Are BT and Virgin Media charging too much to otther ISP's ?

ffox

BT are the worst culprit. They have a monopoly on the phone lines and deliberately hold the fibre optic infrastructure back so they can make a profit out of the copper lines. It's probably far cheaper to run and maintain their fibre optic lines than their copper lines, and yet, fibre is made out to look like a premium service.

Looking at these major ISPs (Sky, TT, BT, PN etc..) there is absolutely no fuss. They are all offering the same thing. There is no competition or value in their services. Except for the fact of driving prices up step by step, company by company.

The tech already exists to give fibre optic away for next to nothing. But it isn't going to happen because of the culture of generating huge revenues out of practically nothing.

ffox

Nationalise the ISPs into one company. The state will benefit and it will drive productivity.

Doc_N

ffox wrote: »

Nationalise the ISPs into one company. The state will benefit and it will drive productivity.

Not used to hearing the 'N' word mentioned these days........particularly when everything in sight's being privatised at great cost and negative benefit.

It would make a lot of sense though - and likewise the phone/mobile phone networks, railways, buses, and a whole heap of other stuff.

tberry6686

ffox wrote: »

Nationalise the ISPs into one company. The state will benefit and it will drive productivity.

Take off the rose tinted glasses. I assume you were not around when BT was a publicly owned and to get a phone line/connected took months and cost a fortune.


If it was a public company now we would be lucky if we were able to get dialup let alone fibre and it would cost at least double what it does now.

tberry6686

The tech already exists to give fibre optic away for next to nothing. But it isn't going to happen because of the culture of generating huge revenues out of practically nothing.


REALLY. Have you seen the cost of fibre cable, installation etc.


Might as well have gas, electricity etc for nothing as well as they cost next to nothing to provide (apart from the production costs etc).

ffox

tberry6686 wrote: »

Take off the rose tinted glasses. I assume you were not around when BT was a publicly owned and to get a phone line/connected took months and cost a fortune.


If it was a public company now we would be lucky if we were able to get dialup let alone fibre and it would cost at least double what it does now.

Consider the situation as things stand.
That was then in the 80s/90s when it would take anything ages to get done and at great cost. Let's be honest, things also used to run badly due to lack of know-how. Probably by the likes of closed minded people such as yourself. If you are making a comparison today with dial-up, then is that what you believe the bedrock standard of service ought to be? Some public enterprises have made great strides and improvements in their operations in recent times. There is better communication, more knowledge now on how companies and services ought to run -- public or private.

Yes in principle same argument could be applied to utilities and generalised basic infrastructures such as transport. The private enterprises that you see operating in this space now are the companies which sit on top of the infrastructure and all they do is pick the low hanging fruit for their own benefit with little reciprocation to any value provided or innovation.

Have a look at this thread. You have a load of companies offering essentially the same thing. And the customers are left hopping from one company to the next searching for BS deals as if it were a merry-go-round. The sector is in collusion with itself but made to look out like there is competition and value generated.

Browntoa

ffox wrote: »

BT are the worst culprit. They have a monopoly on the phone lines and deliberately hold the fibre optic infrastructure back so they can make a profit out of the copper lines. It's probably far cheaper to run and maintain their fibre optic lines than their copper lines, and yet, fibre is made out to look like a premium service.

Looking at these major ISPs (Sky, TT, BT, PN etc..) there is absolutely no fuss. They are all offering the same thing. There is no competition or value in their services. Except for the fact of driving prices up step by step, company by company.

The tech already exists to give fibre optic away for next to nothing. But it isn't going to happen because of the culture of generating huge revenues out of practically nothing.

fibre optic is not costing "next to nothing" it requires an additional cabinet next to the existing cabinet (or nearby) and a power supply , fibre from the exchange to there which could involve digging up roads for ducting (if current ducting is full) and then the cost of the fibre terminating equipment in the new cabinet.


BT's research dept at adastral park has produced Gfast (300mb over copper pair live customer trials and a 1000mb product which is still being test bedded at Adastral) and Virgin do their own development . Without either of them getting a return on the research and investment (Ofcom agree this ) then we would still be on dial up

ffox

Browntoa wrote: »

fibre optic is not costing "next to nothing" it requires an additional cabinet next to the existing cabinet (or nearby) and a power supply , fibre from the exchange to there which could involve digging up roads for ducting (if current ducting is full) and then the cost of the fibre terminating equipment in the new cabinet.


BT's research dept at adastral park has produced Gfast (300mb over copper pair live customer trials and a 1000mb product which is still being test bedded at Adastral) and Virgin do their own development . Without either of them getting a return on the research and investment (Ofcom agree this ) then we would still be on dial up

g..


Interesting.. you speak as if they are the only ones doing the R&D. Interesting that once dial-up comes along everyone has it. When A/DSL comes along everyone has it. When FO comes along everyone has it. The research for much of this is in the public domain. In relation to the justification for the continuous price hikes for line rental say, does the industry's argument hold any water? No.

tberry6686

ffox wrote: »

Consider the situation as things stand.
That was then in the 80s/90s when it would take anything ages to get done and at great cost. Let's be honest, things also used to run badly due to lack of know-how. Probably by the likes of closed minded people such as yourself. If you are making a comparison today with dial-up, then is that what you believe the bedrock standard of service ought to be? Some public enterprises have made great strides and improvements in their operations in recent times. There is better communication, more knowledge now on how companies and services ought to run -- public or private.

Yes in principle same argument could be applied to utilities and generalised basic infrastructures such as transport. The private enterprises that you see operating in this space now are the companies which sit on top of the infrastructure and all they do is pick the low hanging fruit for their own benefit with little reciprocation to any value provided or innovation.

Have a look at this thread. You have a load of companies offering essentially the same thing. And the customers are left hopping from one company to the next searching for BS deals as if it were a merry-go-round. The sector is in collusion with itself but made to look out like there is competition and value generated.

Wrap it up in BS if you like. Fibre optic was available before BT was privatised. Why were they not replacing the copper wire with it then ? I cannot think of one publicly owned service that is even close to being a technology leader in the world. World renowned bottomless money pits on the other hand......

ffox

tberry6686 wrote: »

Wrap it up in BS if you like. Fibre optic was available before BT was privatised. Why were they not replacing the copper wire with it then ? I cannot think of one publicly owned service that is even close to being a technology leader in the world. World renowned bottomless money pits on the other hand......

Questions, questions and confounded confusion. I can't make heads or tails of your point. I will try nevertheless.

Availability of FO before or after BT is regardless of the question of BT. BT is part of this discussion because they manage the whole phoneline infrastructure up and down the country. They are basically the monopoly and at the same time a bottleneck in the telecoms infrastructure. So if that's the way it's going to be then might as well nationalise it.

FO was invented long before it was applied to telecoms. It's suitability to carrying large data in telecoms is obvious. The copper lines exist as a throwback to pre-FO. BT continue to maintain copper lines in order to maintain a foothold on controlling access to FO. The cost of FO has plummeted since it was first introduced much like any tech service product.

Apart from providing a fast and efficient basic internet service there are many opportunities for add-on products which sit on top of the internet that private companies could service instead. The fundamental question here is with BT and the phone line network. At the moment we have a BS line rental which continues to increase without justification. The ISPs sneak in their own prices and there is no transparency in the pricing. This is indefensible.

Browntoa

broadband speed is the false indicator , its the backbone capacity that is king . No point in having a headline grabbing 1gb speed if you get buffering on a 4k TV transmission because the capacity is not there on the network .


Fibre is not cheap , pushing it out to the Cabs is expensive hence the use of the copper pairs from the cabs


Fibre to the premises is much more expensive hence it attracts a premium price to allow recovery of investment (£6 billion by BT and £3 billion by Virgin Media is pushing out fibre over the next few years ) . The other operators do not invest in infrastructure or research/Development so Ofcom allows the wholesale charge BT make to reflect a return on the investment