Broadband Related > FTTC and FTTP Issues

Cuckoo kicking out Openreach-based customers

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tortoise:
I have just got an email from Cuckoo Broadband to the effect that "the way I receive FTTP in my area" no longer fits their plans. Basically they seem to be washing their hands of FTTP-over-Openreach and pushing customers who cannot use their new Fibre Infrastructure provider, away.

Apparently from 1st April, those of us affected are to be moved to "Home Telecom" who are reputed to be a popular provider for Landlords to provide a "default" service to their Tenants.

Is anyone else here affected, or knows more? I will also update here of course if and when I find out more.

I would want (and trust other affected Kitizens would wish to do similarly) to make an informed decision about what to do next. And hopefully before being "nudged" by default onto a service we might not be happy with.
I understand that currently Cuckoo provide FTTP over Openreach fibre using TalkTalk Business as their Wholesaler. This does matter to some of us for technical reasons, for example where I am in North Wales, TTB are able to provide near-Gigabit service (I get over 900 Mbps) whereas BT Wholesale "throttle" local FTTP services at about 330 Mbps at the Exchange, despite Openreach having 900+ Megabit/sec capability.

If the new provider were to use BT Wholesale then I'd expect a sudden speed drop to around 300 Mbps. But I have, curiously, read that "Home Telecom" is somehow linked to TalkTalk by a degree of Investment, so it is possible that TalkTalk could continue to be the Upstream Provider.

I am also wondering if only FTTP customers are affected, or FTTC also. My daughter has an FTTC service from Cuckoo and I'd be interested to see if she will be affected.

Finally, as (last time I looked), TalkTalk Business plans seemed to have a very similar monthly fee as the Cuckoo plans which effectively "White Label" resold their service, I'm wondering if it would be prudent to switch to TTB right NOW and get the (presumably almost exact) same service I've been enjoying already ... "Straight from the Horse's Mouth" so to speak, rather than via a Middleman?

tortoise:
It does appear that TalkTalk have a controlling stake in "Home Telecom" or rather the company that owns that brand, Telecom Acquisitions Ltd.
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/11/uk-isp-talktalk-take-controlling-stake-in-telecom-acquisitions-ltd.html

So I can only speculate that as part of the "divorce" between Cuckoo and TalkTalk, the customers are being "handed over" to a "suitable vehicle" owned (largely) by TalkTalk

This might well work fine for most customers who might fit reasonably closely to a "consumer" service requirement profile. But for "power user" customers - whom I suspect are more heavily represented in this Forum space, I do suspect there may be a case to consider dealing more directly with the Parent Organisation....

bogof:
Isn't the Cuckoo Openreach-based service "just" a TalkTalk whitelabel service - ie your entire internet connection, IP address etc is from TalkTalk Business, not Cuckoo, and all the upstream connectivity is dealt with by TalkTalk Business.  As opposed to other ISPs (eg AAISP) who just use TalkTalk Business's wholesale backhaul but deliver the traffic through their own network centres.

It's important to know the detail of exactly how they will manage the transition; as if all that is changing is the entity that manage the consumer contact side of the process, and it remains a TTB white label service, then, if everything stays working, your service could be identical (down to the static IP if they move them across).  But it could also be a totally different service that is provisioned differently at the back end. 

You need to go back to them and ask the detail questions of Cuckoo as to exactly what the transition means and how the service will be provisioned, as the migration could range from identical service with zero interruption, to service down for a while, different login details, and a substantially different service.

Of course, the above just covers the technical aspects of the migration.  Another question entirely is whether the organisation you would then have contact with would have anything like the level of service you would have had with Cuckoo if you needed to contact them.  I was distinctly unimpressed with Cuckoo's (lack of) ability to answer pre-sales tech questions, so never went with them, but it can always get worse...!

I'd be surprised if BTW are consistently throttling at the level you mention, as that would seem to break nearly every ISP throughput guarantee out there.  Any more info on that?  Sounds worthy of investigation.

tortoise:

--- Quote from: bogof on February 29, 2024, 10:50:56 AM ---I'd be surprised if BTW are consistently throttling at the level you mention, as that would seem to break nearly every ISP throughput guarantee out there.  Any more info on that?  Sounds worthy of investigation.

--- End quote ---

Perhaps I was unclear in my use of the term "Throttling". What I mean is that BT Wholesale, at my Exchange, will not sell any FTTP connection handover service above 330 Mbps. If you were an independent Reseller ISP and went to BT Wholesale and said "my customer wants a Gigabit connection", BTW reply that "sorry only up to 330 Mbps maximum is available here". Indeed some ISPs tell me that Openreach can only provide 300-ish megabits per second, because not everyone makes the distinction between Openreach and BTW clear.

So if one believes the "Everyone has to use BT Wholesale over Openreach" generalisation, then the maximum speed available where I live is around 300 Megabits per second FTTP. Because BT Wholesale presumably don't want to spend lots of cash on a Gigabit service for which there is insufficient demand. The local optical fibre network - the GPON - is able to sustain Gigabit connections but the "Handover" bandwidth at the exchange is limited unless and until there is an investment in new and better routing kit and/or Backhaul capacity.

So to most potential FTTP customers "300 is all you can get" is the End of the Story where I live.

But after some research I found that TalkTalk Wholesale had installed "Unbundled" handover equipment in my local BT handover exchange and were able to offer near-Gigabit download speeds. So I ordered from Cuckoo as a provider who resell - as you correctly described - the standard TalkTalk Business service, pretty much.

This has worked fine and I expect HomeTelecom service to be technically the same. But I worry about possible less favourable terms in terms of hidden "acceptable use policy" usage caps and/or stuff like CGNAT shared IP addresses (though if it is the SAME technically I'd expect a fairly "sticky" Dynamic IP as it is presently). As a direct contract with TalkTalk Business is actually a tad cheaper and also includes Static IP, I think I would find that preferable.

So basically, default FTTP where I live is 300-330 Mbps max, via BT Wholesale. It isnot that they throttle a Gigabit advertised service to 300 Mbps, it is rather that you can only buy the slower service in the first place...
... unless you choose an unbundled handover provider at the BT Exchange - i.e. TalkTalk.

Hopefully this is now more clear  :)

meritez:
Perfectly clear.
Where do you want to go and how much do you use a month?
for example, andrews and arnold can connect to TalkTalk Wholesale and it may be worth giving them a shout to see what they can do for you. There's no hard sell, and it would be interesting if they can see your magic FTTP install.

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