Member Info for fleccy

Our Lloyds holdings are currently showing a paper gain of just under £70,000, Vodafone a paper loss of just under £13,000 and our recently added BP holdings are showing a paper gain of just under £5,000. According to my spreadsheet, and based on the real time Google finance share price, we're currently showing an overall paper gain of just under £80,000; Not so long ago our overall paper gain was showing as being above £120,000. Unrealised paper gains and losses are just noise as far as I'm concerned, for me it's about the dividend income that allows us to either buy stuff or reinvest. Currently my dividend calculator is showing our annual dividend income to be over £29,000 and we're sitting on over £7,000 cash in the ISA's, earmarked for reinvestment, currently I'm watching BP as a possible target for the cash.

I've read the rhetoric from the financial industry and YouTube fanboys, pushing for everyone to invest in "Growth" stocks as if it's the be all and end all, but this herd mentality sucking all the passive investment cash into US tech has helped us to grow our dividend income through undervaluation of our target stocks. When a non dividend paying growth stock falls in value, there's nothing you can do but watch and agonise about how you should have sold when the price was higher, whereas a value dividend paying stock dropping in price is an opportunity to top up and earn even more dividends going forward. The argument that dividends aren't guaranteed is true, but an investment in growth is more risky if the market turns negative for years due to the herd losing long term confidence.

Passive investing has now changed the market and made price discovery redundant, so we appear to have a market driven by algorithms investing fund cash based on an index weighting rather than earnings; Vested interest guests on CNBC, Bloomberg and elsewhere, realise the market is now driven by narrative and the more they can push a stock up an index, the more passive fund cash will add momentum and add acceleration; Some US tech valuations are unbelievably high. If I was heavily invested in a US or Global passive investment ETF, which I'm not, my personal view would be to get out now ahead of the herd.

"Your faith in BT, like mine, was misplaced. Why not admit it?"

I'm not sure why you think I have anything to admit, at the current share price our BT holding alone is showing a paper gain of over £17,000 and we're pulling in over £11,000 annually in BT dividends. I would say my faith was very well placed, wouldn't you?

"Openreach themselves are telling you they have an ambition for closing 108 (out of 4600) sites by end of 2030. Leaving 4,492 sites to be closed during the 2030’s"

That doesn't contradict what I said, the Telereal Sale and Leaseback agreement allows BT to close a small percentage of Exchanges annually, BT aren't allowed to close the majority of the redundant Exchanges until 2031. What I'm saying is that once the PSTN switch off is completed in early 2027, BT will start clearing Exchanges earmarked for closure in preparation for expiration of the current lease terms. There's nothing stopping BT from stripping out the redundant Exchanges post PSTN switch off, which means they'd save on their power, maintenance bills and staffing levels.

Aus If I took your point of view I would have sold out of BT at the earliest opportunity, instead of growing our holdings; From our many interactions I conclude you're not a BT shareholder and you like VMO2, you may even work for VM since your passion for the company is obvious.

" It's always futures. Never now. I've been predicting the opposite, year-in, year-out. We'll soon see who is correct"

I've always stated that BT's long term strategy is about transformation and cost cutting. As far as "now" is concerned, BT's paying us annual ton of cash in dividends. We're not all invested to realise a short term capital gain, for us it's about income from buying undervalued dividend paying stocks.

"even though other have already pointed out switch site closures are a tiny number up to 2030, with majority of sites closures happening in the run up to 2040"

The initial Telereal sale and leaseback terms relating to the specialised estate concludes in 2031; BT will be looking to close as many Exchanges as possible at the end of the current terms and although BT is contractually limited in the annual number of Exchanges they can close before 2031, there's nothing stopping BT clearing Exchanges in preparation for 2031. I expect the majority of Exchanges earmarked for closure will be very soon after 2031, certainly well before 2040.

Aus BT's cost savings aren't just from AI, the majority of savings will be from the move to a fully converged core and access network; Cost savings will come from building closures, a much lower power bill due to the ending of PSTN/Legacy network, move to a fully converged core network carrying all Voice/data/video/mobile voice and data, far fewer staff. BT's potential to cut costs are massive, I've said as much for years.

VMO2 aren't a publicly traded entity so the market use them to bash BT, but VMO2 aren't organised to manage debt because it's the parent companies that manage the debt on their behalf. VMO2 has loads of issues, the market wont highlight them while VMO2 is unlisted.

"Collectively they don’t need to take all of BT’s network business they only need to take enough customers away from BT to adversely impact their investment strategy"

But BT have already stated they're passed peak capex, so even if they lose a good chunk of customers they'll still be ok once the fibre and 5G rollout is completed. A good portion of BT's debt is Lease Liabilities, which is on a downward trajectory as the Exchange closure program proceeds. Much of BT's capex is funded from earnings, so overall they are in a better position than Altnets who's earnings barely cover their operating costs, never mind their debt obligations. VMO2 also carries a huge amount of debt, comparable to BT's debt, so BT is in a stronger financial position than their competition. Truth be told, BT could wipe out the competition if OFCOM weren't pinning them down.

"BT will have close to £18bln investment they need to claw back, losing connections like they are is not good news, I’ve seen reports could be 900,000 over last year alone"

BT are in a far better position than VMO2, who's franchise areas have been heavily targeted by the Altnets.

"Everything considered, Starlink is set to rival terrestrial broadband networks everywhere, including here in Blighty "

We've covered Starlink previously, it'll never replace broadband in urban areas, it's of most use out in the sticks, up a mountain, on a Plane, ship, or a caravan, it wouldn't be able to cope with thousands of connections in a densely populated urban area.

Aus you're actually correct for a change, Amplitude and Frequency are different. Amplitude is simply the level of the signal and can be used as a form of modulation, as can Frequency and phase. To cram more data into a lower frequency they use a modulation technique's termed as QAM. The more data bits you want to modulate into a QAM constellation the bigger the constellation, with 8QAM, 16QAM, 32QAM, 64QAM, 128QAM, and 256QAM possible. The problem you have as you modulate ever more bits into larger constellation's, the more you're susceptible to interference and noise which limits the range.

I think Terra confused Wavelength with Frequency, where Frequency x Wavelength = Speed of Light, so the higher the Frequency the shorter the Wavelength; A Frequency of 30Mhz has a Wavelength of 10M, whereas a Frequency of 30Ghz has a Wavelength of just 10mm. QAM uses both phase and amplitude to encode the bits.

"Why don’t you just admit your understanding and therefore biased opinions are all based on a wafer thin understanding"

You're correct that I haven't worked on Mobile Networks, but I did work for nearly 40 years in Telecoms so I can make an educated guess when it comes to RF capacities. Much of my career involved working on terrestrial line of sight microwave radio, so I do have a reasonable understanding of the limitations of RF and the issues it has. The higher the frequency the larger the bandwidth capacity, but once the frequency is above 1 to 2Ghz you start struggling to get through buildings, trees, or any other physical barriers, so the frequencies above a certain point are purely line of sight. Because of the physical limitations of higher frequencies, mobile providers tend to use sub 1Ghz due to the longer range and better penetration characteristics, so the bandwidth is limited even with Massive MIMO and beamforming.

Clearly each technology has its uses, but they're complementary rather competing technologies and most households will use both at the same time. As far as some people using mobile as a replacement for a fixed line broadband connection, all I can say is good luck to them when the local cell gets busy.

Aus you should message the guy in this video and tell him how beamforming will improve his 4/5G connectivity.

The video is about solar PV, but because he's moving temporarily relying on mobile to provide internet, the relevant comment starts at 1:17 into the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGBvoe805Go

"& then comes beanforming"

I can't see how that will affect Bandwidth, but it's worth a try:

https://suzyssitcom.com/2014/10/how-to-create-fun-wall-art-with-beans.html

The thing with AI Aus is that you need to provide the correct prompts to get the true picture. Modern 5G Cell antenna's use multiple transceivers in what is known as Massive MIMO

I asked about the scalability of in relation to allocation of Bandwidth to 1000 users accessing a cell:

"how scalable is this, for example how much bandwidth would be available for 1000 simultaneous users

Thinking Putting it all together

With massive MIMO, the available bandwidth per user is not a fixed number, but rather a flexible figure that scales with the total cell capacity. The system handles a large number of users by increasing the overall network capacity and serving multiple users simultaneously on the same frequency. For 1,000 simultaneous users, the bandwidth available to each user will depend on: The total aggregate capacity of the massive MIMO cell. How efficiently the network can spatially separate the users. The overall network load and specific demands of each user. 

A rough estimation of scalability Using data from real-world tests, we can make an estimation of how a system might scale to 1,000 users. A 2024 Samsung study demonstrated an average cell sector throughput of nearly 3 Gbps on a single 100 MHz channel with a 5G massive MU-MIMO setup. With this 3 Gbps aggregate capacity, the average bandwidth for 1,000 simultaneous users would be: 3Gbps divide by 1,000 users = 3Mbps per user. This average might seem low, but massive MIMO is designed for efficiency and flexibility. In practice, not all users are demanding the same amount of data at the same time. The network's true benefit is its ability to dynamically allocate resources"

There you have it, mobile networks aren't designed to provide fixed broadband to multiple thousands of high bandwidth users sat in their living rooms and bedrooms.

Even if you were right, which you're not, BT own EE so they'd have a share in mobile supplied home broadband connectivity. The recent press about mobile stealing FTTP customers is about muddying waters and putting negative narratives out there, to knock related share prices.

The stock market is as dysfunctional now as I've ever seen it over the past 30 years of investing, maybe more so with passive investment funds distorting price discovery and directing cash into already overvalued stocks, eventually it'll all come crashing down. The market is now driven by narrative rather than valuation, what could possibly go wrong?

"So, a Quick Look shows literally every mobile operator sells a 4 / 5G broadband connection. It’s funny they would sell something pretend engineers think won’t work"

It currently works because the Mobile network's can cope with the low demand of relatively few users, but the implication of the recent Telegraph article titled "Why it might be time to cancel your broadband subscription" is clearly wrong; The article was geared at directing thinly veiled negativity toward BT/Openreach, with the implication that Mobile will somehow outcompete FTTP. Just imagine one average estate in suburbia, where everyone ditches their Broadband and tethers their routers to the mobile networks; Downstairs mum's watching a film in HD, Dad's livestreaming a football match and the kids are online gaming/streaming video's and that's multiply that usage across the entire estate, the mobile networks would just buffer to infinity and beyond. On a standard GPON connection you'll have up to 32 users, how would you scale up a mobile network to match that without a cell on every street corner? You can't and wont. Anything the media put out should be viewed through a vested interest lens, with many articles aimed at influencing the market, especially articles in the Telegraph.

The moaning continues:

https://www.telecoms.com/fibre/inca-hits-out-at-ofcom-ruling-on-openreach-s-special-offers

5G doesn't change anything, to match 5G with FTTP they'd have to mount a cell on every lamppost. 5/6G higher frequencies are better for bandwidth than 4G, but you wont penetrate a brick wall at frequencies above a couple of Ghz, so everyone would need an antenna on their roof for a service inferior to FTTP. Any extra equipment, as is the case with Starlink, and your electricity bill goes up, as I said RF can't match FTTP. Anyone implying that Mobile/FWA/LEO will make FTTP redundant for home broadband, are either up to mischief, or stupid.

"I can get 60 to 80mb where I live on 4G"

You can currently due to low numbers of high bandwidth users, but imagine what would happen if a substantial number decided to use mobile for home broadband; You'd be lucky to get 2mb with contention, bandwidth limitations (mobile and backhaul), and antenna gain limitations. The mobile network's aren't designed to cope with large numbers of simultaneous high bandwidth users, concentrated in small areas, so the implication that FWA and Mobile home broadband working would replace fixed line broadband is just false.

"Openreach picks up Project Gigabit premises in Mid West Shropshire that were previously set to receive coverage from UK altnet Voneus.

The move sees the UK fibre incumbent continue to take on terminated contracts through Project Gigabit"

https://www.telcotitans.com/btwatch/openreach-expands-role-as-project-gigabit-contract-sweeper-upper/9767.article

"My buying of £10000 show as Sell ?

Why ??"

Whether a trade is a buy or a sell, is determined on the price the trade goes through in relation to the Bid/Ask spread. If the trade goes through closer to the Bid price then it's flagged as a Sell, if it goes through closer to the Ask price then it's a Buy.

"according to a comprehensive UBS field trip report" Hmmmm one to ignore then?

https://m.uk.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/uk-telecoms-market-faces-rising-competition-and-consolidation-pressure-4293593?ampMode=1

"My advice to those who are vehemently against a bid is: Be careful what you wish for"

No one's against a bid, but the likelihood of a bid for BT is extremely small. A bidder would first have to convince the Government that they wont be a national security threat, which excludes any foreign entity. Also BT is one of the few remaining national champions with an emotional connection to the UK population; People may love, or hate BT, but BT has had a UK presence going back generations, even someone loathing BT would likely miss the company should it be broken up and asset stripped by big finance. Imagine the headline's around an attempt to takeover BT, the thought of such an event would terrify the Politicians so I suspect they'll quietly tell any potential suitors to back off.