Member Info for fleccy

It's been mentioned a few times, but the current low share price must be a gift to Vodafone in the midst of the share buyback program. You'd think the company purchasing more than 5 million shares a day would lift the price. I wonder if the share price will magically rise, once the share buybacks are complete.

I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.

Ryanair Holdings are listed on several stock exchanges, the three main listings are as follows:

Listing................ Average shares traded each day, past 30 days
ETR: RY4C.......... 22.93K
LON: RYA........... 486.37K
NASDAQ: RYAAY 260.05K (1,3 MIllion Ordinary shares)

The US ADR is made up of 5 ordinary shares meaning the actual average daily trades, of ordinary shares in the US, is 1.3 Million. I'm only guessing, but it looks as though the Nasdaq listing is where the majority of trading in Ryanair is taking place, so RYA's share price is likely tied to the general performance of the Nasdaq. There are a couple of other listings, on OTCMKTS, and BVMF, but I've ignored them.

Just another chartist view, I take them all with a big pinch of salt. No chart would have forcast BT climbing from 98.7p, on the 2nd Oct 2020, to 205p on the 17th June 2021, and then dropping back to around 157p now. I have no idea what drives individual stock prices, these days, but it doesn't appear to be human beings. How do you chart algo's making nanosecond decisions on the fly? I've said previously that chartist traders are predictable, and therefore at the mercy of the algos. Unless your trading for fun, with small amounts, trades based on charts are extremely risky in my opinion, since the algo's can suck you in and then spit you out. Maybe some savant traders can see the patterns and beat the algo's, but there can't be many of those. Many of the chart based forecasting articles seem like Tarot readings, hedged with if's, but's, and maybe's.

"Do not hit these links, especially the last one."

Why's that Rod? Genuine question since Youtube and otcmarkets.com are both valid safe websites.

"What the hell happened today then? Thought that was supposed to be a good decision in BT’s favour today. What’s gone wrong?"

I don't see the Equinox news as a surprise, it was pretty much certain Ofcom weren't going to stop it. I don't believe the Government/Ofcom care about the Altnets, maybe they want Openreach as the Telecom equivalent to the National Grid. If you disregard the news, BT performed better than Vodafone today.

Comedy Gold

"Rivals Sigh as Ofcom Clear Openreach FTTP Broadband Price Cut UPDATE2"

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/09/rivals-sigh-as-ofcom-clear-openreach-fttp-broadband-price-cut.html

"CHICAGO, Sept 29 (Reuters) - AstraZeneca Plc's COVID-19 vaccine demonstrated 74% efficacy at preventing symptomatic disease, a figure that increased to 83.5% in people aged 65 and older, according to long-awaited results of the company's U.S. clinical trial published on Wednesday.

Overall efficacy of 74% was lower than the interim 79% figure reported by the British drugmaker in March, a result AstraZeneca revised days later to 76% after a rare public rebuke from health officials that the figure was based on "outdated information.""

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine-shows-210000891.html

If this trial has only just completed, then am I correct in thinking it's taken place during the surge in US Delta variant cases? Will the Delta Variant outbreak be factored into the new results? Since those figures seem really good to me in the current environment, maybe AZN should be given the credit they deserve. The AZN/Oxford vaccine has been reputationally trashed on purpose, in my opinion, since there's no profit in an at cost vaccine.

"Invest in what you know is his mantra."

I assume he used to be a baker before he went into trading then?

" . . . 128th order Dynamic Polarization enables one 1.8 Tbps LEOSat to relay . . . "

The problem I have with mm wave communications, is the range and atmospheric limitations as you go up in Frequency. The guy's who come up with these ideas probably have multiple degrees in Engineering and Science, whereas my experience comes from working with line of sight microwave terrestrial links. It's getting around to 12 years since I did any work involving microwave radio, but I saw issues over much shorter distances than those involving satellite communication. On Terrestrial links, planners use a program that calculates link budget based on expected rainfall, terrain, etc, etc; The idea is to calculate dish gain and required attenuation to prevent interference between dishes on the same tower, so it's all about launch power, Dish gain, rain fade, multi path interference, etc. I just don't see how using mmwave over long open air distance will be feasible.
Short distances mmwave, no problem, you could have antenna's on every street corner, and even use cars to communicate with each other, as well as the fixed network, but 500km Terabit communication, i'm really dubious. How many antennas you role out, and what frequencies you use to provide bandwidth, will depend on economics, location, etc. As I've said previously, I see 6G as an add on to 5G, with much of the eventual "New 6G network", being rebadged 5G.
It will all come down to Physics/cost/benefit in the end, with City Centres, shopping Centres, stadiums, and events being the first to use the higher mmwave frequencies/bandwidths. Just my opinion.

He seems like a wise man, but some of his comments are tongue in cheek in my opinion. Who's to say that some other franchise wouldn't pop up and wipe the floor with Dunkin Donuts, or people decide to move to healthier diets however unlikely lol. As far as the tech spec he read out, it would mean something to the industry insiders and product manufacturers, and who's to say that the chip wouldn't end up in millions of pieces of Equipment; Is he saying he wouldn't invest in a manufacturer who develops a chip that'll end up in every mobile device in the world, just because he doesn't understand the technical specification?

"What's a bloke to do when peckish waiting between Big BT company manoeuvres?"

I wonder if the consortium are looking at Eutelsat due to the recent share ownership of OneWeb. There seems to be a lot of enthusiasm around LEO satellites, 6G mm wave communication, and eventually Terabit RF backhaul.
Here's an article explaining how LEOSat Terabit uplink communication might work in the future, providing Gigabit broadband to the customers.

https://spacenews.com/tech-breakthrough-morphs-gigabit-wifi-into-terabit-satellite-internet/

There's a nice diagram in the article, showing a 15.5 Terabit Gateway node uplinking simultaneously to 8 satellites, with each uplink supporting 8x222 Gb/s.
"128th order Dynamic Polarization enables one 1.8 Tbps LEOSat to relay Internet uplinked from one 15.5 Tbps Gateway to 16 internal 111 Gbps LEOSat Tx radios, each downlinking within a near quarter-million km2 ground footprint (think 1.2M Netflix streams shoehorned into 16 5 km-wide spotbeams madly hopscotching across an area the size of Wyoming). Starlink2 subscribers worldwide would employ 870 Mbps CPE comprising a single spatial stream (out of the 128) peeled off a 111 Gbps User Rx radio to downlink anytime, all the time minimum 720p HD Internet at home. By 2026 the 2.5% non-idle Starlink2 satellites could be downlinking 334 Tbps (i.e., 223M concurrent Netflix sessions) to those 1.3B potential subscribers below. At an eminently reasonable 6x oversubscription ALL those households could ultimately boast HD Internet from the heavens."

What could possibly go wrong? Well it could rain, sunspots and solar flares interfering, atmospherics, etc, etc, etc. The more information you cram into a bandwidth, encoding more bits using methods like QAM, the more you suffer signal to noise ratio problems, so the RF Uplinks/Downlinks are where most of the issues will occur. Going off the headlines, the scientists seem optimistic about using phased array beamforming to give enough gain to make this work, but at what, equipment and power consumption, cost. I would think a lot of power would be required to support high bandwidth communication to satellites 100's of KM away.
Don't get me wrong, I am coming around to the technological breakthroughs around Massive Mimo enabling beamforming to multiple users; Currently, in the UK, the 3.4GHz band, the 3.6-4GHz band, and the 700MHz band are being used for 5G, a long way below the mm wavelengths suggested for satellite Terabit communication, and if the tech was available to utilise those wavelengths at distance, why not supply it terrestrially from masts, etc?
You can build almost anything if you throw enough money at it, but where does the profit come from?

Apparently BT Basic was available for people on low incomes going way back, I would think BT will be auditing all its customers bills for the periods covered.

"If the consumer wanted only the very minimum of fixed line voice access, they could buy BT Basic at £5.10 per month"

"2.1.6 Some standalone line rental charges have risen over recent years but
cheaper alternatives are available"
"There is an active market in the UK for standalone (i.e. not bundled) fixed line rental services. Retail competition is enabled by regulated access to wholesale line rental, the price of which has fallen and will continue to fall. This has enabled the provision of competitive services by other providers. For example, the Post Office currently offers a standalone landline service for £12 per month.
Social tariffs are also available as a low cost option for low income users. The price of BT Basic, the principal social tariff, is lower now in real terms than it was six years ago. This is a good choice for eligible consumers with low outbound call usage (for example for consumers who rely more on receiving than making calls to keep in touch). Eligibility is defined as being in receipt of certain benefits available to low income households"

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0023/53735/cost_value_final.pdf

Looks as though BT was offering good discounts for low income users.

"For people on certain benefits there is a basic service which BT is legally obliged to offer. This is currently £15.30 for three months including £4.50 worth of calls plus another £4.85 for 10GB of basic broadband a month.

Ofcom has published a guide for anyone switching to ensure they are aware of what a deal includes."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34220574

I wonder how the court case will work around social tariffs like BT Basic, since vulnerable and low income customers had options. Is it BT's responsibility to canvas all households to ensure they're engaged? What about Charities like Age Concern, and organisations like Ofcom, Councils, etc, etc.
If BT were legally obliged to offer discounted services to low income people, where's the problem? Or is this court case aimed at millionaire pensioners, who couldn't have cared less anyway?

"When are we due to hear OFCOM descision?"

Haven't Ofcom already decided? With the offer due to start from Friday.

"There were plenty of options out there if customers were not happy."

Indeed, it appears the CAT were keen to push this to trial, ensuring that all the PCR's requests were met; For example, the case wouldn't have gone forward had the Opt-In method being pushed instead of allowing Opt-out. It could be drawn out over years now, dependant on court cases and appeals.
It doesn't appear to have worried the market too much, as the share price is up nearly 0.4% currently.

I just read through the Full Judgement and they're even putting this through on an Opt-Out basis, which shocks me. I don't understand the case against BT, or the Judgement, since there were other far cheaper options available to customers. It makes a mockery of OFCOM and regulation in general imo, I hope BT fights it all the way.

https://www.catribunal.org.uk/sites/default/files/2021-09/20210927_Case_1381_JLP_BT_Judgment.pdf

My Sky package was recently about to go up to more than £70 a month, at the end of my 18 month contract; I phoned Sky and changed to a new contract, offering more or less the same for £42 a month. I don't understand the case against BT when all companies do the same thing, and also considering that there were substantially cheaper sim only deals available at the time. The Judgement makes no sense to me.

"The likelihood of openreach being controlled by a non-british entity is vanishingly small."

I agree; A possible scenario, imo, is that BT could IPO 49% and put a couple of % into a protected Escrow account, with the Articles of Association ensuring that no single shareholder has significant control of Openreach, and the board structured to ensure independence. Before that could happen though, the pension scheme would have to be sorted, and much of the downsizing and cost saving measures completed. From what I've read, the Pension trustees are looking at a DIY buyout, at some point in the future, if that happens one more obstacle to separation will be gone.

"Fleccy, I may be wrong but wasn't Buffett an investor in BT a while back? Before I invested in BT."

I really don't know Nige, he may have held ADR's when BT were listed in the US. If I knew previously, it's long since been wiped from my memory lol.

https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/en/knowledge/publications/c8b20a65/the-uks-new-nsi-regime-what-do-you-need-to-know

"I very much doubt that Drahi will hang around 4 - 8 years waiting? He doesn't strike me as a patient guy. Money talks, so we will see what happens. He has history to say that he usually gets his own way."

I just can't see the Government allowing a break up of BT, in the midst of the FTTP rollout, and the Government have the tools to block any takeover under the new national security and investment act.

"The unit will review transactions and coordinate cross-government activity to identify, assess and respond to national security risks arising from foreign direct investment - providing certainty for businesses that they will not be targeted and exploited by potentially hostile actors."

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-and-improved-national-security-and-investment-act-set-to-be-up-and-running

Data Infrastructure is listed among the "17 defined sensitive sectors", so I'd bet the Government would have something to say about any Foreign controlled takeover of BT, irrespective of how much money talks. Since Brexit, EU based entities are considered as Foreign.

Apparently Buffett doesn't invest much outside the US, I doubt BT is even on his radar.
The article mentions economics and competition, but the competition is enabled by OFCOM, and competition through regulation isn't something new for BT. Companies like Talk Talk, Zen, etc have built their business on the back of OFCOM, which makes all this feel like Deja Vu for me; DSLAMS are being replaced by FTTP, but the competition still relies on BT infrastructure, so BT will always get a cut of their profits since BT owns the infrastructure, with Openreach managing it on behalf of BT.
As I've mentioned previously, over half of Openreach's revenue comes from BT Group, over £2.7 Billion last year with around £2.5 Billion generated from external sources. Unlike companies like CityFibre, BT own the highest capacity backbone network in the UK, and the biggest UK mobile network, so don't entirely rely on income from FTTP alone. BT has scale and revenue diversity that isn't reflected in the current share price; All articles mention is debt and the pension, which intentionally builds an undeserved negative narrative around the company imo, but no mention of the huge scale advantage BT have over all the others in the UK.