community fibre

I'm not really sure what to do.

After re-checking the Hampshire broadband site today, I've now been informed by that site that the address is under 24mbits (which i know) and that they basically ran out of money.

I've been told via openreach, they have shifted completion date to July 2022(from pushed back date of dec 2021), The exchange (Bransgore) is on the May openreach fibre rollout.


Hampshire county originally told me that they were gonna fttp the 5 postcodes back in 2017. I was even given the fttp v code.

To date
around 2017 single ream of fibre cable on pole with new jf box by the pole. - was told it was for fibre.
2018/19 work to clear road ditches and ducting.
2020 April Most of the post codes now have cbts and overhead cabling done.
2021 April adjacent road had roadworks to clear ducting issue to bring fibre cable to end of the street.

As you can see the work has been frustratingly slow. I do appreciate the new forest has its own unique set of issues.

I'm at the end of my ISP contract this year hence the extra frustration - freeola with their 1 month contract is an option.

Would the csp route frustrate things ?


note: I can't get wireless because of the house being lower than the road on one side. So its either satellite or dsl/fibre

July 2020 target sounds like a 12-month contract would suit you. There are several ISPs who offer that.

contract ends in December.

Come December you may have a better target date. If it's still looking like July then you need to compare the cost of 12 months @ 12 month contract versus 8 months @ 1 month contract, bearing in mind that target dates could slip further. In any case, having FTTP and FTTC side-by-side for a few months is quite nice to have. It gives you some redundancy, and gives you time to move your phone number over to a VOIP provider if you wish to do that.

Your other option is to take a new FTTC contract with a provider which allows in-life upgrades.

What did you mean by "the csp route"? If you mean a CFP, then at this point it doesn't seem worth pursuing, although it doesn't cost you to try.

If you go down the Community Fibre route - then don't expect anything to happen fast.
It takes at least a year typically from what BT OR told me when I tried and it took 5 months to get a quote.. and even then it was expensive.

So I don't think going down that route would help.

Could be worth speaking to your local MP about this, this may help add some pressure - but it does look like things are happening although I share your frustration that it can take a long time.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Come December you may have a better target date. If it's still looking like July then you need to compare the cost of 12 months @ 12 month contract versus 8 months @ 1 month contract, bearing in mind that target dates could slip further.

Obviously, i don't know if they changed the spline cabling route due to bransgore being part of the villiages rollout and b) if that also impacts on funding. Also it may have been pushed back so that bransgore could be included.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In any case, having FTTP and FTTC side-by-side for a few months is quite nice to have. It gives you some redundancy, and gives you time to move your phone number over to a VOIP provider if you wish to do that.

yeah i looking at exactly that yesterday. I was looking the voip route with the phone number, I'm with BT, so out of contract price will up by £8.

I don't care post fttp install if i go fttp + mobile or fttp+ voip + mobile. Fttp wise i'm looking at 500mbits plus, the openreach proposed cut will be sorted by then so hopefully i will have a clearer price choice by then

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Your other option is to take a new FTTC contract with a provider which allows in-life upgrades.

I was contemplating that

What did you mean by "the csp route"? If you mean a CFP, then at this point it doesn't seem worth pursuing, although it doesn't cost you to try.


I meant cfp, i think i've heard csp soo many times over the years it just slipped into my finger. Before i forget Thanks candlerb for replying 😊.

I think you can understand the frustration, when the project has been known to you for 5 years and if the july 2022 completion day is not delayed further it will be 27 months of a cbt sitting on an open reach pole. But after the wales incident openreach are quite happy for that to happen.

It's very annoying that there's also an FTTP ISP called Community Fibre

To be clear, I believe we're talking about an Openreach Community Fibre Partnership.

I agree it's very slow. Our road put in a CFP request in January this year, hoping to piggyback on my FTTPoD, which installed a splitter at the end of the road.

The survey wasn't done until the middle of July, and the final proposal and costing still hasn't come back.

On my ADSL2 account with Eclipse the contract ran out 16 years ago and I have never renewed it (they even gave me a loyalty discount so I pay £16.95) , so I do not understand people worrying when there contract runs out.

I have waited 20 years for FTTP then I get a Cowboy install last week thanks MJ Quinn.

Edited by APTMAN (Thu 05-Aug-21 09:50:10)

In reply to a post by Pgre:

If you go down the Community Fibre route - then don't expect anything to happen fast.
It takes at least a year typically from what BT OR told me when I tried and it took 5 months to get a quote.. and even then it was expensive.

So I don't think going down that route would help.

Thank you for the timeframe Pgre, given that its spline cabling left, is it worth the wait on cfp. Surprisingly the gigabit vouchers are available. if fttp is coming next year, why allow those to be available?

In reply to a post by Pgre:

Could be worth speaking to your local MP about this, this may help add some pressure - but it does look like things are happening although I share your frustration that it can take a long time.

Paul Kirby suggested this as well. There does need to be pressure or at least some questions asked as its taken from 2017 to 2022! I know the New forest Verders have changed how they handle wayleaves. Given that bduk money has been spent on this project, the very least we should know why its taken so long and when and what the end result will be!

I do appreciate that even 6 postcodes can go out of budget - we've seen even one street in london go out of scope on thses forums for budget issues. So i'm quite mindful of that

In reply to a post by candlerb:

It's very annoying that there's also an FTTP ISP called Community Fibre

Its confusing but nope i'm not talking about that

In reply to a post by candlerb:

To be clear, I believe we're talking about an Openreach Community Fibre Partnership.

We certainly are!. My thinking was if its a few issues of wayleaves and its just spline cabling, and that they've run out of the bduk money, would using those vouchers en mass, solve the issue - but i don't think from you and pgre that it would be any faster.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

I agree it's very slow. Our road put in a CFP request in January this year, hoping to piggyback on my FTTPoD, which installed a splitter at the end of the road.

The survey wasn't done until the middle of July, and the final proposal and costing still hasn't come back.

Thats bad they could have used parts of the fftpod survey. I'm not gonna even ask about your FTTPoD journey as i saw you were a regular poster in the multiple fftpod threads. I just hope you recovered most of your lost hairs!

It's my understanding that Openreach don't receive a penny of BDUK money until the job is complete, so it's their own money they've spent on the work done so far.

Re the CFP survey: they did detailed surveys of the routes to each of the interested properties, because for historical reasons parts are ducted and parts direct-buried.

Fortunately, most of the ducting was already there to mine. In the FTTPoD survey they identified 34m upstream which needed laying, and that was included in the cost. However, once they finally got round to pulling the cable, they found that the next section of duct was full - so Openreach ended up having to dig up another 164m of road to lay parallel duct, which required a 3 month notice period, and all at their own expense.

On that basis, I can't really complain about how long it all took!

In reply to a post by candlerb:

It's my understanding that Openreach don't receive a penny of BDUK money until the job is complete, so it's their own money they've spent on the work done so far.

Interesting in a way (but expected given its nature)..

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Re the CFP survey: they did detailed surveys of the routes to each of the interested properties, because for historical reasons parts are ducted and parts direct-buried.

Interesting that its a mixture.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Fortunately, most of the ducting was already there to mine. In the FTTPoD survey they identified 34m upstream which needed laying, and that was included in the cost. However, once they finally got round to pulling the cable, they found that the next section of duct was full - so Openreach ended up having to dig up another 164m of road to lay parallel duct, which required a 3 month notice period, and all at their own expense.

On that basis, I can't really complain about how long it all took!

130m of ducting can cost a bit

Edited by Taras (Thu 05-Aug-21 12:15:07)

They dug the expected 34m fairly early on; the 164m was in addition to that, about 7 months later. The road was closed on one side for nearly a week, with a couple of days trenching, and a couple of days filling in. I'm sure it was not cheap!

Edited by candlerb (Thu 05-Aug-21 12:25:16)

Hopefully you were kept informed of the delay

In reply to a post by APTMAN:

On my ADSL2 account with Eclipse the contract ran out 16 years ago and I have never renewed it (they even gave me a loyalty discount so I pay £16.95) , so I do not understand people worrying when there contract runs out.

I have waited 20 years for FTTP then I get a Cowboy install last week thanks MJ Quinn.

Yeah Eclipse is pretty good in that respect. Because of whats happened in my case, this will be my second time being out of contract whilst waiting for this fttp upgrade.

I did see your thread on MJ Quinn, it sounded like a complete nightmare, i know its only 5 days since your install but I hope the connection has been stable since.

In reply to a post by Taras:

Obviously, i don't know if they changed the spline cabling route . . .

I'm sure you intended to type spine but a totally different word slipped into the above sentence (and has reappeared in subsequent posts).

For me spline and spine in the reference of cabling route is interchangeable .

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Come December you may have a better target date. If it's still looking like July then you need to compare the cost of 12 months @ 12 month contract versus 8 months @ 1 month contract, bearing in mind that target dates could slip further. In any case, having FTTP and FTTC side-by-side for a few months is quite nice to have. It gives you some redundancy, and gives you time to move your phone number over to a VOIP provider if you wish to do that.

Your other option is to take a new FTTC contract with a provider which allows in-life upgrades.

What did you mean by "the csp route"? If you mean a CFP, then at this point it doesn't seem worth pursuing, although it doesn't cost you to try.

Also worth reading the terms of the contract particularly around early termination fees, a 12 month contract doesn't actually always mean you are tied in for 12 months, usually it just means you'll have to pay a penalty charge to leave earlier than 12 months.

I had one recently when after ~6mo the Early termination cost on a 12month contract was less than setup fees on the 30d term.