The Reach of BT’s FttX announcements

October 6, 2010 in Adrian's tech blog

Now that BT’s has made its sixth set of announcements I decided to map the expected coverage of BT’s FttX roll-out so far. Below is a mini gallery of the UK coverage and for my neighbours in Oxfordshire (click on each image to load larger version)

[if-tags tags="BT"]

The good news, for me at least, is that I should have FttC in time for Christmas next year and since I can see the green cabinet from my office window hopefully it will make a major difference.

Generally, however, the roll-out seems to be following the DCLG model of NGA deployments for 65% coverage, which for my neighbours means we may reasonably expect to see Carterton, Eynsham, Didcot Wallingford, Kidlington and Woodstock announced in later phases – although probably not much more for Oxfordshire.

Of course this is where maps can provide a tilted picture – although the area covered is still very small, the population is disproportionately large as these are typically areas with very high population density. By my calculation from ONS data and trying to predict the exchange areas, it looks like the announcements so far will reach around 24% of homes in England and Wales – it sounds like we are about a third of the way through BT’s announcements.

As a personal comment on progress – BT announcements have recently been good news which few could really criticize, so its a shame that they had to spoil it by announcing a competition for qualifying communities to prove their demand with the prize of BT enabling the five most ardent areas. With smaller exchanges excluded, this is more likely to allow a very small number of people to jump a queue they didn’t know they were already in, and by my calculation the lucky communities are more likely to get 4 numbers or more on the National Lottery than win BT’s prize.

The slow build of broadband investment in the UK is becoming an emotive debate. While BT’s announcements of new areas help to demonstrate real progress, spin like BT Retail’s “Race to Infinity” competition are more likely to further stoke emotions.

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cyberdoyle
the whole BT race is to nowhere. Any areas who get FTTC are not going to be upgraded for decades. Liv Garfield herself said that. It was also announced this week that longer lines will be considered, and the service they get will be around 5 megabits. Liv also said she thinks cabinets are a futureproof solution.
I think this is the biggest con of the century. It will mean the notspots get bigger and the heat is taken out of NGA as large urban areas get faster speeds. They won’t see farther than their noses and won’t realise they have been sold a donkey for a year or two. By then it will be too late. There won’t be another bite at the cherry for them…
chris
- adrian
  I tend to agree with you. Its interesting when you contrast the kind of language used by Rutland Telecom, which mirrors the experiences from Europe, with that coming from BT. While BT maintain that FttC is the sufficient, Rutland are quite clear that their goal is to deliver fibre all the way and that FttC is a practical intermediate step. Few other countries (in fact none come to mind) are focussing their NGA delivery on FttC except as a second tier technology behind FttH – I think BT is pretty much alone in doing the reverse (although I’m sure this all part of their tactics to maintain their position).
  In other European countries around two-thirds of NGA connections are being delivered by non-incumbents – other organisations feel less threatened and more able to invest.
  Adrian
cyberdoyle
Yes, I worry that Rutland Telecom who have done great things get lumbered into the FTTC bracket. We know they are using it as a stepping stone as demand builds, but BT are using it to protect their copper cabal. As long as they can keep all the punters on the phone lines they keep their monopoly and throttle our digital revolution…
chris
- adrian
  While I worried once, I don’t worry about Rutland any more – they are smart people and adapt very quickly – they have some great plans in the pipeline and their partnership with the engineering company, Babcocks, will help as well. As Mark Melluish often says, they can survive very well on the scraps left by BT and at the moment that means at least 20% of the country – or 5,000,000 homes.
domhnall
don’t bet on getting FTTC. My area has been enabled, I can see the cabinet. Every street around here has FTTC, but mine doesn’t. No one can explain why other streets served by my cabinet get FTTC but we’re still stuck with 1Mb/s. Very frustrating!
- adrian
  Thanks for this – I’ve heard anecdotal evidence of this from the early areas, that some people are being passed over, and when BT announces an exchange as part of their deployment they don’t necessarily mean the whole exchange either. This is having a negative impact on some alternative network builders as BT is staking a claim to an areas as much as they are deploying new broadband – with half a town gone, there is no business case for anyone else. I suspect we will hear more of this kind of thing as the competition heats up.

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