MS3 fibre roll out a step closer

[The Dominator]

East Yorkshire incumbent KC has a new challenger in the fibre broadband market, it has been announced.

MS3 Communications has moved a step closer to launching its own fibre network by signing an agreement with the Humber Bridge Board to lay cables across the structure.

The new fibre platform, which will be independent of KC's copper and fibre infrastructures, will bring super-fast broadband to Hessle, West Hull and Hull City Centre in early 2012, reports ISPreview.co.uk.

MS3's Network and Operations Director Mike Harlington said the firm has been working on this agreement for almost a year.

"I am delighted we've finally got the green light to press on," he said.

"We have always wanted to give the people of Hull a choice and that’s exactly what we’re doing."

Bransholme West Councillor Phil Webster told the news provider he was "highly delighted" that MS3 will be opening up the market place in Hull.

"As part of the council’s commitment to attracting business to the city through the new enterprise zones, super-fast broadband was always high on the city's list of priorities," he stated.

Taken from http://www.uswitch.com/broadband/news/2011/12/fibre_broadband_provider_to_challenge_kc_dominance_in_hull/

[The Dominator]

MS3 may be the perfect partner for this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-16045671

I bet KCom are starting to worry...

And unless SBB, Quickline, AirNet and NextGenUs start to lay down fibre they will be overrun within 18months.

The ultimate end game is FTTH (Fibre to the home) with a multitude of services (think service channels, e.g. Adult Education, Council Services, Sky, Virgin, etc) free to exploit the massive bandwidth.

[el-ahrairah]

Hull the fibre city? Lets hope so. I knew this was going to happen with the humber bridge fibre feed. I got a feed on this from a reliable source about 7/8 months ago. Nice to see it finally publicised though. 

[el-ahrairah]

This may be of interest!

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18341245

And this also taken from the thread


I live on the edge of the Hull area where there's no BT line available and all you've got is KC and Karoo. I was on a standard Karoo package.

There's been 3 /4 / 5 KC vans in the area for nearly a month and they've even replaced the telegraph poles with sturdier ones to feed fibre overhead to houses that don't have underground connections. It's staggering how much they must have spent on this little village of 50 odd houses.

The engineer came round for an hour today. He offered to feed the fibre into the house anywhere I wanted. Fitted an Ericsson modem to the wall and gave me a brand new Netgear WNR3500L to play with. All this for no extra cost and I was told the trial would last at least 6 months before they announce their fibre optic packages officially. Oh, and he said my download limits no longer count and could I use it as much as I can to test the line.

Yeah, it's been a good day!

[The Dominator]

Fibre to the home is the only future, wifi/fiwi etc all have a limited shelf life, applications and demand will become more bandwidth hungry and only fibre can deliver it both now and in the future.

I will jump onto which ever fibre bandwagon rolls close enough to my home.

[richardmyers]

I will jump onto which ever fibre bandwagon rolls close enough to my home

Agreed, I'm sure most people will do exactly the same.

[GarethG]

Yeah definitly, but it all depends on price for me

[lubuntu]

I think there will always be a future for wifi - fewer and fewer people have landlines and as things are going fewer and fewer people are going to be able to afford landlines.  More people will be renting their home as they cannot afford to buy their own homes which means there will be even more mobility and less chance of signing up for a landline. There are many different mobile devices that makes wifi the natural option for many.  Fiber will become the backhaul of the whole infrastructure and no doubt wifi technology will continue to improve.

I do think it may be the case though that wifi companies may have to drop their prices in the future and clearly many people will return to KC or a competitor for fiber and this will hit the wireless providers short-term - hence I think you will see a fall in the wireless prices - but I think there will always be a market there for wifi providers for many different reasons but that national (or even international) wifi providers may be the future in a very mobile society and it could become very difficult for local wifi providers?

[The Dominator]

This article expands a little on the expected roll out:
http://www.broadbandchoice.co.uk/news/ms3-communications-to-rollout-hull-fibre-broadband-network-801233169/

What is interesting is what was expected, they are focusing primarily on business users.  This I can imagine is due to the pain in the **** that the public are, they bring in very little in the terms of real cash when weighed against the costs of the bandwidth they use, hence the reason for some organisations putting in place draconian usage caps.

We are all bandwidth whores..

I am hoping that they will start to introduce public once the they have sufficient cash-flow from business customers.

[The Dominator]

And here is another article on the same subject in the Yorkshire post:
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/around-yorkshire/local-stories/telecoms_group_makes_pledge_to_bridge_gap_in_digital_market_1_4039309

[Djwindas]

this means nothing for residential customers then?   

[The Dominator]

Not at the moment

Once they have cash flowing they may roll the service out to residential.

[lubuntu]

I don't think its gonna be all that straight forward to pick up businesses.  Businesses must have a stable, reliable connection - otherwise you cannot do business and no business = no money = no business!  Imagine you own a business and an unknown quantity (MS3) offers you a new connection for less than your existing provider (KC) what kind of customer services and support are you going to offer?  What evidence of reliability can you show? What happens if something goes wrong?

MS3 must be going into this market being able to offer a price well below that of KC - otherwise would any business seriously take the jump into the unknown just to save a few squid every month - I don't think so. 

It would actually make more sense for MS3 to roll it out to residential ASAP as I think that residential are more inclined to take the risk whereas businesses will (should) be more analytical and weary.

You can also be sure that any problems with their network to any businesses will be pounced upon by KC - I don't think this is a straight forward given for MS3, it is going to be very difficult to compete in the business area for the first 12 months until they can prove themselves and that they have a good, professional support system in place.

I would like to hear more about MS3's proposed support system - anyone have any info on that?

[jamadams]

I was under the impression that MS3 was providing the infrastructure for another service to run on, so an established broadband provider would run on their feeds.

[el-ahrairah]

I was under the impression that MS3 was providing the infrastructure for another service to run on, so an established broadband provider would run on their feeds.

Same, however plans can be subject to change, Always a possibility i suppose.