Wayleave and beyond

Hi all just a quick bit of advice if anyone can help.

I am connected the Brentwood Exchange EABRW - I live in a block of 36 flats. We have just had the surveyors in from sub contractor SITEC on behalf of Openreach to conduct a site survey for Direct Fibre (10th Dec 2019). After a blocked duct and some suspicious looking panelling which may have been abestos but luckily wasn't all went well.

Yesterday we receiving the survey summary doc with photos of ducts and specs of kit to be installed, photos of the interior all ready for openreach. We as directors have approved the survey and SITEC responded with confirming they will come back with a date of confirmation of works to begin.

Now my main question is I know for a fact openreach have not put a fibre link passed our flats. We are a mixed estate of flats and detached houses. We have had the FTTC service for 7-8 yrs now, as Sitec site engineers confirmed there is no fibre running past our premises. Now with the wayleave etc in mind would we expect to see Brentwood or at least parts of the area announced for FTTH rollout? I may have missed it can someone verify this I wouldn't know where to look.

Also anyone else been at a similar stage and could suggest a timeline for install as I need to advise rest of the residents at some point.

If Openreach are approaching for way leave permission, that contact is the best one to give you any idea of a timeline.

All we the randoms of the Internet can say is that Brentwood is on the Fibre First programme and they expect to start building in the next 3 months. So might be a couple of months or could be 12 months before it goes live. If they get all paper work in place and they went all out it could be just a matter of a week or two.

Fibre First usually means a sizeable proportion of the exchange area will get access to direct fibre (full fibre - FTTP - FTTH).

Allyjspurs

Mr Saffron has given the answer, but thanks for confirming that bocks of flats are covered by Fibre first ( where wayleaves are given) as some people doubted it.

Hope it doesn't take too long before you are live.

Always wondered what happens in a scenario where the local BDUK team has already signed a contract with Openreach to upgrade broadband in an exchange area and before the work is carried out Openreach come along and announce that exchange area is being fast tracked as a Fibre First exchange.

I suspect Openreach still pocket the money rather than the BDUK team being allowed to redistribute the money to others exchange areas that are not covered by Fibre First.

In reply to a post by kitcat:

thanks for confirming that blocks of flats are covered by Fibre first

Hi kitcat,

It wasn't clear to me from the OP's post how the flats were being done, possibly Fibre First or BDUK programme.

I wonder if the OP could confirm

Edit: to make more sense

Edited by deleted (Fri 17-Jan-20 11:12:27)

Dect

As he already has FTTC I assumed that this could only be a Fibre First project as Brentwood is on the fibre First programme. ( I would be very surprised if there was any further BDUK spend in that area.)

I am pretty sure that BT have to inform the BDUK team that the area is now in scope for commercial rollout and therefore BT would get no BDUK money for it (contractually and legally they cannot receive money for premises within a commercial project).

In reply to a post by ian72:

I am pretty sure that BT have to inform the BDUK team that the area is now in scope for commercial rollout and therefore BT would get no BDUK money for it (contractually and legally they cannot receive money for premises within a commercial project).

Thanks, didn't know if Openreach would simply exclude those properties in the BDUK contract from the Fibre First commercial rollout plans to get around it.

In reply to a post by kitcat:

I would be very surprised if there was any further BDUK spend in that area.

I know of at least a dozen property where a local VDSL cab was added via BDUK funding (speed weren't as good as expected) and within 12 months the same properties got FTTP also via BDUK funding. Appreciate this is rare but it does happen.

BT only get the money on production of invoices, i.e. after work has been done.

So if they roll-out commercial FTTP ahead of any BDUK work then there should be no BDUK invoices to raise.

Of course BT could still raise the invoices and the onus then would be on the council to check what the invoices cover, one would hope that they do this already. If your council is not checking invoices for this, then what other invoices are they blindly paying for other services.

What should happen if the BDUK contract was to provision 5,000 premises with superfast, and they commercially cover 1,000 with FTTP is that the 5,000 target remains so BT would need to find another 1,000 premises elsewhere.