FTTPoD Survey Ordered

Hi,

I have been looking into FTTPoD. I originally ordered a desktop survey from Cerberus on the 10th February 2021 and got a price back on 22nd February 2021.

Estimated Build Cost: £8,700.00 ex VAT
Number of premises passed for FTTP: 19

I'm not sure why I was surprised by the cost being so high, given all the other high quotes! There is a new property development up the main road from me that has had FTTP installed - so there is fibre in the area. I live in a suburban type area and my current copper line is via overhead cable drop from pole (with Distribution Point on it) with ducts back to the cabinet/exchange.

It probably makes no difference to my own order but to the east of me, Uxbridge (Hillingdon) is going to be a Fibre-First Borough. And Uxbridge even on the list of the first 100 phone exchanges to be closed.

And to the west of me, Gerrards Cross is supposed to be getting both OpenReach FTTP and Swish Fibre.

I decided to go-ahead and get a Field Survey done, which I ordered on the 22nd February. It is probably pretty optimistic to think that the price may come down. I liked that Cerberus had clear and very transparent pricing. But the web-based ordering process was a little bit broken. Some CSS broken on the form and had to restart the ordering process after it got stuck - I fed this back to them but haven't heard anything back. Maybe because I wasn't using Chrome. On the 22nd February they taken payment from me (for the survey) and have now completed a credit check.

Reporting here as it might be useful to have another data point on the FTTPoD Desktop Quotes and Final Prices spreadsheet.

njh.

That will be much welcomed, thank you - we have relatively few recent quotes. I'll add it when the results are back. Fingers crossed!

At a guess you must be in Denham or Tatling End ... Which exchange are you actually on?

I am on Denham phone exchange.

I don't think there is a phone exchange at Tatling End?

I can't see anything on the Think Broadband map:
http://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/broadband-map#1...

Not suggesting you were on either but the area would suggest which exchange you are on - Denham is Uxbridge and Tatling End, is generally GX although they can be Uxbridge. You may route through the building in Denham but that is still part of Uxbridge which also includes Ruislip and West Drayton.

Uxbridge is having a major FTTP roll out at present working out from the exchanges in all directions. I suggest that before you commit to any On Demand you do some digging and ask questions about the plans.

Sorry MHC, I misread your first reply.

Yes, I am really hoping that I can have a conversation with the surveyor, prior to committing to FTTPoD.

Interestingly in the new housing estate at the former Denham Film Studios, when checking in the BT Broadband Availability Checker, there appear to be some properties with both copper and FTTP, which say they are on the Denham exchange. But there are slightly-newer builds which are fibre-only, that report that they are connected to the Gerrards Cross exchange (within metres of each other).

I guess in the long-term with fibre, the distance to the exchange (or density of lines) won't matter as much as with copper - hence BT closing exchanges.

I know the area well and find it odd that some of those are supposedly on GX. The old LVNH, now the Garden Village opposite are all Uxbridge/Denham and if you wiggle through onto Slade Oak Lane those are still Uxb right up to the M25 and only become GX numbers the old side. Bringing new fibre from GX would be a massive undertaking whereas out from Uxb would use the ducting already there going through/past the daughter exchange at Denham and up to the studios and Bosch site. Coming down from West Hyde would be easier than coming from GX.

I might be wrong, but two exchanges serving one relatively small/medium development is not something that normally happens, so unless there is a longer term plan to serve the area from GX which in itself shares the 01753 code with Slough!

There will be a single GEA headend exchange serving the area. A lookup of one of the new build fibre only connected properties will tell which. Otherwise one of the Openreach folks on here could look it up or indeed Mr Saffron if one asks nicely.

For the OP it scarcely matters as it’s the infrastructure build out / distance from the aggregation node for oD rather than headend exchange that drives the excess construction costs. Unfortunately the price floor seems for all quotes since 2019 appears to have risen by around £3K from those previously. No one can seem to fathom why.

In reply to a post by njh:

Interestingly in the new housing estate at the former Denham Film Studios, when checking in the BT Broadband Availability Checker, there appear to be some properties with both copper and FTTP, which say they are on the Denham exchange. But there are slightly-newer builds which are fibre-only, that report that they are connected to the Gerrards Cross exchange (within metres of each other).

That's the expected result.

If a copper line is available then the checker will report the local copper telephone exchange.
If a line has only FTTP available (new builds) the checker will report the Head-End exchange.

The same Head-End exchange will usually serve both addresses in the above example with FTTC and FTTP. I'm not familiar with your area though and it might be right on the exchange boundary.

Edited by j0hn83 (Mon 01-Mar-21 02:03:32)

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

That's the expected result.

If a copper line is available then the checker will report the local copper telephone exchange.
If a line has only FTTP available (new builds) the checker will report the Head-End exchange.

The same Head-End exchange will usually serve both addresses in the above example with FTTC and FTTP. I'm not familiar with your area though and it might be right on the exchange boundary.

That is the odd thing ... and if the OP is where I believe he is, then it is 2 miles from the exchange boundary and all the businesses I deal with in that area are connected back to Uxbridge for voice, and data albeit via Denham exchange bulding