OR installing copper to new housing estate so no fibre?!

At a new housing development I was expecting to find OR installing FTTP but the site manager says its all copper. There are over 70 houses in this phase, probably another 200 in prior phases. Wouldn't you expect fibre, not copper?

Meanwhile a check on the address I'm interested in says 1 to 3.5 Mbps ADSL. Much the same when checking addresses I know are inhabited. Fibre is not available but shows as a waiting list (and even then its only 60.5 down and 17.3 up at very best).

Anyway to find out how long before OR add more capacity to the cabinet? Months, years?

Have a read through this ....

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/t/4558832-fro...

.. and realise that it's the developers you need to put pressure on .... or maybe not even move there at all.

You can contact Openreach via their website, they havea fibre enquiries form. They're usually pretty tansparent about any capacity upgrades.

The developer should have asked for/paid Openreach for fibre.

If it's that important, don't move there.

FTTP only to be expected if developer took up the FTTP offer, or estate may have been in pipeline before latest FTTP procedures were in place.

The capacity issue indicates that FTTP is very unlikely as decent VDSL2 is available, but demand is such that more capacity needs adding, this can take from a few weeks to a few months. Years is very unlikely unless a new cabinet is needed and objections are made about its location

AFAIK planning permission was applied for in 2015 so I'd assume the builders had made their plans by then. I know OR lowered the number of houses needed to get a 'free' connection but I'll never know if the builder even asked.

The availability checker (for an occupied house) says WBC FTTC 18x2 Sim is available. That's a kind of half way solution? TBH I really need to upload speed. Up to 0.5 Mbps isn't going to work. I might be able to live with 2 Mbps for a while and add some 4G into the mix when required.

Will all ISPs be able to offer 18x2 Sim?

Thanks for the help!

For now order standard broadband and once capacity on the cabinet is increased you can get a FTTC service.

18x2 is still an FTTC based solution. So, if you cannot get an up to 80, 55 or 40 connection then an up to 18 will not be available either.

The 18x2 is to allow ISPs to have a product they can offer people with a long line from the cabinet.

In reply to a post by MHC:

if you cannot get an up to 80, 55 or 40 connection then an up to 18 will not be available either.

The OR/BT checker says "waiting list" for WBC FTTC Availability Date, while WBC FTTC 18x2 Sim Availability is "Yes". So even though an up to 80, 55 or 40 connection is not available, an 18x2 is!

Can yo link to a screen shot of the DSL Checker page?

It just means that product is offered on that cab, it's not available to all cans as far as I know.

If there's a waiting list, there's no spare ports, regardless of what speed tier you want.