Any ideas about whats happened?

Hi

I'm in a semi-rural location 7km from my exchange. In March 2018 fibre was strung along poles on the road adjacent to our homes - this was after a lot of OR activity along this B-road and a couple of visits to our location from OR engineers (our phone line comes across our land on poles and they told me that the Network designers said fibre would have to be tunnelled across the fields from - the engineers said this was rubbish and it would come via the poles).

In summer our local Superfast project manager said we would be getting FTTH hopefully by the end of the year..

Nothing has happened so I asked again last week. Apparently we are now very unlikely to get Fibre at all because of a 'dramatic increase in costs' in connecting us the the fibre backbone. He is unclear as to why this should be but is writing to OR and BDUK about it.

Thats all going to take time so...

I wonder if anyone is aware of any reason why costs should rise so dramatically so quickly? I rather naively assumed that with the survey work that was going on, the project costs would be at least estimated well in advance of even stringing the fibre along the road for 3km.

At the moment I am just carrying on with 4G via a roof antenna as the term 'USO' has returned to my conversations with the Project Manager.

Maybe one small bit of land has a landowner holding out for a higher way leave settlement, or the need to dig up a road has been subsequently discovered

If the 4G is over 10 down and 1 up you already satisfy USO criteria

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Maybe one small bit of land has a landowner holding out for a higher way leave settlement, or the need to dig up a road has been subsequently discovered

If the 4G is over 10 down and 1 up you already satisfy USO criteria

Thanks Andrew.

Andrew may be right. When was the original survey done? I know from personal experience of the rollout in my area that OR catastrophically miscalculated the costs. How close is the fibre on the poles to you now are we talking yards here if so thats puzzling? (Poles are usually clearly marked)

Why don't you speak to your local BDUK team, they would have signed a legal contract with Openreach so they should know what the state of play is (most BDUK teams have monthly update meetings with Openreach) and if the additional costs have to be covered by Openreach or them.

In reply to a post by dect:

Why don't you speak to your local BDUK team, they would have signed a legal contract with Openreach so they should know what the state of play is (most BDUK teams have monthly update meetings with Openreach) and if the additional costs have to be covered by Openreach or them.

Err, I have spoken to them as I noted in my post - both last year and just last week. The Project Manager is writing to BDUK/OR to ask for clarification on the increased costs.

I simply wanted to get some ideas from others what the causes might potentially be.

In reply to a post by Garlic:

Andrew may be right. When was the original survey done? I know from personal experience of the rollout in my area that OR catastrophically miscalculated the costs. How close is the fibre on the poles to you now are we talking yards here if so thats puzzling? (Poles are usually clearly marked)

Originally done at the beginning of 2018 Feb/March.

Nearest fibre is at the end of the road 200m away.

In reply to a post by knighton:

Err, I have spoken to them as I noted in my post - both last year and just last week. The Project Manager is writing to BDUK/OR to ask for clarification on the increased costs.

I simply wanted to get some ideas from others what the causes might potentially be.

Sorry your post wasn't clear as you said your project manager was going to write to BDUK (and OR) even though you say he is BDUK!

I'll leave it to those with a crystal ball to speculate why your fibre infrastructure installation has stalled, there could be dozens of possible reasons but you won't be sure about your particular situation until your project manager gets back to you with his findings.

In reply to a post by knighton:

Originally done at the beginning of 2018 Feb/March.

Nearest fibre is at the end of the road 200m away.

ok i'm confused here. Can those on the "b" road order fttp ? and only you can't because the poles to your house are on your own land?

In reply to a post by knighton:

In reply to a post by Garlic:

Andrew may be right. When was the original survey done? I know from personal experience of the rollout in my area that OR catastrophically miscalculated the costs. How close is the fibre on the poles to you now are we talking yards here if so thats puzzling? (Poles are usually clearly marked)

Originally done at the beginning of 2018 Feb/March.

Nearest fibre is at the end of the road 200m away.

Hmm.. Assuming thats fibre terminating to a property or a joint (not just passing as a cable to somewhere else) I can't think of a good reason why if its that close on the pole you won't get fttp (eventually) Plenty of short term reasons perhaps but thats just not a difficult job. How many additional properties would be added if it extended in your direction. It could be a backhaul capacity issue esp on a ECI headend

(Such a recent survey should have an accurate understanding the rollout costs today which some of the earlier surveys weren't)

Edited by deleted (Mon 21-Jan-19 09:49:30)

"'dramatic increase in costs' in connecting us the the fibre backbone" could be a problem further upstream. That is, they still need to get the other end of that aerial cable back to a live fibre aggregation node.

I think we need some pics, a map and some postcodes so we can probe, as this isn't making sense. We don't know if neighbouring properties are now fttp enabled.

In reply to a post by Taras:

I think we need some pics, a map and some postcodes so we can probe, as this isn't making sense. We don't know if neighbouring properties are now fttp enabled.

Sorry, no local properties are fibre enabled. We are on the Field exchange (WMFIE). There is a single Cabinet just outside the Exchange.

My postcode is ST18 0EJ - we are literally the last properties served by this exchange in this direction.

We have Fibre and Fibre Joints on poles - thats really my point. To have got this far I suppose there must be something major upstream to have escalated costs.

In reply to a post by Taras:

In reply to a post by knighton:

Originally done at the beginning of 2018 Feb/March.

Nearest fibre is at the end of the road 200m away.

ok i'm confused here. Can those on the "b" road order fttp ? and only you can't because the poles to your house are on your own land?

No-one on the B-road can order Fibre. I'd give Openreach a wayleave in a heartbeat if that was the problem.

In reply to a post by Garlic:

In reply to a post by knighton:

In reply to a post by Garlic:

Andrew may be right. When was the original survey done? I know from personal experience of the rollout in my area that OR catastrophically miscalculated the costs. How close is the fibre on the poles to you now are we talking yards here if so thats puzzling? (Poles are usually clearly marked)

Originally done at the beginning of 2018 Feb/March.

Nearest fibre is at the end of the road 200m away.

Hmm.. Assuming thats fibre terminating to a property or a joint (not just passing as a cable to somewhere else) I can't think of a good reason why if its that close on the pole you won't get fttp (eventually) Plenty of short term reasons perhaps but thats just not a difficult job. How many additional properties would be added if it extended in your direction. It could be a backhaul capacity issue esp on a ECI headend

(Such a recent survey should have an accurate understanding the rollout costs today which some of the earlier surveys weren't)

There are about 24 properties (farms and houses) in this little area

Edited by deleted (Mon 21-Jan-19 12:48:47)

In reply to a post by knighton:

In reply to a post by Garlic:

In reply to a post by knighton:

... nested quotes trimmed ...

Originally done at the beginning of 2018 Feb/March.

Nearest fibre is at the end of the road 200m away.

Hmm.. Assuming thats fibre terminating to a property or a joint (not just passing as a cable to somewhere else) I can't think of a good reason why if its that close on the pole you won't get fttp (eventually) Plenty of short term reasons perhaps but thats just not a difficult job. How many additional properties would be added if it extended in your direction. It could be a backhaul capacity issue esp on a ECI headend

(Such a recent survey should have an accurate understanding the rollout costs today which some of the earlier surveys weren't)

There are about 24 properties (farms and houses) in this little area

Well. The 'fibre' on the polls is just the cable that takes the fibre not the fibre itself which has to be blown afterwards. Where is the nearest place that actually has fibre enabled? According to OR the exchange itself is fibre enabled; there probably is a live fibre joint closer to you than that.

24 properties sounds just the sort of number that OR have been doing FTTP rather than building a cabinet and giving FTTC. (The cabinet/power costs are high for such small numbers) If nothing is closer than 7k fibre enabled that would concern me more although having done so much work already from the sounds of it OR might have gone past the point of no return regardless. (At least on the checkers you're still on project for fttp but they can be out of date)

Assuming they have done the poles then they can't have failed them and be waiting for new polls down the route and wayleaves sounds unlikely for the same reason they have a route (assuming they have put the fibre cables on an existing route back towards the exchange)

In reply to a post by Garlic:

In reply to a post by knighton:

In reply to a post by Garlic:

... nested quotes trimmed ...

Hmm.. Assuming thats fibre terminating to a property or a joint (not just passing as a cable to somewhere else) I can't think of a good reason why if its that close on the pole you won't get fttp (eventually) Plenty of short term reasons perhaps but thats just not a difficult job. How many additional properties would be added if it extended in your direction. It could be a backhaul capacity issue esp on a ECI headend

(Such a recent survey should have an accurate understanding the rollout costs today which some of the earlier surveys weren't)

There are about 24 properties (farms and houses) in this little area

Well. The 'fibre' on the polls is just the cable that takes the fibre not the fibre itself which has to be blown afterwards. Where is the nearest place that actually has fibre enabled? According to OR the exchange itself is fibre enabled; there probably is a live fibre joint closer to you than that.

24 properties sounds just the sort of number that OR have been doing FTTP rather than building a cabinet and giving FTTC. (The cabinet/power costs are high for such small numbers) If nothing is closer than 7k fibre enabled that would concern me more although having done so much work already from the sounds of it OR might have gone past the point of no return regardless. (At least on the checkers you're still on project for fttp but they can be out of date)

Assuming they have done the poles then they can't have failed them and be waiting for new polls down the route and wayleaves sounds unlikely for the same reason they have a route (assuming they have put the fibre cables on an existing route back towards the exchange)

Yeah thanks. I guess its just back to waiting and hoping the Superfast Project Manager finds out why the costs have gone up so much. We are supposedly on track according to the checkers but I have a feeling that there is something in the works that is contentious. The Superfast PM told me that even with pooling domestic grants and going down the Community Partnership route, there wouldn't be enough money to connect us.

Its puzzling. Not that OR might change its mind or that areas can go in and out of plan after costs change. But by your explanation they seem to have done too much work to change their mind now. Perhaps they have badly overspent elsewhere.

Fibre on poles, or just black tubing with a yellow stripe?

The later is fairly cheap tubing can be placed on poles quickly and still needs a fibre splicer and blower to visit at a later date, and if there is 4km of fibre to be done back to the aggregation node then it only needs one problem to delay things, or to hit targets leave the cheap stuff orphaned for a year or two and go do some simpler stuff elsewhere.

Exchange area has a little bit of FTTP available on Hill Lane

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Fibre on poles, or just black tubing with a yellow stripe?

The later is fairly cheap tubing can be placed on poles quickly and still needs a fibre splicer and blower to visit at a later date, and if there is 4km of fibre to be done back to the aggregation node then it only needs one problem to delay things, or to hit targets leave the cheap stuff orphaned for a year or two and go do some simpler stuff elsewhere.

Exchange area has a little bit of FTTP available on Hill Lane

Well every pole has a little yellow sticker saying 'Caution: Fibre Overhead' and there are these Fibre Joints every 3 or 4 poles.

They put those stickers on the pole before they have run any fibre. Certainly shows intent though (at least at some point). Usually these days in rural lanes they seem to go with the pole mouted green box type splitter which they write on what they've done in pen often which is helpful

Edited by deleted (Mon 21-Jan-19 15:56:27)

Even if there is fibre installed and spliced into the fibre trays it does not mean there is a continuous run to the aggregation node, you have likely a few km of fibre run to the aggregation node and only one problematic pole/road junction/pavement chamber to deal things.

In Wales lots of FTTP areas were left almost finished, because the project had reached its contract goals and thus was not going to pay for any more.

I accept that the contract goals may have been reached but if that turns out to be the case it seems an awful waste of money.

If the combined finances of BT/OR/Staffordshire County Council and BDUK cannot complete the connection to the fibre backbone then I cannot see how any other organisation could do so.

In the absence of any new money, what has been done so far seems to be a huge waste of effort and cash - not to mention a huge disappointment to the local community (not that that seems to count for much).

>If the combined finances of BT/OR/Staffordshire County Council and BDUK cannot complete the connection to the fibre backbone then I cannot see how any other organisation could do so.

NOTE: The council only pay BT when the FTTP has been delivered, and it MAY (note may as we don't know for sure) that the expected costs have now exceeded the value for money cost cap in the project. This cap is in place to avoid silly levels of spending to reach one property where the person complains a lot.

So if (and big if) this bit of fibre infrastructure is abandoned then the cost has all been on the BT side for now.

In reply to a post by knighton:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Fibre on poles, or just black tubing with a yellow stripe?

The later is fairly cheap tubing can be placed on poles quickly and still needs a fibre splicer and blower to visit at a later date, and if there is 4km of fibre to be done back to the aggregation node then it only needs one problem to delay things, or to hit targets leave the cheap stuff orphaned for a year or two and go do some simpler stuff elsewhere.

Exchange area has a little bit of FTTP available on Hill Lane

Well every pole has a little yellow sticker saying 'Caution: Fibre Overhead' and there are these Fibre Joints every 3 or 4 poles.

Well you can ignore that sticker on the pole, we have FTTP and our pole don't have any stickers on it saying fibre over head.

Paul

I'm not sure if FTTPoD is currently still halted. But if it isn't, is it worth requesting a quote to force the costings to be released, thus those 24 properties can then figure a way forward?

Which would provide an inaccurate desktop quote and cover a single DP, which may only be 1 or 2 of the 24 properties.

It would need a full £250 survey to get any sort of accurate figure, again for a single DP.

More importantly if they aren't connected to an FTTC cab then FTTPoD isn't available and they can't even get a quote.

I advise the OP wait for the BDUK rep to respond.

Edited by j0hn83 (Tue 22-Jan-19 00:15:01)

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

More importantly if they aren't connected to an FTTC cab then FTTPoD isn't available and they can't even get a quote.

I advise the OP wait for the BDUK rep to respond.

https://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/codelook.htm?xid=3... I didn't realise that there wasn't even any fttc there, (well 1 cab done and another later in april). So yup best wait for the bduk team to take things forward

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

>If the combined finances of BT/OR/Staffordshire County Council and BDUK cannot complete the connection to the fibre backbone then I cannot see how any other organisation could do so.

NOTE: The council only pay BT when the FTTP has been delivered, and it MAY (note may as we don't know for sure) that the expected costs have now exceeded the value for money cost cap in the project. This cap is in place to avoid silly levels of spending to reach one property where the person complains a lot.

So if (and big if) this bit of fibre infrastructure is abandoned then the cost has all been on the BT side for now.

Thanks for the clarification.

As an aside, do they really blow fibre through the cabling being used on poles?

We recently had about half a mile of poles erected down our road with 'fibre' only on them. The last pole has a fibre connector and then goes down into the ground (presumably serving the nearby property). The 4th from last pole has another connector, then it's a good 500 metres to the first new pole where the fibre runs across the road to an old pole (with copper and power on too) and emerges from a ground duct (concrete BT manhole beside the pole).

The 'fibre' on these poles consists of a single cable about 5mm diameter (outside dimension) with a yellow stripe. This is coiled on each of the poles with a connector through small loops about 10cm radius.

I had assumed this cable already contains the fibre as blowing through this (and those coils) would seem like a serious challenge. Suffice to say the cable is much narrower than the stuff I see being used in underground chambers. I had assumed it was connectorised cable complete with at least a few fibres and, maybe power for amplifiers etc.

Here's a photo of one of the poles with a connector on - note the use of yellow tape over the cable exit. It looks like they are using a much narrower cable than the connector is designed for but maybe this is normal.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/RSnvqMRGoA78hUJi6

Edited by deleted (Tue 22-Jan-19 14:48:22)

FTTP does NOT have power for amplifiers it is a passive network

They do blow fibre down 1 inch diameter black with yellow stripe tubes, around 8 to 12 smaller inner tubes the fibre goes down.

In your case this looks like connectorised fibre roll-out, so fibres in the cable already with Kevlar for strength

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

FTTP does NOT have power for amplifiers it is a passive network

They do blow fibre down 1 inch diameter black with yellow stripe tubes, around 8 to 12 smaller inner tubes the fibre goes down.

In your case this looks like connectorised fibre roll-out, so fibres in the cable already with Kevlar for strength

Thanks Andrew, always good to know.

Any idea how many fibres in one of these cables?
Just wondering if there is any hope of getting a cheaper FTTPoD quote now that this stuff is in place. Desktop quote in non-committal so IF we are still going to be here for a few years and AFTER I've paid for my daughter's wedding I may put in for the full quote. It if is 10s of 1000s then it will still be a non-no though.

You have to be prepared to gamble £250+VAT to find out. The surveyor will find the existing infrastructure and should take it into account - but if there's an upstream problem that may be taken into account too.

You may as well wait until after the wedding though: firstly in case more infrastructure is built in the mean time, but mainly because once you receive your quotation you only have 30 days to pay the full balance for installation. If you don't, then the quote expires, and you'll have to pay the £250+VAT again to order later.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

{...}
They do blow fibre down 1 inch diameter black with yellow stripe tubes
{...}

Mine is approx. a 1/4 of an inch thick. Unless they use smaller tubing for the last leg of blown fibre? (DP>CSP)

https://i.postimg.cc/KYdkvwsf/IMG-00675.jpg

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

{...}
They do blow fibre down 1 inch diameter black with yellow stripe tubes
{...}

Mine is approx. a 1/4 of an inch thick. Unless they use smaller tubing for the last leg of blown fibre? (DP>CSP)

https://i.postimg.cc/KYdkvwsf/IMG-00675.jpg

I think Andrew was referring to the tubing up the phone pole between the DP and Manifold.

Now the tubing from the manifold to my home and then to the CSP, yeah sure that is very thin tubing, which they also blew the 4 very small fibres through.

Paul

Ah yes, final drop for an individual is thinner, I was referring to the fibre tubing that links the fibre bottle manifold with the splitter

If the original plan was to include several hundred metres of mole ploughed duct in the verge and this was later deemed unsuitable, then they may be looking at a very large cost for excavating the adjacent road.
They may have suspended the project until a finance decision is made either way, so it may still be up in the air if that is why it seems to have stopped.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

You may as well wait until after the wedding though: firstly in case more infrastructure is built in the mean time, but mainly because once you receive your quotation you only have 30 days to pay the full balance for installation. If you don't, then the quote expires, and you'll have to pay the £250+VAT again to order later.

There was someone who ordered the £250 survey posted recently that you have actually ordered the installation at the time of ordering the full survey, and that the thirty days is to allow you to reject it! Another similar one replied soon after, confirming that. It doesn't just "expire".

Edit: Subsequent posts seem to prove I misunderstood or mis-remember the ones I referred to. I shall have to stop being lazy, and find my references next time. I usually do find them .

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 23-Jan-19 09:07:02)

That's true but I would assume not paying the balance has the same effect. They won't just go ahead and you will be due them a fortune.

I think the point being made was more that if you choose not to go ahead in the 30 days and cancel the order then the survey expires and the £250 would need paid again with any subsequent order.

* At the time you pay the £250 (*), you are placing a conditional order for installation of service
* The survey goes ahead, and you are told what the confirmed cost will be
* From that point you have 30 days to pay the balance to proceed (**)
* If you don't, the order is cancelled and the £250 is non-refundable
* If you place an order again later, the whole process starts from the top. You pay the £250 again, and the confirmed cost could be lower or higher.

(*) You pay this to the service provider. They in turn pay the Openreach survey and design charge of £244.52 if the order does not proceed.

(**) It's unclear to me if this money is paid immediately to Openreach at this stage, or if the service provider sits on it until completion.

(And @ candlerb)
I�ve edited my post accordingly.

In reply to a post by andyhurley:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

FTTP does NOT have power for amplifiers it is a passive network

They do blow fibre down 1 inch diameter black with yellow stripe tubes, around 8 to 12 smaller inner tubes the fibre goes down.

In your case this looks like connectorised fibre roll-out, so fibres in the cable already with Kevlar for strength

Thanks Andrew, always good to know.

Any idea how many fibres in one of these cables?
Just wondering if there is any hope of getting a cheaper FTTPoD quote now that this stuff is in place. Desktop quote in non-committal so IF we are still going to be here for a few years and AFTER I've paid for my daughter's wedding I may put in for the full quote. It if is 10s of 1000s then it will still be a non-no though.

Connectorised is the way they go now - as it need far less trained engineers to install it (plug and play!) They still do some of the manually spliced cables as the connectorised is limited to 100m iirc. (My Fttp is longer and had to be done manually which caused some hastle finding someone who could do it)

The cables vary. In the ducts/polls they can be 72-fibre (5mm) where space is limited the standard 96 @ 7mm or up to 276 fibres iirc.

Afaik the standard home cable (CSP) is 4 strands. I know they used the wrong cable on mine and its far more though it makes no real difference as they only blow one obviously.

The longest standard connectorised cables are 160m, but there are 300m ones available on special order.


p.s. It�s �poles� not polls.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

The longest standard connectorised cables are 160m, but there are 300m ones available on special order.


p.s. It�s �poles� not polls.

Must be new; BT/ORs (7/13/2018) Fibre handbook still only lists (5m, 20m, 30m, 50m, 100m)

I've not had a cuppa yet this morning I could 'correct all' anything wrong!

Edited by deleted (Wed 23-Jan-19 10:39:16)

Interesting, certainly one leg of the new poles section on our road is more than 300m, the last 4 poles (between two connectors) is probably 160m but the section before that is well over 300m, measuring on google maps makes it about 450m and that's without allowing for distance up and down poles at each end.

Maybe I've just missed another connector but if so it is well hidden.

In reply to a post by andyhurley:

Interesting, certainly one leg of the new poles section on our road is more than 300m, the last 4 poles (between two connectors) is probably 160m but the section before that is well over 300m, measuring on google maps makes it about 450m and that's without allowing for distance up and down poles at each end.

Maybe I've just missed another connector but if so it is well hidden.

As I said this is not max cable length just pre-connectorised length. So you could/can already run long lengths but you have to splice them.

Yes, but didn't we say the Kevlar reinforced cables with fibre already in only came in connectorised form?

Obviously if they come on arbitrary length sections without the connectors then that is different but then it begs the question why they bothered putting a connector unit on a pole 100 odd metres back from the end of the run when there is nothing there (see the picture posted earlier).

In reply to a post by andyhurley:

Yes, but didn't we say the Kevlar reinforced cables with fibre already in only came in connectorised form?

Obviously if they come on arbitrary length sections without the connectors then that is different but then it begs the question why they bothered putting a connector unit on a pole 100 odd metres back from the end of the run when there is nothing there (see the picture posted earlier).

You can get kevlar/aramid in generic cable. I'd usually expect generic cable up to the last 100m (160 perhaps if that is now available to OR in quantity) and then connectorised cable from there to properties.

Beyond that its hard to be sure without a better understanding on the layout.

It does not have to have a connector on each end....i.e. one end can be open ready for cleaving and splicing

The Kevlar is thin strands that can be cut but give support and strength with minimal weight and cross section

The max length I was referring to was that of the pre-made connectorised kits from the CBT to ONT.

I think what you are referencing is about the old EeZee bend lead in kits.

Hi Zarjaz

When CBT's are supplied to Openreach do they come with a pre-connected length of cable for connection to the DP node/Splitter? if so does that cable contain 1 fibre for each connector on the CBT?

[Edit] Sorry thought of another question are CBT's on poles exactly the same as CBT's in footway boxes or are they different due to their mounting location?

Edited by deleted (Wed 23-Jan-19 15:13:45)

There is a single fibre per CBT port, so 8 ports = 8 fibres and so on.

Yes the CBT�s come with a variety of �tail� lengths pre-made.

Yes, UG and OH are essentially the same.

Many thanks as always Zarjaz for sharing your knowledge.

Knowledge is too strong a term for it.