Comreg sorts out LLU just as it becomes pointless

watty

I've said before that I think in the medium term LLU is pointless as ADSL is too slow for many people and too few (< 66%) even have a phone line. We needed decent LLU pricing and decent line rental pricing and almost all exchanges enabled 10 years ago.

So we are TEN YEARS behind with LLU and eircom's recent re-marketing launch of DSL by capacity rather than speed.

We need FTTH, and Cable in urban
FTTC in suburban
and FTTC/Long reach DSL repeaters and High performance fixed wireless (Min 5Mbps) for those rural that can't get FTTC.

Orange is to give up running its own broadband network, and will rebundle its service to leave BT Wholesale to compete with itself.

Orange will hand over its existing infrastructure to BT Wholesale, and will continue to operate as a bundled broadband provider in the same mould as Vodafone, Tesco and the dozen or so other ISPs that resell BT's connectivity.

For years the internet service providers fought with BT for access to the local exchanges so they could fit their own ADSL connections. Unlike the previous generation of modems, which could connect a customer directly from their home to the ISP's offices, ADSL can only connect the user to the local exchange, and as long as BT had the keys to that exchange no-one else could sell ADSL.

The process of permitting other ISPs into the exchange is known as "Local Loop Unbundling", and these days the keys to the exchanges are owned by BT OpenReach, and almost every exchange in the UK is now open to other ISPs. In fact many exchanges remain exclusive to BT Wholesale for economic reasons - only BT has the necessary scale.

Orange isn't the first company to decide that duplicating the kit isn't worthwhile. Most operators unbundle the more-popular exchanges then resell BT everywhere else.

Unbundling does give the ISP compete control of the connection which can be useful for premium services. TalkTalk, for example, only offers its TV service on unbundled exchanges, where it can guarantee the bandwidth, but that needs an economy of scale that Orange can't replicate.

via http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/16/orange_bundling/

If Orange sees no point in LLU in UK, what value has LLU here?

paulm17781

The only thing is, they've had competition in the UK for 10 years. We've only had it here in the last 2 - 3 because of UPC. I agree there isn't much scope from LLU but if we could push it to 24Mbps everywhere it'd be better than what we have now.

Kristopherus

Watty, I think your thread title is misleading. Are you talking about Comreg or Offcom ?

paulm17781

Kristopherus wrote: »

Watty, I think your thread title is misleading. Are you talking about Comreg or Offcom ?

We've just gotten LLU sorted out over here, meanwhile in the UK the operators are going back to Bitsteam. His point is LLU is not relevant anymore. One could argue, Eircom played it well. Hold off competition until it becomes irrelevant.

watty

paulm17781 wrote: »

The only thing is, they've had competition in the UK for 10 years. We've only had it here in the last 2 - 3 because of UPC. I agree there isn't much scope from LLU but if we could push it to 24Mbps everywhere it'd be better than what we have now.

That's my point. even if EVERY exchange tomorrow had 24Mbps,

33% would have no line at all
of the 66% with a line

• about 10% would get no working DSL at all
• about 10% get 1Mbps approx
• majority in 3Mbps to 10Mbps, average maybe 7Mbps
• about 5% would get more than 20Mbps

My title is awkward, but not misleading.

Capt'n Midnight

Oddly enough was listening to someone talking about how when times were though you could cut back on most things and since you already had clothes all you really needed was a shower, food and internet access.

Different people have different necessities but at this stage for a lot of people internet access is as it can replace TV, phone, library, not to mention the opportunity for telecomuting / job searching.


Could we just say that LLU was a failure and in the same way that you can buy your electricity and gas off different suppliers but over the same network we should do the same with internet, and split the network from the vendors ?

Yeah we missed out big time during the boom, could have insisted on passive insulation / solar heating and fibre and ducted services to each house for a tiny fraction of the cost of construction.

ADSL is fine when you want to upgrade old legacy cable, but compared to fibre / cable it's a legacy solution and should not be used for new installs.

thebman

Honestly Imagine moved into Maynooth with their WiMAX and in my estate alone, the vans were freaking everywhere for 10 days installing in half the estates in the place because they were 10 euro cheaper than the competition and I'm guessing many already had Irish BB now owed by Imagine and were being swapped over.

But still, none of those houses has a phone line and its one of the biggest estates in the town. Crazy stuff when you think about it. How eircom can continue with their current policy of not investing in the network and bringing down line rental (should abolish it at this stage), I'll never know.

Its self destructive. I would have hoped them being acquired would have lead to a change in policy that you know if we don't do something here soon, there won't be a company left in a few years.

Eircom never ceases to amaze me with their inability to realise they are in a hole and need to stop digging.

Firetrap

That's the thing, isn't it? I know quite a few people who have gotten rid of their landlines or never got them in in the first place because of the price. That they're using now mobile internet is a whole different issue.