The local fibre is specific to that provider, not (yet) company agnostic. There are fibre trunk networks that are third parties and Virgin and BT use a lot of them. They carry all sorts of data, eg for banks, TV, alarms etc and voice telecoms or internet is just a bit of the traffic.
With copper to the home that is almost a monopoly for Openreach now because there is no money in it but the trunk for that is is now fibre. You can only switch to another ‘copper’ feed if the other company has installed their own local switch, or now commonly rented a block of the original BT equipment.

Openreach installed my Fibre … from the pole, all the way to inside the house; where I simply plugged it into the FRITZ!Box router that was supplied by Zen internet.

At my request, the copper from pole to premises was also removed.

My DECT phones work fine with the VoIP that’s built into the FRITZ!Box

MichaelG.

.

Edit: __ for curiosity, I have just tried my PostCode on this page:

https://www.connectfibre.co.uk/?packageType=home

and No, it is “not yet”available here … which suggests to me that underground and overhead fibres are managed separately .

Interesting note, thanks David

MichaelG.

.

P.S. ___ this [from the other team] may be interesting to Robin

https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/fttp-providers

I have just watched an advert for Plusnet fibre, which is BT by another name. They are quoting an annual price increase of RPI + 3.9%. How greedy can this company be? Unbelievable!

On 15 February 2024 at 17:13 Chris Crew Said:

… How greedy can this company be? …

About as greedy as Ofcom will let them

You may find this of interest:

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/news-centre/2023/ban-on-inflation-linked-mid-contract-price-rise

… Looks like Ofcom might actually be waking-up.

MichaelG.

Just to demonstrate how history repeats itself, I believe that the reason the GPO got the telephone monopoly was because all the different companies were digging up the roads and pavements for their own cables.

On 16 February 2024 at 08:44 John Haine Said:

Most access providers can deliver broadband from a range of service providers and I think this may be a regulatory requirement.  So on an Openreach line you can subscribe to Vodafone, Sky, EE etc as well as BT. Likewise most offer voice over IP service and number portability so you can have a “fixed” phone if you want to.

That’s broadly true, at least in theory, but I suspect what’s on the ground makes a difference.

My mum is a TalkTalk customer, but her connection is actually provided by BT.   When her phone went wrong, BT knew nothing about it, I had to report the fault to TalkTalk, who pass it on to BT, who send an OpenReach (BT) engineer out to climb the pole and fix it.   In her example, all the infrastructure between TalkTalk and mum is provided and maintained by BT.   This is a very common arrangement, and fairly easy to switch provider.

Next door gets his fibre network from an independent.   They’ve run a fibre cable from a box at the end of the road all the way into his home, and his original BT phone line is disconnected.   The fibre is strung between BT owned telegraph poles.   It’s not clear where the fibre connects to the internet.   Might link to a trunk laid along along the main road by the independent about a mile away, but there’s no sign of any road works or poles to support that.   I suspect it’s connected to a nearby BT Green Box, and uses BT’s internet backbone.  Other customers probably connect direct to the independents backbone, depending on what’s available locally.

The arrangement is complicated and I’ve no idea who fixes what when it breaks.  For example, if a car crashes into a pole, BT will fix my telephone wire, but I guess not my neighbour’s fibre because that belongs to someone else.   I don’t know what happens if my neighbour switches to another provider:  presumably, they re-use the existing fibre if they can, or lay a new one if they can’t.

A case of sins of the fathers I think.  In the good old days the GPO were an aggressive government owned monopoly, positively holding the British economy back by slow, expensive delivery of out-dated underperforming technology.   Not entirely their fault, because modernisation required the owner (government) to invest, which they were extremely reluctant to do, not least because tax cuts are much more popular than tax increases!   The answer was privatisation, which allowed BT to borrow money commercially, but only if they weren’t a monopoly.  Unfortunately, the monopoly was broken by creating a kind of artificial market: it mostly works,  but adds a lot of complexity, which customers hate when it goes wrong.  You ring up to complain about your phone, only to find complaints are managed by the English National Opera!   A similar approach was taken with many other public sector services.   Results have been mixed, the state of the railways is ‘quite interesting’!   Is it really sensible to run the Post Office and Royal Mail as two separate businesses?

The same issue occurs in commerce too.   Boeing are in the poo at the moment because their latest jet has been involved in too many embarrassing safety incidents.   Root cause appears to be quality control problems resulting from a decision to separate Boeing into two separate companies.

The original Boeing is now an assembler, and most of their manufacturing side was sold off.   Previously, Boeing had complete control of both operations, now they don’t.   After separation, it seems Boeing subjected the manufacturing side to cost-cutting, causing a relationship problems with their key supplier.  They aren’t friends!

Boeing remain wholly responsible for the safety of their aircraft, but now have to deal with a third party, who may or may not be responsible for quality control.   What should be confirmed during manufacture, or assembly, or both isn’t clear, and having sold the manufacturing arm off, Boeing have no direct control over it.  The separation, intended to save money, has instead created a massive problem.   Boeing as assembler, and the ex-Boeing manufacturing side, are both technically competent, but separating them appears to be a bad command and control mistake.

Be interesting to see what happens: I wouldn’t be surprised to see Boeing trying to buy manufacturing back.  That’s likely to cost them a bomb because the manufacturing arm is worth whatever Boeing are prepared to pay for it, and Boeing are over a barrel.

It’s an interesting example of how solving one problem creates another.

Dave

” I suspect it’s connected to a nearby BT Green Box, and uses BT’s internet backbone. ”

No and Yes. An Openreach fibre (FTTP) will return to a 32 way splitter (passive) usually within 200metres or so depending on density of housing. The incoming side of the passive splitter will then go all the way back to a headend. Headends are geographically about 15 miles or so apart in rural counties. The fibre plugs into the backbone of the the internet at these points Via an SFP (small form factor pluggable) connector converting light to electrical signals which are then in turn combined to go on a few fibres for redundancy and bandwidth back to a central point.

Some providers connect into openreach head ends some of the bigger providers have their own. It’s about cost, volume and reselling at all points. Independent networks use their own local green boxes due to their technology design.

The design of Openreach network is different to other operators (wholesale in this context) so they have no capability to repair other operators equipment. If infrastructure is damaged and as a result network of any party is damaged it will be the wholsale providers responsibility. So in openreach case both infrastructure and network is repaired other wholesale provider wait until infrastructure repaired then repair their network.

Changed to Truespeed a couple of years ago from BT on which we were getting about 10Mb/sec.

Truespeed 80Mb for less than BT offered for their pathetic speed. (BT didn’t offer Fibre at all)

Truespeed is FTTP.

Includes Anytime calls (up to an hour a time)

Router and installation included.

So far been well pleased with Truespeed (we are Somerset)

Bill D.

It all seems a bit of a mess. near us there are many people unhappy with the proliferation of new poles. I suspect some of these new companies will go bust.

On 16 February 2024 at 11:19 SillyOldDuffer Said:

<p class=”bsp-quote-title”>Boeing are in the poo at the moment because their latest jet has been involved in too many embarrassing safety incidents.   Root cause appears to be quality control problems resulting from a decision to separate Boeing into two separate companies.</p>

Not to mention designing a door plug that fits from the outside (where the cabin pressure tends to blow it out and makes it susceptible to indifferent servicing) rather than the inside (where the cabin pressure tends to make it a tighter fit).

But, ah the bottom line.

Doing the rounds for value.

Originally had to go to cable many years ago due to Industry next door blocking TV signal, 44 F1 cars on grid and result was always a dead heat between two cars from same team. Original supply was BB, land line and BASIC TV.

Original supplier was Yorkshire Cable, this became Telewest and then Virgin. Due to yearly increases “”To Maintain Existing Service,” TV was chopped but again, service charges reached a point where Virgin were told to go and self procreate. We then changed over to the then fledgling Talk Talk, 11 moggies BB and LL only on a fixed price for duration of contract basis and to be fair, (at that time) this was honoured. After the initial contract, there was to be a price increase of £6 per month, problem was, they were advertising Fast Fibre cheaper, sooo, “Lets have FF” ‘Yes Sir, no problem’ and an ‘Installation’ date given. Come the day and “Errr,, we can’t supply due to BTs supply box that serves you, doesn’t have a fibre connection AND NEVER WILL HAVE”

This created a stay of execution due to slow speed BB connection and original price was maintained. Problem arose when account name and direct debit payer had to be changed due to my wifes demise, she was original customer. As far as Yackety Yack  were concerned, this created a ‘New’ account and ‘New’ contract price, this to be the pre ‘fibre’ increase they’d tried. Another trouble was, in the mean time, they’d adopted the ‘Big Boys’ legalised yearly rip off.  Tolerated this for 12 months but when an increase to over £30 for 11 mogs and unreliable drop out service was demanded, TT was told to B****r off B****r Off.

Shell then came on the scene with a lower than £20 service, again BT supplied, but when 12 month contract came up for renewal, it was to be over £30 for an 11Mb service (which we know is only between 2 and 5) but was regularly timed at 0.02. Luckily, an “Independent” Fibre supplier was flooding the area with poles and Fibre lines at a two year ‘Fixed’ price for less than Shell price and a 100 moggy speed, Guess what. Don’t really need Warp factor 27 for T’internet but we’ll see what happens in December 2025 (iF i’m still stealing Air)

“Gipsys Tramps and Thieves, Double Glazing salesmen and ISPs”

Regards  Ian