ISP TalkTalk Prep Openreach FTTP Ultrafast Broadband for July

Meadmodj says:

@JamesP. Openreach are a commercial company and are prioritising where market data and other engineering priorities allow the initial implementation of FTTP. They are following a contiguous strategy so you will see Fibre First in certain areas with these joining up medium term. In addition OR are competing on New Developments and BDUK.
FTTP practice has dropped in cost and will continue to do so. Going forward there will be cut off point where FTTC in a particular area becomes uneconomical to retain and OR can with draw it by Cabinet area or by Exchange. It is in their interests not to support multiple technologies and will wish to migrate as soon as they can after FTTP coverage but this will happen over time as they will have to support it as long as they have ISP contracts. However it is also in the interests of the ISPs that a customer uses FTTP where it is available as it provides greater reliability, resilience and speed consistency as well as removing significant support costs.
ISPs are starting to focus on the speed of the service rather than the underlying technology, there will increasingly be little differential between line technologies and they are already conservative regarding what can be supported on DSL lines.
OR will obviously be in competition from VM and Altnets but their pricing has to reflect the cost of FTTP with a meaningful return.
What we may see is less national pricing and more geographical ones reflecting the underlying cost and competition with a base price set for the entry level product as running and 80/20 will not be a lot cheaper that 500/50.
BT may technically/tactically tinker with FTTC but it is not now going to invest significantly anything in it now.

JamesP says:

@Martin – To respond to your comments…
“Data we have collected over the past 6 months from thousands of FTTP ‘installs’ we have processed”

You have suggested that most people that are having ‘Installs’ only have access to ADSL or slower speeds – Does this not validate my point that those with slower speeds that are not served well by FTTC are more likely to sign up to an FTTP service? How many already with ‘Superfast’ FTTC are taking up a FTTP service?

For my point above, take a look at post code ‘CT3 4EB’ (I used to live in this area as a child, wish I still did!) – this is well served by FTTC and the surrounding village has similar speeds available. FTTP was commissioned around December 19 in this area and having visited the area recently it does appear that only a small handful have migrated to FTTP so far (based on looking at the overhead CBTs).

“I would quite happily say, backed with data, that at present, FTTP is being mainly deployed where higher speeds are needed.” – ‘Most’ areas where FTTP is being deployed are Fibre First Towns/Villages, these will generally have access to a fast service by FTTC already (Ramsgate/Broadstairs is local to me, I’m guessing that a good 90% will have access to Superfast FTTC speeds or Virgin Media already).

Laurence "GreenReapee" Parry says:

There’s little question that FTTP brings benefits, for most outweighing losses such as power loss resilience. The question is whether those benefits are worth a ~50-150% price increase. For some they will be, for others they won’t. Same as always.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we have the option. But it’s an option with a non-trivial cost and limited benefit compared to the vast benefit of having the Internet at all.

If FTTC is fast enough for all you want to do, relatively low-latency (~10ms is imperceptible for most), and stable (in my experience, moreso than Virgin, which had long outages overnight), the money might be better spent on, say, nicer food, or video games.

It’s similar to HDD vs. SSD vs. NVMe. By now, most people aren’t going for HDD. But a regular SSD is most of the benefit, and good enough for most uses. NVMe is becoming mainstream simply because the price differential has reduced.

John Uncle says:

@JamesP

I concur. To me it would seem more sensible to rollout FTTP to rural properties – those who are suffering with 1Mbps ADSL/VDSL which constantly drops out and is unusable/unrelible. These households/businesses (yes business does exist outside of cities and towns) would jump to FTTP in a heartbeat.

As a nation also, rolling out FTTP nationwide would bring immeasurable economic benefits if you provide that level playing field, connectivity and multiplier effect of having reliable gigabit capable internet to every property. If Openreach, BT, or whoever thought LONG TERM, then the investment would be worth it.

I fully agree that uptake would most likely be greatest in areas with extremely poor internet speeds (rural, urban or whatever). If those who build fibre, and charge for abysmal FTTC speeds deem such properties unprofitable, then it should be a legal compulsion to only be able to proportionally charge a price in relation to speed. So the likes of BT, Sky, TalkTalk etc should not be allowed to sell FTTC broadband to a rural house that gets 1Mbps at the same price that someone gets 35Mbps.

Genuine capitalism, a free market and investment is not exploitation and disproportionate pricing!