Vodafone Moot National FTTP Network

philip2009

philip2009

philip2009

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From Thinkbroadband -

The chief executive of Vodafone has suggested broadband operators should club together to build an ultrafast broadband network for Britain.

Vittorio Colao said his company would be willing to invest with rivals in laying fibre optics into homes and businesses. It came as he continues to hold talks with Liberty Global that could see Vodafone’s UK mobile network combined with the Virgin Media cable network.

He backed calls for BT to be forced to sell off its network division Openreach, dismissing its plans for a multi-billion pound upgrade to broadband technology, called G.fast, as “yesterday’s vision and the vision of a monopolist”.

G.fast aims to squeeze higher speeds from the copper wires that currently make the final connection into premises, saving billions compared with replacing the wires with fibre optics.

“I think Britain needs more fibre, not more expensive football, which is what is happening now,” said Mr Colao.

“We would be prepared to put some equity in a vehicle that could deliver fibre at good conditions to us and also to others, whether that is an independent Openreach or another company.

“If the investment is big it is much better to share and then compete at the level of service.”

He declined to provide any update on talks with Liberty, which were announced last month. They are believed to focus on combining assets in the UK, German and the Netherlands. Vodafone said it was discussing assets swaps, although it is understood that a more complicated merger also remains a possibility.

A combination with Virgin Media would not preclude the possibility of further investment in ultrafast broadband, as the cable network covers only around half the country. Cable coverage is due to rise to two-thirds by 2020 as a result of “Project Lightning”, a £3bn investment by Liberty in filling in gaps in towns and cities where Virgin Media already operates.

Mr Colao floated the idea of a joint investment with rivals as Vodafone reported first-quarter results that showed the operating trends for the company continue to improve after years of decline.

Total organic service revenue, the key measure of its network sales, increased 0.8pc. Within that Europe was down 1.5pc, mainly due to a 5.5pc drop in Spanish sales, but the results were warmly received.

Vodafone shares closed up 2.8pc.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...tment-with-rivals-in-ultrafast-broadband.html
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And a piece from the Guardian on what Vodafone would like to do with Openreach -

In Italy, Vodafone has teamed up with rival mobile operator Wind to offer to buy a stake in the partly state-owned fibre-optic company Metroweb. The Italian government is planning to invest €6bn (£4.2bn) to build high-speed networks across the country.

Vodafone is advocating using Metroweb as a vehicle for a shared national fibre infrastructure, and Colao said the same could happen in the UK. Such a project would avoid wasted resources, he argued, by deterring fibre companies from digging up the roads twice to build competing networks in the same neighbourhoods. “It’s better to share, and compete at the service level, rather than all build in the same areas.”

Rest of article
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I agree with Colao's comments on "expensive football" and G.fast being the vision of a monopolist ... :)
 
Lol at the idea of Vodafone criticising what they see as the development of gimmicks at the expense of the underlying network.
 
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AlecR said:
To be fair, they do have a semi-national fibre network already so this doesn't sound massively out there.

But I would hope they would start in rural areas where there is no competition to OR.
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But they won't, for the same reasons as Openreach. It's just not financially viable.
 
AlecR said:
To be fair, they do have a semi-national fibre network already so this doesn't sound massively out there.

But I would hope they would start in rural areas where there is no competition to OR.
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I don't imagine they'd cover the whole country or significantly impact rural areas, I'm just wondering where their cut-off points for deployment would be? How small would a town have to be to be ignored from the roll-out?

I used to live in the country, 3 miles from the nearest village, 6 miles from the nearest town and it was amazing to get 4 Mb/s ADSL broadband in the middle of nowhere - but I never expected much in the first place. There are trade-offs that have to be accepted as a rural dweller.
 
AlecR said:
I don't buy that argument.

I believe the takeup in most rural areas would be quite impressive to be honest - fibre is at an all-time low cost-wise so I think a return is possible.
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The main reason rural areas have been getting better broadband lately is because of the government-funded schemes. I highly doubt I'd be on 70Mbps BT Infinity right now if it had been left solely to BT/Openreach to decide whether it was cost-effective, although I imagine the new housing builds planned around here have also helped.
 
TheVoice said:
The main reason rural areas have been getting better broadband lately is because of the government-funded schemes. I highly doubt I'd be on 70Mbps BT Infinity right now if it had been left solely to BT/Openreach to decide whether it was cost-effective, although I imagine the new housing builds planned around here have also helped.
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You could be on gigabit broadband right now if the money hadn't gone to BT.
 
AlecR said:
I don't buy that argument.

I believe the takeup in most rural areas would be quite impressive to be honest - fibre is at an all-time low cost-wise so I think a return is possible.
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You don't have to buy the argument, but it's correct.
 
philip2009 said:
I used to live in the country, 3 miles from the nearest village, 6 miles from the nearest town and it was amazing to get 4 Mb/s ADSL broadband in the middle of nowhere.
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Right now i'd kill for 4meg
Kn49YZT.png


The sooner someone comes along and provides some competition to Openreach the better.
 
NightSt@lk3r said:
Right now i'd kill for 4meg
Kn49YZT.png


The sooner someone comes along and provides some competition to Openreach the better.
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I agree, but no one will. It would cost BILLIONS to create a competing network to Openreach which is why no one does it. To my mind those furthest away from the exchange should have been offered Fibre before anyone else but in rural areas when a cabinet might only connect half a dozen people and the copper length from cab to property could be a mile or more it effectively negates FTTC speeds. At work I've seen fibre speeds of less than 10 Meg for some customers but they take it instead of 1-2 Meg on DSL.

What I do agree with is splitting Openreach off from BT and creating a company at least partially owned by ISPs and other CP's with appropriate investment from everyone.

Also, and I can't find the article now, but prior to the BT sell off in the early 90's (I think, maybe dates are wrong) they went to the then Tory government to ask for some (ok, a lot of) money to create a fibre based network around the UK which would have meant some of the fastest speeds in the world and would have laid a backbone of infrastructure capable of supporting FTTP without the inherent problems we have now. The then Home Secretary, in typical Tory blinkered vision didn't see the potential and denied the funding. Perhaps someone with better Google-Fu than me can find it.
 
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MissChief said:
To my mind those furthest away from the exchange should have been offered Fibre before anyone else but in rural areas when a cabinet might only connect half a dozen people and the copper length from cab to property could be a mile or more it effectively negates FTTC speeds. At work I've seen fibre speeds of less than 10 Meg for some customers but they take it instead of 1-2 Meg on DSL.
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Line length isnt the issue in my case though as the exchange is just down the lane, its the poor state of the Openreach ADSL network in the area.

My line stats
DBazzSG.jpg
 
MissChief said:
Also, and I can't find the article now, but prior to the BT sell off in the early 90's (I think, maybe dates are wrong) they went to the then Tory government to ask for some (ok, a lot of) money to create a fibre based network around the UK which would have meant some of the fastest speeds in the world and would have laid a backbone of infrastructure capable of supporting FTTP without the inherent problems we have now. The then Home Secretary, in typical Tory blinkered vision didn't see the potential and denied the funding. Perhaps someone with better Google-Fu than me can find it.
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This covers the background I think -

As you sit on the phone to your ISP's customer service line, listening to half-baked excuses for why you've only got 0.5Mbps upload speed and why you "need" to upgrade to "superfast" fibre optic, it may be little comfort to know that in an alternate reality you'd already have it as standard.

In 1990, a single decision by then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had a devastating effect on the UK's broadband infrastructure for the next 20 years and for the foreseeable future.

In a little known story about the UK's broadband history, Dr Peter Cochrane, former Chief Technology Officer at BT and all round tech guru, tells TechRadar how the UK lost the broadband race way back in the 90s.

http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost-the-broadband-race-in-1990-1224784/2
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AlecR said:
You could be on gigabit broadband right now if the money hadn't gone to BT.
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The schemes down here that have resisted going with BT are still waiting on services (big drama about it atm), those who went with BT atleast have 40+MBit.

While not ideal if Voda wants to make waves why not put some effort into getting fibre backhauls (that could be upgraded later) atleast out towards more outlying communities and stick some 4G, HSDPA or something on the end of it with somewhat reasonable data allowances.
 
philip2009 said:
This covers the background I think -
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I'm pretty sure that's the article I read. Thanks.

FWIW I also disagreed with the sell off of BT. In no way should a national network, paid for by public money over fifty years, have been allowed to fall into private hands. I feel the same way about Royal Mail. At the very most BT and RM should be converted into 'not for profit' corporations, or ideally kept in government ownership but again, run on a not for profit basis. The same goes for any other 'national' utility. Water and electricity companies are now owned by foreign companies. How can they best serve their UK customers when the 'overlords' don't even live here to see, first hand, how decisions made affect their customers.
 
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