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VM vs Altnets deployment rates

cheesemp

Casual Member
I've been watching Trooli laying in my town for 2 years via one.network after being stuck with 30Mb FTTC. They originally promised service in 7 months. Giganet started 5 months later and promised service last Christmas.

Queue 2 years of waiting and Trooli finally enabled the odd number side last month. (No response to when they would enable the even numbered side where I live despite activating my neighbor opposite from the end of my drive!).

Last week I saw Virgin Media marked up to work on my street on one.network, one week later they had the traffic lights in and half the road dug in a day! They've also marked every other street on the estate for the same work within the next 2 weeks. It took Trooli/Giganet over 6 months to cover a different similar sized areas of the town.

The speed difference for laying fiber between the altnets and VM is crazy. I always said I'd take fiber from the first company to offer it. At this rate it'll be VM... I always thought the altnets stood a chance what with BT pretending my town doesn't exist but with VM now deploying I fear its going to be a wasted investment.

Just thought I'd post in case anyone was interested?
 
Yes exactly. Giganet at least have done a road in a week - just with massive gaps between starting each road. Trooli are doing really basic PIA so harder to tell but its been 2 years and only half the town are covered.

VM came put up barriers, traffic lights, then dug the trench for a 40 house road in one day. If I where Trooli investor (and giganet to a lesser extent due to the better job they are doing) i'd be worried.

Its been interesting to see the speed differences on one.network too.
 
Larger providers will have rollout plans subcontracted in wider schemes.

Some of the smaller providers are more driven by demand and each stage will depend on interest. Once they are certain of enough demand they can pursue a road or a group of roads and then focus on advertising to increase take up. It may appear inefficient but it reduces their investment risk as assets may remain idle. Particularly in competitive areas.
 
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In this case I think it was a case of PIA being expensive in the estate - Its all 70s ducts (50 years old!). It left a real opening for VM to exploit which I think will cost the altnets. Its interesting VM picked the estate to start because there is basically zero competitors yet the rest of the town (mostly poles) they would be fighting Trooli/Giganet.
 
They all probably know where the black spots are. Its not the age of the duct its whether it has collapsed, is blocked, insufficient capacity (work practice) or has a high level of desilting required.

It can also be historic. A friend had FTTP recently. House had duct to a small footway box (JB23) which needed to be roped but the cables from the joint to the nearest JF2 was directly buried. They needed civils to dig a pit and create a sweep into the main duct and any Fibre lead-in had to run right back to a JF2 further on. All expensive.

They can either pay OR excess charges now or wait until OR rollout and then creep up behind them with PIA but OR may deprioritise if VM market share high.

Poles are great for Altnets. All you need is a few customers to make the investment viable.
 
if its PIA virgin can install few roads a day it feels like, the turn around is so quick, its all about the other equipment needed locally that needs setting up.

Grain is also being installed nearby but I doubt I'll ever get it, it just takes them so long to do anything, unsure how they make any money, they've done like 20 roads and that's it, in a lot less time Virgin has done a complete down / extending to nearby ones.
 
This wasn't PIA (on the road at least) - digging trenches in the paths but still mighty quick. I suspect the ducts have been the problem for the altnets - hence why VM (or should I say nexfiber) have done new trenches.
 
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This wasn't PIA (on the road at least) - digging trenches in the paths but still mighty quick. I suspect the ducts have been the problem for the altnets - hence why VM (or should I say nexfiber) have done new trenches.
they dig thin holes to the poles, if they arent doing that then it's just the normal way I guess.
 
Community Fibre did my whole street, about 100 houses both sides, in 3 days. Obviously it was easy as PIA poles so they just run the fibre to the poles via ducts while a second team set the Aerial Fibre Node (AFN) black box at the top of the poles. Service was live the night the pole had the AFN installed. So I think you will find that it's hard to generalise how Altnets deploy their network. It depends on many factors.
 
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