Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => ISPs => Topic started by: elpact on December 19, 2021, 09:06:21 PM
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Just wondering what the difference is between WLR and BTW. From reading about both, it seems BT just rents the entire line out to other service providers. What am I missing please? Thanks.
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WLR is an Openreach product. It is the voice part of a service where CPs / operators don't want to handle it themselves.
BTW / BT Wholesale are a customer of Openreach that buy Openreach products and deliver them in a more convenient way. They also provide some broadband services of their own, partially renting copper from Openreach and adding the broadband via their own equipment.
Were you maybe thinking of LLU and BTW? In the age of FTTC/P there's a lot less difference between those than there used to be.
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Thanks for your reply.
BTW / BT Wholesale are a customer of Openreach that buy Openreach products and deliver them in a more convenient way. They also provide some broadband services of their own, partially renting copper from Openreach and adding the broadband via their own equipment.
So over here:
https://kitz.co.uk/adsl/BT.htm - it says: "BT.com and BT Broadband are customers of BT Wholesale."
Does that mean, if I'm a retail customer of BT, essentially I go through BT.com retail, who buy from BTW, who buy from Openreach?? If so, why wouldn't BT.com just go directly to Openreach, and skip BTW.
WLR is an Openreach product. It is the voice part of a service where CPs / operators don't want to handle it themselves.
And, what if the CP doesn't want to handle both the broadband and the voice? What product would that be called please?
Were you maybe thinking of LLU and BTW? In the age of FTTC/P there's a lot less difference between those than there used to be.
I'm mainly focusing on the copper not Fibre for now. I do have some questions about LLU as well. From my understanding it's where Openreach allow other CPs to rent the copper line so they can sell it to customers, but not too sure about much beyond that.
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Does that mean, if I'm a retail customer of BT, essentially I go through BT.com retail, who buy from BTW, who buy from Openreach?? If so, why wouldn't BT.com just go directly to Openreach, and skip BTW.
As I understand it, Openreach provide the raw fibre network whereas BTW own and manage a lot of the equipment using that fibre. By having them as separate business units you aren't wasting money having redundant equipment at BT that could also be used by BTW for renting to other ISPs, plus no doubt fiddling the finances so it appears BT is making less profit than they really are, because its a different entity to BTW (I'm tinfoil hatting here, I do not know if they are registered as different businesses). ;)
I suspect Talk Talk and how they rent their backhaul is somewhat similar.
There's also the aspect of Ofcom demanding BT play on a level playing field. They are supposed to operate in a similar way to any other ISP rather than giving themselves a competitive advantage. Keeping BT and BTW as different units, where BT have to follow the same procedures as any other ISP renting off BTW.
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WLR is an Openreach product. It is the voice part of a service where CPs / operators don't want to handle it themselves.
BTW / BT Wholesale are a customer of Openreach that buy Openreach products and deliver them in a more convenient way. They also provide some broadband services of their own, partially renting copper from Openreach and adding the broadband via their own equipment.
Were you maybe thinking of LLU and BTW? In the age of FTTC/P there's a lot less difference between those than there used to be.
I think that's not clear.
WLR is an Openreach product that BTW sell to communication providers like BT Retail and BT Business.
OfCOM have a reseller id list of registered and licensed communication providers who are allowed to buy and sell WLR via BTW.