How do I know FTTP is coming ??

We have FTTC but been having a few line issues. An Engineer was out today to sort it and in passing mentioned that he had seen some additional 'boxes' on the poles further along our road and it looked like FTTP was on its way (which would be great as we currently only get around 25Mpbs).

How can you tell if FTTP really is coming and what are the key steps prior to it actually getting to the house ?

https://www.openreach.com/

Enter your address.

You will get a message that FTTC is available to you.
Further down the page it mentions FTTP.

I get

Full Fibre (Fibre to the Premises - FTTP)
Technology that supports speeds up to 1Gbps

Faster and more reliable fibre is coming to your area soon. Full Fibre is our fastest technology, but your exact speed will depend on which broadband provider and package you choose. Sign up for news and updates.

I have no visible infrastructure yet and I'm not in any Fibre First or BDUK rollout.

I got very excited last summer when I saw contractors pulling fibre at the manhole which is right next to my gateway. Didn't last long when I went to have a chat and was told it didn't mean that FTTP would be available, they were just running fibre to another area in the village

In reply to a post by mikegg:

We have FTTC but been having a few line issues. An Engineer was out today to sort it and in passing mentioned that he had seen some additional 'boxes' on the poles further along our road and it looked like FTTP was on its way (which would be great as we currently only get around 25Mpbs).

How can you tell if FTTP really is coming and what are the key steps prior to it actually getting to the house ?

We have had this showing for two years now.

Openreach

I find the openreach.com page stating 'FTTP is on its way' a bit hit and miss.

My friends had FTTP infrastructure put on their poles and up to the day before it showed available to order (on the DSL checker) nothing showed up on the openreach.com page, as soon as it was available to order the openreach.com page then stated it was available.

I also know others where the infrastructure has partly been put in and stalled like yours and still nothing on the openreach.com page

In reply to a post by longedge:

I got very excited last summer when I saw contractors pulling fibre at the manhole which is right next to my gateway. Didn't last long when I went to have a chat and was told it didn't mean that FTTP would be available, they were just running fibre to another area in the village

Same happened to us. To me, it makes sense (financially and timewise) to ensure any areas passed especially if speeds less than or around superfast are provided with provision to connect (we have fibre joint boxes in the right places).

Surely by passing an area will just mean another team will need to come back in future which will ultimately mean more time and money spent?!

mikegg

Do you know if you are in a fibre first area, you can see the locations at https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/fibre-firs... or post your postcode ( not address) and someone may be able to tell you

And taking the 'Surely by passing an area will just mean another team will need to come back in future which will ultimately mean more time and money spent?!' to its full conclusion means as soon as one property gets FTTP on an exchange that every other will also be getting it.

A fibre joint box is not much use, since they are used for connecting lengths of fibre together, or did you mean fibre splitters that have the fibre trays and prism to split the light signal to connect a larger number of fibres.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

And taking the 'Surely by passing an area will just mean another team will need to come back in future which will ultimately mean more time and money spent?!' to its full conclusion means as soon as one property gets FTTP on an exchange that every other will also be getting it.

A fibre joint box is not much use, since they are used for connecting lengths of fibre together, or did you mean fibre splitters that have the fibre trays and prism to split the light signal to connect a larger number of fibres.

Not necessarily, but if fibre is being provided to one location, then surely addresses passed could also be provided with the provision to connect? Would this not help boost coverage at a faster rate while reducing overall costs (when you consider Openreach will need to come back in the future which will require more time/money spent)?

With regards to the joint, these have splicing trays in them. Would imagine more cables can be run and connected in future allowing our area to connect. Basically this is on our pole (one cable going in and out) and there are a couple underground along the main road from what I have seen when they were splicing.

What I am trying to say is that if I was to order FTTPoD, it is likely Openreach would have to run a completely new set of cables at a substantial cost in order to provide me with service?! When really, in my mind, it should just come from a 'joint' or 'split' in the nearby fibre spine... (does that make sense?!).

Edited by slimj (Wed 22-Jan-20 12:34:12)

You can't just splice in to a fibre to add more properties.

To enable your area new fibre may need run all the way from the an Aggregation Node which could be some distance away.

The network tends to be laid out like a tree, starting at the trunk and spreading out to all the branches.

If you installed FTTP to every single branch of the network that a piece of fibre passed you would quickly be going down full coverage territory.

It's not always cheaper (and definitely not quicker) to cover every street/property passed.

It's nowhere near as simple as it seems and the presence of passing fibre is usually no help at all to a future FTTP rollout.