A wireless broadband provider is punting a landline-free package to Londoners living in the heart of the city. UK Broadband, which is owned by Hong Kong's telco PCCW Group, has grown a new tentacle in Blighty's capital to offer what it described as "fibre-fast speeds without any hassle". The new company, Relish, is able to …

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Thursday 5th June 2014 10:31 GMT AndrueC

What will be the mast capacity though?

It's all very well claiming headline speeds but as with all wireless delivery systems - the 'last mile' has the potential to be heavily congested. 'fibre-fast speeds without any hassle' are not much use if you're sharing them with dozens of your neighbours.

And since it's rolling out in London that could easily be hundreds if not thousands of neighbours. I'd rather have 80Mb/s to myself than 4Gb/s shared with everyone within a two mile radius.

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1. Thursday 5th June 2014 10:49 GMT lurker
  
  Quite, would want to know about the latency, also. Everyone blathers about 'Up To MB/sec' speeds but if you care about anything beyond common-or-garden web browsing then low ping times are important too.
  
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  1. Thursday 5th June 2014 11:07 GMT Mage
    
    "Up to Speeds" meaningless
    
    Only the minimum speeds and % time connection available counts.
    
    "Up to Speeds" mean only one user and perfect signal.
    
    This Compare Mobile & Fixed illustrates how pathetic 3G HSPA and 4G really are.
    
    8 0
2. Thursday 5th June 2014 10:49 GMT dotdavid
  
  Not sure how well it'll work, but I hope it does. 4G broadband should end up with better coverage than cable and might finally mean that you don't need to pay line rental for a useless and expensive voice phone line to get broadband from a non-cable broadband provider anymore.
  
  1 2
  1. Thursday 5th June 2014 10:55 GMT AndrueC
    
    might finally mean that you don't need to pay line rental for a useless and expensive voice phone line to get broadband from a non-cable broadband provider anymore.
    
    Just to be clear here - most of the cost of line rental is for the maintenance of the physical equipment. The voice service probably only accounts for a few pence or a quid at most. One way or another you'll have to pay that. Either as now, with (very slightly reduced) line rental or else as an increase on your current BB costs.
    
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    1. Thursday 5th June 2014 11:05 GMT dotdavid
      
      "The voice service probably only accounts for a few pence or a quid at most"
      
      In which case I'd rather have the few pence.
      
      I understand that line maintenance will be past of the cost of getting broadband, but if it is indeed the line rental charge that covers that cost they should advertise broadband prices as being inclusive of line rental not exclusive.
      
      3 1
      1. Thursday 5th June 2014 16:39 GMT Tom 38
        
        "The voice service probably only accounts for a few pence or a quid at most"
        
        In which case I'd rather have the few pence.
        
        My ISP provides FTTP and also provides my home phone line, if I want one. If I take the phone line, it costs me £10 a month extra. If I don't take the phone line, it costs me £12.50 a month extra.
        
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    2. Thursday 5th June 2014 13:31 GMT MrXavia
      
      "most of the cost of line rental is for the maintenance of the physical equipment"
      
      I don't accept that it costs £14/month (BT's prices) to maintain a bit of copper between you and the exchange/cabinet, my copper wire has been in place for over 30 years, where is the cost for the line? the equipment you talk about is the PSTN voice equipment right?, not the ADSL+ stuff?
      
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      1. Thursday 5th June 2014 14:05 GMT rhydian
        
        "I don't accept that it costs £14/month (BT's prices) to maintain a bit of copper between you and the exchange/cabinet, my copper wire has been in place for over 30 years, where is the cost for the line? the equipment you talk about is the PSTN voice equipment right?, not the ADSL+ stuff?"
        
        Your line rental pays for the maintenance of that line and the exchange equipment its connected to, along with the poles, cabinets, electricity supplies and so on that line. The ADSL part covers the cost of a DSLAM port, the backhaul back out to the outside world and so on.
        
        If you weren't paying line rental, then your ISP/Comms provider would simply roll up those access and maintenance charges in to your monthly rate. That's what electricity supply companies do with their "no standing charge" tariffs. Your still paying for the cost of getting a line to your house (and maintaining it), but wrapped up in a single monthly payment.
        
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    3. Thursday 5th June 2014 14:48 GMT bigtimehustler
      
      RE: AndrueC
      
      Errr what? So your suggesting the broadband part of the price you pay is 100% profit then in that case? What utter nonsense, and if that is the case, then they can take the cost of managing the equipment out of the broadband profit and make the sensible cut they always should have been making on it.
      
      0 1
      1. Thursday 5th June 2014 15:26 GMT dotdavid
        
        Re: RE: AndrueC
        
        @bigtimehustler - I think he means that the "line rental" part needs paying even if you don't need phone service. The "broadband" part covers the broadband service, not just profit.
        
        Personally I don't care what they say it all costs, or how they split those costs between line rental and service charges, I just wish they had to put the headline price including line rental when advertising as there's no way (with these companies) you can get broadband without the line rental bit. To me advertising broadband as "£10 a month" but not including the £15 line rental is much like Ryanair's "yeah the flight costs £100 but there's a mandatory £10 booking charge" pricing strategy and is rather underhand.
        
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      2. Thursday 5th June 2014 20:08 GMT AndrueC
        
        Re: RE: AndrueC
        
        So your suggesting the broadband part of the price you pay is 100% profit then in that case?
        
        No, I'm not.
        
        The BB price covers the provision of broadband. That is the rental of a port on a DLSAM (or part of the cost of running the DSLAM if it's LLU). The cost of backhaul out of the exchange to <some point>(*). The cost of the links from <some point> to the ISP. The cost of the ISP's interconnects to other ISPs. The costs of running whatever servers (eg; DNS, email) that your ISP has. Lastly the costs of support staff and support systems, and general business costs.
        
        Line rental pays for the cost of the maintenance of the copper between your premises and the exchange. The equipment within that exchange. The rental for the exchange (BT sold the buildings off years ago and now rents them). It pays to keep a fleet of vans and engineers on standby to attend to faults. And it pays for general business costs. And as mentioned a small part also pays for the voice service.
        
        Could a data only service be cheaper? Yes. Probably not all that much cheaper though. For FTTC you could try to argue that the copper from the cabinet to the exchange and everything in the exchange is no longer of interest but BT could argue back that the next occupant of your house might not want FTTC and therefore they have to ensure that the original line and voice service are still functional for them.
        
        So it could probably be cheaper to have a data only service but likely not by a huge amount. Ofcom are always trying to keep that price down so I think we have to accept that it is what it is.
        
        (*)<some point> can either be a POP where the ISP picks the data up and uses there own carrier or else they can just pay BT to carry the data all the way to them. Either way it costs money to get your data from your exchange to your ISP.
        
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3. Thursday 5th June 2014 11:28 GMT Nick Ryan
  
  Exactly. How many wifi channels are there? How would this interact with private wifi which will operate on the same frequencies and standards.
  
  With the shared wireless bandwidth where every additional connection reduces the overall available bandwidth due to the coordination required between them, 4G connections that are fine as long as you happen to have a good signal, i.e. you're not indoors, moving and don't have pesky bags of water standing in the way.
  
  And then there's the network route from the mast wifi/4G to the Internet...
  
  3 0
  1. Thursday 5th June 2014 12:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    I've regularly used my Three 4G 'unlimited' connection for large downloads every now and again, as its a good chunk quicker than my 6 meg ADSL. A speed test will give somewhere between 15-40mbps down, usually upper 20s, and I can generally get an average of 15 meg over a 2 GB download during the day, more after 9pm. I'm lucky because I have more or less line of sight to two Three masts, and I reckon take up thus far must be fairly small. I wouldn't dump the fixed line though, as I don't trust the current apparent lack of 4g congestion, that Three really do mean unilimited, and ping's not really up to snuff for gaming.
    
    Wireless might have its day at some point, but I think thats a way off except in those benighted bits of London BT has more or less abandoned to tin cans + string.
    
    2 1
    1. Thursday 5th June 2014 15:27 GMT Mage
      
      Purely Anectodal
      
      Some people will be lucky and have good signal and underused masts. You want to hope Three doesn't notice or they might turn of the mast.
      
      They need more subscribers than that to make a profit. But early days yet for selling 4G. You'll see :(
      
      0 1
  2. Friday 6th June 2014 15:24 GMT Alan Brown
    
    "How many wifi channels are there?"
    
    A few hundred up at 5GHz, not all of them are license free.
    
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4. Thursday 5th June 2014 19:48 GMT JeffyPoooh
  
  What's *actually* worse about wireless Internet
  
  The word "Unlimited" is typically redefined to mean something like "Fair Use policy: 5 GB per month maximum".
  
  Nitpicking actual speed and latency pales in comparison to being sent a letter terminating the service that you were, perhaps, depending on. Of course, if it's slow enough you'll need all month to get to 5 GB.
  
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  1. Thursday 5th June 2014 21:32 GMT Sir Runcible Spoon
    
    Re: What's *actually* worse about wireless Internet
    
    "The word "Unlimited" is typically redefined to mean something like "Fair Use policy: 5 GB per month maximum".
    
    Nitpicking actual speed and latency pales in comparison to being sent a letter terminating the service that you were, perhaps, depending on. Of course, if it's slow enough you'll need all month to get to 5 GB."
    
    I'm stuck out in the sticks and use a 3G router modem to connect t'net, and although I only get about 1.2Mbps the latency _can_ be below 100ms to the uunet nameserver I use to test my connection.
    
    Having said that, the router is pretty crap and has 'issues' but the 3G part isn't as bad as you might think - I use it to wfh via VPN and stream citrix sessions, webex and all that stuff ok.
    
    Upload is a dog though.
    
    I have a Three unlimited data SIM (with 2000 free minutes I can use with my standard phone plugged into the router - which also has issues, but it's workable) and I can tell you for a fact that I have downloaded several linux distro's and large firewall upgrade files and never had a problem with limits. On average it must be around 5-10 GB a week.
    
    All for the princely sum of £16/month
    
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Thursday 5th June 2014 10:49 GMT Anonymous Coward

Cost

If it's only in Central London, then to afford a place there I seriously doubt that cost would be uppermost in the minds of a punter.

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1. Thursday 5th June 2014 13:33 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: Cost
  
  No, but the speeds might, I lived at one place in central london that was only a 512k line, BT said they could do no more....
  
  2 0
Thursday 5th June 2014 11:01 GMT Mage

Bonkers.

Wireless simply doesn't have capacity for high numbers of concurrent users. So if congestion and contention isn't to make ISDN look attractive you need low caps to limit time users are on. Still makes peak times rubbish.

4G isn't Broadband and never will be as it's uneconomic to have every 3rd street lamp a Femto cell, which is what would be needed. Every street would need high capacity fibre, so FTTC (x10 speed) or FTTH (x100 speed at peak times, no Cap) would be cheaper.

This is marketing. Not a viable majority user replacement for real broadband. The sums say so.

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1. Thursday 5th June 2014 11:16 GMT ukgnome
  
  Re: Bonkers.
  
  It wouldn't work in my village - but then again we don't have lamp posts.
  
  2 0
2. Thursday 5th June 2014 11:16 GMT LaeMing
  
  Re: Bonkers.
  
  Technically, 4G IS broadband: it is using a (relatively) broad section of the available bandwidth for its signal. But people have been trained to associate the word 'broadband' with speed because on an unshared copper wire the speed is, of course, very high. But it is the exclusiveness of the wire that makes it fast, not the 'broadband'. If we had to share that wire with everyone and their aunt, party-line-style, the 'broadband' wouldn't help us much there either.
  
  Problem is that most customers for these kinds of services don't (want to be bothered to) understand what they are buying into. Sucks to be them, I guess!
  
  (Except you then get people - like my mum - who knows full well what the score is, but can't do anything about it because the idiots in the government also believe wireless 'broadband' is magically not limited by the laws of physics - laws which aren't subject to corporate buy-out. It really really does suck to be caught unwillingly in that trap through no fault of one's own!)
  
  3 3
  1. Thursday 5th June 2014 11:46 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    Re: Bonkers.
    
    You ought to Google "contention" before you make sweeping claims about "exclusive" access to consumer broadband (ADSL) lines.
    
    0 2
    1. Thursday 5th June 2014 12:21 GMT AndrueC
      
      Re: Bonkers.
      
      You ought to Google "contention" before you make sweeping claims about "exclusive" access to consumer broadband (ADSL) lines.
      
      Ye-es. Although it is fair to say that with ADSL the final distribution medium (aka 'the last mile') is uncontended. That is not true of wireless based systems such as this so in that sense it's a valid criticism of this kind of technology.
      
      It's slightly less true of FTTC since 'the last mile' includes the cabinet. However the amount of backhaul BT are supposedly putting into each cabinet means in practice it's unlikely to ever be over contended for practical purposes(*).
      
      For cable contention is more of an issue as broadband speeds increase. A new version of DOCSIS might help but that has limitations. The only other alternative is to add more nodes but that's quite expensive as it involves digging up the street.
      
      FTTP will depend on what kind of FTTP. A lot of systems are using splitters so contention is possible from the manifold back to the head-end.
      
      And of course, residential connections are contended from the exchange onward to the rest of the world.
      
      Business connections less so.
      
      Only a leased line is uncontended all the way to an ISP but ultimately even then you face contention once your data leaves your ISP's network and enters the wider world.
      
      Only a dedicated WAN is truly uncontended. And those are also bloody expensive :)
      
      (*)Oversubscribed but always enough capacity for what everyone is doing.
      
      3 0
  2. Thursday 5th June 2014 12:52 GMT Mage
    
    Re: Bonkers. Re: 4g IS Broadband?
    
    No.
    
    Broadband has a minimum Mbps speed (different countries define the minimum differently). Minimum of 4G is about 0.25Mbps
    
    Broadband is "Always On". Like ISDN, 3G HSPA and 4G LTE "connect on demand". Getting an inward connection may be impossible. Getting an outgoing connection may be impossible.
    
    Ability of 4G to connect depends on how many users already connected. So without moving it may drop a connection or fail to connect.
    
    Broadband is low latency. Mobile Latency can be x10 higher if congested.
    
    Broadband the contention is number of subscribers signed up to a cable or on an exchange vs bandwidth of backhaul (or number of Cable DOCSIS channels and Backhaul). It's totally controlled and can be low. On 3G and 4G the only contention control are anti-congestion measures such as Cap or refusing a connection. You can't know how many users will be on a Cell / Mast /Sector.
    
    Both 3G, 4G and any future 5G are "Midband". Sometimes you can get (entry level) Broadband speed and Latency. No reliability at all and no assurance of a sensible minimum speed, maximum latency or even a connection!
    
    http://www.techtir.ie/forums/internet-faq
    
    DSL depends on distance from Exchange and Backhaul. What ever you get is predicatable.
    
    http://www.techtir.ie/comms/dsl-limits
    
    Mobile vs poor DSL
    
    http://www.techtir.ie/comms/mobile-vs-fixed
    
    http://www.techtir.ie/3g-lies-continue
    
    Fixed Wireless, unlike Mobile can have controlled contention. Because it uses professionally installed outdoor "aerials" (often on chimney) it can often be SIXTEEN times more efficient in use of Spectrum. It also usually has hugely more spectrum per mast than Mobile (but not always). It (not Satellite or Mobile) is the best solution for Isolated UK / European rural users. Not appropriate for Urban or Suburban where now Cable TV / DOCSIS HFC systems, FTTC or FTTH are CHEAPER per user than Mobile or DSL or Fixed Wireless. Also greener with lower power consumption per user.
    
    Fixed Wireless Beats Mobile & Satellite
    
    http://www.techtir.ie/comms/fixed-wireless-broadband-better
    
    2 1
  3. Thursday 5th June 2014 20:06 GMT JeffyPoooh
    
    Re: Bonkers.
    
    "...because on an unshared copper wire the speed is, of course, very high."
    
    Not always. Our 4km ADSL was only capable of 1.4 Mbps. I wouldn't call that "very high".
    
    Our fresh fiber optic provides 175 Mbps. That's pretty good, but I'd take 1Gb if they offered it.
    
    2 0
Thursday 5th June 2014 11:10 GMT Test Man

LOL this isn't exactly revolutionary - they've just used the same tech as is used in dongles but put it in a router.

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1. Thursday 5th June 2014 12:58 GMT Mage
  
  Dongle replaced by Router.
  
  Available since 2006 / 2007
  
  Even on early 4G (not LTE).
  
  0 0
Thursday 5th June 2014 11:19 GMT Rufus McDufus

Their availability checker doesn't work for me on Firefox on Windows but works with IE. How quaint.

5 0
1. Thursday 5th June 2014 11:57 GMT Robert E A Harvey
  
  Quiant, indeed. I am getting the same effect.
  
  Ah well, it will be a thousand years before it gets to PE10 anyway.
  
  0 0
Thursday 5th June 2014 11:34 GMT Anonymous Coward

PCCW is the NOW! Broadband (aka Netvigator) outfit?

PCCW is the NOW! Broadband (aka Netvigator) outfit, right?

They won some of the UK regional fixed wireless access licences in the auctions a decade or more ago. They bought (almost all?) the rest in post-auction deals.

And then sat on them, no service was ever offered except in a select handful of areas (eg a few RG postcodes), preventing any of the other bidders from actually delivering a real service.

Maybe this is why they originally wanted the licences (though it seems unlikely) ?

Anybody know what kind of licence the promised ("alleged"?) new service is actually going to be operating under? Surely it can't be using unlicenced frequencies, that'd be hopeless...

If anyone in London wants to sign up for this 'new' service, beware. These guys have got form for promising a lot more than they deliver.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/01/pccw_cautious/

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1. Thursday 5th June 2014 12:23 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: PCCW is the NOW! Broadband (aka Netvigator) outfit?
  
  "Maybe this is why they originally wanted the licences (though it seems unlikely) ?"
  
  The rationale for companies buying things in markets a zillion miles from your home territory is usually a choice between the following:
  
  1) The buyer doesn't understand what they are buying, but think they do, and will then be disappointed. This is 70% of most corporate company/asset/licence acquisitions.
  
  2) The buyer doesn't understand what they are buying, know they don't, but are just doing it for ulterior motives (eg justify trips to exciting foreign location; engage bored and stupid executives in M&A to divert from the real chore of running a business; need to persuade investors that there's long term growth in new markets to cover a couple of bad quarters in the home market; churn up some tax losses; launder cash into a safer market away from dodgy home government etc etc). This is 20% of acquisitions, and where I put the PCCW licence purchases.
  
  3) Once in a while companies do buy businesses they understand. This is rare (10% or less of all corporate deals), and even then only a fraction of these deals make money, because buying and profitably integrating a business requires commercial and operational talent, which is very different to understanding it, which is largely a technical consideration.
  
  1 0
Thursday 5th June 2014 11:50 GMT TRT

If we get rid of Cable from London...

can we get a slightly less bonkers cabinet minister instead?

3 1
1. Thursday 5th June 2014 11:58 GMT Robert E A Harvey
  
  Re: slightly less bonkers cabinet minister
  
  are there any?
  
  A friend recenctly described the spat between Gove and May as "A battle of wits between unarmed combatants"
  
  10 0
  1. Thursday 5th June 2014 12:17 GMT TRT
    
    Re: slightly less bonkers cabinet minister
    
    A friend recenctly described the spat between Gove and May as "A battle of wits between unarmed combatants"
    
    Genuine LOL. Thanks!
    
    2 0
  2. Thursday 5th June 2014 12:20 GMT adnim
    
    Re: slightly less bonkers cabinet minister
    
    Thank you for bringing a smile to an otherwise shit day.
    
    1 0
  3. Thursday 5th June 2014 12:33 GMT Jim 59
    
    Re: slightly less bonkers cabinet minister
    
    I wouldn't want to be in a fight with May, not after seeing how she tore the Police Fed a new one.
    
    2 0
Thursday 5th June 2014 12:38 GMT Anonymous Coward

I've tried a number of central London postcodes (Victoria station, St. Paul's Cathedral, Liverpool St. Station, the Gherkin, Canary Wharf) and they're all out of range ---- however, having just tried Harrods and South Kensington tube station they are in range 30-50Mbps, so maybe it's range is Knightsbridge, South Kent., Chelsea?

1 0
1. Thursday 5th June 2014 19:56 GMT Ossi
  
  The Isle of Dogs has service. Although there are a lot of valid arguments in these comments, the Isle of Dogs has awful ADSL, so this must be a genuine improvement to some people around here.
  
  It always amazes me that no one's taken up the obvious business opportunity of a wealthy part of London with high density housing and awful broadband, by providing some sort of wireless service. Hyperoptic are slowly fibring up the big blocks but that's a slow process given interminable negotiations with building freeholders. More to the point, it amazes me how many swish new blocks are built with just copper wires.
  
  1 0
Thursday 5th June 2014 13:34 GMT brain_flakes

Wireless not the only way to dump your landline

Virgin Media will happily sell you broadband over their own cables without a landline.

1 0
1. Thursday 5th June 2014 15:20 GMT dotdavid
  
  Re: Wireless not the only way to dump your landline
  
  Although they'll charge you slightly more for it if you don't take a "bundle".
  
  For example I pay £25/month for 30mbit broadband but if I got a phone from them too it would be £15.50/month for the broadband and £15.99/month for the phone.
  
  0 0
Thursday 5th June 2014 15:54 GMT Shady

You do know that...

...shortly after telling BT / Talk Talk / Virgin to f*** off and you take out that nice shiny wireless broadband contract, they'll go the way of RedHotAnt.

0 0
Thursday 5th June 2014 19:57 GMT JeffyPoooh

It's almost unbelievable...

Living in the suburban forest. But - amazingly - with a fresh fiber optic cable screwed to the house. 175 Mbps (fairly reliable) and perhaps as good as 7ms latency (varies a bit).

0 0
Friday 6th June 2014 00:26 GMT Anonymous Coward

This web page is not available ..

"This web page is not available"

0 0
Sunday 8th June 2014 10:06 GMT etabeta

..FAIL..

No way a wireless provider can give decent service and bandwidth compared to a FTTH connection, no matter how they do it. I have heard this so many times and the end result is always crap. This might only appeal to those individuals that are blacklisted by broadband providers because they don't pay their bills. I give a FAIL before they even start

0 0
1. Monday 9th June 2014 09:16 GMT What rural broadband!
  
  Re: ..FAIL..
  
  Appreciate you have a view and may have had adverse experiences however these services are already being delivered in a range of rural and semi rural areas with performance better than that of Infiniti. You are of course correct that these will not deliver performance given by FTTP however to enable ALL with this would be so costly it will not happen. The point is that that solution is not viable, can not be achieved within government budgets (unless they cancel HS2) so for those unlucky enough to be unable to get FTTP then a viable solution is needed.
  
  0 0
Monday 9th June 2014 08:31 GMT What rural broadband!

It is time we ensured people understand that fibre does not mean superfast even for urban users

We have enabled a number of villages locally with a similar technology (Fixed Wireless Access). Latency is not an issue as these systems are NOT satellite based. In terms of speed we see speeds well in excess of that offered by BT at distances of more than 600 metres from the cabinet. What is more we see better upload speeds than are offered by Infinity services. Whilst fibre is great IF you are lucky enough to have FTTP or FTTC within 600 metres, most rural users and many urban users are beyond this.

Unfortunately the government and councils have swallowed their own hype here and have misguided at best and misrepresented at worst, many as to what they can expect with fibre. The reality is that stated targets using fibre will not be achievable unless massive additional funds are made available and even then caution is needed as BT contracts have not delivered as per Public Accounts Committee findings. The reality is that 90% getting superfast (download speeds greater than 24Mb/s) will not be achieved and that is now clear, the likely figure may be as low as 70% and probably closer to 80%.

Lets be clear however, the Department of Culture Media and Sport are as culpable in terms of blame. They have yet again defined contracts for their alternative technology trials that do not accurately define what the target speeds are. Their metrics are also flawed in that BT can state all users on a cabinet are fibre enabled (and by implication get superfast) even if only ONE user does in fact receive superfast speeds.

Lets be clear, FTTC is a flawed solution as it is dependent on copper/aluminium cables that are already degraded and this will only get worse.

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