Is my cab still not fibre 'cos I'm considered a cable area?

Hi Guys,

Newbie here, so please go easy if you think this is too similar to other posts (I've searched).

I'm in B18 5BN on the Birmingham Northern exchange (cabinet 100). The exchange was fibre enabled in 2010 I gather (?), and various cabinets around me upgraded quickly afterwards as far as I can find out. But not mine.

This post code didn't exist in 2010 as it's a new-build that was just being started at the time. But there are other older houses and streets served from the same cabinet. I believe most if not all of these houses have cable access. As my new-build is on an existing street directly opposite existing houses with cable, I emailed virgin about availability. They replied that they had "no active partnership" with my house builder and would be unable to do anything "until the development is finished, the adoption process has been completed and all restrictions on road and pathway excavation has passed". That was 2012 and the new builds long finished and fully-populated.

In 2016 my cab is on the open reach planner as "we are exploring solutions". The "cable-my-street" email I used for Virgin now gets bounced, so I can do nothing there bar re-register on their current website. As far as BT/openreach goes, I have followed up every lead I can and got nowhere.

So.... has BT/openreach left me out 'cos they have (wrongly) assumed I have cable access so am not a priority? Was also wondering if moving off Sky onto BT/plusnet may help? I'd be willing, but scared my ADSL speed (about 8mbit) may decrease, and with no promise of imminent fibre.

Anyone here have any (insider) info they could share please?

p.s. just to rub salt in the wound, Openreach's vehicle depot is just 2 streets away from me. Naturally it's closest cabinet is festooned with "fibre here" stickers

Central Birmingham had no phase 1 BDUK project, and no phase 2 I believe, i.e. it is down to the commercial operators.

The cabinet is fairly small for an urban one so maybe why missed on the commercial roll-outs, and overlaps with cable may not have helped, but then plenty of other commercial cabinets have as much or more overlap so not always the case.

If developers don't liase with broadband providers, then nothing much will happen.

One option is for local community to part fund the enabling of the cabinet via http://www.homeandwork.openreach.co.uk/OurNetwork/Co... its not a fast process even if you commit the necessary money now, it might still be 12 months before cabinet goes live due to the amount of work already going on.

Thanks for your quick answer.

I wouldn't object too much to community funding if I was somewhere rural, but the fact I would even have to contemplate this when I'm barely more than a mile from the centre of England's second biggest city is criminal. The irony is that I used to live in a rural part of Cheshire which now has fibre.

Outside of my little new-build bubble, the area is pretty poor, so I'm not sure I'd get too much support even if I tried.

In reply to a post by shapeshifter42:

I wouldn't object too much to community funding if I was somewhere rural, but the fact I would even have to contemplate this when I'm barely more than a mile from the centre of England's second biggest city is criminal. The irony is that I used to live in a rural part of Cheshire which now has fibre.

Outside of my little new-build bubble, the area is pretty poor, so I'm not sure I'd get too much support even if I tried.

The situation is arguably of your developer's making and it's not criminal - just economics in action. There is no right to fibre - it is provided only where commercially viable to do so, in some cases with public subsidy. It sounds as if your cabinet was assessed unviable to include in the commercial roll-out because of its small size and that it would be overbuilding Virgin. As Virgin got there first, they have likely secured the majority of available revenue.

BDUK typically did nothing towards residential coverage in major cities, because coverage from the commercial roll-out was typically way above the BDUK coverage targets. In any events, there are strict limits on the use of BDUK money to overbuild an existing superfast provider, so the Virgin coverage of the existing properties would likely have prevented any BDUK money going towards your cabinet even if there was a relevant BDUK project.


Your developer apparently chose only to request "universal service" connections from Openreach - a phone line with exchange based ADSL. They almost certainly could have had fibre if they were willing to make a contribution towards the costs, but they took a gamble that they could sell the properties for a profit without bothering to make a contribution. As you and others have moved in, the developer has seemingly been vindicated.

There are others here who have got community funded solutions from Openreach. Unless you can get some funding together, your small enclave may well continue to be overlooked.


Sadly, the best approach is never to move anywhere unless you are content with the broadband available now.

The blame lies with the housing development company. They effectively choose either fibre which costs more, or just a bog standard line, which sometimes BT route via a fibre cabinet and sometimes do not, usually depending on what makes the most sense from a cost perspective.

In reply to a post by shapeshifter42:

the area is pretty poor, so I'm not sure I'd get too much support even if I tried.

That's the problem I have, although on a old estate (1930's) our cabinet is smaller (only 220 properties connected!) - self funding was quoted to me at £18k. We have Virgin as an option so who is going to pay for Openreach to install fibre.

I can't rely on a Virgin phone line (Birmingham's old Cable infrastructure isn't too good) so would be forced down their expensive Broadband only route.