Muni fiber: L1 or L2?

Edward Dore edward.dore at freethought-internet.co.uk
Sat Feb 16 11:56:44 UTC 2013


On 16 Feb 2013, at 11:30, Masataka Ohta wrote:

> Edward Dore wrote:
> 
>>> Sadly, it is impossible to say FTTC not "fiber optic broadband",
>>> because it is "broadband" (at least with today's access speed)
>>> with "fiber optic".
>> 
>> Then why would you not also consider bog standard ADSL to also
> > be "fibre optic"?
> 
> Because I think "fiber optic broadband" implies access and ADSL
> is no fiber optic broadband access, unless you have FTTC with not
> VDSL but ADSL.
> 
> But, feel free to have your own definition, which may or may not
> be legally challenged by people having common sense.

Both ADSL fed from the exchange and VDSL fed from the street cabinet have a portion provided over fibre... where is the magic separation point that moves it from not being "fibre optic broadband" to being "fibre optic broadband"?

>> With BT/OpenReach's FTTC and FTTP there's no difference in
> > terms of layer 1 unbundling - it's impossible with either as
> > they are both shared mediums aggregated before the exchange.
> 
> Both of them sucks badly, indeed.
> 
>> There is also an "FTTP on-demenad" option where if you are in
> > a FTTC area then you basically pay for BT/OpenReach to extend
> > the fibre to your property and provide the FTTP service. This
> > is expensive though as you foot all of the excess construction
> > charges. Apparently the average cost is going to be around GBP
> > 1500.
> 
> I changed your pond sign in windows 1252 encoding (even though
> your improperly configured mailer says it ISO-8859-1) to GBP.
> 
> I think 1500 GBP is too high as a cost to have fiber between a
> cabinet and your premise.
> 
> Considering that cost of SS is almost identical to POTS, the
> reasonable cost should be GBP 500 or so.
> 
> Is it a result of BT monopoly or can there be some competition
> possible to choose an entity to install the fiber from multiple
> independent entities?

The £1500 is what BT are quoting as an average based on distance. The cost works out as something like a fixed £500 setup + a per meter charge which varies depending on how they have to get from the cabinet to your property + any other civils/construction work required along the way.

For example, grass verges are much cheaper than pavements which are in turn cheaper than roads. They also have set charges for things like drilling through a wall depending on whether it is internal or external and if it is concrete or not concrete.

There's a list of the current OpenReach Excess COnstruction Charges at http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/pricing/loadProductPriceDetails.do?data=ZdqG%2Fxv%2FjSuBEEITnogh5uNOEwQ2%2FKws5WBAVcIlcholMnGHsqdC0vzO163bJmh34D91D7M0q8u%2F%0AIlSgtIFAKw%3D%3D

Unfortunately, only OpenReach can install these as part of the "FTTP on-demand" product. Any OpenReach service provider customer can order these, but it is OpenReach (part of the BT Group) that does the work.

>> In either case, OpenReach are required to provide "open"
>> access at the exchange to any companies wishing to make use of
> > the local infrastructure and provide competing services to BT.
> 
> The problem is on the density of the exchanges.
> 
> The exchanges at every CO with L1 unbundling is, seemingly, most
> competitive against BT.

OpenReach are required to sell space+power at the exchange for co-location of service provider equipment as well as selling all of the services that they sell internally in to the wholesale and retail divisions in the BT Group. It is then up to the service provider to aggregate customers and arrange their own backhaul, which obviously means that exchanges with a lower density of customers and/or which are more remote and therefore more expensive to arrange backhaul from are less attractive to unbundle.

What generally ends up happening is that the service providers competing with BT unbundle the more attractive exchanges where it makes financial sense to do so and then use BT Wholesale services to cover the other exchanges with more expensive, slower products that include a lower monthly cap due to the high cost of backhaul on the BT Wholesale network.

Edward Dore
Freethought Internet



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