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An interesting thing to note in contrast to this is the massive amount of PE cash being pumped into privet regional FTTP broadband companies. Affluent areas, su

An interesting thing to note in contrast to this is the massive amount of PE cash being pumped into privet regional FTTP broadband companies. Affluent areas, such as where I live, are even seeing multiple competing companies pulling fibre through the OpenReach ducts. We have two along with BT to chose from in a town of only 30k people in the midlands. As others commenters have noted, the rich/poor divide is getting wider. On one end you have people canceling broadband, and the other massive privet fibre startups servicing affluent areas. The country is broken.

Nextgrid 3y ago
The fact that you have multiple companies each running their own physical network (through the same ducts, no less!) is absolutely wasteful - imagine if we did the same for the electric grid, water or gas. The physical network should be government-managed and any providers can pay for layer-2 access between any 2 points. This will prevent wasteful, redundant infrastructure.
- samwillis 3y ago
  Exactly, it's absurd. For a little more detail, this is Stamford Lincs. As well as BT installing FTTP we also have Upp Broadband and LightSpeed Broadband installing their own infrastructure. https://www.upp.com/ https://www.upp.com/ https://www.lightspeed.co.uk/ https://www.lightspeed.co.uk/ They have had to make some of the underground junction boxes bigger to fit all the kit in. My only thought is that they hoped to get their kit in quicker than BT and get brought out. Clearly the aim of these regional companies is to eventually be acquired by larger national ISPs.
  - foldr 3y ago
    Sounds oddly like the early days of the London Underground. So many weird station layouts in the modern system are the result of multiple separate systems run by private companies later being combined. There's an excellent YouTube channel about it: https://www.youtube.com/@JagoHazzard https://www.youtube.com/@JagoHazzard
- rlpb 3y ago
  What you have is already the case - that's "OpenReach", owned by the incumbent and required to provide wholesale access to ISPs for the "last mile". Independent ISPs then provide the Internet connectivity. But they have to provide nationwide coverage at uniform pricing. So private companies can provide parallel service in dense urban areas for less.
  - rektide 3y ago
    Here in the US, the courts piece by piece courts took apart Section 271 of Telecommunications Act of 1996 that guarantees unbundled network elements (UNE)/local loop unbundling (LLU). By 2003, the FCC basically gave up. They ignored Congress & said, yeah, fine, broadband is exempt, because it's kind of expensive. Their Trienniel review dismantled UNE/LLU. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-03-36A1.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-03-36A1.pdf So now America has nearly no competitive access to broadband.
    - cudgy 3y ago
      The new 5G wireless providers are changing this some, at least in urban areas. I’m currently using one and get around 500mbits download rate. Cost is about $25 per month.
      - Applejinx 3y ago
        I pay seven times that. Because I'm on a creaking old DSL line the provider doesn't want to maintain, at 12mbits or so. Consistent. SYMMETRICAL. I don't give a crap about download. I work publically and support my work using YouTube. Every week I'm uploading 20 gigs or so of video, MINIMUM, and if it dropped I'd have to start over. I'm uploading 4k ProRes because my competition is at that quality level or better, and I won't stand out if I look like crud, and what I upload is going to be recompressed no matter what. Don't tell me about download. I'll just sit reading Hacker News if download's a problem (evidently!). I depend on upload, not download, and I rarely even see it referred to much less touted. I abandoned a brief dabbling with Starlink before even getting an actual dish, because it didn't look like I was going to be able to trust upload bandwidth to beat what I've got with my symmetrical, reliable 12M. It matters. Stayed at an AirBnB once that had fiber. I had >100m upload. It would make stuff possible for me that I just can't do currently. Granted, taking advantage of that requires thousands in investment, but what real business doesn't?
- bnastic 3y ago
  UK government bodies are not known for speedy infrastructure installations/upgrades, which is why the UK has always been at the arse end of broadband speeds in Europe (let alone compared to the rest of world).
  - 6LLvveMx2koXfwn 3y ago
    Sort of true, but comment suggests UK is much worse, which is sort of not true: Country Mean Mbps France 120.01 Spain 115.61 Netherlands 113.98 Malta 107.70 Monaco 100.26 Belgium 91.74 Portugal 91.61 Norway 88.80 Sweden 86.76 Germany 72.95 United Kingdom 72.06 Ireland 70.42 Switzerland 63.20 Finland 56.28 Denmark 52.57 Italy 46.77 Austria 45.56 source: (xlsx) https://www.cable.co.uk/broadband/worldwide-speed-league/2022/worldwide_speed_league_data.xlsx https://www.cable.co.uk/broadband/worldwide-speed-league/202...
- SuoDuanDao 3y ago
  Canada's internet companies are basically crown corporations. Squashing competition doesn't help the consumer as much as you might imagine.
- cameronh90 3y ago
  I would agree with you on water, gas and electricity, but that's mainly because those installations are bulky and H2O, CH4 and electrons are (relatively) fungible. On the other hand, being an L1 fibre provider requires a point of presence in the every location where your customers' fibres are terminated because packets are not fungible. Of course, you could expose L2 access by mandating that an independent party such as OpenReach own that fibre terminating equipment and then have them interface with ISPs in an IXP, which is what I assume you're suggesting. That works. Technically. It worked for LLU to privatise BT's existing network, and resulted in a huge reduction in prices to access the existing network. On the other hand, it was pretty useless for innovation. Nobody had any incentive to build any new infrastructure, so it just languished. My OR connection is still 30Mb/s, rather than the multiple private 1Gb/s+ providers in my area. Plus OpenReach takes weeks to set up a new service and are useless at fixing faults. Even now, OR fibre, in the few places you can get it, is limited to 115Mb/s upload, and it's expensive, whereas the best private fibre company near me is 3Gb/s symmetrical for £50/month. If as an independent ISP renting L2 access from OR, if I want to provide better bandwidth than OR is willing to sell, there's nothing I can do. Fibre is tiny and easy to install, relatively speaking. There's not much additional cost to having multiple redundant fibre providers covering a street. I do wonder if there's something we can do to find a middle ground, like open access under-road trunking, or having a right to buy the fibre installation from an ISP and port it to another provider.
rjsw 3y ago
In Manchester, there isn't even a date given for Openreach to lay fibre, there is a private regional ISP that has done it though. I currently have FTTC. I'm either going to switch to fibre with the regional ISP or cancel my landline and change my FTTC contract to just rent the copper pair. Will use my mobile phone for voice calls.

Nextgrid 3y ago

The fact that you have multiple companies each running their own physical network (through the same ducts, no less!) is absolutely wasteful - imagine if we did the same for the electric grid, water or gas. The physical network should be government-managed and any providers can pay for layer-2 access between any 2 points. This will prevent wasteful, redundant infrastructure.

samwillis 3y ago
Exactly, it's absurd. For a little more detail, this is Stamford Lincs. As well as BT installing FTTP we also have Upp Broadband and LightSpeed Broadband installing their own infrastructure. https://www.upp.com/ https://www.upp.com/ https://www.lightspeed.co.uk/ https://www.lightspeed.co.uk/ They have had to make some of the underground junction boxes bigger to fit all the kit in. My only thought is that they hoped to get their kit in quicker than BT and get brought out. Clearly the aim of these regional companies is to eventually be acquired by larger national ISPs.
- foldr 3y ago
  Sounds oddly like the early days of the London Underground. So many weird station layouts in the modern system are the result of multiple separate systems run by private companies later being combined. There's an excellent YouTube channel about it: https://www.youtube.com/@JagoHazzard https://www.youtube.com/@JagoHazzard
rlpb 3y ago
What you have is already the case - that's "OpenReach", owned by the incumbent and required to provide wholesale access to ISPs for the "last mile". Independent ISPs then provide the Internet connectivity. But they have to provide nationwide coverage at uniform pricing. So private companies can provide parallel service in dense urban areas for less.
- rektide 3y ago
  Here in the US, the courts piece by piece courts took apart Section 271 of Telecommunications Act of 1996 that guarantees unbundled network elements (UNE)/local loop unbundling (LLU). By 2003, the FCC basically gave up. They ignored Congress & said, yeah, fine, broadband is exempt, because it's kind of expensive. Their Trienniel review dismantled UNE/LLU. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-03-36A1.pdf https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-03-36A1.pdf So now America has nearly no competitive access to broadband.
  - cudgy 3y ago
    The new 5G wireless providers are changing this some, at least in urban areas. I’m currently using one and get around 500mbits download rate. Cost is about $25 per month.
    - Applejinx 3y ago
      I pay seven times that. Because I'm on a creaking old DSL line the provider doesn't want to maintain, at 12mbits or so. Consistent. SYMMETRICAL. I don't give a crap about download. I work publically and support my work using YouTube. Every week I'm uploading 20 gigs or so of video, MINIMUM, and if it dropped I'd have to start over. I'm uploading 4k ProRes because my competition is at that quality level or better, and I won't stand out if I look like crud, and what I upload is going to be recompressed no matter what. Don't tell me about download. I'll just sit reading Hacker News if download's a problem (evidently!). I depend on upload, not download, and I rarely even see it referred to much less touted. I abandoned a brief dabbling with Starlink before even getting an actual dish, because it didn't look like I was going to be able to trust upload bandwidth to beat what I've got with my symmetrical, reliable 12M. It matters. Stayed at an AirBnB once that had fiber. I had >100m upload. It would make stuff possible for me that I just can't do currently. Granted, taking advantage of that requires thousands in investment, but what real business doesn't?
bnastic 3y ago
UK government bodies are not known for speedy infrastructure installations/upgrades, which is why the UK has always been at the arse end of broadband speeds in Europe (let alone compared to the rest of world).
- 6LLvveMx2koXfwn 3y ago
  Sort of true, but comment suggests UK is much worse, which is sort of not true: Country Mean Mbps France 120.01 Spain 115.61 Netherlands 113.98 Malta 107.70 Monaco 100.26 Belgium 91.74 Portugal 91.61 Norway 88.80 Sweden 86.76 Germany 72.95 United Kingdom 72.06 Ireland 70.42 Switzerland 63.20 Finland 56.28 Denmark 52.57 Italy 46.77 Austria 45.56 source: (xlsx) https://www.cable.co.uk/broadband/worldwide-speed-league/2022/worldwide_speed_league_data.xlsx https://www.cable.co.uk/broadband/worldwide-speed-league/202...
SuoDuanDao 3y ago
Canada's internet companies are basically crown corporations. Squashing competition doesn't help the consumer as much as you might imagine.
cameronh90 3y ago
I would agree with you on water, gas and electricity, but that's mainly because those installations are bulky and H2O, CH4 and electrons are (relatively) fungible. On the other hand, being an L1 fibre provider requires a point of presence in the every location where your customers' fibres are terminated because packets are not fungible. Of course, you could expose L2 access by mandating that an independent party such as OpenReach own that fibre terminating equipment and then have them interface with ISPs in an IXP, which is what I assume you're suggesting. That works. Technically. It worked for LLU to privatise BT's existing network, and resulted in a huge reduction in prices to access the existing network. On the other hand, it was pretty useless for innovation. Nobody had any incentive to build any new infrastructure, so it just languished. My OR connection is still 30Mb/s, rather than the multiple private 1Gb/s+ providers in my area. Plus OpenReach takes weeks to set up a new service and are useless at fixing faults. Even now, OR fibre, in the few places you can get it, is limited to 115Mb/s upload, and it's expensive, whereas the best private fibre company near me is 3Gb/s symmetrical for £50/month. If as an independent ISP renting L2 access from OR, if I want to provide better bandwidth than OR is willing to sell, there's nothing I can do. Fibre is tiny and easy to install, relatively speaking. There's not much additional cost to having multiple redundant fibre providers covering a street. I do wonder if there's something we can do to find a middle ground, like open access under-road trunking, or having a right to buy the fibre installation from an ISP and port it to another provider.

rjsw 3y ago

In Manchester, there isn't even a date given for Openreach to lay fibre, there is a private regional ISP that has done it though. I currently have FTTC. I'm either going to switch to fibre with the regional ISP or cancel my landline and change my FTTC contract to just rent the copper pair. Will use my mobile phone for voice calls.