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ISPReview interview with Hyperoptic CEO, coverage gaps in cities.

WKDRED

ULTIMATE Member
Link to article.


Bringing this up here as comments section got closed.

The most interesting part of this interview is the issue raised by Dana the CEO that there is a problem with gaps of coverage in urban areas. She believes they probably wont need government funding but will need clarity from Openreach (and maybe later VM) that they will never roll out to those areas which then gives assurance to a alt net such as Hyperoptic they wont have infrastructure competition increasing the business case.

These gaps get extremely little press coverage as there seems to be a belief across the wider public only rural areas have coverage problems, so even though it wasnt a direct question asked, I appreciate it was mentioned and then published.
 
Personally I see the solution to the problem as the opposite. Insist (via regulation) that Openreach get to 100% of an exchange area served within (say) 2 years of 50% having FTTP.

I sympathise with an Openreach roll out that gets the highest numbers of customers served as early as posssible but there needs to be a public commitment to serving the remaining sites.

Hyperoptic have a good product and their original "fibre to the basement" method was (and is) an excellent way of getting high speed connections to flats, however a universal service by Openreach allowing multiple operators is needed within a reasonable timescale and regulation is the way to achieve it.
 
Regulation would lead to fewer premises being passed, not more. Openreach would from your example simply cover 49% of an exchange area and move on to the next one. They'd also be incentivised to do the cheapest and easiest 49% always.

At the moment they do all those that fall within budget then use any shortfall in spending to cover premises outside of budget until the shortfall is gone. They'll often come back again when there is resource available to further extend coverage.

There isn't a huge amount of money in this for Openreach in the short and medium term. The harder areas they're likely getting money from for copper already and if they're spending a grand or two to reach each of them that's a lot of months at potentially less than £10 a month more revenue to wait for a return. They'd need to either be able to charge them more or charge everyone more to subsidise them.
 
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