Tiny village gets full FTTP?

Hey guys. Just wondering if someone could shed some light on something that's been puzzling me.

A chap I work with who lives in a tiny rural village (approx 30 houses I'd say) had been putting up with standard ADSL for years, and he regularly made contact with Openreach to check if they have a plan for installing fibre. He kept getting the usual "we are exploring solutions" and "we don't have a date yet" responses. Until one day he excitedly told me that an Openreach van turned up in the village, and they told him they were working to install fibre.

A few weeks later we were chatting and I asked him if he'd got his fibre yet. His response was "no, but it shouldn't be too much longer as they've put all new green boxes on all the poles now". A little confused, I had a look at the availability checker, and it turned out they were installing FTTP. Not on demand, but the full ready to connect version without that him and his neighbours can connect to without paying big build charges. (Yes, I'm jealous lol!)

So my question is why would Openreach spend all that money putting in FTTP to a little village with only a few residents, only a fraction of which are going to want a fibre service anyway? When there are built up areas with hundreds of houses per cabinet that can't even get FTTC yet. It doesn't seem to make sense from a business point of view.

Thanks for reading.

All depends on the BDUK project and the aims...

If the built up areas also have access to Virgin Media - then that is an immediate answer

I live in a small, very rural village of 40 properties, and exactly half of it had 300Mb FTTP installed from pole mounted manifolds a few months ago.

Unfortunately, we live in the wrong half and are still stuck with poor ADSL. Things are currently moving on, and for some strange reason they are installing a new cabinet for FTTC for the rest of us soon.

Edited by sparky_paul (Fri 19-Jan-18 18:26:06)

Somebody mentioned on ISPReview the other day that he was told by an Openreach engineer that they did not rearrange copper lines into FTTC if it meant that the lines would end up being longer. I can see the logic in this because despite FTTC being an upgrade, they are probably not allowed to make lines longer and reduce ADSL performance.

Would that logic fit with what they've done in your village and possibly explain why only some got FTTP?

In reply to a post by craski:

Somebody mentioned on ISPReview the other day that he was told by an Openreach engineer that they did not rearrange copper lines into FTTC if it meant that the lines would end up being longer. I can see the logic in this because despite FTTC being an upgrade, they are probably not allowed to make lines longer and reduce ADSL performance.

Would that logic fit with what they've done in your village and possibly explain why only some got FTTP?

It sounds like a reasonable explanation, but I'm not sure it would apply in our case.

The village is virtually linear, with all the houses along a 0.6 mile single stretch of road, all connected to poles. The first half of the village, nearest the exchange, already has 300Mb FTTP. The new FTTC cabinet is being placed at the beginning of the second half, so virtually in the centre of the village.

I can't really figure out why one end is FTTP and the other FTTC. One other odd thing, we had a new pole just before Christmas. The cabling on the new pole has a spare loop in the cables clipped to the pole where the pod is fitted on the FTTP poles, and a new, empty duct was fitted from the pole to the inspection pit. I guessed it was prep work for FTTP, so I wonder if there has been a change of plan?

In reply to a post by derby13:

So my question is why would Openreach spend all that money putting in FTTP to a little village with only a few residents, only a fraction of which are going to want a fibre service anyway? When there are built up areas with hundreds of houses per cabinet that can't even get FTTC yet. It doesn't seem to make sense from a business point of view.

If the village is benefitting from government funding then it makes sense for Openreach and the local authority to take advantage of that funding and they will also likely have contractual targets to meet. Large built up areas dont necessarily benefit from funding if they are seen to be commercially viable so resources are concentrated on the contracts which have target dates that must be met.

Sounds as if theres little difference between fttc and fttp for that part of the village.

For some of wave 2 in hampshire they are doing fttp instead of fttc where there's little difference in time and price.

Unfortunately trying to get more information (ie time scares and who's going to get that) is like pulling teeth.

In reply to a post by Taras:

Unfortunately trying to get more information (ie time scares and who's going to get that) is like pulling teeth.

I agree, 12 months ago when cabinets were popping up in all the villages around us, our local BDUK scheme was telling us that we were not included in any plan, and basically that that the money had run out, and that was it.

Suddenly, several months ago, vans turned up and 20 out of the 40 properties were fitted up with FTTP - it was a complete surprise.

Gainshare money being reinvested to further expand the footprint

the clawback clauses have helped. The saddest part of bduk has been bt/or have not put extra money to re-jig its network - cab wise. so cab upgrades have been poor in terms of money spent..

Hopefully those incidents are in the 1 to 2%