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Just to be clear, I agree. Despite its faults, I still think we are quite fortunate to have BT Openreach in its current form as a country. I can understand tha

by matt-p 3y ago

Just to be clear, I agree. Despite its faults, I still think we are quite fortunate to have BT Openreach in its current form as a country. I can understand that perception. Essentially, Openreach is regulated so heavily by the government that it might as well be considered public, from the perspective of 'what services it must offer, on what basis, to whom, and the prices it must set.' However, it is a private company, being a 'firewalled' part of BT

hedora 3y ago
This type of system is called “common carrier”. (The firewalled part of BT acts as a common carrier). Because of the way physics and fiber optics work, having a common carrier that rents out access to wavelengths or bandwidth on the fiber strands is the best economic model, by far.
- matt-p 3y ago
  I disagree since BT/OR * don't rent out fibre or wavelengths. They rent out layer 2 vlans (they own the OLT at the exchange and the terminal in people's homes) this means they set the package speeds, price points and use whatever technology they like. For that reason many ISPs have decided to instead rent duct space from BT/OR and each install thier own fibre. That is not really a common carrier, more like common duct. *except in very rural areas for highly specific use cases, or in the case of wavelengths for medium range high capacity backhaul.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    Also, lots of parallel fibre was laid by NtL and friends in the early 2000s, which is the useful stuff. I think Virgin Media bought it all, and that's what they offer as their broadband.
    - multjoy 3y ago
      There's currently a lot of non-BT fibre rollout taking place. Mostly in cities (Hyperoptic et al), as well as B4RN and similar non-profits infilling the rural locations.
      - robertlagrant 3y ago
        Yeah it's great!
    - mnw21cam 3y ago
      Fun fact - if you try to purchase broadband from a service that runs over BT infrastructure, the price you'll be charged will vary depending on whether there is also a Virgin Media service that would also be available to you. As in, if there's no competition, you'll be charged more. That's price gouging, and I think it should be illegal.
      - matt-p 3y ago
        That's not true either! Market 1/2/3 has been dead for well over a decade. Openreach and BTW pricing is consistent across the whole country.
        mnw21cam 3y ago
        It wasn't consistent last year when I tried to look for a better broadband deal.
happymellon 3y ago
I do not agree with this in the slightest. OpenReach is a private company, and has many loopholes to not support you if they do not want to. If you have a line issue and they cannot find the root cause, they will black list you. I had an intermittent fault on my line which OpenReach couldn't (wouldn't?) resolve when I was with Zen. Magically after switching to BT, they sent out BT engineer, who escalated to OpenReach, who then found the fault and replaced the dodgy part in the green box. It might be "firewalled" but that's not my experience. It shouldn't be firewalled, it should be a separate entity. The only reason to bundle it with BT is if BT was getting a benefit from it. We've had BT/OR announce several times over the past 5 years that they are installing proper fibre in the area to squash competition, and then quietly cancel. Funny how we have an AltNet laying fibre here and suddenly BT/OR are getting their act together to upgrade the area.
- matt-p 3y ago
  NB 'Despite its faults'. I hope you complained to your MP, and/or ofcom? What alternative would you prefer? It would be ideal to turn openreach over to either it's own heavily regulated PLC or a MIC/COOP, but can we really force that in a capitalistic society, when the current status quo is 'acceptable'? I would prefer openreach were force to sell a regulated single strand dark fibre product, that can be used however the CP wants, but it would cause genuine chaos for ORs business model e.g leased lines would be cancelled.
- burutthrow1234 3y ago
  Similar experience in Canada with our telecom cartel. They're legally required to allow other providers to use their lines but if you need support you're out of luck. We had multi-day outages routinely and a Bell tech couldn't find any issues. We finally switched to FTTH when it became available because we need reliable internet to work from home.
- Jochim 3y ago
  BT customer service are just as hopeless at dealing with OpenReach as everyone else. I spent three months trying to get them to switch my line over to fibre after OpenReach had stated it was available. Their approach was to hope that waiting long enough would fix the problem. Eventually someone just closed my existing line and immediately opened a new one.
phatfish 3y ago
Nonsense, Openreach is the worst possible option for consumers. It is just a way to syphon wealth from a previously publicly owned asset to the global elite via dividends. It just hasn't blown up as big as Thames Water, decades to get a fibre connection (other countries did fibre 15-20 years ago so it was possible) doesn't annoy as many people as filling rivers with sewage. Someone posted this below, sums up the situation rather nicely. https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost-the-broadband-race-in-1990-1224784 https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost...
- matt-p 3y ago
  I'm not a big fan of privatisation either (particularly the way this was handled) however you realise under the GPO there were waiting lists to get a telephone line, and it could easily take months? Have you tried interacting with a state service recently, like renewing your passport maybe? They are not exactly the pinical of innovation, speed and efficiency. The fact most of us can get a 1Gb full fibre service for 30-40 pounds a month (and faster is available, for a little bit more) is not bad.

by matt-p 3y ago

hedora 3y ago

This type of system is called “common carrier”. (The firewalled part of BT acts as a common carrier). Because of the way physics and fiber optics work, having a common carrier that rents out access to wavelengths or bandwidth on the fiber strands is the best economic model, by far.

matt-p 3y ago
I disagree since BT/OR * don't rent out fibre or wavelengths. They rent out layer 2 vlans (they own the OLT at the exchange and the terminal in people's homes) this means they set the package speeds, price points and use whatever technology they like. For that reason many ISPs have decided to instead rent duct space from BT/OR and each install thier own fibre. That is not really a common carrier, more like common duct. *except in very rural areas for highly specific use cases, or in the case of wavelengths for medium range high capacity backhaul.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  Also, lots of parallel fibre was laid by NtL and friends in the early 2000s, which is the useful stuff. I think Virgin Media bought it all, and that's what they offer as their broadband.
  - multjoy 3y ago
    There's currently a lot of non-BT fibre rollout taking place. Mostly in cities (Hyperoptic et al), as well as B4RN and similar non-profits infilling the rural locations.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      Yeah it's great!
  - mnw21cam 3y ago
    Fun fact - if you try to purchase broadband from a service that runs over BT infrastructure, the price you'll be charged will vary depending on whether there is also a Virgin Media service that would also be available to you. As in, if there's no competition, you'll be charged more. That's price gouging, and I think it should be illegal.
    - matt-p 3y ago
      That's not true either! Market 1/2/3 has been dead for well over a decade. Openreach and BTW pricing is consistent across the whole country.
      - mnw21cam 3y ago
        It wasn't consistent last year when I tried to look for a better broadband deal.

happymellon 3y ago

I do not agree with this in the slightest. OpenReach is a private company, and has many loopholes to not support you if they do not want to. If you have a line issue and they cannot find the root cause, they will black list you. I had an intermittent fault on my line which OpenReach couldn't (wouldn't?) resolve when I was with Zen. Magically after switching to BT, they sent out BT engineer, who escalated to OpenReach, who then found the fault and replaced the dodgy part in the green box. It might be "firewalled" but that's not my experience. It shouldn't be firewalled, it should be a separate entity. The only reason to bundle it with BT is if BT was getting a benefit from it. We've had BT/OR announce several times over the past 5 years that they are installing proper fibre in the area to squash competition, and then quietly cancel. Funny how we have an AltNet laying fibre here and suddenly BT/OR are getting their act together to upgrade the area.

matt-p 3y ago
NB 'Despite its faults'. I hope you complained to your MP, and/or ofcom? What alternative would you prefer? It would be ideal to turn openreach over to either it's own heavily regulated PLC or a MIC/COOP, but can we really force that in a capitalistic society, when the current status quo is 'acceptable'? I would prefer openreach were force to sell a regulated single strand dark fibre product, that can be used however the CP wants, but it would cause genuine chaos for ORs business model e.g leased lines would be cancelled.
burutthrow1234 3y ago
Similar experience in Canada with our telecom cartel. They're legally required to allow other providers to use their lines but if you need support you're out of luck. We had multi-day outages routinely and a Bell tech couldn't find any issues. We finally switched to FTTH when it became available because we need reliable internet to work from home.
Jochim 3y ago
BT customer service are just as hopeless at dealing with OpenReach as everyone else. I spent three months trying to get them to switch my line over to fibre after OpenReach had stated it was available. Their approach was to hope that waiting long enough would fix the problem. Eventually someone just closed my existing line and immediately opened a new one.

phatfish 3y ago

Nonsense, Openreach is the worst possible option for consumers. It is just a way to syphon wealth from a previously publicly owned asset to the global elite via dividends. It just hasn't blown up as big as Thames Water, decades to get a fibre connection (other countries did fibre 15-20 years ago so it was possible) doesn't annoy as many people as filling rivers with sewage. Someone posted this below, sums up the situation rather nicely. https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost-the-broadband-race-in-1990-1224784 https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost...

matt-p 3y ago
I'm not a big fan of privatisation either (particularly the way this was handled) however you realise under the GPO there were waiting lists to get a telephone line, and it could easily take months? Have you tried interacting with a state service recently, like renewing your passport maybe? They are not exactly the pinical of innovation, speed and efficiency. The fact most of us can get a 1Gb full fibre service for 30-40 pounds a month (and faster is available, for a little bit more) is not bad.