Companies news October 2016

BT & Openreach developments:

The closure earlier this month of Ofcom’s consultation on its proposals for the future of Openreach prompted further media speculation and comment.

Both Sky and TalkTalk renewed their calls for full structural separation (also see commentary from Computer Weekly). The Financial Times reported that Sky and TalkTalk in partnership with Vodafone had submitted a report to Ofcom describing why BT’s pension deficit should not be a deterrent to separating Openreach from the rest of BT.

Writing in the Financial Times with reference to Prime Minister Theresa May’s comment that the government should “take big, sometimes even controversial, decisions about our country’s infrastructure” (more on this here), Virgin Media Chief Executive Tom Mockridge argued against splitting BT, on the basis that “stripping a private sector company of its assets would send a chilling message to investors”. He also called for reform of wayleave regulations to streamline new infrastructure builds and criticised the proposed increases on the business rates payable on fibre optic networks (more on this here).

In response, BT restated that such a split would undermine investment and damage the UK’s economic prospects (see ISP Review and European Communications). In its remarks at this month’s Broadband World Forum, the company highlighted the advantages of its approach: while fibre is the eventual end goal for its network, it regards its mixed technology approach based largely on G.fast as the most pragmatic way forward which will reach the greatest number of customers in the shortest time.

The Telegraph reported BT’s accusation of Sky’s “cynicism” in choosing to downgrade its support contract with Openreach whilst continuing to criticise BT for alleged poor customer service. In a separate article BT’s Group Finance Director further argued that structural separation would be a retrograde step. In the Financial Times former BT chief Lord Livingston of Parkhead accused BT’s rivals of hypocrisy in in calling for the breakup of BT to boost fibre investment, given that TalkTalk and Sky were “not interested in fibre” when Openreach began upgrading parts of the UK's broadband network to fibre in 2008: “BT was investing in fibre when Openreach’s customers weren’t interested”.

BT also published its latest results to the end of September 2016: “We’ve passed over 26m premises with our superfast fibre broadband network. In total, this means 92% of the UK now has access to fibre broadband from BT or other networks. We remain on track to help bring fibre broadband to 95% of the country by the end of 2017, with plans to go even further.” ISP Review highlighted that the higher than anticipated takeup of superfast services has made funding available for potential reinvestment via clawback mechanisms (more background and an example of this from last year here).

Also this month BT announced results from its trial with Huawei involving a fibre to the premise (FTTP) connection between the University of Suffolk, Ipswich Exchange, and BT’s R&D centre at Adastral Park in which 40Gbit/s, 10Gbit/s and 2.5Gbit/s speeds were delivered simultaneously over a single fibre optic cable. From the related press release: “The most common FTTP technologies in the UK today offer maximum speeds of up to 330Mbit/s, with a single fibre transmitting 2.5Gbit/s of capacity, which is then shared between customers. But this latest breakthrough shows that much greater capacity of 40Gbit/s and 10Gbit/s can be supported along the same fibre, demonstrating how FTTP networks can be future-proofed to stay well ahead of prospective demand for bandwidth.”

ISP Review reported on a number of Openreach trial and service developments this month:

• Participants in Openreach’s trials of long reach VDSL (more here) can receive the service free for up to 2 years, with the possibility that top download speeds might be boosted to 55Mbit/s.
• Openreach has reduced the distance dependent pricing element of its fibre on demand service for slow speed areas where fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) technology fails to deliver more than 10Mbit/s.
• It also announced enhancements and an extension of its 18Mbit/s FTTC based product trial intended as an upgrade for slow ADSL lines.
• It published its first prices for its G.fast broadband pilot which will commence in 17 locations in January 2017.

Other companies news this month:

• Virgin Media announced that its Project Lightning network expansion will connect an additional 360,000 homes and businesses in Scotland by the end of 2019. It also announced a nationwide agreement with Bloor Homes to supply ultrafast broadband to new homes across the UK.
• Independent utility infrastructure and networks provider GTC announced its UltraStream300 Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) network, providing housebuilders with “a cost-effective, hassle-free way to offer the high-speed, reliable broadband service homebuyers demand.”
• CityFibre announced an expansion of its partnership with business communications provider Onecom to deliver services in Coventry, Leicester and Nottingham. It also announced gigabit city projects in Sheffield, Doncaster and Rotherham in partnership with Exa Networks and also in Bracknell in partnership with BtL Communications.
• TalkTalk announced that its pilot project to provide gigabit services with Sky and CityFibre in York will be extended to cover the whole of the city. The initial roll out covered nearly 14,000 homes, with over 2,400 customers signing up to the service; the build will start in spring 2017 and is expected to reach a further 40,000 homes over 18 months, covering the majority of the city’s premises.
• Gigaclear announced that the first area of the Fastershire (Herefordshire and Gloucestershire County Council’s broadband scheme) Phase 2 rollout across the Cotswolds has reached the halfway mark, connecting more than 3,000 properties in some of the most isolated areas of Gloucestershire to ultrafast broadband.
• Hyperoptic announced that residents of 77 Mayfair, a new luxury development in the heart of Mayfair, now have access to symmetrical gigabit broadband speeds.
• ISP Review, Cable and the Telegraph reported that Amazon is considering the launch of broadband services in the UK, to complement its growing range of subscription services.
• ISP Review reported that Three in partnership with CityFibre, TalkTalk, Relish Wireless and the Federation of Communication Services (FCS) is appealing to Ofcom for a 30% cap on the total amount of mobile spectrum that any one company can own.
• The Telegraph reported that UK Broadband, the company behind Relish Broadband, plans to create a new national network based on participation in Ofcom’s next spectrum auction expected early next year.
• Cable reported that Sky is to launch a mobile service at the end of October, based on O2’s network.
• Finally Nokia announced the launch of its Gigabit Smart Build portfolio to “help service providers build ultra-broadband networks easily and more cost-efficiently.”