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[Bowdon]

BT Openreach Make it Cheap to Trial Faster “Fibre Broadband” Speeds

BTOpenreach has moved to “create incentives” for ISPs and their subscribers to change or trial a faster Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) or Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) “fibre broadband” speed by launching a new special offer, which cuts the £11.25 Bandwidth Modification Charge to £0.

I think this is a step in the right direction.

[kitz]

Yes its a good idea, but I wonder what the reasoning behind this is. 

I wonder what portion of FTTC users are on 40Mbps.  Openreach must think that there are sufficient users capable of benefiting higher speeds for them to run this promo?

I wonder if the SPs are partially to blame as practically of them advertise along the lines of "Get superfast fibre for £x pm" without any mention of speeds.

[gt94sss2]

Yes its a good idea, but I wonder what the reasoning behind this is. 

I wonder what portion of FTTC users are on 40Mbps.  Openreach must think that there are sufficient users capable of benefiting higher speeds for them to run this promo?

Trying to encourage take up the 55/10 option perhaps?

[daveesh1]

For the new 55mbs profile as I  have not seen any ISP offer it as yet. I will be one that looks to upgrade to this profile as/when it is offered.

[WWWombat]

I wonder what portion of FTTC users are on 40Mbps.

Ofcom's infrastructure report in 2014 reckons about one third take packages above 40Mbps, about one half both take a 40Mbps and roughly get that speed, and one fifth are in the tail that fails to get up near that 40Mbps level. The latter could be on either package speed, as we can't tell.

http://postimg.org/image/bly6o16cl/

Everyone's probably sick of me posting that, but it tells us all sorts 

One bit, for example, is that BT need to dimension their G.Fast hardware to be able to serve around 10% of the premises within range of the DPU node.

[kitz]

http://postimg.org/image/bly6o16cl/
Everyone's probably sick of me posting that, but it tells us all sorts 

Some how I had missed that, it may have come out last year when I wasn't around much, so thank you for posting it.
The way I interpret that is that 80% can get least 40Mbps.   33% take up the 80 Mbps product..  so therefore there's potential for 46% to get more out of their connection. 
Have I worked that out right?   Obviously we don't know the figure for how much more they could get. 

[burakkucat]

I have no "inside information" but wonder if the launch of the Openreach 55/10 Mbps VDSL2 product may be a precursor to the rationalisation of the product range as --

80/20, 55/10 & 40/2 Mbps

I.e. the cessation of the 40/10 Mbps product? 

[William Grimsley]

Why can't Openreach invest in 20/5 or 20/1?

[kitz]

I have no "inside information" but wonder if the launch of the Openreach 55/10 Mbps VDSL2 product may be a precursor to the rationalisation of the product range as --

80/20, 55/10 & 40/2 Mbps

I.e. the cessation of the 40/10 Mbps product? 

To me it would seem logical that the 55/10 product is based on what they assume the majority of people should be able to get.   They have the figures so they should know.

It does seem a bit silly to have both a 40/10 and 55/10 product, so like you,  I could well imagine they might eventually phase it out.   
There would be a bit of a stink though if people were expected to pay £5 more,  who were happy with 40/10 if they withdrew it completely, so I imagine there would either have to be some pricing adjustment or phased out as existing users only.

[kitz]

Why can't Openreach invest in 20/5 or 20/1?

Makes little sense for them to do this.   ADSL2+ is up to 24Mbps so they arent likely to retail fibre speeds at less than that.

You may say but some users can only get say 20Mb (<5% according to that graph), but they are highly likely to have only got a couple of Mbps on adsl, so its still worth them upgrading to fttc anyhow. 

[William Grimsley]

Why can't Openreach invest in 20/5 or 20/1?

Makes little sense for them to do this.   ADSL2+ is up to 24Mbps so they arent likely to retail fibre speeds at less than that.

You may say but some users can only get say 20Mb (<5% according to that graph), but they are highly likely to have only got a couple of Mbps on adsl, so its still worth them upgrading to fttc anyhow.

Yes, but the whole problem with ADSL is that everyone gets charged for the same speed even if they can or cannot acheive that. On VDSL, depending on the customer's choice and distance from the cabinet, the options should be up to 20/40/60/80 not 40/80 Mbps. Unfortunately, kitz. I beg to differ your opinion.

[kitz]

Yes, but the whole problem with ADSL is that everyone gets charged for the same speed even if they can or cannot acheive that. On VDSL, depending on the customer's choice and distance from the cabinet, the options should be up to 20/40/60/80 not 40/80 Mbps. Unfortunately, kitz. I beg to differ your opinion.

We've been there with pricing differentials based on speeds in the past and it doesn't really work.

The main reason is that it costs Openreach the same to provision a 80/20 line than it does say a line which can only get say 20Mbps.   
In actual fact its the longer lines which are both more costly for Openreach to provide and maintain.    The longer the line, then the more fibre needed to the cab,  more ducting needed, and more copper required to the home.   By nature its also these lines which are the most troublesome.  The longer that copper is then the more likely the line is to fault.

So as far as Openreach is concerned then its the longer lines (which get less speed) that are the most expensive for them to provision.

As far as the ISP is concerned, once they have paid Openreach for access, then one of their biggest costs is bandwidth.  You may say that the higher speeds can utilise more bandwidth..   but as was found 10years ago when they did have pricing differential based on speed - this is seldom makes much difference.   You could easily get someone on 512kbps leeching far more than someone else on 2Mbps.   In todays world you may have a family on 40Mbps with several teenagers streaming practically 24/7... compared to someone living near the exchange on 80/20 using hardly any bandwidth.   

[ejs]

There is talk about a trial of 18/2 FTTC speed variant, the trial was aimed at customers currently getting less than 2Mb speeds, there were 2 million getting less than 3Mb, and 900,000 of those already have FTTC available. From the ISP forum slides, BTWholesale decided not to take part in the trial. I think there were other restrictions, like it was only for upgrading packages while staying with the same ISP. Perhaps it was even aimed at getting ISPs to move customers from ADSLx to FTTC 18/2, while the ISP keeps their customer paying the same as whatever they're currently paying. Essentially they'd be paying ADSL2+ prices for ADSL2+ speeds, it just happens to be delivered via FTTC.

Edit: the 2 million and 900,000 figures were for those getting less than 3Mb speeds, in September 2015, but the trial was later aimed at those receiving less than 2Mb speeds.

[Ronski]

Surely it would be good to get everyone off ADSL where possible, and then we wouldn't need to have power masking to protect ADSL, but I suppose there is LLU issues to resolve and capacity may well need increasing at the cabinets.

[burakkucat]

. . . I suppose there is LLU issues to resolve and capacity may well need increasing at the cabinets.

Both issues would, most definitely, need to be resolved first.