Opportunistic FTTH installation. Is it possible?

Hi there all,

I'm new to the forum but had a questions about fibre broadband that I was hoping you might be able to help me with.

I live right across from my local cabinet and am currently having a new power connection laid into my house. At the same time, it seems there is some work being done by BT to my local cabinet and I was told by one of the engineers this was to provide fibre to the cabinet. You can see the works on roadworks.org if you type in my postcode "W6 0HY".

I am wondering whether, given the fact that both the footway in front of my house and the footway by the cabinet is currently dug up and exposed, I would somehow be able to convince someone to lay a fibre cable from the cabinet to my house. The opportunity just seems to perfect to miss. I certainly wouldn't mind paying for it also.

Does anyone know who I would have to speak to about this? I've tried getting in touch with my local Openreach Newsites offices but have not been able to get through to anyone. Any advice?

Thanks in advance!

I believe this normally would not be possible for individual residential premises.

However you could send a query to nga.enquiries@openreach.co.uk

If they are installing an FTTC CAB just over the road would this "impossible dream" actually provide anything that you want?

In future there would, of course, be the possibity of FTTP on demand when the product is released. This seems to be going to has a live FTTC CAB as a prerequisite.

Installing ducting on your premises for future FTTP would seem to be the only option and this would presumably need to meet BT's standards if they were to use it.

Thanks for your replies! I sent an email to nga.enquiries@openreach.co.uk. Let's see what they say.

I know it's probably quite greedy of me but I would do almost anything for super-super-fast internet. Getting, say, a 1 gig line is the stuff of my dreams

Would it be safe to say then that, unless FTTP is available for all people on this particular cabinet, I won't be able to get it myself?

With the road already dug open, I just couldn't help but think: I wonder if they could put a fibre cable here....

knowing BT they will say no but then later agree when the cost will be higher having to dig it up again.

Obviously as well you would be bound to whatever retail FTTP offerings they have so not gigabit.

There are rules and guidelines about where various services should be laid under roads and foot-ways with preferred separations between them. What you are asking might require additional work and approval to adhere to the guidance and the overall cost prohibitive. By all means, ask BT and see what they say but be prepared for a "NO".

Quick, throw some ducting in whilst no one's looking

At least run some from in your house to the edge of your property just in case for the future, although if that is you're cabinet then you should get the full speed, with a a lot of headroom if they ever release higher speeds in the future.

Again, thanks for all your replies so far.

According to this list, my exchange is currently only accepting FTTC orders so I take it that, even if I somehow miraculously managed to convince someone to lay a cable from the cabinet to my house, there'd be no service provider for me to sign up with.

It looks like I might just have to accept the FTTC options for now which are still going to be a nice upgrade to my current 24M Be line. In the meantime, I'll see whether I can't at least get some fibre laid internally to the curb, since I'm having lots of recabling done anyways.

Have a read of these two News Articles :-

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/5016-fttp-on-dema...
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/5307-openreach-re...

Would be of no use as there no current or prospective future product/ service which can connect to in this manner. FTTP on demand may be a possibility in the near to medium future but the fibre will not terminate in the cabinet anyway.