Member Info for NDNIC00

The E and D side is, with a very few exceptions, ISDN2, analog PWs etc,, used solely for phone and broadband . Most D side issues are down to the mix of copper and aluminium especially for broadband. That’s about it for copper the rest sits on fibre and those products are the ones that bring in real revenue and have the tightest SLGs when it comes to repair, there’s a big difference between 5 working days for broadband and 5 hrs for Totalcare. That’s not to say those SLGs will always be meet, some will slip, but if it’s on fibre as said before, without outside intervention, there’s nothing to go wrong. As for fibre build, well I live in a rural area and BT has recently started its FTTP build, all the work I have witnessed has been 90% contractors 10% OR and the contract work has not needed OR to also be present. That is likely true for at least 50% of the country wide build, so strike action will only have a marginal impact on the day to day build. As I have said, strike action will make the situation worse over time but it would take a lot of strike days for that to be a real and ongoing problem. The one element that may well have more impact on build is the loss of working days by planning functions causing delays, but not copper network faults…

Rod. Thanks I just love boring, I am nowhere near as interesting as yourself…

“Delude yourself otherwise if it makes you feel like a right wing share holder…”
You are correct. The vast majority of domestic customers have a copper delivery to there premises, and small businesses, for delivery of phone and broadband products. For phone that is all the way from exchange to end user, but most copper delivered broadband is only copper from the street cab (DSLAM) the rest is on fibre back to the local head end . ISDN2 and Kilostream copper services have been replaced mostly by higher bandwidth products on fibre end to end or by mobile data products where bandwidth is not a concern, ie telemetry to say switch a water pump in the water industry. There are some rear locations where the above nay not work and a copper product is still used but very few.
The pressurised junction copper network was decommissioned many years ago and most of it pulled out of the ground to free space for fibre growth. All core products are fibre delivered, nearly all local end data products used by business are now delivered over fibre due not only to the copper being replaced but due to the bandwidth these products have, 2m to 10g.
Fibre itself just sits there transporting light, it is not affected by the elements that cause problems with copper. Unless disturbed by a man with a JCB or poor workmanship at a splice point, it in itself is ultra reliable . The kit on the end may fail, but that is rear nowadays. The core, and many customer networks are self healing, if one route is lost it simply reroutes until the lost link is brought back into service. So yes todays network is ultra reliable, unless it is compromised by an outside action.
As for those taking industrial action, that is there right, they have a legal process that has been followed, the CWU members have shown they believe they have for them genuine disagreement to peruse. I am not saying they are right or wrong, simply stating facts about the impact there action has on the day to day working of the network and it’s makeup.

Back in 87 the strike had a big impact on the ability to keep the network running. Nearly all local ends were on copper twisted pair, which is not very resilient to weather, especially in winter. Other services would have as now been on fibre, but very few. Cor network more resilient as on fibre, coax and pressurised junction cable, far more resilient than twisted pair local end. The strike was all out, all devisions and day after day rather than selective days. Not to say that the current industrial action is not having some impact, it will have, but the network is much more resilient, self healing and has far better reliability. The impact will be in order books being closed on strike dates, which over time will cause problems, not just for BT but other service providers using the network for delivery, faults will likely start to build and SLGs being missed resulting in compensation, ie a 5 day clear taking say 8 days due to strike days causing a backlog, even though the strike days will not count the workload will build causing a SLG being missed. It is for these reasons that at present industrial action is not really impacting on the price, it could going forward but it will take a fairly long time to do so…

"The strike action and dispute with the unions is what's hitting the share price"
There are bigger things going on that are affecting all shares at the moment. Strike action will end at some point, but if the things that are really knocking shares are ongoing, the end of industrial action will make no difference. As said the price outside of the above, appears to be affected by non stories in the media and markets focused on today’s profit rather than the really big gains to come in the near future with the completion of FTTP .it’s the Tortoise that always wins in the end.

Look at my post this morning it gives a breakdown as of annual report 2021.

BTPS funding from 2021 annual report.
Equities 17.9%
Property 6.7%
Other growth assets 11.7%
Investment grade credit 25.2%
Secure income 6.4%
Government bonds and cash 32.1%
Oh and thanks to Lizz for the last week !!!

Please Rod, check the facts first. No plan to nationalise the power companies.
“ A Labour government would set up a "Great British Energy" company to generate more clean power for the nation, Sir Keir Starmer has announced.

Sir Keir said the firm would be publicly-owned and it would be set up within the first year of Labour taking power.

It would focus on harnessing the power of renewable energy, including solar, wind and wave, in a move which the Labour leader claimed would help to cut energy bills and deliver energy independence.

The company would be tasked with providing "additional capacity" alongside the private sector. “
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/09/27/liz-truss-kwarteng-labour-party-conference-news-starmer-speech/

Well said Erik. Back in 2008-9 the staff were concerned that there would be job losses and a loss of BB services. But NO people realised that they needed there BB business customers took the opportunity to update there networks, and as said new staff were taken on. Now is the time to continue rolling out FTTP , there is no logic to slow down and wait for better times, the project has started it has an end date and it will be meet. As said it’s BT that is paying for it unlike others who are still looking for funding to continue there rollout, good luck with that at the moment…

CWSS. Copper wideband serving section. Flipping predictive txt………..

Fleccy. Think you may be referring to, CWSS, copper wide and serving section, delivered over 2 or 3 copper pairs , later delivered over 1 or 2 pairs dependent on distance. Also HDSL which was a 2 pair copper SDH product. How things have changed…

Have been pondering this for a while now. Back in 87 I was out and once there was a settlement the amount of OT that was worked soon replaced the lost wages while out. But the network was very different then, almost all services were delivered over a copper or coax network, it was winter and the network just fell apart. Today the core is over fibre and many services to the end user are on fibre to some extent if not totally, so there is a lot of resilience in the network and the delivery systems, so nothing like the faults situation in 87. On the other hand, faults will still occur and the pile will start to build, SLAs will not be affected but the customer will be under a fault condition for hours or days longer than usual. The appointment books will be closed on strike days, but, the number of provision jobs will stack up and start to cause a backlog that will need extra hours to clear if not to affect additional orders coming in all the time. This and a build up of unresolved faults will over time be of benefit to those taking strike action if these one day walkouts continue over the next weeks. On the other side, if BT increase the wages offer then other sectors will use it as an example of there right for higher wages. That could then cause prices to rise to cover the cost and so it carries on never ending until it all just grinds to a stop with everyone suffering. Perhaps if our government had any bulls, they would get off there bottoms and intervene to help resolve the national situation for the good of all and stop the possible spiral of wages versus prices we appear to be heading into. Which side of the fence do I sit on, well that is the really difficult bit, and the people I think could help, if they wanted to are unfortunately, the government. As Foxy said, power to the people, hopefully… GLA

VM/02. Well the truth will out in good time, it’s just a handy tool at the moment to bash BT by those who have no real understanding of telecoms in the real world, there loss long term.
Draghi. Well our zombie, head in the sand, not my problem it’s the next PMs, government are again unable to give a definitive answer just the usual, make of it what you think decision, nobody knows if it means, go ahead or just stop now. Grrrrrrrrrr

A free weeks ago there was decisions around the rollout by BT and other operators. I mentioned then that Trooli have had Fibre on the pole outside my home for around a year and that there is still no date for service. Our village has about 250 homes, is rural with only a pub as a business, so not a lot of scope for network builders to make any money. Well today there was a contractor working on the pole outside, When asked, I expected him to say he was working on the Trooli network. Well NO was the reply, BT Openreach starting there build of FTTP, there is now a BT fibre node on the pole awaiting go live. So VM/02 where are you then ???

Nice to see a positive comment, eh

Ianfm. I don’t think you are correct that BT covers the cost of the shares at maturity, only the discount of 10% or 20% on the purchase price on the start date. They hold a total number of shares on behalf of the scheme until maturity when they are released to the members if they want them or there money back plus a bonus payment. Example price is on start date 100p BT offer them at 80p for 5 years when the price is let’s say 500p the bit BT cover is the discount from 80-100. I believe they get some incentive from HMRC for this.

Perry. Can you please keep posting, it’s causing a sp rise, thanks…

Just a few personal thoughts on industrial action. Employees have a legal right to take part in action if all the rules around it are followed. From a personal point, I was involved in the action back in 1987, at the time I was in my 20s. I did not spend any time on the picket line, like many of my coworkers we let the union do there thing talking to BT. That said there were some youngsters on the line, but not many, most were older, could be something to do with the young having other things to do. Those who talk about, that was the terms you accepted when taking the job, well what about the BT employees who accepted the terms of the BTPS only for the company to keep making changes in the 2000s and eventually closing it and moving staff into a new scheme with worsening benefits. Another thing to consider is those who are not members of a union, in this case CWU. They have had over 30 years accepting pay rises ,improvement in hours and many other benefits that the union engaged with BT to bring about. Those staff members have received the same gains for no effort, it could be said, they sat back and let someone else do the work for them. I sometimes wonder it they would have benefited as well if they had to do there own individual negotiations with BT. I have said several times over the last month or so that I hope BT and the CWU can get round the table and come to a compromise that is acceptable to all. Just a few things to think about…

Erik. “ I believe and they also own the pension fund if it goes belly up so there’s a bit to think about. “. FYI the government dose not have any ownership of the BTPS, that is sections A,B,C, it is owned by the pensioners and the trustees along with commitments from BT to fund going forward, IR when the last pensioner is no more the fund will be wound up. The government involvement comes from a court case several years ago, the ruling of which is that, if BT should go bust and the scheme is unable to fund its commitment to its members, the government will pay the pensions. It is called, a Crown grantee. That is the only responsibility any UK government has to the BTPS. Hope this clarifies a wide held misconception…

We have, Trooli, in our neck of the woods, and the thing is. We moved nearly 18 months ago a distance of about 10 miles. Before we moved, around 6 months before, Trooli, started installing fibre around our old address using BT polls and holes. The tails can be seen on poles coiled up waiting to go. A couple of months after we moved, they started running fibre around our new location, using the same BT polls and holes, I have a coil of 10 fibres on the pole outside our house, been there about a year now, unused. Today I did a check to see if service is ready, at the old and new addresses. Guess what, service not available, please register your interest and we will let you know when we can offer you service. So in over 2 years of building a new network they are still not able to offer services !!!
Good luck with your target of 2026 to cover another 5-7 million homes VMO2, and that’s without any new additional fibre even ordered from the factory…