Update on Origin Broadband's plans following closure of DRL

[Dardandec 32]

i know which of the two i would rather give my money to. same reason i try to shop in independent shops. I support the little guys and like my money to stay local.

 

Totally agree, I love to see local business thrive. Unfortunately I was never able to use Origin (Always wanted to) due to our cabinet not being DR enabled and like I said due to the service I get from BT I will be hard pushed to ever change providers.

Edited May 13, 2014 by Dardandec
Typo

[karl101 10]

Totally agree, I love to see local business thrive. Unfortunately I was never able to use Origin (Always wanted to) due to our cabinet not being DR enabled and like I said due to the service I get from BT I will be hard pushed to ever change providers.

 

Once Origin move off DR, they'll be on BT's (BT Openreach) network. You can move safe in the knowledge that you'll still be on BT's network, but not on BT's Customer Service.

 

K.

[ShefStealth 10]

From what I have heard the Digital Region fibre network runs on a different technology to the BT one so they couldn't simply buy it up and connect it to their existing network.

 

The fibre is fundamentally the same (Fibre optic is fibre optic i.e throw a laser down a light tube) it's how it's terminated, the type of light and the wavelengths that make the difference. BT could easily incorporate the DR fibre into their own network, they'd just need to change equipment in the cabs. They'd have extra cabinet space in each area that they do this so they could provide diversionary traffic paths and redundancy to their own network but they won't want to do this because then South Yorkshire would have a 'better' Fibre rollout than other areas. They also don't want to be responsible for more on-street assets than they need to, as the associated costs of maintenance against more 'street furniture' wouldn't make a good business case.

 

BT have a history of always sweating their old assets for as long as possible in order to get the maximum return on investment, and only upgrading when they have a business need. Backtrack to 2005 when BT announced that they were upgrading ADSL line speeds - they did this because of the way that they were charging ISPs for data usage was changing, and the faster customers could get data across the network, the more they'd download and the more profit BT stood to make. They also figured that ISPs would need to upgrade their backhaul networks in order to cope with the additional capacity that customers would require in order to utilise the increased speeds before network contention kicked in at the ISP side. The majority of ISPs were lighting up 155MBps and 622MBps trunks at that time. They at that point could have rolled IPSream MAX (up to 8Mbps rate adaptive) as soon as each DSLAM in each exchange was upgraded (they were upgrading the DSLAMs/line cards to enable the newer technology) but instead rolled up to 2Mbit in the first year, then the following year rolled up to 8Mbps. Why? So multiple upgrades could be made, and more price jumps/hikes could be given/justified - every regrade order than an ISP made outside of the BT uplift was charged for, and they knew that customers would either pay for an expedited uplift especially if they saw others on the same exchange with faster speeds, or the ISPs would foot the bill as part of any customer complaint in order to avoid ombudsmen complaints. BT also knew that the faults generated by the uplift, whilst being an inconvenience to many customers may mean that people migrated back to BT thinking that they'd get a better service. Separately, around this time was when Ofcom ordered BT Wholesale to treat LLU ISPs the same as their own customers and BT offspun their engineers to become Openreach (they'd been incorporated into Wholesale before) Conveniently enough too, this was also the time that BT introduced customer penalty charges for missed engineer appointments, and false call out charges if a fault was not found to be with the BT network. Lots of customers suffered as a result of network speed uplifts, from basic filters being too flaky and out of spec to handle higher and more sensitive line speeds. All of this meant more profit for BT at the time - customers have since learnt more about the xDSL/PSTN networks because of this through necessity, in order to reduce the possibility of any false callout charges.

 

 

Once Origin move off DR, they'll be on BT's (BT Openreach) network. You can move safe in the knowledge that you'll still be on BT's network, but not on BT's Customer Service.

 

K.

 

It's actually BT Wholesale's network i.e it's BT Wholesale's products (In the ADSL world it was IPStream etc. In the PSTN world now other providers sell WLR or 'Wholesale Line Rental' - The clue is in the name there...) BT Openreach are just the engineer department that make sure that the physical assets of BT and the different LLU network providers are interfaced correctly.

[AlexAtkin 10]

Your getting 100/33 because there's only like 3 people connected to DR, imagine how much faster you would get to work on the motorway if there was only 3 people using it.

 

Not true, I am getting 100/33 because I have a short high quality line and Digital Region do not artificially limit my speed.

 

There are plenty of people on BT already which have a max attainable as high as mine, but BT have the maximum sync speeds capped on their DLM.

 

I am still subject to the same crosstalk I would be if I were on the BT cabinet, because the crosstalk happens in the cable bundle from the cabinet up to the house. Heck, my max attainable is actually 110/33 so there is still some leeway for a little more crosstalk before my download speed drops.

[Dardandec 32]

Not true, I am getting 100/33 because I have a short high quality line and Digital Region do not artificially limit my speed.

 

There are plenty of people on BT already which have a max attainable as high as mine, but BT have the maximum sync speeds capped on their DLM.

 

I am still subject to the same crosstalk I would be if I were on the BT cabinet, because the crosstalk happens in the cable bundle from the cabinet up to the house. Heck, my max attainable is actually 110/33 so there is still some leeway for a little more crosstalk before my download speed drops.

 

All well and good but I think you'll find most of it is down to traffic there's more than 3 people connected to BT fibre Friday evenings is the best time for max speed. I will eagerly await the updates on your sig

[AlexAtkin 10]

I was under the impression BT are pretty keen to keep on top of contention at the cabinets.

 

I certainly doubt my cabinet would have such a problem as the people round here do not seem exactly technically minded. I would be surprised if anyone on my cabinet knows what a torrent is.

 

Its rather besides the point anyway as DLM caps at 80/20. Like I said, the VDSL CAN handle 100/33, at no point did I say the backhaul could handle every customer doing that at the same time. But as most of my downloading is the early hours of the morning or during the day, I don't think I would have a problem.

Edited May 17, 2014 by AlexAtkin

[Mikes10 10]

So what sort of deals are Origin going to offer in order to attract users away from BT/SKY/TalkTalk?

 

If you are on currently on a BT ADSL connection and BT say your cabinet is not going to be upgraded to fibre

in the near future, but Origin say we will connect you to our fibre, I can see a reason to move.

 

If your are currently on a BT/SKY/TalkTalk fibre connection and you are happy with it, what would entice

you to move? What added value have Origin got to offer for you to even consider moving?

[AlexAtkin 10]

So what sort of deals are Origin going to offer in order to attract users away from BT/SKY/TalkTalk?

 

They aren't, Origin were never a mainstream ISP like those. They don't really have much of a choice really, a small ISP simply cannot compete on price with those as they actually gamble on potentially making a loss on their broadband deals on the condition they will make it back over time due to loyalty, video on demand or the customer not being a heavy user.

 

Origin should be more directly compared with the likes of Zen Internet and AAISP. Basically, more specialised ISPs that offer static IPs, have lower contention ratios and are less likely to get court orders demanding they block piracy sites.

 

Origin have also suggested that they would like to try line bonding, something none of the major ISPs are likely to offer.

Edited May 17, 2014 by AlexAtkin

[Mikes10 10]

From what I remember of previous news articles about Digital Region, the network requires about 100,000 users

to be viable, that's about 97,000 more than at present.

 

Back in February the UK Government offered £10m to keep the network going, presumably Origin are using this

funding to grow the service, on the other hand they could just sit-back, spend the money maintaining the service,

and when it's all been spent just like 'Oliver' ask for more.

 

In the coming months are we likely to have 'The Invisible World' or 'The In Your Face World' of Origin Broadband?

[AlexAtkin 10]

I don't see how Digital Region being given money to keep running has any relation to Origin, except giving them more time to expand.

 

An ISP pays for access to that network, not the other way around.

[Paddy 10]

That 10 million pounds won't be spent on keeping Digital Region going as that is finished and the 4 South Yorkshire councils don't want to waste anymore money on it.

 

See the below link for how it could be spent but 4 months later we are still waiting to hear something.

 

http://m.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/main-topics/general-news/councils-stay-silent-as-ministers-propose-broadband-salvation-1-6368201

Edited May 18, 2014 by Paddy

[AlexAtkin 10]

They said

Back in February the UK Government offered £10m to keep the network going, presumably Origin are using this

funding to grow the service,

, keeping "the network" going. Digital Region is "the network", so if that is true then Origin get nothing out of it.

 

If its something like BDUK money then Origin STILL do not benefit there either, other than like all others ISPs by increasing their potential customer base. That money goes to BT/Virgin to improve the last-mile connection, its nothing to do with the ISPs.

Edited May 18, 2014 by AlexAtkin