Openreach connect my community flyer

I got one of these through the letterbox today asking me to pledge my gigabit voucher to openreach.

I don’t think it is linked to a community led fibre project, it just looks like openreach being proactive. Has anyone heard of this before?

When I go on the openreach website it says that once we meet the target for properties pledged they will build the network, but it doesn’t say what the target is. I will need to email them and ask

In reply to a post by McShaneDCFC:

I got one of these through the letterbox today asking me to pledge my gigabit voucher to openreach.

I don’t think it is linked to a community led fibre project, it just looks like openreach being proactive. Has anyone heard of this before?

When I go on the openreach website it says that once we meet the target for properties pledged they will build the network, but it doesn’t say what the target is. I will need to email them and ask

Could you add a link to a pic of the flyer?

Yes, will do, just need to figure out how to do that

Hopefully these links work...

https://imgshare.io/image/N4APUy
https://imgshare.io/image/N4AWF6

Sounds like a demand-led community fibre project. Pledging your voucher basically means you agree to take an FTTP service from a provider on the Openreach network within a certain amount of time after the network is built, and then once there have been enough commitments for the project to be commercially viable, they do the build.

If you wanted to pool all your vouchers with an altnet instead then you could presumably do that, at the expense of restricting your ISP choice.

Yeah it seems that way to me too but it appears openreach is taking the lead in terms of organisation of the scheme rather than a member of the public which I thought was interesting. 9 people have signed up so fingers crossed we get a few more pledges.

Thanks for linking to the pics

Good luck and hope you get enough local pledges to make it happen

In reply to a post by McShaneDCFC:

Yeah it seems that way to me too but it appears openreach is taking the lead in terms of organisation of the scheme rather than a member of the public which I thought was interesting. 9 people have signed up so fingers crossed we get a few more pledges.

Are you sure nobody in your area expressed an interest in the CFP scheme? There's been instances reported here of CFPs in Northern Ireland being submitted and then picked up by OR as a demand-led process where they end up doing all the legwork.

it could be someone registered or when the numbers were run the voucher eligibility and coverage make sense (assuming you get enough pledges)- so there will be an amount that need to be covered , i assume thay if you click on the link and enter your postcode it will tell you what scheme you are included and how many need to pledge to make it viable

I’ve had another look, the target number of pledges isn’t there but I can see this.

“ Your area is eligible!
Great news, this postcode is eligible for our Demand Led Community Fibre Patnership build project. Come together as a community for faster broadband. Pledge your voucher now, and encourage others in your community to do the same.”

I didn’t realise that this was even a thing that openreach done, I had been thinking about a community fibre partnership but the thought of the admin really put me off so this is great. (Assuming enough people sign up which they might not as they already get fttc and the price for that is a lot lower than ultrafast)

I’m going to email openreach and ask about the number of premises required

Assuming enough people sign up which they might not as they already get fttc and the price for that is a lot lower than ultrafast)

Then it might be worth pointing out that they can still get the standard speed services , maybe with a more limited number of providers. Unless they are getting good FTTC speeds already the move to FTTP will greatly improve even the 80/20 services for little or no extra.

In reply to a post by McShaneDCFC:

(Assuming enough people sign up which they might not as they already get fttc and the price for that is a lot lower than ultrafast)

Sorry fo not paying attention: how does this work? I assumed the subsidised / voucher / government schemes to bribe Openreach into building their network were only available in areas with very poor connectivity. If people already have FTTC they will have over 30Mb/s, many could have much faster speeds. How / why is there a scheme here?

In reply to a post by Woolwich:

... were only available in areas with very poor connectivity. If people already have FTTC they will have over 30Mb/s, many could have much faster speeds.

Not necessarily. One area I know of has FTTC available with an extremely high take up. The best speed there is around 6Mbps. Even with vouchers the cost is still too high.

In reply to a post by Woolwich:

why is there a scheme here?

The numbers must stack up for Openreach (subject to the vouchers being pledged), if there is money on the table from the government its a good option for Openreach, certainly cheaper than a commercial rollout for them and the end user benefits as well.

In reply to a post by MHC:

One area I know of has FTTC available with an extremely high take up. The best speed there is around 6Mbps.

Really. Surely that's well below the Hand Back Threshold? I'm surprised people are sold a connection so slow on FTTC. They must be a long way from the cabinet.

Once they knew it could be provided, even at those speeds, they jumped at it. ADSL was running at around 1 Mbps.

Have just called up one of the lines:

Featured Products Downstream Line Rate(Mbps) Upstream Line Rate (Mbps) Downstream Handback
Threshold(Mbps) WBC FTTC Availability Date WBC SOGEA Availability Date Left in Jumper
High Low High Low
VDSL Range A (Clean) 3.6 1.4 1.2 0.8 1 Available Available --
VDSL Range B (Impacted) 3.6 1.4 1.2 0.8 1 Available Available --


ADSL Products Downstream Line Rate (Mbps)
WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 1


Observed Speeds VDSL
Max Observed Downstream Speed 3.09
Max Observed Upstream Speed 0.92

So, max 3.6, actual achieved 3.1 and handback at 1.0 Still 3x faster than ADSL


Some that are marginally closer get 5-6 Mbps (on a good day)


Also, in the village where the cabinet is located, most are up at 70+ compared to the sub-5 ADSL, just this "hamlet" is totally isolated.

Edited by MHC (Thu 14-Jan-21 10:51:33)

In reply to a post by witchunt:

Assuming enough people sign up which they might not as they already get fttc and the price for that is a lot lower than ultrafast)

Then it might be worth pointing out that they can still get the standard speed services , maybe with a more limited number of providers. Unless they are getting good FTTC speeds already the move to FTTP will greatly improve even the 80/20 services for little or no extra.

This is something that is often overlooked IMHO. Very few people get the full speed out of a 80/20 connection so even if you don't initially take a higher speed package you will invariably get a higher speed.

The other factor is that poor broadband is likely to effect the selling price of your property. As such getting an FTTP connection is likely to add well more than any additional cost from a more expensive fibre package to the value of your property and it could be many years before a commercial FTTP roll out hits your property if you don't take this opportunity.

In reply to a post by Woolwich:

In reply to a post by MHC:

One area I know of has FTTC available with an extremely high take up. The best speed there is around 6Mbps.

Really. Surely that's well below the Hand Back Threshold?

No: the hand back threshold is different for each line, and depends on the distance from the cabinet. It's the speed above which the line is considered working "as expected", i.e. there's no fault.

In reply to a post by MHC:

I'm surprised people are sold a connection so slow on FTTC. They must be a long way from the cabinet.

If you had a choice between 6Mbps on FTTC or 1Mbps on ADSL, then you'd probably take FTTC. In any case, the cost differential between FTTC and ADSL is now close to zero, or actually zero for some providers.

You can see a rough idea of speed versus distance for VDSL here:
https://www.increasebroadbandspeed.co.uk/2013/chart-...

Actual speeds may be slightly higher these days with things like 3dB SNR target and G.INP, although on the flip side, increased take-up of FTTC has resulted in increased crosstalk which reduces speeds.

In reply to a post by jabuzzard:

This is something that is often overlooked IMHO. Very few people get the full speed out of a 80/20 connection so even if you don't initially take a higher speed package you will invariably get a higher speed.

I recall when FTTC was being planned the design was for a high percentage (maybe 70% ?) to achieve 40/10 Mbps, at the average 500 metres of cable to the PCP. At 450 metres, my line managed 50/6 at best, which collapsed to 41/3 when I left. I blame crosstalk. I have friends at 400 metres whom have 60/18 for example.

Just so many variables and cross talk or external noise can only ever be estimated and they may well have failed to account for cross talk from other non-adsl devices being conducted along the lines too.


I have a 455m line - from a TDR measurement and it started with max attainable of over 90 with upstream at 25, that has now collapsed to 71/15 and at times some other noise source sends my connection down to about 50-55 down but 15 up!

Just a bit of an update on this then.

It appears that it is indeed a demand led cfp from openreach. It was open to >700 premises and according to an email I received from openreach after 9 people had signed up they were 6% of the way to target for the project.

This led me to believe they were hoping to raise £330k

We are currently sitting at 78 residential sign ups and 7 businesses, so we are a long way away from the target. Interestingly about 6 residential numbers were removed from the scheme a few weeks ago, I’m not sure why.

A few weeks ago I saw an advert on Facebook from openreach encouraging people to sign up as the scheme was closing on the 4th of May. Despite this it’s still possible to sign up on the openreach website.

On Friday evening I received an email from dcms asking me to validate a voucher, the voucher wasn’t for my name or address. I forwarded it on to my neighbour and also told openreach of the mistake. Today I got a new email and have validated the voucher for my address.

So openreach now have 12 months to use the voucher and to install fibre to my house, despite not having enough sign ups to the scheme. Is it likely they are proceeding with only partial funds raised? Or are they trying to prevent me from using my voucher with another competitor who may install fibre to the area?

In reply to a post by McShaneDCFC:

Just a bit of an update on this then.

It appears that it is indeed a demand led cfp from openreach. It was open to >700 premises and according to an email I received from openreach after 9 people had signed up they were 6% of the way to target for the project.

This led me to believe they were hoping to raise £330k

We are currently sitting at 78 residential sign ups and 7 businesses, so we are a long way away from the target. Interestingly about 6 residential numbers were removed from the scheme a few weeks ago, I’m not sure why.

A few weeks ago I saw an advert on Facebook from openreach encouraging people to sign up as the scheme was closing on the 4th of May. Despite this it’s still possible to sign up on the openreach website.

On Friday evening I received an email from dcms asking me to validate a voucher, the voucher wasn’t for my name or address. I forwarded it on to my neighbour and also told openreach of the mistake. Today I got a new email and have validated the voucher for my address.

So openreach now have 12 months to use the voucher and to install fibre to my house, despite not having enough sign ups to the scheme. Is it likely they are proceeding with only partial funds raised? Or are they trying to prevent me from using my voucher with another competitor who may install fibre to the area?

Hey - So OR will only ever proceed to the DCMS Stage if they want the project to continue / start, so they will validate all the vouchers, total it up and if they want to go ahead they will or won't depending on how much cash they raise from vouchers.

Maybe best to drop the community fibre team an email, but they can be quite slow! It's a good sign though that yours are getting validated!

In reply to a post by Whitehall11:

In reply to a post by McShaneDCFC:

Just a bit of an update on this then.

It appears that it is indeed a demand led cfp from openreach. It was open to >700 premises and according to an email I received from openreach after 9 people had signed up they were 6% of the way to target for the project.

This led me to believe they were hoping to raise £330k

We are currently sitting at 78 residential sign ups and 7 businesses, so we are a long way away from the target. Interestingly about 6 residential numbers were removed from the scheme a few weeks ago, I’m not sure why.

A few weeks ago I saw an advert on Facebook from openreach encouraging people to sign up as the scheme was closing on the 4th of May. Despite this it’s still possible to sign up on the openreach website.

On Friday evening I received an email from dcms asking me to validate a voucher, the voucher wasn’t for my name or address. I forwarded it on to my neighbour and also told openreach of the mistake. Today I got a new email and have validated the voucher for my address.

So openreach now have 12 months to use the voucher and to install fibre to my house, despite not having enough sign ups to the scheme. Is it likely they are proceeding with only partial funds raised? Or are they trying to prevent me from using my voucher with another competitor who may install fibre to the area?

Hey - So OR will only ever proceed to the DCMS Stage if they want the project to continue / start, so they will validate all the vouchers, total it up and if they want to go ahead they will or won't depending on how much cash they raise from vouchers.

Maybe best to drop the community fibre team an email, but they can be quite slow! It's a good sign though that yours are getting validated!

Thanks for this info, it seems a bit strange to me that they have proceeded to the validating vouchers stage without enough sign ups. According to the T’s and C’s of the scheme they have 12 months from voucher validation to provide me with a gigabit capable service. It seems they might be putting themselves under a bit of pressure if they are hoping for more sign ups. I don’t think anyone new has signed up in over a month.

I had heard on the grapevine though that fibrus will be installing here next year so that’s why I thought maybe OR are trying to make us commit our vouchers to them 😂

Or maybe OR are lowering their limits - but not broadcasting it.

BT has agreed various tax breaks with HMG linked to extra investment in Full Fibre so this could be a side effect. Or maybe they have moved your area to a planned install but realise they could get some funding to do so by leaving it as a community driven project ...

An update on this for anyone interested.

Over the past few months openreach announced that the village will be getting fttp, and that there will be a copper stop sell next year.

I was driving through yesterday and noticed a big spool of fibre cable left at the side of the road (black with yellow stripe).

Out of curiosity i went on to the openreach site and put my postcode in, selected my address and had a look to see if the availability had changed. It still read “we have no plans to upgrade your area”.

Decided I would stick i my brother in laws slightly different postcode and was surprised to see “we are starting to build in your area”. I checked a few more addresses on my post code and it turns out that every house in the street except mine and next door have the “we are starting to build in your area” message.

I’m slightly miffed at this saying as I had committed by voucher to the scheme last year and had been badgering businesses, people and politicians in the village trying to get them to pledge their vouchers too and to encourage others to do the same.

Is there any chance this could be a mistake? Or is there anyone I could contact to try and get onto the scheme?

For additional info, my particular street has about 22 houses or so in it. There are bt manholes every two houses or so which carry the phone wires. My house, and the house at the end of the street are served by the manhole outside my house. The house to the right of mine is served by a manhole 20m or so up the street. All the manholes are connected to each other. Maybe our one at the end has a blocked duct?

You might be at risk of over thinking it. Give them an opportunity to fully complete the rollout and keep an eye on the various checkers for updates.

Once the rollout is complete and ready for service the databases will be updated accordingly. Your address update may also flip at this point. Should it not, all is not lost (as there’s a good chance it may still be an addressing / database issue) which you can follow up with OR to resolve (or possibly escalate with senior management at OR to resolve).

But still early doors. Give it time.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

You might be at risk of over thinking it. Give them an opportunity to fully complete the rollout and keep an eye on the various checkers for updates.

Once the rollout is complete and ready for service the databases will be updated accordingly. Your address update may also flip at this point. Should it not, all is not lost (as there’s a good chance it may still be an addressing / database issue) which you can follow up with OR to resolve (or possibly escalate with senior management at OR to resolve).

But still early doors. Give it time.

+1

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

You might be at risk of over thinking it. Give them an opportunity to fully complete the rollout and keep an eye on the various checkers for updates.

Once the rollout is complete and ready for service the databases will be updated accordingly. Your address update may also flip at this point. Should it not, all is not lost (as there’s a good chance it may still be an addressing / database issue) which you can follow up with OR to resolve (or possibly escalate with senior management at OR to resolve).

But still early doors. Give it time.

Haha you are more than likely right that I’m over thinking it, just don’t want to miss out 😂 The day openreach start pulling fibre through our street I’ll be looking out the window to see what they are doing. 😝

Thanks!

Very exciting update today is that I can now order fttp 🥳 the whole area doesn’t seem to have it yet but I assume the different post codes will update soon for the whole village.

If the guys who update the availability maps are reading this the village of Dunloy now has fttp