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Announcements => News Articles => Topic started by: Bowdon on December 30, 2018, 11:52:33 AM

Title: Rival UK ISPs Raise Alarm Over Full Fibre Competition and Openreach
Post by: Bowdon on December 30, 2018, 11:52:33 AM
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/12/rival-uk-isps-raise-alarm-over-full-fibre-competition-and-openreach.html (https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/12/rival-uk-isps-raise-alarm-over-full-fibre-competition-and-openreach.html)

Quote
A number of broadband ISPs including TalkTalk, Hyperoptic, Cityfibre and Gigaclear, as well as the Independent Networks Co-operative Association (INCA), have written to the UK Government and Ofcom in the hope of encouraging tougher measures to prevent Openreach (BT) from hampering “full fibre” (FTTP) competition.

The government has already made clear that they want 15 million premises to have access to Gigabit capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband by 2025 and then nationwide to all by 2033, although the latter date would require a huge public investment (i.e. not commercially viable in rural areas without it) and is currently just a largely unfunded aspiration.

For its part Openreach have already committed to roll-out FTTP to 3 million premises by the end of 2020 (March 2021 financial) and they’re in the process of negotiating to ensure a favourable regulatory environment, which could enable them to extend this deployment to 10 million premises by around 2025. At present nearly all of this work reflects a purely commercial investment.

However Openreach are not the only game in town. Over the past couple of years a growing number of alternative network (AltNet) ISPs have committed to do major roll-outs (see our ‘Summary of Full Fibre Broadband Plans (https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/04/building-uk-summary-fttp-broadband-rollouts-investment.html)‘). For example, Cityfibre have committed £2.5bn to deliver 5 million FTTH premises alongside Vodafone, while Hyperoptic plan 2 million by 2021 or possibly 5 million by 2024 and Virgin Media are hoping to add 2 million.

Nearly all of this battle is taking place in commercially competitive urban areas, but some ISPs still fear that Openreach could use their weight in an anti-competitive way. For example, Cityfibre was less than pleased when, after announcing their intention to cover the city of Coventry, Openreach came out and did the same.

Balancing the threat from such overbuild is difficult precisely because, at this stage, we’re mostly talking about urban markets that have always been aggressively commercially competitive areas. Openreach and Virgin Media have both overbuilt each other and will continue to do so. Naturally the more players that venture into this market, the tougher it becomes to gain a return on such significant investments.
Title: Re: Rival UK ISPs Raise Alarm Over Full Fibre Competition and Openreach
Post by: niemand on December 30, 2018, 01:06:17 PM
Oh for heaven's sake.  :wall: :wall: :wall:
Title: Re: Rival UK ISPs Raise Alarm Over Full Fibre Competition and Openreach
Post by: roseway on December 30, 2018, 03:32:39 PM
Quite :)
Title: Re: Rival UK ISPs Raise Alarm Over Full Fibre Competition and Openreach
Post by: kitz on December 30, 2018, 05:01:49 PM
 :o
Title: Re: Rival UK ISPs Raise Alarm Over Full Fibre Competition and Openreach
Post by: Weaver on December 30, 2018, 05:21:01 PM
?  ???
Title: Re: Rival UK ISPs Raise Alarm Over Full Fibre Competition and Openreach
Post by: j0hn on December 30, 2018, 06:41:55 PM
Oh for heaven's sake.  :wall: :wall: :wall:

This ^

They really can't win.
I listened to Dido Harding from Talktalk cry for years that OpenReach didn't roll out enough full fibre.
They don't even sell it when they do roll it out.

For years they've complained about the lack of full fibre and lack of investment and now they're complaining about the way they are rolling it out.

Quote
Cityfibre was less than pleased when, after announcing their intention to cover the city of Coventry, Openreach came out and did the same

Oh boo hoo!
If you don't want anyone to over build in an area you are going to invest in then pick somewhere rural and see how that goes for build costs.
Of course OpenReach are also going to hand pick cities/urban/densely populated areas.

Everyone wants the best bang for their buck and will pick areas with the lowest install cost per premises past.

IMO the last thing the industry needs is OFCOM sticking their nose in and tightening regulations on where FTTP can and can't be rolled out.
Title: Re: Rival UK ISPs Raise Alarm Over Full Fibre Competition and Openreach
Post by: Chrysalis on December 31, 2018, 11:01:04 AM
So cityfibre not happy they dont have a monopoly, but cry when openreach have a monopoly?

It seems what they want is for the alt nets to cherry pick the best areas, and openreach to FTTP the crumbs, places like weaver's house.

I wonder how ofcom will react to this absurdness.
Title: Re: Rival UK ISPs Raise Alarm Over Full Fibre Competition and Openreach
Post by: jelv on December 31, 2018, 06:25:52 PM
CityFibre are going to be cautious about investment decisions if they think as soon as they announce OpenReach are going to step in and reduce any potential profits they may make so it is definitely bad for the consumer as the roll-out will be slowed.

The best would be for OFCOM to publish a list of all the cities/towns/areas that could have full fibre and for companies to commit to areas for a fee which is returnable when the roll out completes. If they don't roll out in two years the fee is forfeit. In return other companies are banned from rolling out to the area for two or three years to give the company making the initial commitment a chance to make a return on their investment.

That would push towards a wider roll out and reduce the amount of overbuild.
Title: Re: Rival UK ISPs Raise Alarm Over Full Fibre Competition and Openreach
Post by: gt94sss2 on December 31, 2018, 11:09:50 PM
CityFibre are going to be cautious about investment decisions if they think as soon as they announce OpenReach are going to step in and reduce any potential profits they may make so it is definitely bad for the consumer as the roll-out will be slowed.

The best would be for OFCOM to publish a list of all the cities/towns/areas that could have full fibre and for companies to commit to areas for a fee which is returnable when the roll out completes. If they don't roll out in two years the fee is forfeit. In return other companies are banned from rolling out to the area for two or three years to give the company making the initial commitment a chance to make a return on their investment.

That would push towards a wider roll out and reduce the amount of overbuild.

You would end up with regional monopolies aka cable company franchises which is not a good idea (and has been ruled out by Ofcom anyway) and would also mean higher prices for consumers.

In my opinion, overbuilding should actually not be discouraged - it creates and promotes infrastructure competition and hence lower prices/more diverse service offerings for the consumer.

Ironically, if companies have a limited risk appetite, then the threat of potential overbuilding also means that they are more likely to target less 'lucrative' areas where they think only one network will be viable and seek to be first there..
Title: Re: Rival UK ISPs Raise Alarm Over Full Fibre Competition and Openreach
Post by: Bowdon on December 31, 2018, 11:17:24 PM
I wonder if the government offered £1 billion for each region of the country to get full fibre, and depending on the percentage each company does will result in that percentage of that £1 billion being paid to them.

I guess one way to stop overbuild and control different areas would be to have some kind of registry system.
Title: Re: Rival UK ISPs Raise Alarm Over Full Fibre Competition and Openreach
Post by: niemand on January 01, 2019, 01:35:31 AM
I wonder why taxpayers should fund more rural broadband before waiting to see if the market will deliver. Time for urban areas to catch up with the more rural ones in terms of FTTP percentage. BDUK distorted the market.

Let them compete for a while or bring everything under a combined NBN, either works. Prefer not to fund £3k per premises FTTP when, at the time, best I could get was FTTC, thanks.
Title: Re: Rival UK ISPs Raise Alarm Over Full Fibre Competition and Openreach
Post by: j0hn on January 01, 2019, 02:51:40 AM
Above ^^

Any hint that the government/public purse is going to fund a large scale FTTP rollout will make lots of private/commercial investment stop dead.

Most of the big players are committing chunks of cash towards FTTP so no need to discourage this investment.

OpenReach have ambitions for a good few million premises over the next few years and Virgin have thrown a few Billion £ into project lightning.

Cityfibre/Vodafone are being quite ambitious and Talktalk are talking the talk but no pen on paper yet.

Sky/Comcast could make things even more interesting in the next couple years.

The market is ripe for FTTP investment and the best thing OFCOM could do is absolutely nothing.
If they start dictating areas and overbuild rules and tightening regulations right as big investment decisions are being made then the money just won't be invested at all.
Title: Re: Rival UK ISPs Raise Alarm Over Full Fibre Competition and Openreach
Post by: niemand on January 01, 2019, 09:14:06 AM
The fixation with having every premises in an area covered also needs to go: not happening. Start trying to impose that you risk none getting covered. The cost to VM of covering about 1,100 premises here was immense and the only reason it happened was the build was in its early stages and some politics was at play. Not sustainable at scale.

As a guide think about how rapidly you're seeing premises passed in 'normal' streets. VM were managing to reach no more than a property per team per day in the 'nasty' bits here, this ignoring those premises' share of the time spent getting to those 'nasty' bits in the first place. Not quite comparable to B4RN's multi-km per day soft digs or even digging along normal tarmac streets, whether terraced or fully detached.
Title: Re: Rival UK ISPs Raise Alarm Over Full Fibre Competition and Openreach
Post by: Chrysalis on January 02, 2019, 12:35:39 PM
CityFibre are going to be cautious about investment decisions if they think as soon as they announce OpenReach are going to step in and reduce any potential profits they may make so it is definitely bad for the consumer as the roll-out will be slowed.

The best would be for OFCOM to publish a list of all the cities/towns/areas that could have full fibre and for companies to commit to areas for a fee which is returnable when the roll out completes. If they don't roll out in two years the fee is forfeit. In return other companies are banned from rolling out to the area for two or three years to give the company making the initial commitment a chance to make a return on their investment.

That would push towards a wider roll out and reduce the amount of overbuild.

I have indeed noticed openreach are not keen on announcing areas early like in the FTTC days, g.fast info is a bit easier to come by than FTTP, FTTP itself seems to be commercially sensitive to them.

I wonder why taxpayers should fund more rural broadband before waiting to see if the market will deliver. Time for urban areas to catch up with the more rural ones in terms of FTTP percentage. BDUK distorted the market.

Let them compete for a while or bring everything under a combined NBN, either works. Prefer not to fund £3k per premises FTTP when, at the time, best I could get was FTTC, thanks.

I agree, I find myself agreeing with you so often, I am not a shadow, honest.  But yeah glad someone else has noticed the market has got distorted, at times rural has been getting more FTTP than urban, which to be frank is whacked.  For VDSL Leicestershire got VDSL before Leicester city and that was stupid as well.