Rural living, Changing broadband provider?

Lar46

Hi jjegan , yes I am in contact regularly with my MP who has asked questions in parliament regarding this matter , they have also held meetings with CEO of Openreach and other bodies regarding the rural poor roll out of fibre. I have correspondence direct from Openreach saying no date in anyone's diary to implement an improvement to the situation. Yet they continue to trumpet the fantastic speed available in a small geographical location mainly cities.
Advertised fibre speed in this area (remember it is not available) is cheaper than standard broadband therefore We that have not got faster broadband pay more than people that do have. Is that not subsidising ?

Lar46

I would dispute your cost analogy regarding maintenance of a longer line costing more to maintain , yes initial outlay is more but maintenance is not. I believe repair costs for telecoms are fairly equal no matter where you are. To draw a similarity with house rental is , well not really in the same ballpark is it ? Or is this playing devil's advocate again ?
I don't have access to how much Talk Talk pay Openreach for their lines , but am interested to know if your figures are indeed accurate.
I'm not interested in how fast Openrech / Virgin etc can achieve in some places , but I am interested in how more people can achieve a better speed across the whole country , including our original poster from Northern Ireland.
This is my only point in posting.

iniltous

Lar46 wrote: »

I would dispute your cost analogy regarding maintenance of a longer line costing more to maintain , yes initial outlay is more but maintenance is not. I believe repair costs for telecoms are fairly equal no matter where you are. To draw a similarity with house rental is , well not really in the same ballpark is it ? Or is this playing devil's advocate again ?
I don't have access to how much Talk Talk pay Openreach for their lines , but am interested to know if your figures are indeed accurate.
I'm not interested in how fast Openrech / Virgin etc can achieve in some places , but I am interested in how more people can achieve a better speed across the whole country , including our original poster from Northern Ireland.
This is my only point in posting.

You dispute the 'fact' about longer (rural ) lines being more expensive to maintain , but offer no evidence real or anecdotal to counter , if an urban customer had a line length of (for arguments sake ) 1km, chances are it would be underground its entire length, thus protected from the elements and given that the engineering staff required employed to maintain the network would probably be based in that urban area , should a problem occur , they are a short journey away from the problem, compared to say a rural customer that could be (for arguments sake ) 8km away from the exchange, chances are quite a percentage of the line would be delivered overhead where it's more susceptible to damage from poor weather etc, and there is 8 times more of it, so more chance it's going to need maintenance at some point, and potentially a longer journey for the employee to get to the location of the fault , small beer you may say, but even if a long line 'only' costs say on average £10 year more, fact is it's still more.

You could argue that if a long line is more fault prone a longer line should be cheaper ( but you didn't ) , you conceded that it costs more to provide but argued that it's no more expensive to maintain ( and I contend you are wrong)

When services like the phone ( and mail ) were rolled out many decades ago , it was the done thing to make it a universal service for a standard price, it's doubtful that pricing model would be followed these days , if it costs more you pay more, no being subsidised, which rural lines are, for all you complaints, the fact is that shorter , more reliable urban lines in effect subsidise longer lines, so if you are the renter of a long rural line, you are getting to use that line at a price 'cheaper' than it should be, in effect , at the expense of someone on a shorter line, who is paying more than necessary to allow you to have your service at the same price.
As far as the prices I quote for access etc, it's freely available online, OR's price list isn't secret or hidden , and my figures are accurate at the time of posting if you pay around £30 a month to TT for line rental and broadband, OR's 'cut' is 30p a day for the 'local loop'
Finally, most analogys don't bear close scrutiny , but again, it's the case if you rent something, ( a copper local loop or a house) the rental doesn't stop just because you think that over time the total rent paid, must have paid for the asset cost....

littleboo

Lar46 wrote: »

I would dispute your cost analogy regarding maintenance of a longer line costing more to maintain , yes initial outlay is more but maintenance is not. I believe repair costs for telecoms are fairly equal no matter where you are. To draw a similarity with house rental is , well not really in the same ballpark is it ? Or is this playing devil's advocate again ?
I don't have access to how much Talk Talk pay Openreach for their lines , but am interested to know if your figures are indeed accurate.
I'm not interested in how fast Openrech / Virgin etc can achieve in some places , but I am interested in how more people can achieve a better speed across the whole country , including our original poster from Northern Ireland.
This is my only point in posting.

The charges that all CP's pay Openreach is on the Openreach web site. An MPF connection is ~£85/year, so about £7/month - where do you get your information from about the costs of telecom repairs being equal?