Final run of fibre from road to house - who pays?

I live in a neighbourhood with direct buried (armoured) telephone cables.

Openreach (contractors) are digging the paths and installing new ducting with Openreach branded rectangular boxes for each property with a blue pull cord sticking out.

I live at the end of a 30m tarmac driveway with some shared access to properties on either side.

Virgin Media is in the road but Virgin refused to install for me as their inspector who came out said it would not be economically viable for them to install it (my neighbours have it fine).

So I'm a bit concerned the same could happen with FTTP - if I came to order who has to pay for the final run from one of these small boxes to my property ? - Openreach or the ISP, because if Openreach passes the potential connection bill to the ISP I could see them rejecting it on cost grounds for presumably having to excavate the shared driveway.

Thanks !

Edited by starfire (Wed 14-Jul-21 19:04:58)

Openreach don't necessarily serve your property with fibre in the same way as the copper. When there is direct buried copper, often they will install a pole to serve properties with aerial fibre.

In any case, it would be generally be decided at time of planning the rollout whether you will be served with fibre or not, rather than at the time of getting service installed to your property.

That is: either they will place a connection point somewhere to serve your property - in which case they will have decided on a viable connection route, and the ISP will be able to order it as usual - or they won't, in which case you won't be able to place an order in the first place.

I have not heard any cases of "excess construction charges" being applied to FTTP installations, and I'm not aware of any mechanism for such charges to be quoted or passed on.

OK thanks - So I guess I've got to hope they put in a small connection box for my specific property.

A few new poles have gone up but only near properties already served via a pole.

All other local streets with direct buried cables are having excavation work taking place and individual connection boxes per property.

These branded boxes, about 6 inches square and black ?

If so, this implies a ‘gabocom’ https://www.gabocom.com/ install might be used.

So when an order is placed, Openreach will come and asses what’s required to get tubing from the hatch to the outside of the premises …. This could be a soft dig, in grass/soil or gain permission to provide through tarmac, paviors, etc.

I think your best bet is to bite the bullet, and go ahead and order.

They have just started digging my specific street and not got to my property yet (so cannot order).

They are rectangular boxes with Openreach embossed on them.

….. like a small plastic hatch ?

Metal that flip up, a bit like the ones for your water stopcock in the street eg. this

That’s them.

Once you’re able, order………

Yes I will when I can.

The question remains though, could they deem it too expensive to provide for my property like Virgin Media did ?

Definitely agree: if your property shows as available to order, then order.

Your property may say "KCI2 assure" and this may require a surveyor visit (after your order is placed) to decide the details of how to connect your property.

The worst-case scenario is that at that point, they could decide it's not economic to do so and cancel the order. However this is unlikely, as they wouldn't have planned your property if they didn't think it could be connected.