'Massive game-changer for UK altnet industry': BT-owned UK comms backbone Openreach hikes prices on FTTP-linked leased line circuits
- Reference: 1607005808
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/12/03/openreach_price_hike/
- Source link:
The infrastructure arm - which BT [1]legally dislocated in 2017 - recently published [2]notice of a price hike in what it will charge communication providers (CPs) for leased line circuits that are used to aggregate FTTP to multiple homes and business premises.
The Register understands Openreach will not be required to show the price rises were connected to actual cost hikes for the connections as they are non-regulated products and can thus be kept commercially confidential. Some have expressed scepticism over the need for the price hike, since the access is to existing installations with presumably fixed costs.
Besides slapping an extra "annual supplemental charge" (in addition to the standard rental and connection charges) ranging from £560 for its 10Gbit/s Ethernet Access Direct product to a fresh yearly charge of £11,060.00 for Optical Spectrum Access and Optical Spectrum Extended Access, Openreach also kindly "remind[ed] CPs that they can alternatively make use of the nationally available Physical Infrastructure Access product), build their own network, or make alternative arrangements with another infrastructure provider."
CPs were told they need to tell Openreach what they were using the products for, "self-certify[ing] orders for this use case by including 'FTTP aggregation' in the relevant product order notes field."
A Reg source claimed that "alternative" ISPs who are building their own FTTP networks currently have no choice but to use the former state monopoly's network infrastructure for backhaul. This has prompted allegations that the act was anticompetitive, assuming Openreach was trying to make life harder for its altnet chums.
When we asked Openreach about this, a spokesperson retorted:
"Openreach isn't obliged to connect 'intermediate nodes' (such as street cabinets) for alternative FTTP providers, using leased lines.
"But if companies do want to use this route rather than building their own Full Fibre networks, we’re happy to connect street cabinets at a reasonable price. Of course they can also use our nationwide network of ducts and poles, which Ofcom has specifically introduced for others to build Full Fibre, and is available under regulated prices, terms and conditions."
Small UK firms laying fibre put BT's Openreach to shame – report [3]READ MORE
Our source alleged: "In this charge notification they are putting a massive price increase on circuits used to aggregate other customers, loosely defined as FTTP, i.e. clearly intentionally to screw over all alternate networks who are building their own networks...
"
[4]Ethernet Access Direct
pricing is regulated, although they are presumably exploiting some loophole where pricing for products that aren't used to directly serve end users is exempt from regulation."BT's broadband arm published its [5]justification here, claiming it was "not obliged under regulation" to provide network access to intermediate nodes in its network via leased lines, and that these included, crucially, the "intermediate aggregation nodes in FTTP networks." Openreach claimed that this was because they are "not part of the relevant market where we have significant market power".
In order to better align with what we are required to do under regulation, we are revising our pricing for leased lines (covering Ethernet and Optical products) with certain use cases...
We are changing the pricing for leased lines that are being used to aggregate FTTP to multiple homes and business premises from aggregation nodes e.g. from a street based cabinet or similar locations with effect from 1 January 2021.
From this date we will be introducing an annual supplemental charge (in addition to the standard rental and connection charges applicable) for leased line services used for this use case.
Our source quipped "where it says 'In order to better align with what we are required to do under regulation' you should probably read 'In order to screw over our competitors when not prohibited from doing so by regulation'."
They went on to opine: "This is clearly a massive game changer for the UK altnet industry and will revert the country to a BT monopoly."
An Ofcom spokesperson told El Reg : “We are aware of the concerns that have been raised and we are looking into them.”
The news comes just over a week after the New National Infrastructure Strategy (reported on The Reg [6]here ) plans for delivering gigabit capable broadband to rural areas of the UK were diluted in the latest Spending review. INCA, the trade body representing the UK’s independent networks, last week complained that the UK government had downgraded "the original commitment to provide £5bn of public funding for hard to reach areas" to just £1.2bn.
IPSA declined to comment and we have contacted INCA for comment. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2017/03/10/bt_agrees_to_legal_separation_of_openreach/
[2] https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/pricing/notificationDetails.do?data=ThQLPOgdo8c%2FpcQlNXj7BQ1SIlR3Eedo8zGwEN2opumb34KiUnlTQ5P1F8h1tbVJNbuS4in2Opzba%2BeTCy5nyaAmkKMAog%2BKEa%2FzywyXh%2B733FkRprdkPimbVIJEBnnx
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2018/04/13/fibre_minnows_put_bts_openreach_to_shame/
[4] https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/ethernetservices/ethernetaccessdirect/ead.do
[5] https://www.openreach.co.uk//orpg/home/updates/briefings/generalbriefings/generalbriefingsarticles/gen10220.do
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/26/uk_autumn_spending_review_telecoms/
[7] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: This is exactly WHY...
Well BT and OpenReach are technically separate now, and have been for three years.
The problem is, OpenReach inherited their network from BT (all the way back to when it was part of the Post Office), so they still have (almost) a monopoly on the wires across the country. It also seems they inherited some execs from BT as well, because their reaction to this monopoly is to use it to try and fuck over ever single competitor as much as possible.
It would be interesting to see if they're trying to raise prices for BT as well.
An Ofcom spokesperson told El Reg: “We are aware of the concerns that have been raised and we are looking into them.”
Ofcom has no teeth and will do nothing, sadly.
It's not an ofcom matter
It's a competition and market authority one - that's the government department that stepped in and forvced the issue in New Zealand
What a wanker.
"But if companies do want to use this route rather than building their own Full Fibre networks."
Couldn't sound more smug if he tried right? This of course being their own full fibre "network" that has its core foundations and origins in the taxpayer funded telecom networks that were built in the 60's and 70's, and over which until only recently they and BT have had an absolute monopoly, including 100's of millions of additional taxpayer £'s to deliver effectively nothing of particular value; so let's not bring up the rural broadband fiasco that they and BT totally failed to deliver on right?
Hopefully this is the sort of smarmy reactive comment that will come back to haunt them within the next 10 years or so when they become irrelevant.
Certain use cases...
If Ofcom have nothing to say, I would hope the CMA would be interested in services being charged at a higher rate if they're potentially competitive. What next, a higher line rental if you want your phone to be able to reach the Vodafone sales team?
Re: Certain use cases...
The Vodafone Sales Team can never be reached! That's a unwritten law!
Re: The Vodafone Sales Team
Have put their phones on call divert to 'Talk-Talk'. They went off for an early Christmas Party.
So glad I stopped paying for a landline.
Never looked back.
No spam calls.
No unnecessary bundled services.
No crappy hardware and cabling.
No engineers and their terrible excuses.
I bump it down to other people to deal with and let my 4G provider argue all that nonsense, with a spare 4G SIM in my phone on an entirely different network if I ever do have an outage.
Did 1000Gb last month. Cost me £18, on a month-to-month contract. Would've only cost me only £15 if I bothered to keep up with my provider's offerings.
Use it to stream TV and video content to my phone while I'm out and about, also have an always-on VPN over that to my external server should I have a need to do anything vaguely techy. The pair together cost me less to run than a BT-based landline, and I have paid far less in hardware than even a line activation costs (£160 I was quoted! Plus a day off work).
BT have always been a shower in all their forms, both personally and professionally. I avoid them like the plague. Let someone else deal with them.
ATT did this in the States a number of years ago after they too were 'broken up'. Last mile is yours (ie. a reseller) but you can't get anywhere without their backbone.
It was cheaper to use a reseller but if there was an 'issue' that concerned ATT's backbone, they didn't need to respond for up to 24 hours. So for a bit more (~20% more) you could just go with ATT front to back and have instant repair service.
This smells.
This is going to slow down getting FTTP unless from BT. And I am not going near them.
OpenReach
These are the people that state they'll charge you if they have to come on-prem to check out the problem, do the work outside, ask to use the toilet (OK) and then submit a charge for £160+VAT.
NOPE.
Re: OpenReach
I think you missed a few zeros at the end of that invoice.
Re: OpenReach
So much wrong with this obvious bovine excrement.
End customers never report to OR, you report to your own provider, so will never get a bill from OR
OR will charge the provider if the problem is beyond the socket, nothing about going on premises or not.
The provider can choose to absorb any OR charges if they wish, eg if it is a supplier provided modem issue.
If you do wish to troll, maybe try something at least remotely plausible.
My experience
I had a line providing voice and ADSL2+. After some very heavy rain, the internet worked but the phone was just noise - not even a dial tone.
Put in a support request to my ISP and was told Openreach would be out in three days (standard "service" for a domestic fault at the time). I was advised to make sure there was a fault, as I would be charged for a "no fault found" call out (i.e., the charge would be passed to me).
I was certain there was a fault as I had tried a wired phone plugged into the socket inside of the master socket. However, I was concerned that the fault was caused by water ingress and it would have "gone away" by the time OR called in three days.
The OR engineer turned up for the appointment (on time, as has always been my experience), and, as expected, the fault had cleared. He was not happy that this would result in me being charged (he agreed there must be water ingress somewhere that was causing the problem), so he swapped me to a new cable pair so he could record that repairs were made.
My experience with the OR engineers round here has been very good, even when the experience of the OR hardware has not!
The obvious solution...
... is for FTTP operators to rent space in a cupboard under the stairs in one of the houses served - perhaps in exchange for providing free Internet for that house.
I know of dial-up ISPs in the 1990s that used to do that with modem banks.
Backhaul limitations
"'alternative' ISPs who are building their own FTTP networks currently have no choice but to use the former state monopoly's network infrastructure for backhaul"
This is not true. You can lease dark fibre right into LINX using the likes of ZAYO who have a comprehensive backbone covering most of the country.
The proposals strengthen the case for small providers using this sort of option.
This is exactly WHY...
...New Zealand forced Telecom NZ to split into entirely separated lines and dialtone companies (Chorus and Spark)