Community Fibre

Anyone on here on Community Fibre?

They have fitted the box on the end of our small block of maisonettes (Southwark Council) and laid cables to the outside of each premises, and I don't know whether to take up the offer of their service or just wait for BTOR to change the ECI cabinet to a Huawei one and hope for my speeds to go back up to what they were when I first took out FTTC --- Used to be 78/20 now 56/18

Speeds will be a lot higher on community fibre and you get symmetric without the hassle of VDSL2

Who has said your ECI cabinet is going to be changed for a Huawei one? Current trials are to change just 200 out of the 25,000 across the UK and then decide what to do with the rest

In reply to a post by The_Voyager:

I don't know whether to take up the offer of their service or just wait for BTOR to change the ECI cabinet to a Huawei one and hope for my speeds to go back up to what they were when I first took out FTTC --- Used to be 78/20 now 56/18

That could be a very long wait, or even never. It's only a 200 cabinet trial at the moment.

I'd go with Community Fibre.

As already mentioned, no one knows what and when and where Openreach will do their upgrades. There is also no particular reason to believe the decrease in your experienced speed would disappear with a new cabinet. There might be a slight fault in the line or they have done something else that causes the speed drop. Or something in your building or even at your home.

Why not give Community fibre a try while you wait? Their 200/200 connection for £35 seems to be something I would be interested in - Hyperoptic charges £35 for 150/150. You'll get a symmetric connection as a bonus.

Openreach hasn't been too active in solving the internet issue in Southwark. Many are still left far behind with their EO lines. Hyperoptic and Community fibre have cabled many blocks of flats while Openreach has done very little. Waiting for Openreach FTTP or a random cabinet upgrade might be a lengthy wait. Unless there is a particular reason to stick with your current ISP, give Community Fibre a try and then switch back if you'd rather be in OR network as soon as something better is available.

Thanks for you input, Nobody said anything about the changeover from ECI - only what I have read from TB, and yes I understood it could be quite a while and that they were going to trial about 200 cabs, but you never can tell, mine might have been one of the 200

Thanks for your input, I'm hoping that someone who actually has Community Fibre comes along with more info, as I do know that Hyperoptic who were going to be doing our block have had some problems and that is why Community Fibre stepped in.

In reply to a post by hvis42:

As already mentioned, no one knows what and when and where Openreach will do their upgrades. There is also no particular reason to believe the decrease in your experienced speed would disappear with a new cabinet. There might be a slight fault in the line or they have done something else that causes the speed drop. Or something in your building or even at your home.

Why not give Community fibre a try while you wait? Their 200/200 connection for £35 seems to be something I would be interested in - Hyperoptic charges £35 for 150/150. You'll get a symmetric connection as a bonus.

Openreach hasn't been too active in solving the internet issue in Southwark. Many are still left far behind with their EO lines. Hyperoptic and Community fibre have cabled many blocks of flats while Openreach has done very little. Waiting for Openreach FTTP or a random cabinet upgrade might be a lengthy wait. Unless there is a particular reason to stick with your current ISP, give Community Fibre a try and then switch back if you'd rather be in OR network as soon as something better is available.

The highlighted bit above is what caused the big drop, those idiots that BTOR farm the work out to caused the first drop, and a BTOR engineer disconnected my line the second time, I actually caught him after he did it, he was still working in the small chamber that supplies the block and I told him that he had cut me off, he denied it of course but I was without service for 8 days and not an apology or compo received, PN didn't help much either.

I was actually looking at the full 1GB service £50/m normal/£40/m because I pre-registered but assume the latter is only for the first year. Also there is a difference in the way that VOIP is used, Hyperoptic you connect the phone to the supplied router for £1/m extra, with CF you have to go through the hassel of getting a box from Vonage for about £9/m, don't know enough about Vonage to see if it is worthwhile transferring my number over to them

In reply to a post by The_Voyager:

The highlighted bit above is what caused the big drop,

Then why do you expect an improvement when they change something in the cabinet if the problem is elsewhere?

I gave up my landline when I moved to Hyperoptic and haven't missed it at all but of course your situation might be different. I thought it might be a hassle with banks etc. but I haven't encountered any problems. Just a thought. £9/month buys you a lot of mobile phone minutes to call to service numbers not included in your plan.

Fwiw I've been with Vonage for just short of a year now, and so far it has been painless; I reckon they are worthy of serious consideration. In my case I've gone with the £15 package because we do a lot of calls to mobile numbers, and a major consideration was to be able to use the same handsets that my wife is familiar with. ( Not that she's a technophobe of course.)

The main consideration is getting the sequence right if you want to port your existing number. Keep the ADSL service running until you're satsfied that all is well with your FTTP service, then order the VOIP service, including porting of your number. Vonage will assign a temporary 03 number while the porting goes ahead, and the tranfer will cease your ADSL service.

It worked, and continues to work, very well for me.

Good Luck

That's great, I don't use the landline much for outgoing calls, but a lot of my contacts do not have my mobile number so call me on the landline, will do as you suggest.

Thanks for the further info

The variation on this which interests me is what happens if you are migrating to an Openreach-based fibre service. e.g.

1. You have an OR-based copper phone line with xDSL. You are paying "line rental" on this, either built-in to the pricing of your xDSL package, or separately.
2. Then you also take an OR-based FTTP data-only service. It looks like you can get a cheaper "broadband only" price because there's already line rental being paid.
3. You port your number away, which ceases the xDSL and copper phone service.

Does the standalone FTTP service continue, and are you no longer liable to pay the "line rental" part? Or else, what happens?

2. Then you also take an OR-based FTTP data-only service.

You don't take any OpenReach product.

The ISP takes that, and you get what they bundle you.

If the ISP sells you a data only FTTP service then what you do with the copper pair is irrelevant.

I'm not really in a position to comment. In my case my ADSL provider was Talk Talk Business who provided very satisfactory service, all be it with an increasingly inadequate 7Mb/s line. Once FTTP became available my initial attempt was to sign up with BT from the limited pool available. Quite honestly, their office staff were so inept that now I wouldn't touch them with longest bargepole in creation. I eventually settled on Cerberus, who like Vonage, have been exemplary.

The aim of my original approach to BT was to benefit from a single source supplier for internet and voice, although it's not entirely clear to me whether the latter is universally available from that provider. My understanding is that where it is available, BT/OR are not always very good at porting the existing number.

All that aside, I can only defer to others with more relevant experience.

Note that he says "OR-based" supplier. Seems to me that implicitly recognises that most of the suppliers use the OR network, while not actually being OR.

In reply to a post by Mygri:

Note that he says "OR-based" supplier. Seems to me that implicitly recognises that most of the suppliers use the OR network, while not actually being OR.

I know that, you missed my point.

You aren't the customer of OpenReach, their product isn't what you buy.

The ISP can buy data only FTTP from OpenReach but sell the customer a bundled product (voice and data).
It wouldn't make sense as the data only variant is much more expensive.

It's what the ISP sells that matters.

Line rental is basically bundled into OpenReach's FTTP data only product prices.
It is similar to the price of FTTP + copper line rental.

https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/prici...

Perhaps the price page I just linked to has answer to the particular query.

The �Transition product� is only available in conjunction with an existing WLR or MPF service

If the associated WLR or MPF service is terminated, the full annual rental charges for the appropriate GEA-FTTP product variant will apply from the termination date of the WLR or MPF service

Openreach reserves the right to withdraw the �transition product� at any time on not less than 28 days notice

Edited by j0hn83 (Fri 12-Jul-19 18:28:07)

Thank you. I notice the 330/50 "transition product" has a wholesale price of £355.32, while the regular 330/50 product is £456.00. So if the WLR/MPF goes, OR will switch it to the regular product, and in turn the service provider will switch to their corresponding higher-priced retail product.

However a few lines later it says:

"Please note: Transition discount is only available to CPs who have consumed the FVA (fixed voice access) product and can be claimed in ECI areas only."

So it sounds like having a *copper* voice/xDSL line doesn't entitle you to any discount for FTTP anyway.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

However a few lines later it says:

"Please note: Transition discount is only available to CPs who have consumed the FVA (fixed voice access) product and can be claimed in ECI areas only."

So it sounds like having a *copper* voice/xDSL line doesn't entitle you to any discount for FTTP anyway.

I read that, but it doesn't make much sense to me.
I think it's just worded poorly.

It will be likely be related to FVA not working on ECI patches.

I've just noticed that Cerberus have updated their FTTP pricing to take this into account, e.g. for 300/50:

£71.50 Monthly** (Data-Only)
Transition Discount of £9.00 Monthly where applicable***

*** Discount applies to data-only FTTP pricing where a BT PSTN line is present and until 30/03/2020.

It used to be £62.50, so the pricing hasn't actually changed. However this is the first I've seen about the ending of the discount.

You don't have to take a 12 month contract with Community Fibre. You can instead pay a £50 installation charge and leave with 30 days notice. If you're unsure about whether it will work for you that may be an option.

Thanks, but not really what I am interested in, and don't think it is an option anyway as I believe Southwark are paying for the installation anyway, we just have to sign up for the product wanted, and by pre-registering we get a discount for the first year.