problem with 20CN is the lack of bandwidth on the backhaul link between the exchange and the bRAS. 
Many of those links are decades old and originally ever intended to cope with speeds of much more than 2Mbps.  The lack of available bandwidth is what in theory makes those exchanges more expensive.  I'm sure some of us here can remember when it actually cost £1 per each GB of bandwidth on the old backhauls.

Upgrading to 21CN uses a much newer technology called WDM (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/21cn_network.htm#WDM) which allows the same backhaul to have a heck of a lot more available bandwidth.  In a way WDM is to fibre as to what dsl is to copper when compared to dialup, because it can split the backhaul fibre into different channels.  It mutliplexes the fibre in a similar way as to how dsl uses FDM/DMT to multiplex on copper and thus more available bandwidth for fibre. 

Whilst WDM equipment is becoming cheaper, D-WDM which is needed for the long distances of the backhaul,  is still quite expensive to equip and install.   

So where am I going with this?
1)  Plusnet IMHO are wrongly charging for some connections because FTTC takes its feed from the headend exchange and not the local exchange.
2) Its about time that OFCOM de-regulated  _ALL_ exchanges and stopped this Market pricing nonsense which OFCOM caused.    The LLU ISPs have had more than enough time to decide which exchanges they want to install their own backhaul to, and if they havent done so by now then they are unlikely to do so any time soon, especially when FTTC is always fed from a larger 21CN exchange. 
It's yet another case where OFCOM regulation is now over complicating things, and in this particular case there is no longer any need for them to butt their nose in something which doesn't benefit the EU.  If they de-regulated the remaining exchanges and stopped the price differential, then it may encourage BTw to upgrade those remaining 20CN sooner.
Title: Re: High and Low cost areas
Post by: niemand on February 20, 2018, 09:29:52 AM
Small interjection and correction: 20CN uses ATM as its backhaul. Legacy stuff gratefully left behind in most cases. 21CN uses Ethernet throughout. No need for legacy ATM switches, and can use active Openreach backhaul products.

WDM at the exchange is entirely an Openreach thing, Wholesale buy Openreach products. WDM in itself doesn't really matter, being able to swap low bandwidth, legacy ATM circuits and switches for all-Ethernet goodness backhauled via modern Openreach Ethernet products is.

No reason Openreach couldn't put ATM down WDM circuits. Wholesale don't have WDM services from exchanges though. What Openreach provides may go over WDM but Wholesale have been using Ethernet products. Need access to the fibre itself to use WDM.
Title: Re: High and Low cost areas
Post by: kitz on February 20, 2018, 10:44:45 AM
>> WDM at the exchange is entirely an Openreach thing, Wholesale buy Openreach products.

Genuinely interested... Is that a more recent thing perhaps because of the impending split? 
Whilst it was many years ago now, Ben Verwayeen arranged for me to visit a couple of exchanges, one of which was in the process of being upgraded to 21CN.   Several staff were 'allocated' to me, one of whom was from BTw.  It was from him who did the speil about the MSANs and backhauls and said it was 'theirs'.  A couple of the Openreach guys asked if they could also tag along when the BTw guy came down because it was something they seldom got to hear about as even back then the 2 divisions never mixed with each other.   In fact the BTw time slot allocation was so interesting it went on much longer than anticipated and over-ran into the time slot where I was supposed to have gone out with and shadowed an Openreach field engineer.  It was the BTw guy who did the talk about blowing in new fibre etc for the 21CN MSANs and I'm certain he said it was 'theirs'...  or have I just mis-interpreted the definition of 'theirs'?

Practically all of the info I got on the 21CN pages for the main site came direct from BTw.  Some of it not available else-where at the time and I know for several years some people on another forum disputed the fact that there was such a thing as dedicated WBMC and insisted that it was BTr white labelling.  It was only after PN went dedicated that it was accepted...  even then in the early stages a couple of people still said PN were purchasing BTr white label for their 'new' network.

Even the MPLS core is supposedly owned and managed by BTw and there is a lot of overlap when it comes to Openreach and BTw... which is one of the prime reasons why I think it would have been far more logical to split off BTr/consumer rather than Openreach.


PS I realise BTw buy off Openreach when it comes to FTTC etc
Title: Re: High and Low cost areas
Post by: ejs on February 20, 2018, 06:38:46 PM
I'm pretty sure that the current Ofcom pricing regulations only apply to IPSC, not WBC. And all BTWholesale FTTC is WBC. It's probably all about to change anyway as I said earlier.
Title: Re: High and Low cost areas
Post by: NewtronStar on May 08, 2018, 07:44:30 PM
You were spot on as usual EJS  :) This now seems to be rectified by Plusnet at least we now have affordable Plusnet in this market A area in the link below.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/05/isp-plusnet-expand-uk-low-cost-areas-to-more-broadband-users.html (https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/05/isp-plusnet-expand-uk-low-cost-areas-to-more-broadband-users.html)
Title: Re: High and Low cost areas
Post by: ejs on May 08, 2018, 08:40:06 PM
That's only from Ofcom changing the definitions of the Market A and Market B areas though. I think the idea is that FTTC counts as competition with ADSL, so anywhere with FTTC will be reclassified Market B.

The 2017 Ofcom "Wholesale Broadband Access Market Review" consultation also said the plan was to have no charge controls in the remaining much smaller Market A.
Title: Re: High and Low cost areas
Post by: NewtronStar on May 08, 2018, 09:06:12 PM
so anywhere with FTTC will be reclassified Market B.

All I can say is it will help my pocket when considering a new ISP like Plusnet after EE 18 month contract ends, EE has been very good to me. and now Vodafone has lowered it price for 38Mbps to £20 Broadband only don't know what the cost is for landline telephone with all calls, I can tell you this once bitten, twice shy it won't be Vodafone  ;)