Sounds great ................... for the limited urbanites who VM will only entertain.
~60% of the country by 2019.
I believe that's more than Openreach have claimed they'll reach with >100Mb by 2025?EDIT: These don't look too urban to me?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kippax,_West_YorkshireKippax is a village and civil parish in the City of Leeds metropolitan borough, West Yorkshire, England. It is situated to the east of the city, near to Garforth and Great Preston.
Getting FTTP right now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GarforthGarforth /ˈɡɑːrfərθ/ is a village within the City of Leeds metropolitan borough, in West Yorkshire, England.
Getting FTTP right now.
Ossett /ˈɒsᵻt/ is a market town within the metropolitan district of the City of Wakefield, in West Yorkshire, England.
Just had an HFC build - very little of the town was covered, it's now ubiquitous.
I could go on, these are just three that I'm aware of and are near me. The entire FTTC and FTTP build done on BT's own tab from 2009 to 2016 cost about £1.5 billion. Virgin are spending £3 billion on their in-fill project. Before you quote the numbers I'm aware that BT claim it cost £2.5 billion. That includes the operational costs of the FTTC/P network so includes power for the FTTC cabinets, the NOC to monitor it, etc, VM's numbers are just for construction so are all CapEx.
Unlike Openreach the costs of the network build aren't so relatively insignificant they can be rolled into the existing CapEx budget with it hardly mocing. They actually require their own section in the reporting of the results as they represent a significant increase in expenditure.
Dealing with my own estate 4 cabinets pass, give or take, 1,300 premises. Two of those were enabled in commercial rollout, one of which I spent over a year working on. That cabinet has 2 DSLAMs serving it, one is paid for, the other one if not already will be covered by the end of this year. The other commercial one isn't far away. The other two were enabled via BDUK. The total cost of the 5 DSLAMs to BT, including install, was about £100k, despite the ridiculous claim that it was £100k a pop. No additional construction for fibre routes was required, only cost of DSLAM, ducts to PCP and power. Virgin are spending over £1 million on the 1,300 premises and, unlike BT, are covering it all. When they start in urban areas they finish, they don't hold their hands out for taxpayer subsidy because a cabinet doesn't pass enough premises for them as they aren't tied to legacy cabinets.
Were BT willing to wait the length of time VM are for ROI they'd have deployed FTTP to this entire estate as it's fully ducted, swept t construction, and MDUs excepted could easily be covered for £200 - £300 per premises. As it is by 2020 there'll be a G.fast deployment that doesn't benefit half of the estate as they are too far from the cabinet and Openreach have no plans to deploy fibre deeper into the plant until at least then.
Given the difference in expenditure and even taking account of the difference in incomes between the two it's very clear which of them is willing to wait the longest period for a return on investment and which is putting in the serious money. So let's not have an appendage showing competition on which out of the two is most willing to invest and is actually laying the money down, eh?