FTTP Deployment

Before i start, notthing is finalalzied as of yet we're just in the early stages of potentially getting FTTP.

So my community has started the process of a community fibre partnership with openreach/bt. We've had a quoted price for the work to be carried out from openreach to do all the work and install FTTP to my village of 20 lines/19 houses. The distance the fibre would need to come from is around 2.8-3km. I believe the first 800m or so will be blown through existing ducting, then i should be able to mole plough/dig around 1.8-2km ducting and then openreach would use the existing poles in my village for the rest of the journey.

I have a few questions i hope you can help me answer.
So if i was to dig the ducting myself it would be along the roadside probably about 6ft from the road, would you have to pay for this or would you just need permission from the local council/authorities to allow me to lay the ducting?
How much do you think i could cut the price by deploying the majority of the ducting myself?
Does anyone know of any grants i could potentially get?
From various other discussions, apparently the actual raw materials (fibre, ducting, chambers, etc) aren't all that pricey.

On private or public land? Private would need wayleaves and on public you would need to meet the demands of the council in showing you can do the work safely, have the various insurance etc etc

There is the potential to use private land for some of the ducting, we could just follow the fields edge,getting land owners permission wouldn't be a problem for some of the fields, because the owner would benefit from FTTP. But i was wondering more about the roadside which would be owned by the council i guess, do you know if you would have to pay? Or is like you said more about getting permission and then working safely and insurance.
Thanks for the reply.

Edited by deleted (Sun 18-Dec-16 22:26:53)

For council property, it would be up the the local authority to decide whether you are 'competent' to carry out the work to the required standards safely. They may decide that an accredited contractor be employed to carry out the work, or you may be able to persuade them that you can meet whatever requirements they set.

BT will also have a say if they are to be expected to adopt responsibility for the duct after installation, so if the duct collapses after 6 months due to poor workmanship, they don't bear the cost of repair. They would also need to agree any wayleaves.

Simplistically, you need to discuss the possibility and get agreement from all interested parties before you can do anything.

I see, thanks for the help.
In an ideal world we would like to get a few grants, i know some communities have received 50+ grand via grants. If we could get the price down to £20,000, each property would only have to pay a grand which isn't bad for FTTP, as it's future proof. But i'm guessing the best way to get the price down would be to do the majority of the work ourselves.

Only grants knocking around are usually for properties with sub 2 Mbps connectivity at present

Are those are the ones that are generally used for satellite broadband? I think it was £350 per property, so we could get like £6000 from those if everyone applies. which would be great. I've read online about other communities getting well over 40k in funding/grants.

I know the fell end community broadband managed to get a ton of funding http://www.ravenstonedale.org/features/fellendbroadb...

Its say's this on their website.
The project cost a total of £88,000 all of which was civil engineering work paid directly to the contractor. The project was funded by

£26,000 Princes Countryside Fund
£53,000 Rural Community Broadband Fund (RCBF)
£2,000 Holhird Trust
£1,000 Talktalk Digital Heroes
£6,000 community contributions

RCBF fund is closed now

Ah, that's a shame. Still there could be other schemes about, if anyone knows any let me know. Hopefully if we can get the majority of the ducting laid ourselves, that should cut the cost drastically. I wonder how much i could save by using private land rather than going along the roadside which will be owned by the local council. That might not factor into the cost much but i don't know. We would just use a mole plough for the majority, i think there would only be 1 road we would need to go under, and that would be at the end of someones drive. All the roadsides are on backroads surrounded by countryside.

Have BT agreed to this? I presume you wish them to take over ownership. B4RN would be a source of knowledge about this subject.

You might be able to get BT to sub contract the work of laying the trunking to you. Perhaps easier where it crosses private land.

http://www.communityfibre.bt.com/ BT have just gave us a quote, nothing is signed or anything, my village is on step 4 on that site. There price includes doing all the work. I was wondering how we could cut the cost and i'm guessing laying the majority of the ducting would cut the cost by 50% but i really don't know. Our other option is to look for funding elsewhere via grants. I was also wondering would it be easier to cross private land owned by farmer i know and can get permission to do so, or just as easy to go along the roadside of the road.

If you self-dig, then you still need to leave a network that BT are willing and able to maintain in perpetuity. It might not turn out a huge amount cheaper.

Fell End is the one project I know of that has added "self-dig" to a BT-based project. You would probably get much better information about the potential savings if you tried to talk to the people who organised that.

Otherwise, you will almost certainly find that digging across farmland is considerably easier and cheaper than anything else. Digging the verge might be easy, but the roadworks surrounding it might not be. Digging the road will be expensive.

B4RN almost exclusively go across farmland, agreeing cost-free wayleaves with farmers, and recruiting farmers as labour for the digging. They run fibre into properties from the farms at the bottom of the garden.

You don't see them doing much on or near the highway if they can at all avoid it ... which must tell you something.

According to this link from ISPReview the Government are considering a new UK rural Broadband voucher scheme.

Considering is VERY different to in the pipeline, and is likely to be linked with the USO due in 2020

As for working in / on roads and pavements now days you need street works qualifications just to work on the road and open boxs ect. So god knows what you will need to dig up and lay duct.

Sorry but i think its a no go.

https://www.edinburghchamber.co.uk/news/edinburgh-sc...

might be applicable in your case

I followed that link - and noted that -

" Once the cabinet has been switched on, the school will be able connect to the internet at speeds of up to 80Mbps, allowing seamless streaming of video or downloading education materials." so is apparently not FTTP. (My Emphasis - ed)

It looks more as though the local PCP has had an FTTC Cabinet added, so that other subscribers on that PCP will be able to upgrade to VDSL if they wish.

Edited by deleted (Wed 21-Dec-16 09:54:26)

Thanks, well my village is in cumbria aswell. I am going to try and contact the Fell end, hopefully they will share some valuable knowledge and experience with us.
I have got permission to go across about 50% of the 3KM gap thus far, i'm going to try and get in contact with the last land owner soon and see what he says.

Well i may be able to go across farmland for the entire journey. This company http://www.tstrenching.co.uk/ helped http://www.ravenstonedale.org/features/fellendbroadb... them dig there 15KM network and there whole projecto cost £88,000. My village would only require 3KM of ducting so in theory if i can get landowners permission we could do our project for less than £30,000 especially if we did the laying of ducting on farmers land.

The wayleave needs to formalised, since if they is a fault Openreach may need access to dig up a big of duct and fix it. Fell End should be a good group to talk to as they will know some of the Openreach loops needed.

quite so, but the project (regardless I believe of FTTP or FTTC solution) was able to access some cash from BT Group to help fund

I sense much red tape in your future, good luck with it all, fingers crossed

I think that'll be our next step, hopefully Fell end will be able to help us through the process, like i said surely if it cost them £88,000 to cover 15KM it shouldn't cost us more than £30,000 to cover 3KM. They got http://www.tstrenching.co.uk/ to deploy the whole of the ducting, they wen't under main roads and along roadsides.

Have you got a link for this? Thanks

In reply to a post by MikeJG:

Have you got a link for this? Thanks

Maybe this:
http://www.communityfibre.bt.com/schools

Well i'm not clost to a school so i doubt i could get any funding from that. Does anyone know what size and type of the ducting that bt/openreach use and how far apart the chambers usually are?

Has anyone on this forum had any experience going ahead with a community fibre partnership with bt/openreach. Any help would be great.

You might find these handy. They are guides aimed at housing developers...
https://www.ournetwork.openreach.co.uk/property-deve...

They show parts and installation guidelines, but not planning guidelines. I think that a developer sends their site plans to Openreach; then Openreach planners add the plans for ducts and chambers. Then the developer installs everything in footways and roads ... pretty early on in the development.

Thanks.
Our village has 3 options really,

Pay openreach to do the work.
Get a contractor in to do it.
Or do it ourselves.

We have to pay £2,500 for a survey and openreach will send a surveyor out and plan the route and the exact price for openreach to do all the work.
I'm guessing once we have the exact price we should be able to try and get grants, if we can't get enough we'll have to ask a contractor and get him to give us a price for him to carry out all the work which should be a lot less than openreach will charge. The only problem is that i'm not sure if i could carry out the work myself if the route openreach choose is a long roadsides.

In reply to a post by MikeJG:

Thanks.
Our village has 3 options really,

Pay openreach to do the work.
Get a contractor in to do it.
Or do it ourselves.

We have to pay £2,500 for a survey and openreach will send a surveyor out and plan the route and the exact price for openreach to do all the work.
I'm guessing once we have the exact price we should be able to try and get grants, if we can't get enough we'll have to ask a contractor and get him to give us a price for him to carry out all the work which should be a lot less than openreach will charge. The only problem is that i'm not sure if i could carry out the work myself if the route openreach choose is a long roadsides.

It's not even that simple.

You pay your £2,500, then they quote you £X. You can't just say "I'll do it myself" as they won't let you connect your random fibre to their network. Paying a contractor presents similar issues and is unlikely to save much - that's what BT themselves will do anyway.

If you can't pay BT to do it, there is little you can do...

I know it isn't that simple, but it's possible to get a contractor to do the work, i've been talking with one that has carried out work on BT community fttp projects. BT would supply the plans and all materials.

the survey is only valid for BT doing the work

if you get a "contractor" to do it BT wont let them use there ducts and poles, you have to get the ground all dug up so you can lay new pipes (cost a lot more) and other issues as well

BT/Openreach in most cases is your only option unless you do point to point wireless broadband

Hi, thanks for the reply.

So if we get back in contact with BT and tell them we will lay the ducting from the fibre source to the top of the village and all you need to do is blow the fibre and then attach it to the poles through the village that won't require a survey?

I know a contractor can't use BT's existing ducts and poles, but they should be able to deploy the new ducting for a lot less than BT, i'm sure BT charge around £25-£30 a meter, i know one contactor charged £4 per meter a few years ago, his rates may have gone up since then. I could potentially lay the ducting myself but i would need to make sure it was carried out correctly.

Getting the fibre cables to the village is one thing, however then distributing the fibre around the village is another - therefore they may still have to survey within the village itself. Here Openreach are having to add new chambers, ducts and poles just to install the equipment and to distribute the fibre cables so the service coverage area meets the criteria (plus room for expansion). All this needs to be planned and survey so an optimal service is provided.

That makes sense. I'm trying to plan out some routes for the ducting, do you know how far apart access chambers are? or is there not a set distance.

In reply to a post by MikeJG:

That makes sense. I'm trying to plan out some routes for the ducting, do you know how far apart access chambers are? or is there not a set distance.

I might be missing something, but FTTP uses the current chambers that are used for the copper lines.

Didn't BT say a while back that they have no issues in other companies using they underground network and poles to provide broadband ?

Paul

Hi Paul, thanks for the reply. It would depend on which route we take as to whether or not we could use the current chambers that copper use. The copper that comes to my village as far as we know follows the roadside about 3KM. My plan was to possibly use farmers fields from the village to the fibre source.

As far as i know BT are fine with other companies using there network. But i would get a contractor in to deploy the ducting from the fibre source to the village, which they have allowed in the past.

this is based on Openreach doing the work

you would have had an original range figure of between 25 - 50k prior to the costing being accepted (which I assume you where advised and confirmed you could raise -- not sure how you think that this could now be 20k

you cannot do anything in the public highway without a licence
this is all based on private funding so not sure what grants you think you can access - however (there is some additional funding relating to Bt grouo and schools but that's matched on pro rata of what you can raise
that assumed circa £2,500 per premises based on FTTP -- (that's quite consistent based on the real world) or Gettting to places rather then paper world of others who think everything costs 50p

hhhmmm so which contractor is that -- as I think your are misinformed

The Survey is to ensure all premises can actually gain an fttp service without ECCs; and that all premises can gain a service -- the Survey fee is mandatory

the survey all has to ensure that actually service can be provided and that all permissions and land ownership issues are understood

depends what you mean by other companies if you are talking about a communication prover and PIA-- that then is not a CFP and you would not have any access to openreach and that would between you and the communication provider and the numbers would be quire different

In reply to a post by MikeJG:

Hi Paul, thanks for the reply. It would depend on which route we take as to whether or not we could use the current chambers that copper use. The copper that comes to my village as far as we know follows the roadside about 3KM. My plan was to possibly use farmers fields from the village to the fibre source.

As far as i know BT are fine with other companies using there network. But i would get a contractor in to deploy the ducting from the fibre source to the village, which they have allowed in the past.

We are also about 3km from our exchange, but the length has no issue with fibre, plus the extra few metres isn't going to cost that much more.

TBH, I would follow the exact route the copper line takes from the exchange to the properties, that way there is no digging unless there is blockages, resulting in a lower cost.

If BT can get a copper phone line to you then they should be able to get FTTP to you, its all down to cost.

Paul

Assuming there is adequate duct space and they goto a suitable aggregation node, bearing in mind the fibre head end is most likely in a different exchange, the existing duct route may or may not be of use.

the design will have viewed what is there / not there and if you have been advised there is no duct in the design that indicated there is what it termed Direct in Ground / Buried cable) which will need to have a new ducted rout to blow fibre down and it suggest that is in the highway somewhere not close to you

Following the existing copper would cost a bit because it's along the roadside, if we can get permission from landowners. we would just go on the inside of the fields near the road if that makes sense. We are 3KM from the fibre source not the exchange, BT showed us a map of all available fibre points we could connect to and that was the closest.

Yeah BT have said they can deliver FTTP to my village of 20 but its going to be at least 70K. But that could change after the survey, Fell end community managed to deploy 15KM network for £88,000 but they got a contractor in, the same one i am thinking about getting.

The original figure was around 70k, that was for openreach to do all the work, what i was thinking about doing was planning our own route and either deploy the ducting from the fibre source to the top of the village and then all openreach would have to do is blow the fibre/attach it to the poles about 200m. I've read on some sites that the civils (laying hte ducts) can account for around 70-80% of the cost. So if we could either do it ourselves for free or get a contractor in we should be able to save a hell of a lot.

A high proportion of the costs is down to the indemnities and such like those doing the work must have.

Openreach will need to own all the equipment and ensure the route is accessible -

interesting to see who you could get to civil in the Highway as that has to be approved as you cant do it

I assume you that whoever you spoke to in the CFP team told you how much this was likely to be when you started the process -- ie you know it was going to be expensive

you have 2 choices you either take to OR Gap fund quote
or you try and DIY yourself but you wont get access to the network without a communications provider and its does appear you own the land and you wnay be able to deal with anyone at openreach on as it wont be a CFP opportunity any more

and even if you could do what you say the survey fee would still need to be undertake and a formal confirmation for your contract would be required

don't assume that that is where all the cost is -as openreach needs to ensure that can be brought into its network once its live

The contractor should he's layed ducting for communities before

as I said which contractor and which communities -- an are they openreach CFP' ones

Contractor is ts trenching and the community i know of is fell end.

so fellend was not a community fibre partnership -- its was completely different done in a different way - and not sure whether that was all openreach network -- so not the same at all

It was done before CFP was formed,it pretty much formed the whole CFP scheme, but it followed a similar format. I've been chatting with one of the members of the community, trying to get some advice. She said that ts-trenching done all the laying of the ducting and BT done all the fibre work.

To be clear - this was not part of any CFP scheme or come under any gap funded
model - it was done outside of that --- actually CFP started in Preston village in Herts in 2011 !!!!

CFP is direct contract between the Community and Openreach where the network build and the in frastructure become the responsibility of and part of the BT Estate

I see, fair enough.

http://www.btplc.com/News/regions/#/pressreleases/en...

This is what i can't understand, they deploy a 2KM network for 15 houses across ''stretch of challenging fellside'' free of charge and then my village of 20 but could be 24 if they include the properties on the way they won't provide a 2.7-3KM network across fairly standard terrain. So frustrating.

Where does it say that BT provided that fellside connection for free? Are you saying that Connecting Cumbria or some other scheme didn't provide some or all of the finance?

We're not a rural hamlet but instead in central London and as a consequence outside the scope of BDUK funding. As a community we gap funded (c£19K) a network rearrangement that now allows our community of 75 properties to have access to FTTC connections. Given our upgrade was not considered commercially viable without additional funding it comes as no surprise that BT consider your proposal to be commercially unviable.

as I have clrealy stated this was not a CFP and was outside of anything else

mike you clearly must have known this this was likely circa 25 - 50k when you started this as that I understand that is pert of the pre qualification process

private funded FTTP in the middle of nowhere with some no duct thrown in and extensive civils always going to expensive and in the 1,000 of pounds per premise - so you estimate which is 70 for 20 premises is circa 2.5 - 3ok per premise

That community was part of the connecting cumbria rollout not a CFP i know that.

In reply to a post by Fastman2:

private funded FTTP in the middle of nowhere with some no duct thrown in and extensive civils always going to expensive and in the 1,000 of pounds per premise - so you estimate which is 70 for 20 premises is circa 2.5 - 3ok per premise

...per premises.

Fixed that for you

thanks -- me and my premises !!!!!

In reply to a post by MikeJG:

That community was part of the connecting cumbria rollout not a CFP i know that.

_{Edit: Uuhhh. Sorry. Wrong community. I was writing about Fell End, not the other one.}

http://www.ravenstonedale.org/features/fellendbroadb...

It looks more like it was an RCBF project to me. RCBF was a pretty ill-fated fund for rural community broadband, and ran in parallel with, but separate from, BDUK projects.

One reason it was ill-fated was down to over-building and state-aid rules. It existed while BDUK was in its early stages, and BT didn't really have a clue where they were going to go with BDUK money, making it almost impossible to mark a whole community as eligible for RCBF funds instead.

You would think/hope that if such a project ran today, it would run within the CFP envelope, but some of the community's side of the funding came from the fund.

It isn't obvious to me why an RCBF project could be partial self-build, and a CFP project cannot be. However, I can see that BT will have quality requirements that mean @MikeJG's hopes are on the optimistic side.

Edited by deleted (Tue 03-Jan-17 13:03:21)

it could only run as a CFP today -and there may be elements that a community can self dig (assuming its consistent with Openreach Policy and can be accessed in same way as rest of network and is built to the same standards but the contract would be between community and Openreach and all the network needs to come under BT Estate at the end of as Or will be responsible for it going forward

Here's another community project...
http://www.gu8superfast.co.uk/?page_id=277

This one seems to have logged almost every step they went through.