So lucky to have community fibre in our area as well as the Openreach & Virgin options. Love the symmetrical upload/download speeds. All other options in our road limit the upload speed. Because of course all we need is streaming content into our houses isn't it? Working from home means often uploading large data sets which is where the fast upload speed is a god-send.

An OR "engineer" once confidently assured me that upload didn't matter...

"Because of course all we need is streaming content into our houses isn't it?"

Notice how terminology has moved from the use of 'customer' to 'consumer'.

They may be taking new customers, but they're still burning cash, and not within a country mile of covering their cost of capital. Even CityFibre, which is in relative terms large and well run is only bringing in £100m-£130m a year of sales, but needs an operating profit of over £300m to cover its capital costs. Unless they can increase their customer numbers ten fold (and quickly) then somebody is losing money and somebody is having to keep putting cash in to keep the ball rolling. Many other altnets have massive invested capital but tiny customer bases, and no operating scale at all. Private equity has rushed into this as a fabulous infrastructure investment opportunity (often the idiots running our pension funds have a stake too), but there's no way out. In a hugely competitive market with two long established players with lower capital requirements per property served (BT, VM), and the slow but growing emergence of wireless broadband the commercial outlook for altnets is bleak. Hopefully the often high quality assets will survive the inevitable fold down of the companies who built them.

The whole altnet sector needs massive consolidation and massive writedowns of the order of £7bn before the commercials balance.

The same thing happened to NTL / Telewest etc (now Virgin Media) back in the early 2000s.

The investors will lose their money, but the infrastructure they paid for will still be there.

two long established players with lower capital requirements per property served (BT, VM)

Sadly they are rubbish to deal with, at least the smaller alt-nets like Fibrecast in Dundee are helpful.

For decent service, don't forget the option of using a smaller supplier over somebody else's network. Openreach already do this as their business and you can choose the price/speed/service balance you want, VM have promised it but not demonstrated it, and there's several altnets including CityFibre offering wholesale access.

I'm contracted with Aquiss for broadband over Openreach FTTP, and a VOIP landline with A&A. Aquiss are excellent in my experience. There's cheap and crap options like TalkTalk for those who are more price conscious and want low up front pricing but don't care about large annual price ratcheting and crap service.

Yes, Openreach kept vacillating between coming soon and coming between 2024 and the end of 2026. Now, despite the entire area showing as green on their rollout map (which granted, does include the "currently building") it has gone to "Not available" - did so a couple of months ago.

Meantime, YouFibre (Netomnia) rolled out. Not only do I get gig/gig synchronous and a static IP for less than a third of what Virgin cost (the FTTC here wouldn't cut it - 32Mb down and 1Mb up), but they were happy to assist my swapping out their kit for my own with no headaches. And... if you take their static IP, then they do not port block, so even though for the first time in years I took a chance on a domestic, rather than business, line, I can happily self host e.g. email.

And to top it off - when I was on Virgin, I rarely saw 1/3 (occasionally maybe 2/3, but not often) of what I was paying so much for (and could never get anywhere with them), my cabled connection is topping out at 936 down and 912 up. And even wireless is hitting 700-800 down with 600-650 up.

When I have had to get support, (twice), they are quick and knowledgeable. And helpful.

But, I do know they are burning cash like there is no tomorrow so I really hope they manage to stick around.

So two thirds of people aren't choosing to pay extra for performance for which they don't see the need and receive a product lacking resilience in the face of power failure? Who could have seen that coming.

They might have got better uptake by running fibre out to those places where FTTC is inadequate but then it would have cost a lot more for each house passed.

"where FTTC is inadequate"

Like where I live. Back in early 2020 (remember those times?) Openreach was going to come to a village meeting to discuss their plan to solve the woeful FTTC problems and talk about the rural broadband voucher scheme. Part of the problem is we have very few cabinets and half the village are on very long 'exchange only' lines. The meeting never happened.

The voucher scheme is now long dead as supposedly there is a govt funded contract with Openreach for our area but no-one has any clue when, or even if, that is happening.

A number of houses near me now feature the distinctive starlink squarial and its getting sorta tempting..... If Openreach would just give a bloody timeframe!

Here in N Wales, they solved the "exchange only" lines problem by simply installing fibre cabinets directly outside the exchange.

That is what they did for us but the cabinet is still a LOOOONG way away.

Us too, fortunately I can throw a rock and very nearly hit the exchange.

Lucky you. I can see the exchange from my house, but FTTC is still not available as there is no cabinet between me and it. At least I get a decent ADSL line speed, with little of no contention, as I'm in a VM area which most people have. Of course VM isn't an option for me due to the length of my drive ...

I agree.

I've FTTC and at 38mbs it's absolutely fine for me. For me, waiting 30 seconds less to download a file for twice the price is just pointless. I was happy with it at 18mbs, but it was cheaper to switch than stay as it was

I can understand for a large family with everyone on line, or people that handle huge files, but for most it's fine.

A good part of the lack of uptake will be inertia with people locked into existing 2 year contracts so they will wait till their current deal expires before moving to fiber. On top of that there will be plenty who will not even have realized that the contract they were on has already expired so the are paying more for less.

"before moving to fiber"

They'll move to the US?

I went into full smug mode when pulling up to the house in total darkness. No worries - all my network kit is on a chunky UPS. That smugness didn't last long, It turns out the local Virgin distribution infrastructure was on the same supply. Doh!

35% take up is actually pretty good considering it's an additional service, one that most people don't even need and is often not the only FTTP service available in an area. [1]35% take up is higher then their competitors and apparently cheaper per premise as well (that one really surprises me).

I know it's de rigueur to moan at anything Openreach does but this roll out has progressed very fast, appears to be on target and with this take up figure shows it to be a very successful upgrade programme.

[1] https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2024/01/openreach-to-hit-quarterly-uk-fttp-broadband-build-rate-of-1m-premises.html

Whilst you are correct on the resiliency point this is not really that relevant.

Copper is going so the only option will be fibre with no UPS unless you either pay or need it for specific emergency reasons.

I think it is more that people will only change when they have no option or switch provider. At that point if you have copper phone line it will be either switched to a VOIP service or turned off. Once it is turned switched or turned off you cannot get it enabled again on copper even if you don't have FTTP.

I found out this the hard way when PlusNet totally shafted up a contract change.

After that fiasco I switched to ZenInternet. Just waiting for FTTP.

…commented Research Analyst Tom Oughton at market intelligence biz Megabuyte. I hate them already just for that name alone.

Here I have FTTP from an altnet.

Openreach haven't got around to installing fibre by me and won't for another year (at least). Recently gained another member of the household so FTTC/copper wouldn't cut it any longer. Needed bandwidth 'now' not in a year's time.

If OR had installed fibre, would i have carried on with a migrated package from FTTC copper? I doubt it - resellers of OR products tend to be quite errr pricey...

Would it have been as easy as the migration from FTTC (BT/OR) to FTTP provided by the altnet? I doubt it. Oddly the only issue in the whole process was with BT refusing, for some reason, to release my landline number.

YMMV of course, and going with an altnet does have risks - I have run into none of them so far.

No idea what BT Fib er is. The BT website makes plenty of mention of Fib re though.

Just because the US decide to name or spell something one way, doesn't mean it's correct for the rest of the world. (See the Gulf Of Mexico etc.).

Anyway, get of my lawn.

Given how much they have been paid to deliver this...

Leaving asside the BT business units trying to rip SME's off left right and centre with unsuitable products based on IDSN/COPPER cut off with no products for the customer. "Oh you'll use copper until the FTTP arrives!

Its not a speed to be proud of either. Our (large) village has been on poor FTTC or Vermin for years with promised FTTC some time in the future. This was so long ago we have since sued for, and won compensation for them messing up a business move and as above, selling us products we couldnt have. That would have been around 2010 we were promised FTTP imminently,

In comparison, CityFiber showed up fisrst week of Jan and are almost done. The sheer speed and organisation demonstrated has been amazing. SItes prepped, barried, trenchedm ducts in, butired and restoration works and jointers / overhead teams right behind them. At the rate they are working it will be around 6 weeks to do the entire village (Except the new bit covered by the Charles Church Protection Racket)

Yes they arent perfect, but they are ACTUALLY visibly doing something BT has been promising for about 10 years.

Yup. AFAICS FTTC was being implemented in the areas where it was easiest - higher density of housing meaning few cabinets serving many houses. Then with the push to FTTP they're reworking exactly those same areas because every 100m of fibre laid passes many houses instead of one or two. It was obvious that they'd do this instead of continuing the FTTC roll-out. If FTTC hadn't got as far as a given village before it wasn't going to once the priority had been switched and neither was FTTP. So much for universal provision. Naturally the altnets would see the opportunity.

Out here in the west, in a city of 130,000, we're still waiting, waiting, waiting. Apparently there are places with 4 or 5 separate FTTP networks available to them, while we still have none. The rollout has seemed incredibly chaotic and not remotely joined-up. Apparently, Openreach and CityFibre are now both at work here, so the race is on (finally) to see who gets to us first. Goodbye, 19th century copper!

I suspect when Starlink comes down in price BT will lose a lot of customers.

Starlink is a lot better than previous satellite internet services for sure. But a ground-based service is always going to be better than a satellite service where it is available. Anything you can do to make satellite better, you can also do to make ground-based services better.

Wires beat radios every time.

Unless you're moving around ...

My regularly MIA and usually sluggish Virgin Cable broadband said otherwise before I lost patience and dumped it for 4G (now 5G) mobile.

Wired is only was good as the cowboys running it...

Ofcom forced BT and Openreach to split eight years ago. It's part of Ofcom's role to monitor the ongoing progress of Openreach's independence from BT. Reading this article it's hard to imagine that split had any effect on BT's monopoly. How sweet that they managed to divorce but stay friends, for the sake of the kids and it makes sense that they still live together and share a bank account and wear their wedding rings, for the sake of the kids. Ofcom visits once a month to ensure BT keeps one foot on the floor when they are in bed together.

#sorryitsbeenalongweek

It's spelt 'fibre'.

Not in the USA, and ElReg is a US site these days. Sad, but true.

Bring back Dabbsy! (And Paris!)

But it is "fibre" in the UK. Both BT and Openreach spell it Fibre internally and on their respective websites. and that's what you're reportedly reporting on.

Bah!

El Reg Teh Registrationizer even capitalised it as a proper noun but still spelt it wrong anyway. I'm still not really sure what's their point; some of their attempts to assert they're an American site now come across as a little antagonistic, or at least trying too hard.

Altnet customer here for the last 3 years (Swish Fibre, now Cuckoo/Jurassic/AllPointsFibre depending on which router's reverse DNS I happen to hit in `mtr`). The connection is XGPON so naturally I chose the 1Gbps symmetrical option (920Mbps in reality) just because I work in tech and wouldn't be able to take myself seriously if I chose only 250Mbps etc. At the time (with early sign-up discounts and an 18 month commitment) it was only 25% more expensive at £40 per month than their basic 150Mbps option. And 1Gbps was only £6 more per month than I had been paying for "unlimited fibre" FTTC (WTF?) with Zen (who I really like) for years.

Back in November an OpenReach flyer came through informing us that "unlimited full fibre" gigabit speeds will be available from December 2026... "up to" 1600Mbps down and 115Mbps up. Even now they are still trying to sell OpenReach's FTTC here for 85% of the cost of my 1Gbps symmetrical connection. I'll be really interested to see the pricing of OpenReach's "unlimited full fibre" service when ISPs are able to offer it in our area.

Happy with the altnets in our area to be honest. The only downside I find with Swish Fibre and their "next generation" network is that they still don't support the current version of the internet protocol (RFC 8200).