Annoying 18 months of broadband frustration

Back in July 2019 moved to a house in Ibstock, Leicester and ever since had a torrid time with broadband woes.

Before i brought the house checked with Openreach and according to their checker "FTTP is coming to your area soon" Had no reason not to believe this as half the estate already had FTTP.

https://ibb.co/xL7nkHS

Months after moving in i would check with Openreach and all of a sudden I was getting "At the moment, we don't have any plans to upgrade your area to full fibre" I pushed OR regarding this which isn’t easy to get a proper response but when i finally did basically they said they wasn't going to install FTTP to my address now and suggested i went the Community Fibre Partnership.

Got a Cerberus FTTPod desktop quote of £6,800.00 + VAT. Aggregation node serving your premises is 400 - 599m

When I decided to get a proper install survey done it came back at a £8,640.00+VAT with 4 properties passed. Too expensive and the other 3 houses certainly wouldn’t have been interested in splitting the cost.

I originally had FTTC broadband with NowTV installed but after a week or so the line sync was only around 30mb. Decided to cancel it and go down the 4G route with Three as I have a cell mast directly in the line of sight from my house. This works well using a B525 & Poynting 4G-XPOL Antenna and get 60mb+ and upto 110mb at night and early in the morning. Pings are not great at 70/100ms. The mast does sometimes go down and then totally stuffed as there isn’t another mast near so can barely get a mobile signal let alone a data connection.

With this in mind thought would just get the cheapest FTTC broadband for backup but recently checking on the OR fiber checker its going between I can get FTTC and not even being able to get then and only ADSL?! This is confirmed when I try and buy a broadband package I’m only offered 8mb ADSL

https://ibb.co/YPyZd56

There is Virgin Media within the village but wasn’t laid when our estate was built in 2012/2013.

Superfast Leicestershire is pointless, unlike many other county’s they haven’t even bothered updating there website in over a year. Pushed the council and they just refer email SFL, who never respond to emails.

I’m lucky with my 4G broadband, although I release that at any moment more people might go down this route and the speeds will drop.

Just venting i suppose, not sure what else i can do. Have made some leaflets I will pop around the half of my estate who don’t have FTTP regarding a possible Community Fibre Partnership but not sure how much interest there will be

According to the BT checker the fibre cabinet is full. Best option is to get ADSL and ask to be added to the wait list. Not all ISPs will but I do have experience of success using Zen.

In reply to a post by LordVader:

https://ibb.co/xL7nkHS

When did you take that screenshot? it does not say that FTTP ins available its merely advertising the different technologies.

Around 20 months ago.

It clearly says FTTP is coming in the highlighted area, even Openreach originally acknowledged FTTP was suppose to be installed August 2020 before doing a U turn for which I'm still trying to find the reason

In reply to a post by LordVader:

I’m lucky with my 4G broadband, although I release that at any moment more people might go down this route and the speeds will drop.

If the mast serves the Three network, you could try an EE PAYG SIM to see if you get good coverage, or Vodafone or O2.

Edited by jchamier (Thu 04-Feb-21 19:56:09)

Tried O2 PAYG sim, very poor although again a mast is in the village it's only band 20 and standing next to it only gave me 10mb.

EE is a mast share with Three (band 3 & 20)

Not a surprise with O2, in rural areas. Vodafone MIGHT be better with Band 20 potentially Band 1.

However Three is normally Band 3 - 15 MHz wide, yet EE would be Band 3 with 20 MHz wide, and the ability to deploy additional Band 3 in 10 or 20 MHz units. The mast near me is 2 x 20 MHz on Band 3 for EE, yet only 15 MHz for Three. Difference in speeds is over 150 on EE, and 40 on Three.

I've been keeping an eye on quite a few locations for customers of ours and I've seen them go from "FTTP is coming" to "you can get FTTC, no plan for FTTP" on the Openreach checker. Whether they are removing areas from planned builds or the original results were errors I can't say.

The availability of broadband can be an important criteria when deciding whether or not to buy a property. In view of that I suggest that you complain to both Ofcom and the ASA.

Not sure what good that will do? There are various targets for broadband rollout but Ofcom aren't going to chase every line that doesn't currently have high speed broadband - they/government have set the direction and the market is delivering towards it.

What good would ASA do in this? Where has there been false advertising?