Category: Next-generation broadband service

What can be done to support FTTH independent install

What is independent install

Fibre-optic connection pots in ground - press picture courtesy of Gigaclear

As more fibre-to-the-premises connections become ubiquitous, there will be a call towards independent-install as a service provisioning option in order to save costs for subsequent FTTP deployments

Independent installation of fibre-to-the-home / fibre-to-the-premises broadband Internet is where the installation and provisioning of this service doesn’t require a technician employed or contracted by the infrastructure provider or ISP to come to your premises.

Most likely these kind of FTTH / FTTP installations will take place in an environment where the consumer owns the optical network terminal and can replace it with equipment that suits their needs better. As well, such equipment will be typically in the form of desktop equipment that is the size of a typical home-network router.

Independent install approaches have been seen to be successful with ADSL and cable broadband Internet due to the copper infrastructure being ubiquitous in most households. In a lot of cases, this has allowed ISPs and telcos to offer cheaper broadband Internet to the masses.

New connections

A new connection to a premises that hasn’t been previously connected would require a technician employed or contracted by the infrastructure provider or ISP to run a connection from the street to the building or premises. They would be required to install a “demarcation point” on the premises where the infrastructure provider’s legal responsibility ends as far as the infrastructure goes.

Some ISPs or infrastructure providers may supply and install the fibre-optic cabling from the demarcation point to a wall socket close to where you are to have your optical network terminal and home-network router. Here, this would be part of the installation cost for a new connection to an existing premises.

On the other hand, an independent third-party installer with fibre-optic skills would install fibre-optic runs as part of electrical / AV / data cabling during the construction of a new building or full-on renovation. This would be paid for by the building owner as part of the project costs.

As well, there will be pressure on building developers to install the necessary infrastructure for fibre-to-the-premises Internet as a standard offering. This will be exerted by customers, urban planners, regulatory authorities, competing developers and the like to have that project set up for today’s online expectations. In this case, electricians engaged by the developers will be required to be skilled in FTTP fibre-optic installations.

Existing connections

Connections on AVM FritzBox FF30 Fiber router image courtesy of AVM

The AVM Fritz!Box 5530 is one of these home-network routers with a connection for fibre-optic internet in the form of an SFP plug.

As fibre-to-the-premises broadband takes hold, there will be more of the existing connections to this kind of infrastructure. This will be where independent install will earn its keep. It will also include premises that are part of a previously-mentioned building development that have been wired for fibre-to-the-premises.

Self-install, including wires-only / BYO setups

Self-install is where there is cabling to the premises and a wall socket installed therein. The customer picks up the equipment they need and, perhaps, a flylead or adaptor from the ISP’s bricks-and-mortar presence or a retailer. Or this equipment is delivered to the customer’s premises by post or courier.

Then the customer unpacks the equipment and installs it themselves. They may find that the ISP or infrastructure provider has to remotely activate the equipment and set it up for the Internet service.

If the arrangement is described as a BYO or wires-only setup, the equipment isn’t bundled with the service. Rather the customer buys the equipment from the ISP or infrastructure provider or a technology retailer. They can take the equipment between premises rather than leaving it behind when they move.

The BYO or wires-only setup would be pushed for in the name of competition and innovation. This is due to the idea of offering higher-performance ONT modems or ONT/router combo equipment a.k.a. fibre-optic gateways that is equivalent to modem routers. As well, it would be pushed as a lower-cost service-provisioning option due to the ISP or telco not needing to have customer-premises equipment on their books as a rapidly-depreciating asset including the cost to warehouse the equipment, nor needing to have technicians drive to the customer’s premises to deliver or install the equipment.

Should the equipment fail, the customer would have to disconnect the equipment and organise to have it repaired. Here, they would send the equipment to the ISP or infrastructure provider if it is bundled with the service. Or they would send it to a repairer if the equipment isn’t bundled, such as a BYO equipment deal. The same situation also applies where a technical upgrade is taking place and the customer needs to use newer equipment.

Similarly, self-install especially BYO / wires-only setup may permit a customer to take the equipment with them when they move to premises where there is already the FTTP infrastructure therein. This would appeal with people who purchase ONT modems or ONT/router units that are about higher performance.

Independent technician install

An independent-technician install relies on a suitably-trained technician engaged by the customer to install the fibre-optic wiring between the demarcation point and where they want to install their equipment.

Such technicians would be able to move the fibre-optic connection on the customer’s side of the demarcation point if you had to reposition it to a newer location. The technician would also be able to do repairs on the fibre-optic cabling if it failed or was damaged.

If you are renovating your home or working on a new-build premises, having an electrician or AV technician who is skilled with fibre-optic handling will come in to its own. Here, you have the same tradesperson doing the fibre-optic cabling as well as other copper-based cabling runs, whether AC wiring, RF for a TV aerial or master-antenna TV setup, AV for multiroom audio and video or Ethernet cabling for your home network.

What is needed

Demarcation point

The fibre-to-the-premises installation has to have a distinct demarcation point at the user’s premises. This delineates the point of responsibility between the service/infrastructure provider and the premises owner/occupier as far as the fibre-optic infrastructure is concerned.

This would have to designed so that a skilled independent technician can connect a fibre-optic installation to this point when they have installed it. It could be feasible to have this support a “multi-fibre” connection with a “mutual / independent / open” demarcation point for environments that support infrastructure-level competition, something that is already established in France. That is where multiple street-side fibre connections are connected to this point and a technician engaged by the service provider the user is contracting with switches the user to that infrastructure.

Of course a consumer may want wall points for two or more infrastructure-level fibre connections. This would be called upon by businesses, for example, who subscribe to service providers on different infrastructures for increased fault tolerance of their Internet connection. In these cases, there would be two or more of the demarcation points on the premises in addition to two or more wall points or one multi-fibre demarcation point is used to serve two different outlets with connections to different infrastructure providers.

Multiple-premises buildings like apartment blocks or shopping centres may have the demarcation point in the telecommunications equipment room, typically in the basement or on the ground floor. This may be held as the building demarcation point while the cabling is maintained by technicians appointed by the building committee or owner. Some setups may then require a second demarcation point per premises with this being installed in a cupboard therein. In that area, cabling to the wall socket may be serviced by a technician engaged by the premises owner or occupier.

To assure access to infrastructure-level competition, there may be the idea of having multi-fibre connectivity to each premises with the premises-level demarcation point being where a household is switched between competing infrastructure providers.

Wall point

As well, there would be a requirement to have a fibre-optic wall point so that customers can easily connect and disconnect their optical network terminal. This would make self-install or “BYO device” arrangements work properly because the customer would have to be able to easily connect equipment that they supply.

Such wall points would be required to be installed where the customer wants their equipment placed. There will be instances where a customer wants two or more wall points that are connected to different fibre-optic infrastructure providers so as to provide a fault-tolerant setup.

Rugged flylead with rugged plugs

Then there would be the need for a rugged flylead with rugged plugs that the customer uses to connect between an optical network terminal (fibre optic modem) and the wall point.

Such cables and plugs would be about being able to be connected and disconnected easily by anyone and not being at risk of damage. It may also be about having these cables offered at lengths that suit the customer’s needs. These would be supplied through retail outlets, packaged with the ONT equipment or supplied by the installer. Most likely this will be in the form of the Single Form Pluggable connection on the equipment side like with the AVM Fritz!Box 5530 advanced home network router.

Why independent install

Having independent install as part of a fibre-to-the-premises setup for home and small-business users would become an economical measure for infrastructure providers. This makes a lot of sense with existing installations where a premises has FTTH / FTTP cabling to the point where a user wants to set up their network equipment.

Here, a technician doesn’t need to come out, supply and install an ONT modem in the premises; avoiding the need for the customer to book an appointment and make sure a responsible adult is waiting around to welcome and supervise the installer.

It would also permit the customer to choose their own kind of FTTP optical-network-terminal equipment. This is more so where the ONT equipment is part of a router and there is the desire to offer innovative better-performing equipment that has functionality that is desired by the customer. As well, manufacturers are encouraged to design smaller desktop units that fit in with the customer’s premises.

This also applies to installation modifications where a customer engages a trained technician to do the job. For example, the customer could engage an electrician who has been trained for AV, telecommunications and other similar work to do any “customer-side” work like moving their equipment or even to wire up a new building or premises.

The role of the infrastructure-supplier’s technicians would be reduced so as to “pull” the fibre-optic cabling from the street to the network demarcation point on the building and maintain that connection. As well, in an environment where there is competing infrastructure providers, the technicians supplied by the competing provider can know where to connect in their cabling to the building’s cabling infrastructure.

The disadvantage associated with independent install for FTTH setups is that the infrastructure provider would lose quality control over the installation. This may not necessarily apply to a self-install arrangement where the goal is to connect customer-supplied equipment to existing connections. But it would apply where new fibre-optic cabling is installed or an existing fibre-optic cabling installation is modified by a third-party technician.

Conclusion

As more countries take on fibre-to-the-premises broadband Internet, there will be the question about making sure that independent installation options are part of the course. This is more so as more premises become wired up to FTTP and the prospect of self-install where customers install replacement or improved equipment themselves becomes appealing as a way for operators to save money.

Deutsche Glasfaser brings full fibre Internet to German rural areas

Article

Flag of Germany

Deutsche Glasfaser brings its own fibre-optic infrastructure to Germany’s regional and rural areas

Deutsche Glasfaser: Das Netz der Zukunft zieht schon bald in eurer Nachbarschaft ein | NETZWELT (German language / Deutsche Sprache)

From the horse’s mouth

Deutsche Glasfaser

Web site (German language / Deutsche Sprache)

My Comments

Deutsche Glasfaser, a German ISP based in Borken (near Dusseldorf), North Rhine Westphalia, is demonstrating an effort towards bringing high-speed Internet to Germany’s regional, rural and suburban areas.

Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone own most of Germany’s infrastructure-level Internet service. This is primarily copper-based technology, either VDSL using traditional telephone cabling or DOCSIS cable-modem technology using coaxial cabling. They offer their own retail services as well as leasing access to this infrastructure to third-party retail operators like 1&1 and Versatel.

A few operators are establishing fibre-to-the-building or fibre-to-the-premises networks and selling retail high-speed Internet service using these networks. This happens in some major cities. But rural and regional areas were just limited to the Deutsche Telekom or Vodafone offerings which weren’t likely to fare well when it comes to bandwidth or service stability. This is very similar to what happens in most countries when it comes to how areas outside major urban areas are treated when it comes to Internet service.

What Deutsche Glasfaser is doing is creating their own FTTP / FTTB infrastructure in these rural, regional and suburban areas, thus cutting out the copper-based technology that can limit bandwidth due to vectoring or error-mitigation measures. There is also a goal to create a nationwide fibre-optic network across Germany in order to establish some form of independence as far as infrastructure is concerned.

The activity that Deutsche Glasfaser and other city-based operators are doing within Germany is similar to what is going on in the UK. That is where many ISPs are setting up their own infrastructure and offering retail Internet service on that infrastructure that is better value for money than what BT Openreach has been offering.

There will be questions arising about whether these services will be required to wholesale their infrastructure-level broadband capacity to competing retail ISPs and at what point. This may be so where the EU or other groups push Germany to facilitate a lively competitive market for high-bandwidth Internet service.

At the moment, Deutsche Glasfaser is active in 1.3 million households in 13 of Germany’s states and slowly building out in more areas.

Service Packages at time of writing

There is complementary connection and installation for your Deutsche Glasfaser service when you take up one of their packages. This includes “shifting” your Internet and telephone service from your extant provider as well as porting your fixed-line number to their service.

€24.99 monthly introductory offer for the first 12 months of service

Price per month Bandwidth Fixed-line telephony
€44.99 300Mb/s download / 150Mb/s upload 2.9c / minute
€49.99 400Mb/s download / 200Mb/s upload Unlimited calls to fixed lines in Germany
€79.99 600Mb/s download / 300Mb/s upload Unlimited calls to fixed lines and mobile telephones in Germany
€89.99 1000Mb/s download / 500Mb/s upload Unlimited calls to fixed lines and mobile telephones in Germany

As far as I know, there doesn’t seem to be any tariff packages or extensions that allow low-cost or unlimited international calling to popular destinations.

They also offer an IPTV service known as DGTV as an extra-cost option. This has 70 high-definition channels, a PVR set-top box and access to video-on-demand services, It costs €15 per month on top of your Deutsche Glasfaser Internet and telephony package.

What I like of the Deutsche Glasfaser effort is that they are bringing up-to-date Internet technology towards rural, regional and suburban Germany through the use of fibre-to-the-premises or fibre-to-the-building technology. It could stir up others to work on similar projects through that country and through Europe.

Is fixed-line broadband still relevant in the era of 5G wireless?

Articles

Gigaclear fibre-optic cable - picture courtesy of Gigaclear

A fixed-line connection like this Gigaclear fibre-to-the-premises setup ….

Will 5G kill off home broadband as we know it? | TechRadar

5G vs Fiber: Will 5G make fiber obsolete? | NetMotion Software

My Comments

This year will see a question about whether Gigabit or faster fixed-line broadband Internet services will be relevant in the face of 5G cellular wireless broadband services.

5G wireless broadband will have a theoretical maximum bandwidth of 10-50Gbps and an average bandwidth of between 100Mbps to 200Mbps. This average speed will start to increase as it becomes less dependent on 4G wireless broadband technology. But these figures are affected by the kind of reception your 5G endpoint device is getting from the service.

Cellular antenna in street

… or 5G wireless cellular broadband (whether fixed-wireless or mobile broadband) – what is relevant?

This typically is delivered in the form of mobile broadband services that are used with smartphones, tablets and other portable devices. But it is also being delivered as a “fixed-wireless” broadband service where the customer connects a more-powerful 5G modem to their home network. Optus is providing this kind of service offering to declare independence from Australia’s NBN service but it is offered in areas where it isn’t technically feasible or too costly to deploy fixed broadband service.

Current-generation fixed-line broadband services are capable of at least 1Gbps upload/download n the case of fibre-to-the-premises services. The ideal setup or “gold standard” for this kind of service is fibre-to-the-premises but various fibre-copper setups are being used that can deliver close to this speed. These are based on DOCSIS 3.x cable-modem technology, RJ45 Ethernet cable technology or G.Fast DSL-based telephone-cable technology with the copper run covering a small neighbourhood or a multi-tenant development.

The 5G technology would be cheap to establish but costly to maintain and upgrade. This is compared to fixed-line broadband technology that would be expensive to establish but cheap to maintain and upgrade. In most cases, an upgrade would be about new equipment in the racks at the headends at least. Or a fibre-copper service may be upgraded through a change of topology towards a full-fibre (fibre-to-the-premises) setup.

Typically, fixed-line broadband would be the preferred solution for those of us living in larger built-up communities. It is although there are efforts like B4RN who are pushing fibre-to-the-premises fixed-line broadband in to rural areas within the UK. Sparser areas may prefer to implement 5G wireless-broadband technology with a few large low-frequency 5G cells covering those areas.

Both technologies can complement and serve each other in various ways.

Since 5G technology is based on a cellular-wireless approach, each base station needs to link to a backhaul to pass the data to each other and to other communications devices connected to wired infrastructure around the world. As well, the 5G wireless technology operates at radio frequencies up to 6GHz thus requiring many smaller “cells” (base stations for a cellular-wireless network) to cover a populous area. Even the use of many of the very small cells like picocells or femtocells to cover buildings or shopping strips would require the use of a backhaul.

In this case, fixed-line broadband networks especially fibre-optic networks can be used to provide this backhaul.

Increasingly, Wi-Fi network segments connected to fixed-line broadband setups are being considered as a complementary wireless-network solution. This may be about providing load-balancing for the 5G-based cellular service, even as a failover mechanism should the user not experience ideal reception conditions or the network underperforms. The classic example here would be indoor settings where building materials and the like obstruct 5G cellular coverage using the typical smartphone’s own antenna.

On the other hand, the 5G technology will maintain its keep for mobile / portable use cases while fixed-line broadband networks will serve in-building network use cases. 5G will also satisfy those use cases where it is technically unfeasible or cost-prohibitive to deploy a fixed-line broadband network.

For that matter, the mobile / portable use cases are what the technologists are banking on for 5G wireless-network technology. Here, they are envisaging the likes of self-driving vehicles, drones and the like depending on this technology for communication with each other. This is along with it being as a data backbone for the “smart city” that is driven by the “Internet of Everything”, facilitating improvements for things like service delivery, public safety / security, transport, energy efficiency and the like.

But 5G and fixed-line broadband, especially fibre-to-the-premises broadband, will exist on a “horses for courses” approach. Here, one technology may be about data reliability and infrastructure upgradeability or the other may be about mobile / portable or transient use.

How regional next-generation infrastructure providers enable competitive Internet service

Previous Coverage

Gigaclear fibre-optic cable - picture courtesy of Gigaclear

Gigaclear – laying their own fibre-to-the-premises within a rural area in the UK

What is happening with rural broadband in the UK

Further Comments

In some countries like the UK, Australia and Germany, regional broadband infrastructure providers set up shop to provide next-generation broadband to a particular geographic area within a country.

This is used to bring next-generation broadband technology like fibre-to-the-premises to homes and businesses within that geographic area. But let me remind you that fibre-to-the-premises isn’t the only medium they use — some of them use fixed wireless or a fibre-copper setup like HFC cable-modem technology or fibre + Ethernet-cable technology. But they aren’t using the established telephone network at all thus they stay independent of the incumbent infrastructure provider and, in some areas like rural areas, that provider’s decrepit “good enough to talk, not good enough for data” telephone wiring.

In the UK especially, most of these operators will target a particular kind of population centre like a rural village cluster (Gigaclear, B4RN, etc), a large town or suburb (Zzoom), city centres (Cityfibre, Hyperoptic, etc) or even just greenfield developments. Some operators set themselves up in multiple population centres in order to get them wired up for the newer technology but all of the operators will work on covering the whole of that population centre, including its outskirts.

This infrastructure may be laid ahead of the incumbent traditional telco or infrastructure operator like Openreach, NBN or Deutsche Telekom or it may be set up to provide a better Internet service than what is being offered by the incumbent operator. But it is established and maintained independently of the incumbent operator.

Internet service offerings

Typically the independent regional broadband infrastructure providers run a retail Internet-service component available to households and small businesses in that area and using that infrastructure. The packages are often pitched to offer more value for money than what is typically offered in that area thanks to the infrastructure that the provider controls.

But some nations place a competitive-market requirement on these operators to offer wholesale Internet service to competing retail ISPs, with this requirement coming in to force when they have significant market penetration.That is usually assessed by the number of actual subscribers who are connected to the provider’s Internet service or the number of premises that are passed by the operator’s street-level infrastructure. In addition, some independent regional infrastructure providers offer wholesale service earlier as a way to draw in more money to increase their footprint.

This kind of wholesale internet service tends to be facilitated by special wholesale Internet-service markets that these operators are part of. Initially this will attract boutique home and small-business Internet providers who focus on particular customer niches. But some larger Internet providers may prefer to take an infrastructure-agnostic approach, offering mainstream retail Internet service across multiple regional service providers.

Support by local and regional government

Local and regional governments are more likely to provide material and other support to these regional next-generation infrastructure operators. This is to raise their municipality’s or region’s profile as an up-to-date community to live or do business within. It is also part of the “bottom-up” approach that these operators take in putting themselves on the map.

In a lot of cases, the regional next-generation infrastructure providers respond to tenders put forward by local and regional governments. This is either to provide network and Internet service for the government’s needs or to “wire up” the government’s are of jurisdiction or a part thereof for next-generation broadband.

Legislative requirements

There will have to be legislative enablers put forward by national and regional governments to permit the creation and operation of regional next-generation broadband network infrastructure. This could include the creation and management of wholesale-broadband markets to permit retail-Internet competition.

There is also the need to determine how much protection a small regional infrastructure operator needs against the incumbent or other infrastructure operators building over their infrastructure with like offerings. This may be about assuring the small operator sufficient market penetration in their area before others come along and compete, along with providing an incentive to expand in to newer areas.

It will also include issues like land use and urban planning along with creation and maintenance of rights-of-way through private, regulated or otherwise encumbered land for such use including competitors’ access to these rights-of-way.

That also extends to access to physical infrastructure like pits, pipes and poles by multiple broadband service providers, especially where an incumbent operator has control over that infrastructure. It can also extend to use of conduits or dark fibre installed along rail or similar infrastructure expressly for the purpose of creating data-communications paths.

That issue can also extend to how multiple-premises buildings and developments like shopping centres, apartment blocks and the like are “wired up” for this infrastructure. Here, it can be about allowing or guaranteeing right of access to these developments by competing service providers and how in-building infrastructure is provided and managed.

The need for independent regional next-generation broadband infrastructure

But if an Internet-service market is operating in a healthy manner offering value-for-money Internet service like with New Zealand there may not be a perceived need to allow competing regional next-generation infrastructure to exist.

Such infrastructure can be used to accelerate the provision of broadband within rural areas, provide different services like simultanaeous-bandwidth broadband service for residential users or increase the value for money when it comes to Internet service. Here, the existence of this independent infrastructure with retail Internet services offered through it can also be a way to keep the incumbent service operator in check.

Litigation about broadband service expectations takes place in the UK

Article

A UK court case is taking place regarding the standard of Internet service available in an apartment block

Owner of Multi-Million Pound UK Flat Sues Over Poor Broadband | ISP Review

Millionaire travel tycoon sues luxury flat owner for £100k over lack of broadband | Evening Standard

My Comments

In the UK, a person who bought a London apartment worth multiple millions of pounds is litigating the owners of the apartment building it is in because of substandard Internet service within the building.

They took up the lease on the apartment after being sold on the fact that there was to be proper Internet coverage to all rooms therein along with proper service within the building. But the service was below par before Hyperoptic ran fibre-optic Internet connectivity through the building in 2016. This led to him using public-access Wi-Fi at a local library and cafe as well as the home network and Internet service at his brother’s home before that installation.

This case, although litigated within the UK, touches on contract-law issues especially when it comes to the description of a premises that is subject to a lease or sale agreement. Here, it is pointing to the expected standard of broadband Internet service and network wiring that is provided within the premises. It is also of importance concerning what is being provided within high-density developments like apartment blocks that based around multiple premises being integrated in few buildings.

But the court case held at the Central London County Court is part of a larger conversation regarding access to multiple-premises developments like apartment blocks by communications infrastructure providers within the UK. This is no matter whether the development is at the budget or premium end of the price scale.

Concurrently, the UK Government are working on regulations regarding the provision of this infrastructure, whether to provide communications and Internet service to the premises in the development or to establish a mobile-telecommunications base station especially where a landlord or building committee who has oversight regarding the building won’t respond.

I see this case bring in to scope issues regarding how the standard of telecommunications services available to a premises is represented in its sale or lease contract. This will have a stronger affect on apartments and similar premises that are integrated within a larger building. It will also be part of the question about infrastructure providers’ access to these buildings and the premises therein.

UK to make Openreach a legally-separate entity

Article

New UK Regulatory Regime Begins for Legally Separate Openreach | ISP Review

My Comments

Australia, the UK and New Zealand have approached the idea of encouraging telecommunications competition in the fixed-line space by detaching the fixed-line infrastructure from the incumbent telco. In Australia, this was with NBN as effectively a public entity buying this infrastructure from Telstra and Optus, or New Zealand who had Telecom NZ split in to Spark as a telecommunications reseller and Chorus as an infrastructure entity.

The Australian and New Zealand effort had an emphasis on creating greater distance between the incumbent telecoms service reseller and the infrastructure entity with a stronger clear-cut emphasis on the infrastructure entity not favouring the incumbent telecoms reseller.  This was through effective legal separation of these companies in a manner that they couldn’t control each other.

But the UK implemented a similar plan for splitting British Telecom by having the fixed-line infrastructure managed by Openreach and BT being a telecoms reseller. But there wasn’t a strict legal delineation between these two companies and this closeness allowed Openreach to continue to operate in the same manner as BT did when it was the UK’s incumbent telco monopoly. This led to poor-quality service and poorly-maintained infrastructure, with BT Openreach ending up with an Internet-wide nickname of “Openwretch”.

The underinvestment in the infrastructure by Openreach was to satisfy BT’s ends rather than providing a high-quality service that would benefit competing telcos or ISPs using that infrastructure. This also rubbed off on the competitors’ customer base with the reduced service reliability and often happened when new technology was being delivered by Openreach. Let’s not forget issues like “cherry-picking” areas that get fibre-to-the-premises broadband or whether rural areas get decent broadband.

New Ofcom regulations were implemented in the UK with the requirement for Openreach to be a company that is legally separate from BT. This meant that they had their own legal identity (Openreach Limited) with its own board of directors and with its staff working for that company. This is meant to effectively permit its own corporate governance that is independent from BT.

There will be the issue of logically moving the employee base to this new identity including rearranging the pensions arrangement for the staff. Let’s not forget that there will be a strong marketing and PR effort directed towards the stakeholders to “refresh” the Openreach image, perhaps with a new brand.

What is meant to happen is that competing telcos and ISPs will he required to have access to the same technology on the same footing as BT. This will also be underscored by newer tougher minimum quality standards including more fibre-to-the-premises broadband deployment across the UK.

There are newer market dynamics affecting the availability of infrastructure for residential and small/medium-business telecommunications and Internet service in the UK. Here, an increasing number of infrastructure providers like Cityfibre, Hyperoptic, Gigaclear and B4RN are providing infrastructure-level competition in various urban and rural areas. This is along with an increasing number of full-fibre installations taking place.

The issues that will crop up include Openreach outbuilding the infrastructure-level competitors in urban areas, especially if they can effectively “possess” a building, street or neighbourhood by having exclusive infrastructure rights to that area. Here, the risk that is being highlighted is the possible market consolidation due to competitors being driven out of business or taken over. I also see this risk affecting ISPs or telcos, especially small-time or boutique operators, who prefer to deal with particular infrastructure providers not being able to operate or being forced to use one of a few providers.

Then there will become the issue of what level of competition is sustainable for the UK’s telecommunications and Internet-service market. It is also a question that can affect any market heads towards or already has infrastructure-level competition for their Internet and telecommunications.

This question can affect ISPs / telcos, end-users, local government and premises owners. A core factor that will come in to play here is what kind of access is granted by an infrastructure provider to retail-level telecommunications / Internet providers on business terms that facilitate competitive operation.

-The factors that come in to play include whether there is an innovation culture where the operators can differentiate themselves on more than just price; and what service price level the market can go below before companies can’t operate profitably. Then there is the issue of whether the UK market really expects a pure-play Internet-only operation from these providers; or a multiple-play operation with fixed-line or mobile telephony, pay-TV or other online services. That also includes the existence of franchised IP-based telephony, pay-TV and other services that will be pitched towards retail-level telcos and ISPs who don’t offer these services.

What I see of the recent activity in making Openreach a company legally-independent from BT is that it is a sign of enabling proper competition for the UK’s telecommunications and Internet services for households and small businesses.

Matthew Hare granted an OBE Honour for rural broadband in the UK

Articles

Fibre optic cable trench in village lane - press picture courtesy of Gigaclear

Fibre to the premises courtesy of Gigaclear

Queen’s Birthday Honours for CEO of Rural FTTP ISP Gigaclear | ISPReview

Matthew Hare awarded OBE for services to broadband provision | ThinkBroadband

From the horse’s mouth

UK Government – Cabinet Office

Queen’s Birthday Honours List

Previous coverage about Matthew Hare OBE

Interviews (2011,2015)

New ISP players working against established players to provide competitive Internet service

Gigaclear hits the big 10,000

First it was Hambleton, now it’s Uppingham to have fibre-optic broadband in Rutland

My Comments

I have given a fair amount of coverage to Matthew Hare and his company, Gigaclear, on this Website. This is due to the effort put in by Matthew Hare and this company to put fibre-to-the-premises broadband in to a significant part of rural England like East Anglia, the Home Counties and now Devon.

As I have highlighted before, rural areas do have a real need for urban-grade broadband Internet service. This is due to the many small businesses that serve these areas, including people who run these businesses from home along with people who live a significant distance from friends and family who are based in city areas. In some cases

It has also encouraged other independent fibre-to-the-premises networks to exist like the Hyperoptic urban network and the B4RN communitiy-driven rural networks.With these networks, the provision of current-expectation Internet service has been about working independently of BT Opennreach who look after the main telecoms infrastructure of the UK.

As I have covered before, Gigaclear have invested GBP£1000 / property to provide a standard of broadband not normally associated with a rural-broadband deployment. It is to provide a symmetrical Gigabit service using fibre-to-the-premises technology rather than a fibre-copper technology which can introduce many variables like decrepit infrastructure.

Just recently, Matthew Hare and Gigaclear received FTTH awards from the FTTH Council Europe who represent European fibre-to-the-premises network providers. This was because of his successful use of that technology in British rural areas.

Now Matthew Hare has received an Order of the British Empire as part of the 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honours thanks to his groundbreaking effort in providing broadband Internet service that is beyond ordinary for rural areas. This Honour, fully referred to as “Officer of the Order of the British Empire” was cited as for “Services to Broadband Provision in the UK”.

There have been some other Royal honours issued in relationship to providing independent Internet service using independent high-grade infrastructure within the UK. One of these is Dana Tobak CBE, whose Honour was granted as part of the New Year’s Honours list in 2017-2018 for her work with Hyperoptic and two granted in 2015 in relationship to the B4RN effort – Christine Conder OBE and Barry Forde MBE.

What these awards are showing is that someone has gone out of their way to provide a high standard of Internet service to Britain’s rural community and has broken the ground to offer it independently of an established incumbent telco or ISP.

Lexington residents undertakes their own effort to push a competitive broadband service

Article

Lexington Kentucky downtown (CBD) view photo By Madgeek1450 at English Wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

Lexington to benefit from real Internet-service competition thanks to an emergency meeting by the city’s council

Angry With Charter, Lexington Forces Broadband Competition | Broadband News and DSL Reports

Lexington Is Downright Pissed About Charter’s High Prices | Broadband News And DSL Reports

Lexington gears up for citywide gigabit-speed internet service | SmileyPete

My Comments

Over the last few years, it has become much easier for the incumbent “Baby Bells” and cable-TV companies to get away with providing a customer-hostile service to most of the USA’s Internet users. This has manifested through onerous terms and conditions, price gouging and poor customer-service quality from these businesses so much so that the average American doesn’t have any faith in them for their telecommunications services.

AT&T Touch-Tone phone - image courtesy of CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=936797

Lexington to keep the city from heading back to the Ma Bell days

It is while these established telcos and cablecos keep lobbying federal, state and local governments to prohibit the deployment of competitive telephony and Internet service and even have a new FCC chairman as their lapdog. In some ways, I describe this current situation as leading the USA’s telecommunications, cable-TV and Internet-service market back to the “Ma Bell” days before Carterfone and the AT&T breakup decree.

But Lexington, Kentucky have undertaken local-government action to facilitate competitive Internet service.

This was achieved through an emergency meeting of the municipal council to open the doors for MetroNet to set up shop in Lexington and provide their own Gigabit fibre-optic infrastructure in order to offer competing Internet service. It was in response to Charter, an incumbent cable-TV company offering cable-modem broadband, taking over Time-Warner Cable and Bright House Networks thus leading to rubbishy customer service and price-gouging.

Regular readers will be aware of the values of a next-generation broadband network based on Gigabit fibre technology. Here, these include home users benefiting form Internet-delivered 4K UHDTV content being quickly streamed or downloaded or reduced lag for online gameplay. Business users and people working from home can also benefit from being able to upload and download business-critical data quickly, implement streamed-video delivery without issues and see reliable use of cloud-driven “as-a-service” computing, amongst other things.

The fibre-optic service is to start coming on line late Northern Summer. Initially it will be rolled out to the area bracketed by east of Lexington’s downtown area and north of Richmond Road, East New Circle Road and the I-75 Interstate highway. The work had started off in January this year and is progressing smoothly.

The goal is to make Lexington, Kentucky the second Gigabit City in the USA, after Chattanooga in the neigbouring state of Tennessee. Here, the Chattanooga effort was facilitated by the city’s Electrical Power Board in 2009. The goal will also be for Lexington to be the USA’s largest Gigabit City. But could these efforts come on as a way to light up various Southern states of the US as places to conduct tech-focused business?

As has been achieved with real service competition especially on an infrastructure level, it will mean that the incumbent operators will have to lift their game to maintain customer loyalty. Infact Charter have registered interest to offer Gigabit-speed cable modem service in a few of their markets but could this competitive pressure have it happening in Lexington?

Matthew Hare and Gigaclear to receive FTTH Council Europe award

Article Gigaclear fibre-optic cable - picture courtesy of Gigaclear

UK fibre operator Gigaclear wins FTTH Council Europe Award | ThinkBroadband

From the horse’s mouth

Gigaclear

Gigaclear’s Chief Executive first Brit to receive prestigious FTTH award (Press Release)

FTTH Council Europe

2018 Awards Press Release (PDF)

My Comments

I have given a fair amount of coverage to the effort that Matthew Hare and Gigaclear have undertaken to get the ball rolling for establishing fibre-to-the-premises in a significant area of rural England. Here, the standard for the service was up to a Gigabit per second symmetrical (upload and download) which was above average for consumer-grade broadband and they were even working with Fluidata to open up these networks for competitive service access.

This includes two telephone-based interviews with Matthew Hare regarding how this company is answering the rural-Internet need and providing a real benefit to the various rural communities. From one of these interviews, I had called out in the report how Oxford Country Cottages were selling this connection as a significant amenity for their self-catering holiday cottages. with follow-up communication with that estate’s owners leading to them identifying that they were benefiting from a significant amount of return business due to this feature.

I was regularly identifying issues like people in the rural communities working from home or running a home-based business or practice as a user group that would benefit from the high standards of coverage. It also included the reality that most of the business activity in rural areas was driven by small businesses who would benefit from cloud computing and other similar technologies that also benefit frim this same coverage standard.

As well, I was also calling out the so-called “tree-changers” who a class of residents who have moved from the cities to rural communities in search of that tranquillity associated with country living. Here, these users want to be able to benefit from the same or better standard of Internet connectivity to maintain contact with their family or, perhaps, to run a business of some sort.

Now the FTTH Council Europe have awarded Matthew Hare with an FTTH Individual Award for his effort in using fibre-to-the-premises as a way to bring real broadband to rural areas. As Matthew said:

“It is an honour to be recognised by such an influential industry body. Since 2010, we have been delivering on our quest to connect some of the UK’s hardest to reach communities to reliable, ultrafast broadband. Every day, we see the difference having a reliable internet connection can make to people’s lives and we remain committed to closing the digital divide, ensuring we put an end to rural isolation. This is just the beginning. There is a lot more we aim to achieve with our fibre networks ”

he was underscoring the realities with working with rural areas along with the benefits that these rollout efforts would bring to the communities. He was also highlighting the feasibility of rolling out full-fibre broadband in to relatively-sparse rural areas including hamlets and villages. There is also the fact that if the established operators won’t answer a need, independent operators could end up satisfying that need.

What has happened today for Matthew Hare and Gigaclear could be a ray of encouragement for anyone wanting to provide fibre-to-the-premises broadband in a rural area.

Symmetrical data transfer speeds to arrive at the cable modem

Article

Your Crappy Cable Upstream Speeds Could Soon Improve | Broadband News And DSL Reports

My Comments

There is a significant number of broadband Internet services around the world that still implement cable-modem technology that uses the coaxial cable rather than Ethernet or xDSL technology for the copper run.

But most of these setups are limited to an asymmetrical download-upload bandwidth even though newer DOCSIS 3.0 standards open up download speeds of 1Gbps. This has effectively ruled out cable-modem services for business applications including those of us who work from home.

CableLabs have cemented a new standard called Full Duplex DOCSIS 3.1 which allows for symmetrical bandwidths of up to 10Gbps. This can allow cable-TV companies and the like who implement coaxial-cable technology to sell business-grade cable-modem Internet using that technology. The idea will be to bake it in to the DOCSIS 3.1 specification suite which will be used to assess cable-modem endpoint equipment and cable-Internet services.

I would also see this benefit fibre-coaxial next-generation broadband setups by allowing for up to 10Gbps symmetrically and making them legitimate with a wide range of users. The main problem that will affect its deployment in the US cable marketplace is the notorious reticence for the cable companies to implement this technology or make it available for a price that is reasonable for residential and small-business users. This is a symptom of the poor level of competition that is existing in that marketplace.