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[Black Sheep]

Today I am delighted to be telling CPs, investors and the media how Openreach will support Britain’s digital ambitions – by delivering better service, broader coverage and faster speeds.
 
On better service my mantra will be: deliver on time, right first time, own it and work smarter. For consumers, that will mean halving missed appointments and showing zero tolerance to multiple missed appointments. We’ll hire 1,000 more engineers this year and continue to multi-skill many more. And when things go wrong for customers a dedicated team will manage problems to resolution. For businesses we’ll deliver 20% more Ethernet circuits with delivery certainty and dedicated owners to manage complex circuits.

With respect to broader coverage, Openreach’s investment has played a crucial role in making sure that Britain is on course to meet the Government’s target for 95% superfast broadband coverage. And we want to go further. We will continue to revisit our network plans to identify opportunities to extend the scope of our rollout. And in BDUK areas, the successful take-up of superfast will release an estimated £250m for local authorities to invest in extending the fibre network – and we believe this would allow us to pass a further 300,000 homes, or 1% additional coverage. In addition to this we’ll provide CPs with better access to our ducts and poles to further improve the choice and availability of superfast services.

In terms of faster speeds I’m delighted to have announced an ambition to offer ultrafast connections to 12 million homes and businesses by 2020 - an increase on our previous target of 10 million. This will be achieved through a mix of our innovative technologies. G.fast, developed in our labs at Adastral Park and trialled with our CP customers. With the standards now agreed, we’ll shortly begin a large pilot of G.fast to 25,000 homes in Kent and Cambridgeshire and, subject to regulatory agreement, will begin a commercial rollout in the next financial year. We have committed to bring ultrafast speeds, using G.fast, to 10m homes and business by 2020. We’ll also make more use of fibre-to-the-premise, with an ambition to roll-out to 2 million premises by 2020. We’ve worked hard to improve our FTTP delivery methods - reducing the cost and giving a better customer experience. We are currently trialling a new FTTP product for small businesses and will also provide FTTP free of charge to new housing developments with a hundred or more homes.
 
I am determined to do a better job of serving our CPs and their end customers and, through them, play an important role in maintaining the leadership of Britain’s digital economy.

This is the plan that Openreach’s leaders have developed over the past few weeks. Now I need everyone in Openreach to play their part in helping us meet these ambitious commitments. I thank you for what you have achieved so far. I am very confident that we can deliver our plan – and delight customers with better service, broader coverage and faster speeds – and continue to build Britain’s connected future.

Clive

[Moderator edited to insert the text into an attributed quotation block.]

[Bowdon]

Thanks for the post BS!

It certainly sounds like BT / OR's ambition is heading in the right direction.

I hope in the second paragraph that this means that OR engineers will be able to stay on a job longer if they need to in order to get it fixed instead of having multiple appointments, which I'm sure doesn't solve anyones issue in the long run.

It's also good to see that the dates for release of 'Ultrafast' broadband are still on schedule. Also I hope the additional homes they hope to target is an indiction that the trials so far have proved to be better than first expected.

[Black Sheep]

Thanks for the post BS!

It certainly sounds like BT / OR's ambition is heading in the right direction.

I hope in the second paragraph that this means that OR engineers will be able to stay on a job longer if they need to in order to get it fixed instead of having multiple appointments, which I'm sure doesn't solve anyones issue in the long run.

It's also good to see that the dates for release of 'Ultrafast' broadband are still on schedule. Also I hope the additional homes they hope to target is an indiction that the trials so far have proved to be better than first expected.

No problem, Bowdon.

The multiple appointments 'thang' are referred to as 'Job tours' within OR, they are a personal choice the engineer makes as to how his work for the day is delivered.

I personally prefer the single-task method of allocation, as it takes away the additional stress of an already excessively monitored situation. Complete one job, then pick up the next one ...... and so on until the end of the day.
Other engineers prefer the 'Tours' so they can plan their own day, and have a high percentage chance of remaining on their local patch. One job at a time means if a task is failing on another patch, and you have the relevant skill-set, then the 'Work Manager' machine will likely give it to you.

 

[kitz]

Thanks BS

Glad that they are hiring additional engineers.  From my own observations there seems to be far more faults reported with VDSL than ADSL probably because we are pushing the limits further and more people are likely to notice the effects of cross-talk and wonder about 'lost speed' therefore making more reports to their SP.   Would this be what you are seeing in the field too as regards faults... and also are ISPs fending off crosstalk because of the speed ranges given on the checker, so a lot of these never get to you.

Re missed appointments, I feel proper compensation should be made to the EU, its easy for the ISPs to not chase this up on behalf of the EU so that they actually do get re-reimbursed.     

[Black Sheep]

Hi Kitz

I can only speak from my own personal experiences, but I would say my VDSL faults are a mixture of star-wiring, network faults, stuck profiles and X-talk issues, in equal measures.

I would say the vast majority of VDSL faults raised are a result of self-install products, and the EU (or generally their teenage kids), will notice somethings wrong when the DLM starts to punish them. In most cases, re-siting of the NTE and/or installing a SSFP will remedy the situation.

Then, you do get the EU who monitors their stats and are generally well-informed on DSL matters. I've been to a few who have used your site to gain info, and I've also been to one members premises who visits here (and they don't know it was me  ), and ever so gently demonstrated that what they had in fact been interpreting as a fault, was actually a complete total mis-understanding on their behalf. I daren't go into too much detail as it would make me obvious to them.

Of course, the enthusiasts have a moot point regarding X-Talk and their achievable speeds, but from an engineering perspective we can only work with what we've got at this time. All I can do is perform the relevant tests and try and put their minds at rest that they have as good an MPF as they are going to get in the here and now. 

I've said it on many, many threads ……….. the average BB user has not much idea at all about DSL and its workings. They're not bothered about 1Gig speeds, they just want an always on service that is ……. well ….. super-fast. I suspect most wouldn't want to pay for Ultra-fast IMHO
I do however, enjoy explaining in layman's terms what DSL is and how it is presented to the EU, by cutting through the TLA's, guff and tripe that they are subject to. Once you've got over to them how it works (i.e.: attenuation, X-Talk, SNR etc), plus back up the chat with real-life testing (i.e.: get them involved), then most if not all are happy with the end result.   

[kitz]

re cross-talk - its the bane of vdsl.   Crosstalk has always been there, but because of the higher speeds it eats into a large chunk of available bandwidth.   
I can't recall exact figures off the top of my head, but as one of those who was one of the first on a brand new BE MSAN, I definitely saw a total loss of somewhere around 4Mbps.  Worst period for me was when O2 users were added.. as up until that date, there was likely very few with BE users due to the premium cost.

I think you'll find that most of us on here who understand what crosstalk is, also appreciate that there is nothing that the Openreach engineers can do to resolve the problem.   I've seen several cases on here were people come complaining of loss of speed, but as soon as we see that familiar looking spike on DSLstats, we know that there isnt anything that can be done about it.  Whilst we may sympathise that the EU has lost say 20Mbps, there are a few that insist its a fault because they used to get 20Mbps more.  All we can do is attempt to explain cross-talk isnt going to go away until Openreach implement vectoring.

Anyway cross-talk wasnt really my main and only point... my observation is that people do seem to be raising more generic type faults to their ISPs these days that may be of HR type/faulty wiring, because it seems to impact fttc more than adsl.  Which is why I wondered if you yourself reckon you see more faults raised these days than in the days of just adsl... hence the need for more fault engineers.   

[Chrysalis]

In my area faults have plummeted since vDSL launch which is no surprise.  Given there is a wide area affecting fault on the E side under a main city centre road that is unfixable as the road would never be allowed to be closed for roadworks.

Also the comment about how hard lines are been pushed, I think it depends on the area.

In my case on ADSL I was pushing the line to its limits, evident by the fact that due to the high level of loop loss (50db) I was using the very end useable tones the line had to offer.  Whilst on vdsl, the loop loss is considerably lower (just over 10db, and if for adsl the measurement would be single digits), the highest tones the line can use are not used for vdsl so the line isnt been pushed to its limits.  Hence the massive increase in stability I have because of both factors.

My adsl line used to have snr jumping all over the place, think what happens on vdsl when a disturber turns their line on and off, the snrm jumps up and down right? I had that about 10 times a day on my adsl service.  The sync speed loss when it occurred was close to 50% at times. Even a profile of interleaving + 15db snrm couldnt make the line stable, it only was reasonably stable with SRA.

[S.Stephenson]

Cross-talk on VDSL has taken >50 attainable from me and 17 actual, vectoring was needed years ago.

Engineer I had the other day said most of the fault he deals with in my area are X-Talk and the nearby Aluminium lines being a special kind of horrible.

[kitz]

>> Given there is a wide area affecting fault on the E side under a main city centre road that is unfixable as the road would never be allowed to be closed for roadworks

Thats understandable then.  However I would have thought in general E-side faults are less common.

>> In my case on ADSL I was pushing the line to its limits, evident by the fact that due to the high level of loop loss (50db) I was using the very end useable tones the line had to offer.

I meant by usage of higher frequencies.   The higher the frequency, the more likely it is to be susceptible to interference from noise.
I know for a fact from one ISP that the amount of faults they raise to Openreach has hit record highs over the past 12 months. 

[Black Sheep]

Alas, I don't and never will, know the bigger picture as to fault levels on ADSL v VDSL. It would require a massive 'Deep dive' into the subsequent clear-codes and engineers notes for each patch across the UK to determine whether the underlying issues are network related, EU mis-use related, X-talk related, etc etc ........ 

I can only refer you back to my post above, in as much as in my experience the types of VDSL faults I attend seem to have a healthy mix of all the possible causes. 

[GigabitEthernet]

Ah that old "subject to regulatory agreement" always complicates things.

It's a decent proposition I suppose but cynically I will believe it when I see it.

[Chrysalis]

Well of course I am only counting actual faults, things like line instability, many FTTC faults is because someone isnt happy about crosstalk losing them X mbit.  That isnt actually a fault.  (I may even find black sheep patting me on the back for that).

The higher tones thing I have always assumed is simply due to that higher tones have higher attenuation so hence external noise affecting them more.

So e.g. my adsl tones were more susceptible to noise than my vdsl tones due to the attenuation.  Poor attenuated adsl lines e.g. were notorious for been affected by things like radio signals and dodgy sky boxes, that kind of thing is much less common on FTTC.

[Black Sheep]

Break out the champagne ...... we agree ^^^^ 

[WWWombat]

Thanks @bs

Are you happy with the "tone" coming out of the senior bods?

[Black Sheep]

Thanks @bs

Are you happy with the "tone" coming out of the senior bods?

Ha ha ..... I see what you did there. 

Hmmm to answer your question honestly, I do actually believe the people at the very top tiers of management are completely behind what they say. I sadly also believe that the way we are 'managed' at the lower tiers is disastrous .... IMHO.

Some of the blame lies with this 'new world' idea that anybody can manage, whether they have done the job themselves or not. A mahooosive faux-pas in my book. But the main issue, again IMHO, is the stat-driven industry we have become along with all other major industries. I personally believe it hinders progress by concentrating on 'hitting the numbers' of which most are in-house and not Ofcom driven. 

I still cling to the belief that their heart is in the right place when statements like these are made.