Member Info for fleccy

"Missed the sting in the tail. Had too many beers today :)"

At least you showed your stupidity has no bounds.

"Powering cabinets is an advantage & with respect to DOCSIS you fail to mention RFOG, which misses out co-ax"

How can needing to power a cabinet be described as an advantage?
Cabinets use Electricity, which is an ongoing expense.
Cabinets need battery backup, which requires maintenance and replacement.
The Equipment installed within the cabinet needs maintenance and repair.

There are three components making up the local access section of a PON.
They are:
1) The OLT at the head end.
2) The ONT's at the customer premises.
3) The Passive Fibre/Splitters, from the OLT to the ONT's.

PON is more reliable:
Providing the Fibre isn't dug up, or damaged, there's nothing to maintain between the head end and the customer premises.
Since the Fibre is passive, there's no requirement for batteries, power supplies, and customer facing equipment in the street.
Since the ONT's are powered by the customer, BT only need to power head end equipment.

RFOG, does indeed utilise Fibre instead of Coax, but still relies on the same equipment design at the head end, so may be lacking. I've never worked in Cable TV directly, so I admit I don't fully understand the technicalities around Cable Tv network architecture, but I did work in telecommunications for nearly 40 years in total, so I do understand the technicalities of Network Transmission.

Once FTTP is fully rolled out, and all the copper assets are retired, BT/Openreach network will be:
Much simpler
More easily maintained
Less power usage, so greener
Cheaper to run with a much smaller building footprint
More versatile for customer facing services

I just can't think of any advantage of having powered street cabinets/Equipment's over GPON. Aus I'm interested to read your list of advantages?

"10GbE can use either copper or fiber cabling. Maximum distance over copper cable is 100 meters but because of its bandwidth requirements, higher-grade cables are required."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_Gigabit_Ethernet#:~:text=Like%20previous%20versions%20of%20Ethernet,higher%2Dgrade%20cables%20are%20required.

Had a quick look at the Teleste Remote Physical Interface, and I don't see how it changes anything. VM still need powered cabinets, and if they want to offer 10G symmetrical, they'd have to replace the coaxial section with Fibre.

The following paragraph makes no sense to me, unless they mean for existing Cable companies, using DOCSYS, where the costs involved in a full network redesign to FTTP, and scrapping the existing Cable TV infrastructure, would be cripplingly expensive.

"Today and in the coming years, the DOCSIS solutions offer superior TCO benefits in comparison to technologies such as FTTH."

https://www.teleste.com/broadband-network/products/remote-phy-nodes-rpd

Total cost of Ownership of an installed Passive Fibre, has to be far less than the cost of powering and maintaining a piece of equipment in a remote cabinet.

"UNDERSTANDING TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP (TCO)"
https://www.graco.com/us/en/in-plant-manufacturing/solutions/articles/how-to-calculate-total-cost-of-ownership.html

Just to add to my last post.

Since the new VM/O2 company will start out with £18 Billion in long term debt, and revenue only around £12 Billion they have to talk the talk, since they'll also be approaching the bond market for a further £10 Billion, to finance infrastructure spend.
This narrative that VM is somehow better, or more technologically advanced than BT is false in my opinion. BT seem to be doing everything right, and investors will be rewarded in the future.

"doubt it"

You're right to doubt it lol.

I don't dispute that 2.2Gb/s is easily enough for the majority of users, for years to come, but my point was around the versatility of FTTP to offer bespoke services to business users. The limitation of HFC is the Coax from the cabinet to the customer, and the fact that the cabinets require power to provide service. Because FTTP is passive all the way from the head end to the customer, you can potentially offer select customers 10G, or 100G, symmetrical service over the same fibre as the GPON service just by fitting a box at the customer site, and hooking up to a card at the head end via a splitter combiner. If VM wanted to offer 100G, they would have to look at spare fibres in the cabinet, run Fibre from the cabinet to the customer, with the process being way more complicated than using wavelengths separate to standard GPON wavelengths over an FTTP service.
Aus HFC is just inferior to FTTP, I don't think you'll find any articles suggesting that HFC is superior to FTTP. Upgrading to Docsys 3.1 just delays VM going to a full fibre operating model, which they'll have to do at some point. I'm guessing that VM's Head End Equipment is a generation behind as well, as it's geared toward a cable TV operating model, rather than a full cloud operating model based on FTTP.
I don't think it's a coincidence that BT are moving toward a full FTTP model, with the Telereal Trillium sale and rent back lease agreement coming to and end around 2031. BT will be a much leaner and efficient company 10 years from now, VM will be playing catch up.

"Any views on when this might be reinstated?"

We'll find out next month. Probably two payments of 3.75p for the year, unless they decide to split the Dividend unequally, and give a higher Final Dividend to the detriment of the Interim Dividend.

One Giant Leap for Mankind, one 3 metre 40 second flight for Ingenuity lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1KolyCqICI

https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/datarequest/D8;jsessionid=DB38745AA6670F3B51A65177437C

"Tried the link but gpt the error message "We're sorry. This document is not published""

Since no one commented, I unpublished it. I've republished below. I also did a search on Thrombosis too, which was interesting, but I didn't capture the results from that search. I've since captured them.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRr4KUtI6iJZSrmmYaZvUAQx4NkRdEZjLjV9MkBqnxcd2Gz8Hk_KTDiDOWxaFUFWq7WVDTKZodyauPJ/pubhtml

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSNz6mEId3buS5EhXB4FnUEP5V7c4tuKgeliTbyDMvfxZhTg4S9NxUGX8drvPXoy3QrQaSbma3p3sZx/pubhtml

"I think you’re getting confused about networks again. Those speeds will only ever be backbone, co-ax is only the last leg into the home, apart from where it is now fibre for cable networks."

Nope, no confusion, I just used the link to demonstrate the bandwidth available across single mode fibre. I realise that they wont use local fibre access for that sort of transmission rate, but a PON network offers the possibility of bespoke services sharing the Fibre with GPON and XGS-PON services. Because of optical splitters/filters, and wavelength specific SFP/XFP's, the ability's there to supply 100GB channels over Local Access Fibre, should BT decide to offer such bespoke services to business customers. I've already pointed out, in previous posts, the disadvantages of HFC compared to PON. It's unlikely that HFC will be capable of 10GB symmetrical even with DOCSYS 4, whereas it's a breeze over PON. By splitting off at the exchange, they can even offer separate services independent of the OLT, without installing any equipment in the street, or affecting existing users, as it's passive from the "Head End" to the customer premises, with just splitter/combiners along the route.

"Ummmmm, let’s start with SKY culture is a light footed, quick thinking, chance taking, impulsive, creative, power house of a disruptor. BT isn’t"

You say that, but Sky are getting squeezed on the content side of things, and under pressure to distinguish their offerings from others. We now have Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, Apple Tv, and others moving into this ever crowded space. Content provision is easy with fast internet connections, they just need an app on a smart tv and home users can simply stream the content. VM are heavily dependent on Openreach, not the other way around, so why would Sky merge with VM if there was a chance of a merger with BT? I suspect Comcast must be wondering what they'll do going forward, with satellite needed less and less, as internet bandwidths grow.
BT will cover most of the country with FTTP before the end of this decade, all the current PSTN Exchanges will be gone, with everything converged onto the cloud. VM's HFC network is last generation and doesn't offer upgrades, other than the DOCSYS route, whereas the Terabit bandwidths available on all Fibre local networks, open up all kinds of innovative possibilities.
Off topic, but in the interest of highlighting the capability of Fibre Optic Transmission:

"Researchers at University College London (UCL) have set a new bandwidth record for fiber optic bandwidth transmission. They've been able to communicate through a fiber optic cable at over 178 terabits per second, or 178,000 gigabits per second."

https://www.circleid.com/posts/20200910-a-new-fiber-optic-speed-record/

I'd like to see them get 178,000 gigabits down a coax.

"For the life of me, a BT / SKY Merger seems ridiculous. I might find myself eating these words, but honestly, to my mind, verging on the impossible. Oil & water, there’s never been a bigger oil & water situation in the history of everything"

Why are they "Oil & water"?
They are fundamentally different businesses. Sky is a media & content provider, and BT is basically a media/content reseller. On the network side of things, SKY rents network and BT provides it. They would fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, with the pieces slotting nicely together. The regulators might have something to say about it though, as it would create a company which would leave the other's at a big disadvantage.

I just played around with the VAERS system and searched for cases of Thrombocytopenia after the first dose of Modern/Pfizer Covid 19 vaccines.
Here's what came back if anyone's interested:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRr4KUtI6iJZSrmmYaZvUAQx4NkRdEZjLjV9MkBqnxcd2Gz8Hk_KTDiDOWxaFUFWq7WVDTKZodyauPJ/pubhtml

"interesting, unintended brexit consequences part of the story."

I don't see the Brexit connection, unless you mean the EU attacking AZN at every opportunity. It seems that money is driving the main narratives, with any negative news around Pfizer and Moderna, quickly suppressed, or skirted around.
A good example is the recent study by Oxford University showing the rare blood clotting occurring at a rate of four out of a million people receiving the vaccines from drug companies Pfizer and Moderna.

The main headline skirted around the Pfizer/Moderna connection:
"Covid-19 Disease Triggers More Ultra-Rare Blood Clots Than Vaccines, Study Finds"

"The researchers claimed they found the rare blood clotting at a rate of four out of a million people receiving the vaccines from drug company Pfizer and biotech Moderna, but Pfizer disputed that claim. In a statement, Pfizer said its own review of safety data after over 200 million doses have been administered has found no evidence to conclude that arterial or venous thromboembolic events being investigated in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are a risk associated with its Covid-19 vaccine."

https://www.barrons.com/articles/pfizer-and-moderna-covid-19-vaccines-also-trigger-blood-clots-study-finds-51618488102

Then we have other papers personalising the AZN vaccine related blood clot links, by publishing stories detailing individual blood clot sufferers.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/australia-top-news/article-9481209/Heartbroken-family-woman-died-days-receiving-AstraZeneca-vaccine-mourn-death.html

J&J aren't immune
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9480051/Medical-student-21-died-day-getting-J-J-vaccine.html

As if the massive profits being made by Pfizer aren't enough, they appear to be canvassing regulators to give their vaccine to children, and hinting at further vaccinations going forward, probably because the at cost vaccines have now been royally trashed.

"Stanford enrolls children as young as 2 in Pfizer vaccine trials"
"Pfizer last week applied for Food and Drug Administration authorization for its vaccine to be used in youths ages 12 to 15, after clinical trial data showed it is 100% effective at preventing COVID-19 symptoms in that age group."

https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/Stanford-enrolls-children-as-young-as-two-in-16101721.php

"Pfizer CEO Says Booster Shot Likely Needed Within 12 Months"
https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/pfizer-ceo-says-booster-shot-likely-needed-within-12-months/2356134/

I could be wrong, but it feels like they can smell the money, and looking for ways to keep the money train rolling.

"The truth? No one truly knows - and by no one, I mean the financial media."

Much will depend on the Triennial review headline figure as well.
The 2017 Triennial review came up with a funding deficit of £11.3bn Actuarial (gross of tax). In the Q4 2017/18 results, BT stated an IAS 19 deficit of £5.3bn (net of tax) at 31 March 2018. I suppose it will come down to the trustees and actuaries decision on any funding shortfall going forward, probably based on their forecasts.

"The VM O2 company I think has hurt Vodafone more than any of the U.K. operators."

I wouldn't be too sure, Vodafone took over Cable & Wireless Worldwide assets, acquiring their UK Network, overseas assets, and Submarine Cable assets. CWW mainly focused on large business customers, and competed against BT in that space. VM seemed to target residential and small business customers, and possibly still do. Vodafone are also involved in the Altnet space, as well as competing in the broadband space via Openreach.
VM/O2 have a lot of work to do in merging the businesses together, and up until now mobile and fixed networks haven't really gelled, but I expect that'll all change with the PSTN switch off, and the convergence of everything onto the cloud. By 2030 I expect BT, VM, and Vodafone will be the remaining big three. I'm not so sure about the likes of Talk Talk and Zen, as their business relies on other companies networks and might suffer if margins are squeezed by competition.

"Their mean average is: £9.7bn"

I must admit my guess of 3 to £4 Billion was probably massively optimistic. I noticed from the link, posted by my Mylovelyhorse, that the deficit had increased to £4 Billion, between March 31 to Sep 30 2020:

"IAS 19 deficit of £4.0bn, net of tax, at 30 September 2020, up
£3.0bn since 31 March 2020, reflecting:
– decrease in the real discount rate, reflecting a fall incredit spreads
– partially offset by deficit contributions over the period, and higher than expected asset returns
• Discussions with the BT Pension Scheme trustee on triennial funding valuation progressing; aiming to conclude in first half of 2021
• Considering a number of options for funding the deficit including potentially non-cash contributions"

The £11.3 Billion speculated deficit is identical to the deficit from the last Triennial review, so I would take that one with a big pinch of salt. Since BT have made substantial contributions since 2017, of around £5 Billion, you'd expect some improvement, although it's less than 2 years of benefit payments.
The pension Teach in gave the reason for the drop up the 31st March last year as:

FY 19 Liabilities £60.546 Billion
Benefits closer to payment +£1.391 Billion
Benefits Paid -£2.764 Billion
Discount rate/inflation/mortality -£4.244 Billion
Unexpected deaths/retiree options -£0.318 Billion
-------------------------------------------------------------------
FY 20 Liabilities £54.611

So the biggest impact on the deficit reduction, last year, was changes in discount rate, inflation expectations, mortality assumptions.
I've tried to get an idea of the deficit, but it's hard with a capital H lol.
You'd have to assume that the benefits pay out would be around £2.8 Billion, offset by a 0.9 Billion contribution from BT. If someone's got time it might be worth looking at the discount rate, inflation rate, and Gilt Yields compared to March and Sep 2020, but even then it'd be a stab in the dark.
Out of all the analyst predictions, £7.5 Billion seems the most realistic, but I would have guessed much lower again.

I'll go with £3 Billion to £4 Billion, only because the deficit reportedly fell to £1.1 Billion as of the 31st March 2020.