Openreach Trial Limited UK FTTP Broadband Migration Discount
Openreach is to trial a special discount for their consumer friendly Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) ultrafast broadband ISP tiers, which will enable providers in certain specific “Fibre First” exchange areas to offer free connections and cheaper rental so as to test or encourage migrations to “full fibre” lines.
The trial will only take place in four exchange areas – Cardiff (Whitchurch), Edinburgh (Corstorphine), Liverpool (Childwall) and Manchester (Swinton) – and become available via supporting ISPs from 1st March 2019. After this the offer will remain open for 12 months, although the offer term will be for 24 months from the start of next month.
Under this promotion the wholesale FTTP rental will be reduced to just £15 +vat per month, which remains the same regardless of whether or not an end-user takes an entry-level 40/10Mbps tier or their top 330/50Mbps one. This applies to consumers looking to migrate (switch) to FTTP via a supporting ISP (at this stage it’s unclear if any providers will pass the savings on to end-users).
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The official briefing note to ISPs is light on detail and warns that their prices are “limited to the trial only … they are not applicable outside trial exchange areas and are not reflective of future FTTP prices.” As ever the £15 price is a wholesale charge and doesn’t include all of the other elements that an ISP has to add in order to create the retail price (e.g. 20% VAT, profit margin, capacity, service features etc.).
Just for some comparison, the FTTP connection fee is usually £92 +vat (one-off) at wholesale and Openreach’s top 330Mbps (50Mbps upload) tier normally attracts a monthly rental of £29.61 for their “Transition product” (i.e. when provided alongside a phone service) or £38 for the data-only variant.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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This is an encouraging move by Openreach to get people onto full fibre lines. Althought only a trial at the moment the take up in Childwall is pretty significant.
Not really the price people pay will still be down to what the ISP charge them for service. Also the discount which is to ISPs is a 24 month term with the discount only for 12 months of that 24 months. I dare say like BT Retail “deals” there is probably something in small print saying price may rise during contract. Same scam different target in the groups market.
@davidj It’s still better than paying though the nose to get fibre on demand as an alternative.
If you were in a FTTP area you would not be paying for the on-demand variant. So im still confused what you are trying to say.
Thats a pretty bold discount…interesting…wonder if they are testing for potential national or just for competition areas with VM etc.
Yes they are testing for national. They had to engineer a cable that can be delivered in the same way as your existing phone line cable but in a fibre replacement. Digging up the roads paths etc would have cost billions to implecate
They already have a fibre/copper hybrid cable and indeed a multiple of fibre cables for all purposes.
Those don’t solve the cost problems outside of commercial areas unless they believe they can get very much higher take up than at present.
Been waiting since 2007 to get BT infinity Bexleyheath nearest exchange . Taking so long to get a feed in to our road when others local get into system straight away.
Excuses after excuses given
Can’t get special deal on offer
Searching for “relevance”.
No Results Found.
Hey, it’s relevant to me – I’m in Bexleyheath as well!
Not anywhere near as bad a situation but we’re 700m from the cabinet. At least Virgin is here as well – it’d be nice to think they might expand to David’s area.
Of course the fibre project in Bexley might spread that way too. Here’s hoping!
BT Infinity was only launched in 2010…
Need fibre in Birmingham calthorpe exchange
Fttp is great for data, but what about voice? Do we still need copper, or have BT arranged a cost effective way of getting voice over fibre?
Fibre Voice Access (FVA)
Or just transfer your number to a VOIP provider.
That would be great BUT when are the rest of us going to get “normal” fibre broadband, instead of our useless 2.62 mbps that most of the time we can’t even watch streamed content from the BBC.
An answer from Openreach when we will be getting a decent speed would be nice . We are not asking for super speed or ANYTHING like that just a DECENT SPEED that we are not getting now and still paying for now !
We are on a main road in the North of Scotland.
That would require new investment which will not be forthcoming unless the prospective revenues are high enougn to pay for it.
Reducing the wholesale price for Fibre First areas make it less likely that uncommercial areas will ever see FTTP (or even FTTC in some cases). If those ares weren’t commercially viable with the previous prices they are even less so with reduced prices. The reductions are intended to squeeze other suppliers and to protect Openreach markets by deterring other companies from entering the market in those areas covered by Openreach FTTP.
Virgin have been doing this for years. What about those of us who are still trapped on adsl? I live in the Rhondda and although parts of the town where i live have fibre I can’t get it because BT won’t upgrade the hardware. How about sorting that out?
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/01/party-of-wales-criticises-welsh-government-for-2-year-broadband-delay.html
Private companies can only go where it is commercially feasible and BT OR was the only company offering to cover your area with subsidy and it will be another 18 months for an USO arrangement. Therefore any criticism should be focused on Ofcom and the WG.
We’re now nearly 20 years into retail broadband in this country and the geographical service limitations of advancing broadband on a level playing field by commercial propagation have been clearly evident for some time.
Time for the government to step in with a stick and carrot combination and public investment if need be.
Unless, of course, the policy is to race the Taliban back to the 14th Century
@NR – stick to who?
Should every town have a Waitrose?
@TheFacts, “Should every town have a Waitrose?” is a rather poor metaphor for broadband availability. It should be something more like “Should the residents of every town have somewhere to buy food from?”
Either we as a nation should provide decent broadband for everyone or we should stop spending tax payers money on broadband altogether. Spending public money to enable just some areas to have fast/superfast/ultrafast broadband while leaving others with ultraslow broadband but also increasingly expecting services to be provided via broadband (i.e. government services, taxation, health, communication, entertainment) is morally questionable. Already there is a vast difference between people with sub-USO speeds and FTTP speeds of up to to 1Gbps.
So no not every town should have a Waitrose, but equally taxpayers money should not be used to build Waitrose for just some towns.
Is 98% superfast or better availability progress?
@TheFacts: Should every house have electricity, water, refuse collection, a postal service?
It is only 69% superfast coverage in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, so your 98% is the usual BT/Openreach marketing and social media management response.
@WhereIs TheClawback
“Should every house have electricity, water, refuse collection…”
Actually they don’t, so presumably you’ll understand why the same is true for broadband then.
Even if the government pays, value for money matters, there aren’t unlimited funds to pay for the provision of such services to hard-to-reach properties. The USO will provide a degree of subsidy, with an expectation that the occupiers provide the rest, which seems reasonable to me.
And as for coverage stats, try Think Broadband for an authoritative, independent view.
@TheFacts – “Is 98% superfast or better availability progress?” – it would be if the spread was even, but it isn’t.
My local authority area is 14% sub-USO, and there are too many other areas like it.
I’ve no idea how the spread could be even. The UK isn’t some homogenous blob where every area is the same. For the same cash radically different results can be achieved.
This is why we’re rubbish at international things. We have rivalries and jealousy between different streets let alone other nations.
@TheFacts:
“Is 98% superfast or better availability progress?”
“Should every town have a Waitrose?”
Your question illustrates again how far removed you are from the real world.
BT should be shamed about the lack of progress, there is nothing to be proud of.
Why the obsession with what BT have or have not done when there are many other companies who could or should install broadband? eg. Virgin Media, Cityfibre, Gigaclear etc.
Mr GNewton: the numbers speak for themselves. BT have nothing to be ‘ashamed’ about given the environment they are working within. With the profound drag factor of Ofcom’s fixation with LLU and copper they’ve done pretty well.
They could deliver fibre to the rectum of everyone in the country and you wouldn’t be happy.
@CarlT: I agree, Ofcom hasn’t helped here. BT should have stood up to Ofcom.
Despite his name TheFacts never allows the evidence to stop him spouting nonsense
What nonsense, specifically?
The Waitrose bit was not to be taken seriously…
@TheFacts: “The Waitrose bit was not to be taken seriously…”
With all due respect, but can anybody take you serious with your lame questions and lack of constructive postings? I think not.
@GN – examples please.
I would like to get over 2mbs still paying BT same price as some fibre packages this is where the money should be spent for us who can’t even stream or upload anything
Hi Simon we have fttp cables around the poles I don’t know how long before it is actually up and running my adsl2 speed is just 1.3mb with a billion router that can adjust the snr to get a faster speed my snr is 4. roll on fttp
Anyone remember the actual topic of the news article?
Going by the comments/complaints it seems to be about availability of superfast, going by the title it’s a price discount on FTTP in 3 specific Fibre City areas.
Four specific city areas 🙂 .
As soon as I hit post I knew someone would pick me up on that. Most amused it was you 🙂
I knew you’d appreciate that 🙂 .
All that needs to happen now is to find out which ISPs jump on the scheme (not because I just happen to be in one of the four areas….)
Hi a good tip to find out if bt work is going to be carried out is to use the map on roadworks.org and where it shows today there is a diary icon to enter from and to then look for phone indicators on the map click on the indicator to get more info
@New_Londoner, I hope you don’t mind if I say that I find your attitude offensive. I think you should take a closer look at the coverage stats for the many areas that haven’t benefited from fast broadband yet. Just because you’re area may be fine doesn’t mean it is representative.
Likewise AnotherTim because your area isn’t fine doesn’t mean it is representative.
@CarlIT, quite right, but I’m not the one saying superfast coverage is 98% so what’s the problem? I’m saying that superfast coverage isn’t 98% (or anywhere near it) everywhere.
Anyone who says UK superfast coverage is 98% is wrong, or is a perhaps misreading the data and not understanding what the various figures mean.
https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local
98.09% ‘Fibre’ partial/full at any speed
Dropping to 95.51% once you add the superfast over 30 Mbps qualifier.
‘Superfast broadband is now available to nearly 27.2m UK homes and businesses.’
What’s that?
@TheFacts: “What’s that?”
What exactly do you want to know? And why?
What % of properties?
To which the question is how many properties are in the whole sample…
If 30 million then its 90.6%
If 29 million then its 93.7%
Also is that figure all operators?
Suspect not, as its usually a BT/Openreach person being quoted when that figure surfaces and they are at around the 27.2 million premises mark for superfast coverage.
BT say 27.2 properties, then add the exclusive coverage by others, then add single properties covered by several. Or something like that…
@AnotherTim
No offence taken. To your point, other services like water, electricity and gas, sewerage etc are far from ubiquitous, with availability high in urban areas and lower in more rural locations. Why would broadband be any different?
And of course 95.5% availability of superfast services doesn’t imply uniform coverage across the UK either, it’s an average so will be higher in some areas and lower in others – mainly but not exclusively rural areas. Some of those areas will have the option of 4G at decent speeds instead for those willing to shop around.
From next year people will be able to get quotes from the USO scheme, which will provide solutions for some, although I suspect others will baulk at having to contribute towards the cost. As I said in my earlier post though, even subsidised schemes have to consider value for money.
Broadband is different to other “utilities”. There are alternatives for most utilities – no mains electricity => generator, no mains water => spring or well, no sewerage => septic tank or sewerage treatment plant, no main gas => LPG or oil or solid fuel. I don’t have mains gas or sewerage, so use oil/logs and have installed a sewerage treatment plant (£££). I do have mains water from a spring a couple of miles away, but we have a well we could use (subject to various permits).
However, due to the nature of broadband you can’t implement any stand-alone solution – you need a connection to the rest of the internet. BT Business won’t even quote for a leased line – the nearest aggregation point is 11 miles away. There are no WISPs or altnets available as there is no backhaul.
I’ve worked in the IT industry for 40 years (and still work from home), including time in the 1990s as a consultant to a major telecoms manufacturer helping develop their broadband equipment.
So I find it hard to come to terms with the concept that it is good to spend tax payers money (quite a lot of it from me) to provide my competitors with better broadband, and to upgrade areas that already have decent broadband, but it isn’t “cost effective” to spend any to provide backhaul in my area (which isn’t a remote area).
Either we should spend tax payers money to ensure that broadband (whether fixed line, WISP, or 4G) is available to everyone, or we shouldn’t spend any tax payers money on broadband at all.
The BDUK scheme has actually made it much worse for people in my area that haven’t been upgraded – had they moved my EO line to FTTC I would have receive a four fold improvement in speed (which would have matched the 4G speed I get now, but 4 or 5 years ago), but they wouldn’t allow BT to do that as I wouldn’t have received 30Mbps and therefore it wasn’t “value for money”. As BT wouldn’t even quote for a connection as the cost is “obviously well over £40K” I don’t think USO will offer any solution as the cost will be well above the USO limit.
@AT – satellite, dare I say?
@TheFacts, satellite is actually unusable for software development with remote repositories – the latency is a killer. Expense and limited monthly bandwidth caps are also a problem.
I’m now using 4G, which is getting better and is now almost good enough (latency is very variable and is still an issue). I expect that 4G (and in a few years 5G) will be the answer for most sub-USO areas (and some above USO areas). It would probably make far more sense for BDUK to subsidise the cost of improving 4G than to spend money on FTTP.
Your competitors live in areas that were better value for money to upgrade unfortunately.
If you have an issue with the infrastructure available to you relative to your competitors the solutions are obvious. You made the decision to work and live where you do, rough comes with smooth. The people who choose to rent space at a Regus that has a gigabit connection decided to invest in that advantage much as it was one of my criteria when looking at our next property.
“Anyone who says UK superfast coverage is 98% is wrong”
Yes @Andrew i tried to make this TheFacts individual aware of your mapping and figures a few days ago in another news item. He seems to have ignored ironically “The Facts” and is still peddling his 98% P.R nonsense.
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/01/no-more-gov-eis-tax-relief-for-community-benefit-broadband-isps.html#comment-199907
I guess its true you can not educate the stupid.
@Robert – welcome back with your new name.
@CarlIT, my wife and I also run a leisure business from home. How many people want to come on holiday to a Regus office in a city? I’m surrounded by farmers who also don’t have many alternatives regarding location. Not every person or business should be in a city so suggesting that isn’t helpful.
When I bought my current property it was within a BDUK FTTC rollout area – after I bought it they dropped properties near me from the plans as we wouldn’t all have received 30Mbps. That was 5 years ago. We were then in a Gigaclear plan for FTTP by last year, but now we don’t even have a rollout schedule. There are actually lots of areas just like mine.
But I’m glad you’re OK.
@TheFacts: “satellite, dare I say?”
Come back here when you have some real world suggestions.
@GN – satellite is an available product so somebody must think it’s an answer.
eg. https://www.broadbandwherever.net/
Fact!
@ GNewton
Times change, but your bullying and trolling on here remain. You really need to take a long, hard look at yourself.
What satellite ISP delivers or is capable of delivering 30Mb or faster (IE superfast) to all of its users?
@TheFacts, wow! Satellite broadband with massive latency and a massive 200GB/month allowance for only £400 per month (not including router, activation, or installation, and extra for static IP address). That’s amazing! (but not in a good way)
@TheFacts: No offense, but your questions and suggestions are often absurd and out of touch with the real world.
Just to give you some idea about the real world issue of latency in 2-way satellite broadband: The speed of a signal in empty space is roughly 300 000 km/sec. A signal takes about 120 milliseconds to reach a geostationary satellite and then another 120 milliseconds to reach the ground station, so nearly 1/4 of a second. The physics involved in satellite communications can be summarized as an approximately 550 milliseconds of latency round trip time.
In addition to that, there are no unlimited consumer broadband products available via satellite. Others have already pointed out to you the ridiculous pricing of various satellite packages.
Satellite speed itself actual also varies often below 30Mb so that is not a “super fast” alternative.
In fact if you read some of the pages on the link he gave the most they can guarantee you is 22Mbps.
Also never mind monthly caps/data limits There are actual specific times when you are allowed to use the connection, if you use more than a certain amount (depending on package) your speed can be slowed even if you are nowhere near your monthly limit.
Im hoping he actually is being his typical ignorant NPD self and did not bother to read anything from his link rather than like his delusional 98% “Super fast” coverage claim actually thinks a service which can only guarantee 22Mb with specific times when you can download is “super fast”.
I am fully aware of the limitations of satellite broadband. But it does exist.
I did not claim it is superfast, I see we are back with personal comments again.
Then it boggles the mind why you even bothered mentioning satellite as NON-Superfast services are already available to just about everyone are they not?
Why would anyone stuck without superfast want to replace it with something that performs the same or even worse?
You have some funny ideas when it comes to useful information.