Vodafone signs deal with CityFibre to connect 5 million homes with full fibre Vodafone has inked a deal for a full-fibre network built by CityFibre, which could connect up to 5 million premises over the next eight years. The network is expected to reach one million homes in 12 towns and cities by 2021, and could be extended to another four million in 50 locations by 2025, with construction commencing in …
Low-hanging fruit again
And, your point is? This appears to be mostly a commercial project, and they'd be mad not to go for the most attractive locations first.
But if it is any comfort, I'm not sure how they'll make it pay its way even in the target cities.. The list on the CityFibre website indicates they're proposing to compete in many locations with Virginmedia, whose penetration (connections per passed property) was only about 1 in 6. So at a residential level, most of the potential customers are turning their nose up at VM, and those that do connect, few are opting to pay for the highest speed of 300 Mbps. I don't see how Voda/CityFibre can make a compelling case, since the gigabit speed potential is far beyond what 99% of residential customers need. Things may be different in places without the cable option (I think only Aberdeen, Milton Keynes).
"This appears to be mostly a commercial project"
...and while that mindset remains - we'll never get the "100% coverage by 2020" (or whatever the Government's pledge is this week...)
About time someone high up realised that this should be a National Infrastructure project - and paid for accordingly... instead of certain vanity projects
"we'll never get the "100% coverage by 2020"
And we won't get it because users are not prepared to pay for it - which is as it should be.
I currently choose not to pay more for a faster service from VM. I sure as hell don't want to be forced to pay about £600 to be able to decline a faster service from an extra provider.
For: "Users are not prepared to pay for it"
Read: "Can't afford to be extorted by the likes of BT, VM, et al due to factors such as local geography"
What I'm taking about getting the WHOLE country up to a base level that's worth the name - once that's done, then let those who want more pay for it.
What I'm taking about getting the WHOLE country up to a base level that's worth the name - once that's done, then let those who want more pay for it.
Your concept of some decent Universal Service Obligation as a minimum, and people paying more for speed cannot work very well if you aspire to anything above 20 Mbps, because at that level there's not much difference between the cost of doing the job properly and a "minimum acceptable level".
Look at cable - the cost to VM of each new connection, and the costs to serve once connected are essentially independent of the speed. So it would be with any USO on Openreach (or other providers). I'd certainly expect them to charge more to users for higher speed connections purely for commercial reasons, but the actual costs we'd all incur through a USO would still be the same high figure.
Ofcom Dec 2016... "BT intends to connect 2 million premises in this way by 2020, and Virgin Media plans to extend its ultrafast cable and fibre network to reach a further 4 million premises."
intends... plans... BT was handed a monoply position and retains that through OpenReach. Even though competitors now have 'greater access' to infrastructure and can build fibre as easily as BT, there should be a legal requirement for BT to invest in installing fibre and very strict targets / penalies.
Roll on 5G and the death of BT.
The link-up seemed a good idea, until I read past City Fibre, to Vodafone. I was once a customer of Vodafone. In fact I was a customer of them three times. On each occasion that I left, I swore that I'd never go back. That I did was solely down to one product, Sure Signal, that Voda were selling. It was very good for people like me with no local signal, but then it was not made by Voda, so no plaudits for that. Now, I'd not go back to them, even if they were offering a service for 2p per month. Their Customer Service was dire, in every department, on every occasion.
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