Unadopted road - digging our own duct for FTTP or Virgin?

Hi

We are a on small unadopted close of 9 houses directly off a larger main road that has Virgin media and FTTC (no FTTP available yet but hopeful). No Virgin cabling was ever laid in our road. My question is - in the spring we will be 'refurbishing' the gravel road ourselves with some machinery involved. I was wondering if we could take the opportunity to bury ducting to all the houses - and if we did, how we could get BT or Virgin to leverage it? Has anyone done similar? Road is about 60m long with houses half on each side. If it is not an option at all we will just need to await GFast as we are very close (40m max) to the FTTC box.

Thanks

You need to liase with chosen provider to ensure any duct put in meets their standards.

How do the phone lines reach you now? If overhead then Openreach would usually run the fibre overhead again

This is probably the best contact for Virgin Media

https://www.virginmedia.com/lightning/network-expans...

For Openreach go through

https://www.developers.openreach.co.uk/developerport...

Current phone lines (BT) are buried in the road.

In reply to a post by jarviand:

Hi

We are a on small unadopted close of 9 houses directly off a larger main road that has Virgin media and FTTC (no FTTP available yet but hopeful). No Virgin cabling was ever laid in our road. My question is - in the spring we will be 'refurbishing' the gravel road ourselves with some machinery involved. I was wondering if we could take the opportunity to bury ducting to all the houses - and if we did, how we could get BT or Virgin to leverage it? Has anyone done similar? Road is about 60m long with houses half on each side. If it is not an option at all we will just need to await GFast as we are very close (40m max) to the FTTC box.

Thanks

As well as the technicalities (i.e. following the guidelines in the various developer guides) for the actual ducting, spend some time researching the legal / wayleave situation on your unadopted road. This could present bigger hurdles if one or other of the providers wants to see evidence or some paper trail that they can install cabling and other infrastructure *without* express wayleave approval. This typically means that a party "owns" or can prove it has title to the land and hence rights to bury infrastructure on it.

There are Openreach developer guides giving the specifications for duct installations etc:
https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/fibre-for-...

But you still need to persuade Openreach to use the ducts you've built. To do that, I think you should start a Community Fibre Partnership. Undoubtedly if you've put in the right ductwork yourself, that's a plus (and eventually it will get used). However if there's no Openreach FTTP nearby, you may still find that the cost is prohibitive. Hence perhaps best to start the CFP first, and find out what the costing would be *if* you lay ducts and footway boxes to OR specifications.

If Virgin is nearby, then you can talk to them about the possibility of expanding into your area - and let them specify what they want in the road and/or pavements.

Don't hold your breath for G.Fast though: that rollout has been put on ice.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

There are Openreach developer guides giving the specifications for duct installations etc:
https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/fibre-for-...

But you still need to persuade Openreach to use the ducts you've built. To do that, I think you should start a Community Fibre Partnership. Undoubtedly if you've put in the right ductwork yourself, that's a plus (and eventually it will get used). However if there's no Openreach FTTP nearby, you may still find that the cost is prohibitive. Hence perhaps best to start the CFP first, and find out what the costing would be *if* you lay ducts and footway boxes to OR specifications.

If Virgin is nearby, then you can talk to them about the possibility of expanding into your area - and let them specify what they want in the road and/or pavements.

Don't hold your breath for G.Fast though: that rollout has been put on ice.

Thanks. Virgin is crazy close by - box is as at end of road. We only moved 100 yards and lost VM access - was tempted to put a wireless link in between our old house and the new one and just not tell the tenant FTTP is not showing as available yet so think I will attack VM first though must say I am finding BT latency and stability much better than VM.

To get an idea how close FTTP might be, try the TBB coverage map:
https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/index.php?tab=...

Next to the map, tick "Openreach native FTTP" and then zoom into your area.

Thanks for the feedback - I've gone down both routes and already had a reply from BT

You'd be much better off with FTTP than being locked into VMs terrible support, and of course the lack of choice.

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

You'd be much better off with FTTP than being locked into VMs terrible support, and of course the lack of choice.

I was going to post something similar. A BT route will please 95% ... whereas go Virgin and possibly 75% will be very unhappy.


And OR support during the plan and self dig will be useful. Their documentation does all the design work and you follow that plus you may well have a direct contact to put any queries to.

Edited by MHC (Tue 19-Jan-21 18:13:53)

I’d forget about G.fast also, probably won’t be happening now.