Fibre First Glasgow Halfway - not coming down my road?

I’m patiently waiting for my Fibre First exchange (Glasgow Halfway) rollout to reach me in order to upgrade my 40/10 FTTC (600 ish metres from the cab).

I’ve seen (with my own eyes) new ducts laid and cable pulled through and are plenty of new poles and pavement boxes in the local area. According to the TBB map https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/index.php?tab=... loads of properties have now been passed and the Openreach checker confirms full fibre available in those streets. The rollout seems to be nearing completion.

But…. not down my road. A hand-full of houses around the corner do have FTTP. They are part of the same new build estate I’m in. Why would Openreach stop after a few houses? There are ducts and pavement boxes no more than four or five years old, many younger, I can’t see any unblocking or building needing done. The only thing I could think of is that the streets are not yet adopted. But should make life easier! And in any case OR clearly have rights to run cables.

Anyway, I’m hoping my patience can be rewarded by someone here ‘in the know’ who can say if the rest of the streets on this estate will or won’t be getting full fibre in the next few months. If the former I’ll sit quietly and wait, the latter I’ll see if there are other options (I need a decent upload).

I’m in G53 7HJ. According to https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/fibre-first/ “we don't have any plans to upgrade your area to full fibre”. But that’s also true for G53 7HH or specifically the house next door to one of those with live FTTP. The streets missed out so far are in G53 7HE, 7HF, 7HG, 7HH and 7HJ. The few houses now live are in 7HE and 7HH.

I know not every property or every street is going to get FTTP as part of Fibre First, am I one of the unlucky?

Any virgin media or city fibre activity in the area?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Any virgin media or city fibre activity in the area?

No, there is Virgin in the streets next to the new estate (now overbuilt by OR's FTTP) but that's old and no sign of them wanting to extend. CityFibre have built a 'ring main' in Glasgow for the local authority and schools to use and I see signs of them building into private property now. But it doesn't pass near here. (Although they are now about to overbuild OR who have just overbuilt Virgin in the north of the exchange area! Some lucky folk will have a choice of three fibre networks.)

Unadopted road is probably going to be a big issue. The builders probably put in the boxs and duct when the road and houses were built, and FTTP may require either additional and/or enlarged box's. Cant see it happening any time soon.

In reply to a post by witchunt:

Unadopted road is probably going to be a big issue. The builders probably put in the boxs and duct when the road and houses were built, and FTTP may require either additional and/or enlarged box's. Cant see it happening any time soon.

What gives me hope that we're wrong about the unadoption is that some houses on these roads are already live.
Ditto the boxes. I don't mean small boxes, these are 800-1000mm and the more or less the same size as any new pavement boxes I've seen appear nearby. There appear to be lots and I did see into one when I had a phone line installed. They seem to be as big and have enough space to take the equipment I've seen in pictures posted here.

But who knows?

I feel your pain. we are in west lothian and have virgin media overbuild which stops at the start of the estate. also unadopted road, estate is 3+years old but road still unadopted. openreach recently enabled the estate behind us.. checker says nothing for any of the areas they seem to be deploying in.

from the forums here, it seems its called a 'rapid deployment' and you wont really know. keep an eye on roadworks scotland website which may give some clues when they need to unblock ducts etc.

I've gone down the official channels route: I filled out the forms on the Openreach website and asked if my road and the streets around me are part of the current Fibre First rollout.

Apparently not.

We don't have any plans to upgrade your area right now

But adding insult to injury, that's a totally stock reply telling me nothing more than I already learned from the links it says I should read.

Am I against the wind here? Obviously there are plans in my area. Has anyone had any joy getting more than a stock reply from Openreach. I honestly don't care if it is a "no, not your street in this rollout", but I do need to know something.

The plans can change and due to complaints in the past when plans did change providers generally are reluctant to confirm any plans.

Reality is such that a street may be planned, but a snag that is expensive to solve in money or time is found and they will generally move onto another area. They might come back in the future but focus is very much on delivering the build targets

The reason your area isn't on the radar is the footpaths and roads have not been adopted. You can check the adoption status on the Glasgow City Council web portal...

https://glasgowgis.maps.arcgis.com/

The reason Openreach wont touch this is in case there is a blockage and they have to excavate. The landowner will invariably ask for full width reinstatement as the local authority will not adopt footways with scarring (historically). If you area wasn't underground but fed from poles then it might have been different but generally un-adopted areas are avoided for legal reasons.

This is also the reason VM have not deployed service here, there was substantial network expansion in the area a few years ago but this estate wasn't included for the same reason. The housebuilder didn't want to include VM at the point of build so your options are limited at the moment I'm afraid.

HTH

Thanks weesteev, what you say make sense. However, what doesn't is the fact that a number of houses (all on unadopted roads, all underground feed) have had FTTP made available.

The homeowners here are the landowners, or at least are responsible for the upkeep of the roads and pavements until such time as Glasgow adopt. Given the amount of moaning on the local FB groups about poor internet I'm pretty sure folk would be willing to pay for any reinstatement.

So there's the frustration, if there is a blockage and OR were open about it a solution could be found.

Yes, the house builder could have had VM in, they could also have had 'free' FTTP from OR as the estate was big enough.

Oh well, perhaps EE will stick up one of those ugly 5G towers on the main road, I'm sure I could get more than 10MB up from that.