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.

Those joints have a couple of splice trays, not the full 32 you get in a real splitter


What you trying to describe is what is largely happening with the Fibre First roll-out, but still plenty of people who have bits of spine fibre passing them and still cannot order as the splitters and manifolds need adding.

The picture you link to shows one cable in and two coming out ....

In reply to a post by slimj:

if fibre is being provided to one location, then surely addresses passed could also be provided with the provision to connect?

I've read numerous posts over the last year where people have said the same thing about having fibre going passed their property on poles but they are unhappy they ain't able to order FTTP. It probably happens more than people realise as sometimes its in ducting under the ground and people are unaware. Every project has to be estimated and if every project grew from 10's of properties to 1000's of properties just because the fibre is passing them nothing would get done.

I feel your pain especially if you've got poor broadband but everyone will get better broadband in due course.

Edited by deleted (Wed 22-Jan-20 15:01:08)

Joint ahead of two manifolds if I recall. This is a picture I took and not the actual joint at the posters location.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

This is a picture I took

Thought I recognised it, wasn't it from your great piece on Lingfield?

Yeah - and looks like a variety of blocked ducts are due to be cleared. Must pop back and see what happened to the port with its dust cover open, and another bit of fibre running outside the animal protection on another pole.

Ah OK , the poster hadn�t made that bit clear.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Yeah - and looks like a variety of blocked ducts are due to be cleared. Must pop back and see what happened to the port with its dust cover open, and another bit of fibre running outside the animal protection on another pole.

Was hoping to see the hardened protective plastic wrap for fibre aerial cables that go through trees (you described in the article) starting to be used but checked a couple of very recent infrastructure installs through trees and sadly no sign yet. Maybe the message hasn't got through to all sub-contractors.

Edited by deleted (Wed 22-Jan-20 17:11:49)

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by slimj:

if fibre is being provided to one location, then surely addresses passed could also be provided with the provision to connect?

I've read numerous posts over the last year where people have said the same thing about having fibre going passed their property on poles but they are unhappy they ain't able to order FTTP. It probably happens more than people realise as sometimes its in ducting under the ground and people are unaware. Every project has to be estimated and if every project grew from 10's of properties to 1000's of properties just because the fibre is passing them nothing would get done.

I feel your pain especially if you've got poor broadband but everyone will get better broadband in due course.

Our village was a BDUK project, originally the cabinet between two villages was fibre enabled, those at one end of village could get 'superfast', we couldn't even get the upcoming USO. Last year fibre was put up the ducts to our end of village and now it appears the houses originally getting 'superfast' still only get FTTC, but our end of village get FTTP, as all the fibre is in ducts until it gets to pole I guess many don't know they have been passed.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Ah OK , the poster hadn�t made that bit clear.

Sorry, I was just showing an image of what was on our pole. Andrews piece for this was useful!

Thanks for your comments folks. Don't get me wrong, while I generally understand why they perhaps haven't enabled us to connect as they want to ensure an area is provided with more than a 2mb DSL connection first, it's frustrating to see them pass us by meaning it's probably likely we will not be upgraded for another 5+ years... it seemed like the opportunity to get it done so to speak!

It's not all that exciting..... like one of those wrap around cable tidy things.

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 ?

Anywhere between 3 months and still waiting after 3 years. It depends on if your in fibre first, or bduk. Then also if your in a national park.These things alter the time from open reach saying an area will get Fttp and actually getting it. If you look at https://www.thinkbroadband.com/guides/fibre-fttc-ftt.... Note that some of the kit will vary and as time goes by, updates will occur.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

It's not all that exciting..... like one of those wrap around cable tidy things.

Sounds like it can be fitted afterwards, if I'm thinking of the same wrap around cable tidy things as you

That's now happening here, fttc went in 2015 but it's a single cabinet village down here we get 10mbps down & 0.2 up sounds OK but it was unusable.

FTTP gear on the poles here but fibre is spooled up hanging from the foot pegs still supposed to be live by March according to the council.