Openreach community fibre project ISP & package availbility?

We are just in the process of setting up an Openreach Community Fibre project to (hopefully!) have FTTP installed - using the Rural Gigabit Voucher scheme - to our quite rural & spread out village, which probably has very little hope of any commercial fibre rollout. People are currently struggling by on 1Mbps DSL and/or 4G routers in attics etc! I will shortly be trying to persuade enough villagers to sign up to try and ensure the installation cost is wholly covered by the vouchers.

For some reason, it really doesn't seem as straightforward trying to compare potential ISPs & packages for FTTP as it does for other broaband technologies. I already know that not everyone is going to want to sign up for a 500Mb or 900Mb connection at £50-60 a month. For the avoidance of doubt, are BT's cheaper/slower fibre packages such as "Fibre Essential" and "Fibre One" also available over Openreach FTTP, or are these plans only available for FTTC?

We're still many months away from having to actually choose things like ISPs - and I'm aware the likes of TalkTalk & Sky are predicted to add Openreach FTTP plans in the near future - but it would be very useful to see a comparison of what is available right now. I've looked at other providers such as Zen and Cerberus, but as far as I can see BT is the cheapest. However, I can't work out if their slower/even cheaper plans are also available over FTTP & the various postcoder checkers are currently no use to us!

In reply to a post by BeauJayce:

For the avoidance of doubt, are BT's cheaper/slower fibre packages such as "Fibre Essential" and "Fibre One" also available over Openreach FTTP

Yes they are.

I have both FTTC and FTTP available at my property. BT's website offers me FTTC speeds for "Fibre Essential" but FTTP speeds for "Fibre One". Others have said that "Fibre Essential" is also available via FTTP. Since it's only £1 per month difference, I don't think it will be a deal-breaker for you if you have to take Fibre One to get FTTP.

Blame the marketing people for selling completely different products under the same names.

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/packages/fttp-broadband

The list of packages that are available over the Openreach FTTP network, sorted by speed, but you will find Fibre 1 Essential at £26.99/m does appear

The package search on there will filter if we know FTTP is available, and once we know 100% TalkTalk/Sky are selling we will add them, though whether they will also do the cheap packages on FTTP is still to be figured out.

The speeds for "Fibre One" and "Fibre Essentials" are the same whether or not they use FTTP or FTTC.

"Fibre One" on FTTC uses the WBC FTTC 55/10 product.

Edited by mackayd (Thu 23-Jul-20 11:24:08)

In reply to a post by mackayd:

The speeds for "Fibre One" and "Fibre Essentials" are the same whether or not they use FTTP or FTTC.

At my property, I get quoted the following:

Fibre Essential
Your download speed range 18Mb - 32Mb
Your Stay Fast Guarantee 15Mb
Upload speed range 3Mb - 6Mb

Fibre One
Your download speed 50Mb - 50Mb
Your Stay Fast Guarantee 25Mb
Upload speed 10Mb - 10Mb

My FTTC line syncs at 30/4. So they're offering me FTTC speed for Fibre Essential, and FTTP speed for Fibre One.

EDIT: prices are now £26.99 and £29.99 (both 24 month), so Fibre One has gone up by £2 since I last looked.

Edited by candlerb (Thu 23-Jul-20 12:23:30)

For me it only seems to list full fibre products for my postcode

It says 'What you get with Full Fibre' and then lists:-

Fibre Essential
Your download speed range 35Mb - 36Mb
Your Stay Fast Guarantee 30Mb
Upload speed range 8Mb - 9Mb

Fibre One
Your download speed 50Mb - 50Mb
Your Stay Fast Guarantee 25Mb
Upload speed 10Mb - 10Mb

Confusing isn't it?

https://imgur.com/a/kLpbTmc

Edited by mackayd (Thu 23-Jul-20 13:39:58)

In reply to a post by mackayd:

For me it only seems to list full fibre products for my postcode

It says 'What you get with Full Fibre' and then lists:-

Fibre Essential
Your download speed range 35Mb - 36Mb
Your Stay Fast Guarantee 30Mb
Upload speed range 8Mb - 9Mb

I think that's FTTC, since FTTP 40/10 and 55/10 should have the same upload speeds.

Mine is more obvious: https://imgur.com/HSkK6li

In reply to a post by mackayd:

Fibre One
Your download speed 50Mb - 50Mb
Your Stay Fast Guarantee 25Mb
Upload speed 10Mb - 10Mb

Confusing isn't it?

Especially since the stay-fast guarantee on FTTC 40/10 is higher than the stay-fast guarantee on FTTP 55/10

If I start going through the Fibre Essentials order process it says that I'll be getting Digital Voice which (I think) indicates it will be FTTP?

Edit: As you say using the same product names for different services is confusing so probably the only way to know for sure is to get it confirmed by BT.

Edited by mackayd (Thu 23-Jul-20 15:31:06)

OP is a copy of this post from 28th June.

???

In reply to a post by mackayd:

If I start going through the Fibre Essentials order process it says that I'll be getting Digital Voice which (I think) indicates it will be FTTP?

Not necessarily. The closure of the PSTN means that BT *will* start offering VOIP with SOGEA - but I don't know if they've started that yet.

It could also be that their availability checker is broken, showing FTTC speeds even for FTTP at the Essentials level.