Can you get broadband without

lee111s

SmokieJoe wrote: »

The reliability of fibre over copper has already been established, as appears to be the case for ongoing and long term high savings in maintenance costs. What are you basing this exorbitant additional cost requirement on (other than just increased profit margins?)

There's not just the physical fibre from the manifold to your home, there's all of the other very expensive networking equipment back to the handover point/layer2switch. Believe it or not, none of this is given to Openreach for free. Neither do their engineers do charity work for Openreach, they need paid to install and maintain the network.

No one is forcing you to use FTTP. It's their network, their infrastructure, they can charge what they like.

Alternatively, they'll simply charge say £50 for a broadband only connection rather than £17 for line rental and £33 for broadband. Either way the cost of providing both the physical line and the service provided over that line is the same, regardless of how you break it down.

This is exactly what Virgin media do.

SmokieJoe

Ah, so the money given to BT to set up this network was a charity donation (despite being taxpayers money to develop the infrastructure and necessary entwork). Thanks for clearing that up at least.

lee111s

Whine all you want. You're not going to get broadband without paying for a line to send it down.

SmokieJoe

lee111s wrote: »

Whine all you want. You're not going to get broadband without paying for a line to send it down.

So it's whining to query why something not needed is forced on you just to increase profit? Why are you here with an attitude like that, if that's the best you can give in response to a serious question? Would it be ok for a garage to insist you can only have an oil change if you also buy tyres? Would you accept it if a grocery store told you to buy something you didn't need? You wouldn't question it?

marketraisen

It's only a matter of time before the farcical line rental charges are brought into focus a bit more. We arent living in 1997 anymore. On FTTP myself, havent used a copper phone line in over a decade.

Openreach are a business and need to make money for sure so I appreciate theres costs involved with installation of a new service. They had 2 engineers climb a ladder and drill a hole in my window, ran a cable through and installed equipement inside and out, the cost of the equipement is virtually negligable considering the bulk orders openreach will have direct with manufacturers. They were here for 30 minutes and no doubt did something at the exchange aswell, they did tell me they were going to do 3 properties that day.

That was almost 18 months ago, so I have paid about £300 in line rental fees to date with about another £200 expected over the coming year, on top of that I've been paying for the broadband service itself which has been about £450 to date with it going to be even higher in the coming year.

I think the money I have paid for the installation of the service has been more than covered. Will it need maintained and repaired in the future? Obviously but why cant I contribute £5 a month towards those costs, £60 a year sounds fair, especially when I'm paying £25+ per month for the broadband on top of that.

lee111s

You still have a line. Albeit made from a different material, in this case glass, not copper. This line needs maintained and repaired, along with all of the other equipment required in the network to enable you to have FTTP. This is where the "line rental" charge is coming from.


As I have already said, the other option is that you simply pay more for broadband and the companies stop calling it "line rental". If broadband only was £50 you wouldn't question it.




£60 a year might seem fair to you but not to Openreach, who are after all, a private, money making business.

marketraisen

Do you have a source for the cost of installing and maintaining a fiber optic cable in the UK or are you just guessing the same as the rest of us?

lee111s

I don't, but it's irrelevant.

That's the price they charge. You're not forced to use their services.

littleboo

marketraisen wrote: »

It's only a matter of time before the farcical line rental charges are brought into focus a bit more. We arent living in 1997 anymore. On FTTP myself, havent used a copper phone line in over a decade.

Openreach are a business and need to make money for sure so I appreciate theres costs involved with installation of a new service. They had 2 engineers climb a ladder and drill a hole in my window, ran a cable through and installed equipement inside and out, the cost of the equipement is virtually negligable considering the bulk orders openreach will have direct with manufacturers. They were here for 30 minutes and no doubt did something at the exchange aswell, they did tell me they were going to do 3 properties that day.

That was almost 18 months ago, so I have paid about £300 in line rental fees to date with about another £200 expected over the coming year, on top of that I've been paying for the broadband service itself which has been about £450 to date with it going to be even higher in the coming year.

I think the money I have paid for the installation of the service has been more than covered. Will it need maintained and repaired in the future? Obviously but why cant I contribute £5 a month towards those costs, £60 a year sounds fair, especially when I'm paying £25+ per month for the broadband on top of that.

FTTP is estimated to cost around £500 to deploy per property passed. On FTTC, the take up is around 20%, I don't know what it is for FTTP, I would guess lower if there are ADSL products available as many people are perfectly happy with that. If it was 20%, then its costing £2500 per property take up. Clearly the price you pay to your retail provider does not all go to Openreach who invested in the infrastructure.

Openreach charge about £8 for line rental. If you're paying £25 for broadband, lets assume that £12 is the Openreach cost, that means they get around £20/month against the £2.5k capital outlay and excludes profit, operating costs etc.

marketraisen

Estimated by whom? Surely theres a source for the cost of these things?