Member Info for fleccy

For anyone who's interested.

https://www.openreach.com/about-us/our-performance/kpi-dashboard

"Well curiosity get the better of me, so after searching the website for the answer and drawing a blank i have emailed Investor relations direct to ask."

Makes sense to ask them, since they're the ones who should know. Hopefully they'll respond with clear answer.

"throughout the UK, maybe, and I am guessing, you mean 7750 MSE routers (Multi server edge) based in various exchanges"

I have no idea how BT have set up their cloud hierarchy, and much depends on the terminology used during network design. Depending on your design, you could refer to the routers, holding the cards presenting OLT ports, as either Access, or Edge routers. Generally speaking a 7950 is classified as a core router, in the same class as Juniper, Cisco, and Huawei Core routers. The 7750 does appear to be an edge router, but it makes no odds as the same applies, and much depends on where the network designers draw their boxes, or circles on the diagrams.
Another difference is that Voice will be dealt with as VOIP in the core, rather than separately using PSTN, as it is currently.
From what you've said, it appears that BT have been using 7750's as Edge routers, taking the Data from FTTC's, and then forwarding the Data into the Core; Maybe the newer Access routers, presenting the OLT's, will bypass the 7750's and connect directly into the Core, again that'll be up to the network designers.

"(Located at various exchanges) its there that the IP address is sorted out and sent on its way.... after that, sorry cant tell you ..... secret 8-))"
"so as you can see its a very simple system ...... Router-DSLAM-7750, as I say, all that is in the public domain."

Haha, it's hardly a secret. The destination IP will decide, dependant on the routing table, which port to forward the data on. The Data will then route over the transmission network, to the next Core router, where the pattern's repeated.
DSLAMS will all disappear with the move to FTTP, as will FTTC. The new model will be ONT to OLT to Core router, with just Fibre and Splitters between the ONT and OLT. The OLT chassis has multiple slots, with each slot supporting multiple ports, and I assume there's a couple of aggregate ports facing your core router. Once the data from the OLT's hit the core router, everything will be the same as it is now.

"Nice idea "Unpowered splitters) but how will you achieve transmission from the customer to the 7750/7950"

Mike, out of curiosity I took a look at the Nokia 7750/7950, and from what I can tell the larger routers in the range look like Core routers.

https://www.nokia.com/sites/default/files/styles/scale_1440_no_crop/public/2020-06/7750%20SR%20web%20page%201%201500px.jpg

https://onestore.nokia.com/asset/205346

I admit that I have no idea which products BT are using, but Nokia market the 7362 for small access nodes, and Lightspan FX for head end use.

https://www.nokia.com/networks/products/7362-isam-df-16gw/

https://www.nokia.com/networks/products/lightspan-fx/

Am I right in thinking that the GPON is distributed by the Lightspan FX equipment's, then aggregated and sent on to the 7950?
I seem to remember reading, that Openreach will be using ADTRAN to supply access equipment as well.

No, why?

"Nice idea "Unpowered splitters) but how will you achieve transmission from the customer to the 7750/7950, yes it could be done in an urban environment, but take that principal out of the city and you have to have some pretty powerful SFPs and associated power to transmit what could up to 50km, long haul SFPs need a roadside cab"

Hi Mike, admittedly I don't know the solution that Openreach will use to connect rural areas, out of range of the head end, but I did state:

"Some street cabs may be used where DWDM aggregation node's are required, for areas outside the range of OLT's at the Head End's"

So I do realise that there'll be a need for rural subtended Head Ends, but the majority of the connections will be metropolitan and passive.

"As for a pstn voice event horizon in 2025 and millions of dead telephones, I don't think that's a winning strategy."

BT don't have a choice, most are now abandoning landlines in favour of mobile and Voip anyway. The PSTN network would be unprofitable and redundant soon, so BT are doing the right thing imo. What I think will happen, is that your mobile will become a voip landline within range of your router, and switch to mobile/cell working when you travel out, with all calling free and covered under your contract.

"I think the future is in the fibre street cabs which will eventually operate like small exchanges in order to get rid of the existing ones. Plenty of work to do to achieve that goal. Don't think the copper will be ripped out any time soon maybe 2030"

That is completely different than my understanding. Most of the street cabs will be going, replaced by unpowered splitters in manholes and up poles. Some street cabs may be used where DWDM aggregation node's are required, for areas outside the range of OLT's at the Head End's. There wont be any copper, it will all be FTTP once the last FTTC cabinet goes. You should read up on PON's, ONT's, and OLT's.

"The 21cn solution never worked because the equipment from Huawei and Fujitsu was not completely compatible and didn't work as a viable system to migrate voice and data. So 20 years later and BT still have the problem of replacing pstn to resolve and they are running out of both time and space it seems."

I thought the 21CN was more about moving from PDH to SDH. Cable & Wireless invested in SDH around the same time, with a massive upgrade managed by NORTEL, providing "Next Generation Network".
BT aren't replacing PSTN, they're scrapping it. There appears to be a misconception that BT have some responsibility to replace PSTN, but PSTN is finished. BT are moving to a fully converged network, with VOIP solutions. I suspect most will use their mobiles over cell infrastructure, when out and about, and use Voip over their broadband connection when at home. 2025 will be the end of an era, with the UK going fully IP/Cloud/Mobile.
After 2025, any customers still on FTTC will lose their Phone Line, with anyone moving to FTTP, in the meantime, losing their phone line anyway. The BT/Openreach offering will be an ONT at the home, connected via shared passive fibre to an OLT at the Head End. Any processing of Voip and Data will be dealt with in the cloud, with voice prioritised as necessary to minimise delay.

"In December 2001, Telereal Trillium entered into a 30-year strategic property partnership with BT plc. Involving the majority of BT’s UK estate, the £2.38bn transaction saw 6,700 properties, with a floor area of 59.2m square feet, acquired by Telereal Trillium.

The properties were sold to Telereal Trillium, subject to BT leasebacks, with a minimum lease term of 30 years. The contract arrangements included a flexibility regime that enabled BT to vacate properties over time so as to adapt to changing operational requirements. Drawing upon Telereal Trillium’s Strategic Asset Management skills, these flexibility arrangements have enabled BT to reduce the size of their estate by over 30%. Upon BT’s vacation of assets, Telereal Trillium seeks to realise value from the properties, often enhancing value by obtaining planning permission for change of use or redevelopment. BT is aligned in this objective as value enhancements are shared between the parties.

As part of the transaction, Telereal Trillium also took on the rental risk associated with the BT properties held by way of rack rented leases. Telereal Trillium assumed circa £100m of rental liabilities for which BT pay a fixed annual payment, these arrangements adjusting over time as the leases expire.

The initial transaction was funded through a £1.8bn securitisation of the income associated with the Telephone Exchange estate whilst £400m of bank debt was raised against other network support properties and offices. The funding arrangements incorporated the unique requirements of this transaction including the vacation flexibility regime. The securitisation has subsequently been refinanced and the properties subject to the bank debt (along with other assets not previously financed) have been refinanced through the issue of BBB rated secured notes."

https://www.telerealtrillium.com/about-us/case-studies/bt

The PSTN switch off is planned for the end of 2025, and combined with the FTTP rollout, explains BT's plan "to close 4,600 exchanges across the United Kingdom". The Exchange closures will massively reduce BT's lease liabilities, so the current transformation is timed to coincide with the sale and leaseback agreement made in 2001.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/12/openreach-consult-on-closure-plans-for-4600-uk-exchanges.html

It doesn't appear to be a coincidence that the transformation is scheduled to complete around the expiry of the agreement with Telereal Trillium.

"Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin says bids for a seat on its 11-minute rocket flight to space have reached $2.8 million"

https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-says-bids-for-a-seat-on-its-11-minute-rocket-flight-to-space-have-reached-2-8-million/articleshow/82797299.cms#:~:text=reached%20%242.8%20million-,Jeff%20Bezos'%20Blue%20Origin%20says%20bids%20for%20a%20seat%20on,space%20have%20reached%20%242.8%20million&text=The%20highest%20bid%20for%20a,%2Dminute%20space%2Dtourism%20trip.

There must cheaper ways to go to the edge of space, with a longer ride than 11 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OnJCqtTxsA&list=RDCMUCdsOTr6SmDrxuWE7sJFrkhQ&index=3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUX5FzpBbcQ&list=RDCMUCdsOTr6SmDrxuWE7sJFrkhQ&index=1

".....in other words the PEFORMANCE of the company ......what assets it has ..who cares."

BT isn't one of them, but many current highly valued stocks appear to be:

S uspicously Hyped Inappropriately Touted Stocks
H yped
I nappropriately
T outed
S tocks

Here's an article from 2020

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/10/virgin-media-uk-warns-bt-against-anti-competitive-fttp-discounting.html

Basically it presents conflicting interests between Altnets who own their own infrastructure, and ISP's who buy Openreach services Wholesale.

Even where Virgin Media are utilising FTTP to provide service, it's delivered using RFOG to maintain compatibility with Head End infrastructure using DOCSIS.

"As usual all of this forms part of their ongoing Project Lightning build, which has so far extended their network to cover 2.5 million extra UK premises. The operator’s original network was deployed using Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) technology, but the latest builds use FTTP via Radio Frequency Over Glass (RFoG) – both methods make use of the DOCSIS standard to harness the same consumer hardware."

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/03/virgin-media-uk-hails-pia-and-rapid-fttp-rollout-in-swadlincote.html

BT are moving to a mainly passive network, which will be as Green and efficient, as it will be simple. All services will be provided by IP, with all the configuration done within the cloud.
Virgin Media have decided to upgrade the existing network architecture, sticking with DOCSIS rather than replacing the whole network, unlike BT who are replacing the whole of the access network.
What the market doesn't seem to understand, is that PON is much cheaper to maintain than the Hybrid solutions used by cable companies. The cost per bit is lower on a PON, than it is for HFC, or RFOG. If I'm understanding things correctly, BT will be operationally cheaper, going forward, so they should be able to beat VM on margin, price, or both.

I've posted this article before, but it makes my point nicely:

"CAPEX per bit of bandwidth (i.e. cost per capacity) is lower for GPON than it is for DOCSIS 3.x. In eff ect, the throughput of GPON is less expensive than the throughput of DOCSIS 3.x. Recall that the downstream frequencies for DOCSIS are licensable. For example, to achieve 1 Gbps in downstream, 24 EuroDocsis channels (50 Mbps each) are needed, which yields 24 times the license (per optical node). DOCSIS 3.x is problematic in terms of upstream throughput (DS:US ratio is 5:1) and cannot challenge the much better symmetricity of GPON (with DS:US ratio 2:1). To overcome this inherent DOCSIS limitation and increase upstream capacity, a massive investment on top of DOCSIS 3.1 is required for more nodes and more active equipment. GPON and DOCSIS may be comparable today; GPON’s next evolutionary step (XG/NG-PON), however, providesindisputably better capacity than DOCSIS 3.1, reusing the same fibre infrastructure."

https://www.iskratel.com/ru/files/default/Documents/White-Papers/EN/Iskratel-GPON-vs-DOCSIS-3.1-in-Six-Simple-Points-WP.pdf

"no letter received fleccy, will post if i get one, but i cant see it myself."

If your shares are held within a share dealing account, you might not receive a notification by post; If this is the case, have you checked for any notifications sitting unread in your online account mailbox?

"Presumably the impact of the merger O2 and Virgin Media already within the BT sp ?"

Seems to have given BT's share price a knock this morning, but not sure why. The VM/O2 merger is irrelevant to the investment case for BT, in my opinion. The market appears to write it's own narrative around stocks it likes, and stocks it doesn't. Many stocks don't appear to support the valuations given to them, whereas others are clearly undervalued on any fundamental. Why do these anomalies occur? Probably by design is my thinking.

"He needs a further eu ownership of 20%, so who gets the lucky letters, everybody? nope, of course not, what criteria does he chose to force people to sell?"

Your guess is as good as mine Day, but I would assume that RYA would have to treat all shareholders, within a class, equally.
Since all UK traded shares are classified as restricted, my guess would be that they'll write to all shareholders who bought UK traded shares, which are now classified as restricted. Again it's anyone's guess how they'll deal with EU citizens, who hold UK traded stock, maybe they'll exchange their holdings for Euro traded shares.
Day if you hold UK traded shares in RYA, then in all likelihood you'll receive a letter, as will everyone else who own restricted shares. Out of curiosity, did you receive a letter advising you that your shares are now classified as restricted?

"PS. Didnt catch the Good thing about RYA you was going to mention?"

Haha, I did start writing a post with some of the stuff that's good about RYA , but my missus asked me to do job as I was typing, and I ended up deleting the post.

"But in reality, nobody expects they will need or even want to do that. Non Eu investors hold so much stock in this businesses they WOULD go belly up if this was ever actioned and they are not stupid enough to carry this out."

I don't want to send you to sleep Day, but O Leary was really specific with his words. He said they'll be writing to Non Eu Holders, in the coming months, in the first instance, and forcing them to sell if necessary. The relevant part of the "Intro & Presentation" starts at 19 mins and 45 seconds into the presentation. From the Horses mouth:

https://investor.ryanair.com/results/fy-21-results/

"Ryanair today (18 May) announced that it has issued a 5 year, €1.2bn, Eurobond at a fixed coupon of 0.875%."

Looks as though they've issued a new bond, pretty good rate at less than 1%, I'm guessing their Net Debt is now approaching €3.5 Billion, possibly a bit more.