Why do new fibre networks not capitalise on streets with no full fibre, as opposed to providing connections to streets that already have several connections?
Posted by JustAnotherFEDev@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 37 comments
My house already has 3 telephone wires and a Virgin feed. Today, another provider has dug the street up, to put yet another full fibre network in.
It doesn't affect me, I'm not moaning, not bragging, etc.
Just there are streets in more populated places than here, where they still Don't have the option of full fibre.
Why would my street need a 4th full fibre feed, surely that makes competing for customers way less guaranteed than providing it to an area or street with no options for FTTP?
Dimac99@reddit
How many of them are really full fibre though? We've had NTL/Telewest cable since the mid 90's so I'm pretty sure that's co-ax from the cabinet. (Fortunately for us, said cabinet is literally right over the road.) It was only 2 years ago that OpenReach finally came through and put down any cable at all, giving us a choice of providers.
Classic_Mammoth_9379@reddit
What three “wires” do you have already?
The providers will generally try and populate the areas with highest population and easiest access.
JustAnotherFEDev@reddit (OP)
OpenReach FTTC, OpenReach FTTP, MS3 FTTP.
Then there's the Virgin thing, and now Grain are digging everywhere up 🤷♂️
TheClnl@reddit
Ah, Grain. My favourite.
My street is about 140 houses, split 3 times by roads so 4 sections. I'm on the last, small section of about 20 houses, let's call it section D.
Grain came along and dug up sections C & B along with the streets that bisect them. These sections and side streets are almost entirely bungalows with the expected age of occupant.
They didn't do mine or section A, which are houses with younger families and professionals.
After repeated emails and contact submissions asking why, I managed to get a response from someone - "we don't forsee enough demand to justify the work in your postcode at this time"
Yet they did forsee the demand from a street of OAPs 100ft away? How?
JustAnotherFEDev@reddit (OP)
Them nannas need to stream the bingo in 8k, innit? 😂
Obviously no planning goes into it, does it. Like what's the point of giving OAPs 2Gb fibre? My mum isn't quite a pensioner, yet, she got 300Mb fibre, she lives alone and streaming services top out at about 40Mb, but the wanker who installed it told her it would make the 4k picture clearer if she got 300Mb. Apple TV arguably has the lowest compression and only uses around 40Mb, dafuq did she need 300 for? 😂
I have 1Gb up and down, I am a heavy user and it's not just me, but still, I know it's overkill, for the most part. I mostly got it because I could.
scotianheimer@reddit
Same round my way, many years ago we had one provider do FTTP (gigabit) for nearly the whole city via underground ducting, and then a few telegraph poles for the areas that had really old underground copper.
Since the law changed a few years ago we’ve had MS3 (more poles), Connexin (more poles), and Grain (digging up the street). Some of those offer 10gig service.
Massive overkill, and the streets are a right mess.
JustAnotherFEDev@reddit (OP)
I'm guessing you're on t'other side, in Hull? Just because I'm on MS3 and they did the whole Humber, didn't they? Also, it's Grain digging up my street, now.
This is it. We're gridlocked, the council are digging everywhere up doing roadworks, the shitty grade 2 listed bridge that is a main route has been closed 2 years because the nostalgia brigade wanted it operational for absolutely no reason and now Grain are digging everywhere up and everything looks patchy. You just have to ask, why? There's literally no need.
BronnOP@reddit
The places without fibre in 2026 are unprofitable to do so, and that’s why new fibre networks don’t do it.
JustAnotherFEDev@reddit (OP)
There's one comment where they live in London, though, surely that can't be not profitable, when anything that can fit an adult in, can be a home in that neck of the woods?
Although, I guess flats are actually a huge challenge, as they'd require permission from the leaseholder who may not want 200 cables running up "their" building or for smaller blocks, I guess there would be some pretty invasive works to get those feeds into each home.
Alert_Mine7067@reddit
A lot of areas are fed by underground cabling, before ducting was used, armoured copper cables would have been buried for entire estates and developments. So there's no ducting to pull fibre in, in some places there hasn't even been ducting installed out in the street to even get the fibre to that point. If I remember correctly, for one provider it costs around £50-£70 for 1m of ducting to be installed on a footway or soft surface such as grass, and it is more expensive to install the same amount on the carriageway, triple digits if I my memory is right.
This is the biggest obstacle
Areas that have already had this work done, will likely get it first as the cost to them is minimal, as they're pulling cable through existing ducting, into existing boxes, which doesn't carry expensive civils (digging) costs.
My employer operates on the basis that because they have users on their existing network, then it's best to keep them as FTTP customers too. So by installing FTTP first, the existing users will migrate to their FTTP offering and stay with them, providing a pretty much guaranteed revenue stream. If they built elsewhere, then a competitor could build there first and they could. I'm sure competitors are commercially aware too, and they build in areas that my employer hasn't yet gotten to.
So basically money and 'this is my town' mentality
JustAnotherFEDev@reddit (OP)
Ahh, that actually makes sense, being in last actually benefits them, as they can start off a couple of quid cheaper, which will steal the competition's customers, then they can just stay competitive and folk will likely stay.
I never thought of it that way. They are about £2 cheaper like for like, than my current provider, but I'll just use that to try and get a price match. I wouldn't swap, anyway, as the others come through the back of my house, so I ran my wired back haul from there, to the next room and didn't go anywhere near the front wall.
Alert_Mine7067@reddit
It's more of a build in the most populated and easiest areas first, then move on to the next. It's inevitable they'll not be the first in many areas, but like you say, they can discount and steal customers off them anyway, and no matter who the provider is, there will always be customers who are not happy.
Another reason is that the only income isn't from people paying their bills. Everytime a user moves from copper to fibre, it frees up copper, when all customers have migrated to fibre, the copper gets removed and sold for scrap. This generates a lot of money, and also removes the risk of copper being stolen by thieves, and the cost of replacing it when it does happen. Although I'd say there will still be many uninformed thieves that steal fibre, thinking that it is copper... which has also happened.
Bringing it in the back is one of the frustrating ways of doing it, it confuses me why they plan this in a way that differs, because for some people this is a deal breaker, for your specific reason and sometimes the back garden is sacred.
JustAnotherFEDev@reddit (OP)
3 wires running down my house at the back, it looks shite. 1 is my fault, because it was fibre that's not through OpenReach and much cheaper, but the the other 2 were there already. Then the Virgin box on the front with wires going over the house.
TBF, I removed the Virgin thing, the satellite, the aerial and did away with the little cap things inside, as there was so many wires coming through, everywhere.
I have no idea why the telegraph pole is in the back alley, always struck me as odd
AffectionateHat561@reddit
I just wish the fibre company that dug up the street in 2020 and put all the service boxes in would actually allow you to get a service from them.
JustAnotherFEDev@reddit (OP)
So they went to the effort of doing the main network and then didn't bother doing the "last mile" bit? Do you know why? Did they fold or something?
AffectionateHat561@reddit
They are still going. As far as I can't work out they just didn't bother to blow the fibre through.
So currently FTTC and Virgin available with open reach FTTP coming later this year. I wanted that symmetric service they were offering though!
indigomm@reddit
They all ran out of money when interest rates up and are concentrating on extracting as much money from the streets they have finished. Once it becomes cheaper to borrow again, they will be back expanding and I imagine you will get finished pretty quickly.
FelisCantabrigiensis@reddit
I like your optimism.
indigomm@reddit
I'm stuck between two fibre areas with nothing, so I have to be optimistic. Having to use 5G because there is no fibre in our area of London. It's a bit embarrassing when you look at other major European capitals that typically have almost 100% coverage.
JustAnotherFEDev@reddit (OP)
See, this is it. One of the world's most densely populated and riches cities and you're hotspotting. I live in a shit Northern town and could have 4 completely different full fibre set ups in my house, if I wanted.
TBF, I'm sick of all the wires running up and down my house, it looks shit
JustAnotherFEDev@reddit (OP)
Seems like a lot of effort and expense to not get the customers hooked up straight away, doesn't it? Yeah, the symmetrical up and down is great. Fingers crossed you get it soon, mate.
This_Suit8791@reddit
Open reach did this two years ago to mine, out of 120 houses in the cul de sac three can get full fibre with them and the rest (me) can’t. I emailed them and they said they have no further plans for my street.
soundman32@reddit
In my area, OpenReach like to say they are upgrading the network. In reality they keep upgrading the same part of the network because it's easier than doing the harder to reach areas just outside the central area. West Yorkshire has billions of pounds available and yet they just keep doing the easy parts again, and not the difficult parts.
JustAnotherFEDev@reddit (OP)
It's ridiculous, really, isn't it. We just keep getting more and more, there's seemingly no end to it, yet I've got colleagues in more populated areas still on FTTC or paying wild prices for that AirBand fibre, as that's the only option
indigomm@reddit
Apologies in advance for the rant...
The fibre rollout in the UK really has been a mess. We were very late to start and there is a lot of overbuild before ensuring everyone has access.
Openreach are trialling XGS-PON like it is cutting edge technology, when other networks have been using it for nearly 10 years now.
We really should have had a national broadband network, perhaps with companies bidding to do the installation - a bit like BDUK but covering everyone instead of just the hard-to-reach 3%. Potentially we could have had a point-to-point network which would open up much more competition between providers. It would have been much more expensive to install but might pay off in the long-term and will eventually be needed anyway.
JustAnotherFEDev@reddit (OP)
Rant away, mate. Kinda the thoughts I had, although less detailed. It does seem poorly planned, I've now got 4 options to have full fat fibre, at least 2 of those are 2Gb up and down, yet there's folk in actual cities stuck on flaky FTTC.
beernon@reddit
Altnets often use existing cable trenches and ducts to run their stuff down it. Saves a lot of money.
JustAnotherFEDev@reddit (OP)
The altnet I use uses overhead cables, which are around the back. I think they're just "last mile", though, as they dig the whole town up years ago.
This new outfit are laying ducting on the front, so it looks like they're starting from scratch. Although maybe there are some larger ducts they put their smaller ducts, in, as they didn't appear to dig a continuous trench.
gawainuk@reddit
A lot of them used to run from the same backbone point and cable runs would spread out from that backbone. So more near the start and less at the end, like a 4 lane motorway down to an A road down to a dirttrack.
JustAnotherFEDev@reddit (OP)
I'm not fully sure on their whole infra setup, I mean, I know they're all connected somewhere, and like you say, likely close to the backbone.
I suppose it's good to have options, but I can't be arsed to sign up with them, as the one I went with provides it from the back of my house, where the OpenReach lines also are, so that's where I started my cat 6 run for my mesh wired back haul. I didn't go right up to the front wall, as there wasn't any need and I'm not taking the skirting boards off.
They're not offering anything different, anyway, it's the same speeds as my current provider
f1boogie@reddit
Openreach concentrates its updgrades to areas with the most competitors. They would rather try to temp customers from other providers than improve things for customers they already have.
JustAnotherFEDev@reddit (OP)
So they just want sheer numbers? I'm unsure what order they were connected, I got the MS3 connection once I moved in, so either Virgin or OpenReach were here first.
ImmediatePiano6690@reddit
Not an expert, but I don't think they're adding in a network and are instead increasing how well it works, so rather than slow down when it gets busy they can maintain speed.
JustAnotherFEDev@reddit (OP)
This one is underground, at the front of my house, as is Virgin. The 3 that use the overhead lines are at the back, so this new provider isn't boosting the others, so to speak.
PlatJC@reddit
Lots of reasons. They likely can’t get permission from the council as of yet to dig up those roads, which is why no provider is there yet. Or perhaps the residents there haven’t opted to request fibre there. To get VM on my road enough residents had to request it on their site. Or they are doing that road, but it’s planned for months down the line. You’d be surprised how many areas don’t get fibre, there’s a clogg to get the work done.
JustAnotherFEDev@reddit (OP)
I did wonder about that, but wasn't there some legislation, before, to get the whole country connected to full fibre? If I'm not imagining that, what basis would councils have to refuse?
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