Confusion about exchange info FTTP

Why is it so hard to get FTTP information my exchange WSWIS doesn't seem to be on any FTTP roll out plans that I can find from Openreach.

Looking at the exchange info on thinkbroadband it says FTTP is available but not in all area's if I search with my postcode it says not available and not date information.

THis is the info if i search on the name of the town.
Classification Market B
Virgin Media Cable Yes enabled (not all premises may be able to get cable in the exchange area)
BT IPStream Max Yes enabled
BT WBC Yes enabled
Openreach FTTC Yes enabled (not all cabinets may be enabled for FTTC on the exchange)
Openreach FTTP Yes enabled (not all premises may be able to get FTTP on the exchange)
TalkTalk LLU Yes enabled
Sky LLU Yes enabled

This is the info if i pop in the postcode.
Exchange Name Wishaw (WSWIS)
Exchange Distance 1.12km
Classification Market B
Virgin Media Cable Yes enabled
BT IPStream Max Yes enabled
BT WBC Yes enabled (estimated speed: 15 to 24 Mbps)
Openreach FTTC Yes enabled (estimated speed: over 40 Mbps)
Openreach FTTP No not enabled
Openreach G.fast No not enabled
TalkTalk LLU Yes enabled
Sky LLU Yes enabled
Openreach Technology All premises in the postcode are served by the same Openreach technology. Individual speeds may vary.

What I dont get is how come it is so slow to get enabled in a reasonably big residential area like Wishaw when areas around has it like Mohterwell and smaller exchanges in the area also show FTTP enabled like Cambuslang.

I just find it is a joke that I can't get FTTP living in a town with +30k people in 2021 or at least get info when it will be available as my FTTC is usually pretty good but have had loads of weird issues and last year had to get openreach out 6 or more times when my line went from the normal 7x/20mbit to abysmal speeds for no reason and they couldnt find any issues and a line reset fixed it.

Getting more and more tempted to go with Virgin but that would require me to dig up my drive...and obviously Virgin has some issues too and its been a few years now since I had it so don;t know how good they are in Wishaw these days.

I just want to be able to get info....why is it so hard.

I suspect the reason you can't get any info about when your property will be FTTP enabled is because Openreach have no plans to do it yet. Even if they decide to do Wishaw they will not necessarily do all properties.

The bits of Wishaw with it available are relatively new build areas

Yeah I would expect that to be the case as they have to install FTTP to new houses.

Doesn't change the fact I cant get any info about my old house which is shockingly bad but to be expected from a company like openreach.

In reply to a post by Jumping:

Yeah I would expect that to be the case as they have to install FTTP to new houses.

They don't have to.

It's also not just new houses being built with FTTP that MrSaffron is referring to.
OpenReach are also retro fitting FTTP to housing built over the last 20-30 years.

If you can't get any info on a property it could just be that it has no current plans to be upgraded.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

In reply to a post by Jumping:

Yeah I would expect that to be the case as they have to install FTTP to new houses.

They don't have to.

It's also not just new houses being built with FTTP that MrSaffron is referring to.
OpenReach are also retro fitting FTTP to housing built over the last 20-30 years.

If you can't get any info on a property it could just be that it has no current plans to be upgraded.

Which is why im so frustrated that you can't get any info when it will come and how a town with +30k is not on any roll out plans I seen that goes all the way to 2024 is absolutely shockingly poor.

Its wait for exchange to be on fibrefirst/town list

The retro build which varies but seen on new stuff that goes back to 1995 is based on spare capacity at handover exchange and well documented and clear ducting to the properties i.e. a the cheap and quick end.

In reply to a post by Jumping:

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

In reply to a post by Jumping:

Yeah I would expect that to be the case as they have to install FTTP to new houses.

They don't have to.

It's also not just new houses being built with FTTP that MrSaffron is referring to.
OpenReach are also retro fitting FTTP to housing built over the last 20-30 years.

If you can't get any info on a property it could just be that it has no current plans to be upgraded.

Which is why im so frustrated that you can't get any info when it will come and how a town with +30k is not on any roll out plans I seen that goes all the way to 2024 is absolutely shockingly poor.

No it's not. Your town just isn't important enough to get an upgrade within the next four years. Or at least not important enough to be a specific part of the roll-out. Maybe it will happen anyway but BT just aren't sure yet.

The problem with BT announcing more in-depth or longer term plans is that when they inevitably slip people like you whine and moan. As a result BT will now only announce those things it is absolutely sure of being able to do.

Edited by Andrue (Sat 12-Jun-21 15:26:56)

In reply to a post by Jumping:

Which is why im so frustrated that you can't get any info when it will come and how a town with +30k is not on any roll out plans I seen that goes all the way to 2024 is absolutely shockingly poor.

You'd think there would be a database that has ALL the country's FTTP plans. I've been down the same road but with a very different outcome.

I looked at BT's checker at Christmas and all it said was no plans for FTTP. Fast forward just 2 months and a company (not a sight of BT / OR) posted cards through the letterbox saying they were installing FTTP (we even had a mobile street sign highlighting the plans for FTTP around for a couple of weeks) .

By middle of March I was up and running and haven't looked back since. But you would think, in this day and age, the regulators would be running a compulsory central database to log such plans that joe public can check against. Instead its the usual "guess what is happening up your street" scenario and go search on the various companies websites. The mantra of 'what does it say on the BT checker' would sort of impliy that BT/OR is the only show in town.. They are not. As you say, poor.

Their maps looks like they are building in Stonehouse and Lanark to the south of Wishaw, and I know they are currently building in Bathgate, Whitburn and Fauldhouse to the east. They announced last month that they will be moving into Harthill, Stoneyburn and Shotts which will bring it literally "next door".

Hopefully the sensible next step is to build outwards from this which I suspect would bring in Wishaw area, although they haven't announced anything for Livingston yet.

I kept an eye on their webpage as they release the plans there every 3 months - last one was last month but they did 3 separate ones expanding each time, so next one will be around August https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/fibre-firs...

In reply to a post by 69bertie:

But you would think, in this day and age, the regulators would be running a compulsory central database to log such plans that joe public can check against

The real question is, "why?!"

In my opinion, if this existed, it would have no value. Plans change, and plans are not commitments.

If you're staying put, nothing actually changes for you until fibre is available to order.

However there is a real risk that this information would be used to influence purchasing decisions, from relatively small ones like "should I take a 2 year contract on this 4G SIM?" to huge ones like "should I buy this house?"

In that case, when plans change then people would get *very* upset, possibly to the point of dragging the source through the courts. Not to mention that the fibre builders themselves are trying to keep a degree of commercial confidentiality from each other, when business plans depend on stealing a lead on their competitors.

So in summary, I think such a database would be a very very bad idea.

You can already see the problem from this thread. Openreach have said they want to cover 80% of properties by December 2026. They have also published a list of exchanges in their plans - which as far as I can tell covers less than 80%. The result: people are venting their anger that their exchange is not listed. But it would be unrealistic to expect Openreach to plan out to a 5-year horizon; and even if they did, the plans would be so sketchy as to be not useful.

I totally agree with what you are saying, these discussions on the lack of Openreach's rollout plans for every single property are well trodden and is unlikely to change. I do think progress has been made with the 'Openreach Full Fibre Build Programme' document that they update every few months but you can't please all the people all the time sadly.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by Jumping:

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

... nested quotes trimmed ...

They don't have to.

It's also not just new houses being built with FTTP that MrSaffron is referring to.
OpenReach are also retro fitting FTTP to housing built over the last 20-30 years.

If you can't get any info on a property it could just be that it has no current plans to be upgraded.

Which is why im so frustrated that you can't get any info when it will come and how a town with +30k is not on any roll out plans I seen that goes all the way to 2024 is absolutely shockingly poor.

No it's not. Your town just isn't important enough to get an upgrade within the next four years. Or at least not important enough to be a specific part of the roll-out. Maybe it will happen anyway but BT just aren't sure yet.

The problem with BT announcing more in-depth or longer term plans is that when they inevitably slip people like you whine and moan. As a result BT will now only announce those things it is absolutely sure of being able to do.

WOW, right ok I better stop having any thoughts then as the internet police has just came and slapped me with a wet fish.

The fact is UK is shockingly poor when it comes to the fiber roll out and its just talk from politicians and openreach when they promise stuff.

Doesn't change the fact that the lack of information is shocking and I think most people would be happy to have a rough date than no info.

In reply to a post by Jumping:

Doesn't change the fact that the lack of information is shocking and I think most people would be happy to have a rough date than no info.

Maybe you were too young to remember but we've been here before with the FTTC roll-out. We know what happens when BT gives out too much information. We know that people treat any date they are given, no matter how vaguely it is given as being gospel. Then they throw their toys out of the pram when the date slips.

BT is dealing with a lot of obstacles to complete this roll-out (a lot of them being out of their control such as councils and power companies). They have learnt that we as customers can't be trusted with extensive plans and information because most of us don't understand that circumstances can change. I think the level of information they are giving is about right. It's showing that progress is being made whilst minimising the amount of ammunition being given to over enthusiastic customers such as yourself. It's much better to have you moaning that you don't know what they are going to do than to have you ranting and raving because your exchange is a month late.

Edited by Andrue (Sun 13-Jun-21 20:41:48)

Doesn't change the fact that the lack of information is shocking and I think most people would be happy to have a rough date than no info.

Some point after December 2026, as it currently stands.

In reply to a post by Jumping:

The fact is UK is shockingly poor when it comes to the fiber roll out and its just talk from politicians and openreach when they promise stuff.

Doesn't change the fact that the lack of information is shocking and I think most people would be happy to have a rough date than no info.

Not only are OpenReach meeting their targets but they are increasing them and being more ambitious.

OpenReach are rolling out more FTTP in a week than the size of your town.
They don't owe you a fibre connection more than any other company do though.
Why aren't you huffing and puffing that CityFibre aren't rolling out to you?

Unfortunately with so many millions of properties in the UK no matter what anyone does it will take years to reach everyone.

They can't give you a rough date if they have no current plans to cover you...

In reply to a post by Jumping:

its just talk from politicians and openreach when they promise stuff.

Can you please provide a link to where Openreach promised you or your property full fibre broadband.

For what it's worth I'm not in a fibre first area, haven't been listed on any of the published Openreach rollout plans, and don't live on a relatively newly built estate, but my address flipped to "FTTP coming soon" on the Openreach checker last week. So it's not necessarily the case that nothing is going to happen before 2026.

I would expect rollout plans to be accelerated as much as is possible if the take-up of FTTP services is encouraging. There's also a possibility that CityFibre or any other number of AltNets could end up covering you.

In reply to a post by jpm:

For what it's worth I'm not in a fibre first area, haven't been listed on any of the published Openreach rollout plans, and don't live on a relatively newly built estate, but my address flipped to "FTTP coming soon" on the Openreach checker last week. So it's not necessarily the case that nothing is going to happen before 2026.

I would expect rollout plans to be accelerated as much as is possible if the take-up of FTTP services is encouraging. There's also a possibility that CityFibre or any other number of AltNets could end up covering you.

Isn't that the problem I been stating that there is no info beside the talk from politicians and openreach promising to roll it out.

Its fine I only expressed my frustration and that was a huuuge mistake it seems. So mods please just lock this thread as no point going on with this and im REALLY sorry for venting my frustration about lack of ANY information.

Your opening post was fine, and you got sensible replies.

Your second post was a bit stroppy.

Your third one very stroppy.

Then you started getting rude to those who had been trying to help you and explain things to you.

Hmmm.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

Your opening post was fine, and you got sensible replies.

Your second post was a bit stroppy.

Your third one very stroppy.

Then you started getting rude to those who had been trying to help you and explain things to you.

Hmmm.

Welcome to the generation which we wrinklies have let down by failing to explain that instant gratification is a marketing tool not a way forward for life

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by Jumping:

Doesn't change the fact that the lack of information is shocking and I think most people would be happy to have a rough date than no info.

Maybe you were too young to remember but we've been here before with the FTTC roll-out. We know what happens when BT gives out too much information. We know that people treat any date they are given, no matter how vaguely it is given as being gospel. Then they throw their toys out of the pram when the date slips.

BT is dealing with a lot of obstacles to complete this roll-out (a lot of them being out of their control such as councils and power companies). They have learnt that we as customers can't be trusted with extensive plans and information because most of us don't understand that circumstances can change. I think the level of information they are giving is about right. It's showing that progress is being made whilst minimising the amount of ammunition being given to over enthusiastic customers such as yourself. It's much better to have you moaning that you don't know what they are going to do than to have you ranting and raving because your exchange is a month late.

Well said.

Hi Kim

I am not sure how closely you watch this forum but we have several people each month posting about the lack of FTTP rollout plans from Openreach, sometimes these people already have superfast speeds but because someone down their road has slightly better speed they come here and complain about the Openreach rollout. Its always about Openreach never any of the other broadband infrastructure providers and to be honest I feel your pain about not knowing when FTTP is coming but I understand why Openreach do it the way they do.

You do have options, either wait in line with the rest of us or pay to jump the queue and get FTTP installed via FTTPoD (although this option may be extremely expense).

I'm also not in in a Fibre First area but luckily living on a new build estate from 2014 benefited from Openreach's retro fit and recently had FTTP available to me.

The current East Sussex contract with Openreach seems to be addressing areas of the town currently with slow speeds rather than a general FTTP rollout but Lightning Fibre have started building and plan to eventually cover around 95% of the town.