Community Fibre Partnership

Afternoon All,

Over the past year or so there has been significant Openreach activity around my estate, which was built about 6 years ago, is fully ducted and totally finished. Initially my road was in scope, however due to a commercial Openreach decision they have stopped the build for my half of the estate, leaving the fibre cabling in the ducts. The other half of the estate is due to go live with FTTP shortly.

After many an email it became clear that Openreach weren’t changing their mind, but suggested a fibre partnership. After a few checks I realised that my address and the rest of the estate are all eligible for gigabit vouchers. I have begun the process and am now waiting for the indicative quote.

I’m interested to know peoples experience of the process and also if anyone know what OR will contribute per dwelling, beyond which needs to be funded by the partnership? I’ve heard a figure of £400.

Thanks

That's odd. Can you already get FTTC, or is it ADSL2+?

The estate has FTTC but following the change in voucher criteria we meet the other requirements much to my surprise!

There are a few posts on CFP so you may want to have a search also.. but.. my experience.

Village of around 300 homes.
Contacted OR - had a load of issues doing this - I won't bore you with all the details.
Months later - I was able to submit a selection of addresses for OR to quote on.
More months later - got a quote back. Even with the DCMS vouchers (i.e. 1500 per residential home or 3000 for a business) then it would have cost each home between £1500-£3000 depending on how many people would have signed up.

So my experience is that OR didn't want to invest/contribute any money in the build - they will use DCMS vouchers and rest is paid for by the residents.

As per my previous post - in our case, KCOM were willing to invest and of course use DCMS vouchers to help fund the build - so no cost to residents - and they are due to complete work in the next month or so. It of course helps as we are just on the outskirts of other KCOM expansion areas.

Good luck.. as I know how frustrating it can be when there's full fibre all around but OR won't install in to you in the short term.

PGRE

you are 100% incorrect -- the gap the community get is the difference between the commercial case (for Openreach deployment under its own resources) for the deployment and the actual ost of deployment -- the Openreach contribution would have already been taken into account - which is why you get a Gap fund -- so all the community are doing is funding the gap (and not the whole cost)

That’s a less than stellar experience! I’m hoping things are looking a bit better for me, I have been communicating with my OR contact, who seems very responsive.

I’ve submitted a list of addresses so we will see. The 32 addresses we are applying are all within a 100 metres start to finish, off 3 / 4 underground drop points. I’m hoping the newish ducting, already laid fibre cabling, brand new spine cabling and the agg node only being 400 metres away are all going to contribute to a fairly reasonable build cost (I can but hope).

In reply to a post by Pgre:

Village of around 300 homes.
Contacted OR - had a load of issues doing this - I won't bore you with all the details.
Months later - I was able to submit a selection of addresses for OR to quote on.
More months later - got a quote back. snip
So my experience is that OR didn't want to invest/contribute any money in the build - they will use DCMS vouchers and rest is paid for by the residents.

As per my previous post - in our case, KCOM were willing to invest and of course use DCMS vouchers to help fund the build - so no cost to residents - and they are due to complete work in the next month or so. It of course helps as we are just on the outskirts of other KCOM expansion areas.

Much the same sort of experience but in my case the Altnet (Quantum Air Fibre) seem to have done all the leg work and planning before even letting us, the potential customers, know. FTTP came to the village about a month after the cards (FTTP is coming!) popped through the letterbox. Only input I had was to apply for FTTP (and the voucher) via a couple of online forms (as an individual). Once everything was done, just confirm that I was satisfied to get the voucher issued. Very happy with the service.

OR? No plans at all.

I understand that's what it's supposed to be - it says that on the quote - see below:

As a reminder, Openreach will cover all costs for this project that fall within our own commercial threshold, and the figure below represents the remaining cost that your community would need to contribute for us to deliver an FTTP network - which would give download speeds of up to 1Gbps. These costs are subject to contract.

But that's not what the OR team had told me verbally:
The cost give "aka" the Gap was £365 - so I would be really interested to see what the Openreach contribution is/was - but I was told that there was no contribution from OR.
So.. I'd say I'm 50% incorrect at least perhaps

The annoyance was there are 20+ new builds and they at least could have got FTTP for no cost if the developer could have been bothered speaking to OR - but the didn't.

then you have been misinformed - if this has been done as a CFP there will be have been contribution from Openreach 100%

this is because they are mixing terminology (cost is 100% not the Gap - The Gap is the Cost - less openreach Contribution which is why you are funding only the Gap and not the cost - the cost would be greater than the figure you have )

Do you know, out of interest what the commercial threshold is? Is it per house??

Just to keep this thread updated, I requested access to the Portal on Wednesday 29/09/21. Received login details and spoke with my allocated OR contact on Monday 04/10/21. Submitted addresses on Wednesday 06/10/21 which the rural manager confirmed were received the following day. Today I have received confirmation from that offshore infrastructure team that the build has been passed for the desktop quote and I should hear within 28 working days.

Realistically things are going to be tight, as the rural vouchers aren’t claimable for a period after the end of the year. My OR contact isn’t concerned however and as soon as we receive the ballpark figure he is going to progress the voucher process.

So far so good it seems. Roll on a multi million pound ballpark quote to connect the 27 addresses!

Thanks for the update - generally interested to see how it goes for you - and hope it works out.
Timescales wise - have you been given any indication - I understood that it could likely take 12months to get the build done after contracts were signed etc.

Where about are you in the country by the way ?

I guess this is the challenge with many things - those things that don't go so well you hear about - but if it works as it should then you don't tend to hear about it.

Timescale wise, the Rural manager is trying to progress things to move to delivery stage before 2022. I would imagine the usual 12 month to build will still apply, however as all the cabling is run to the Agg Node I’m hoping it should be too much of a job to do.

I’m based in the South West.

Just in the way of an update, I have had the provisional quote back today, with a gap of £11772. This figure is to allow for a build to 29 houses and will be easily covered by Gigabit vouchers. The next stage is final quote confirmation, which should be signed of next week according to our account manager. The planning has taken pretty much bang on 4 weeks, however this was slightly delayed due to the need for a specialist team to review and plan the build. I think the specialist team involvement means there is no need for the provisional quote to be reviewed prior to final offer.

Once the final offer is received the funding application is the next step, hopefully it won’t be too hideous!

Just as a way of an update, I received the final quote confirming the provisional quote yesterday. The quote was delayed significantly as apparently there has been a huge uplift in CFP applications and OR were reviewing each individual builds to confirm they can in fact facilitate the build within the current infrastructure and resourcing available.

Openreach confirm they believe they have capacity so they have now started applying for the gigabit voucher approval from DCMS. Next stage will be to apply for funding once approval is received.

So far communication has been good, even if a little slow at times.

To update, DCMS have advised that they do not believe the scheme is good value for them, which is slightly bizarre, but I am now waiting to hear from the local MP, who is the only person able to speak to them on our behalf!

In reply to a post by Maverick567:

To update, DCMS have advised that they do not believe the scheme is good value for them, which is slightly bizarre, but I am now waiting to hear from the local MP, who is the only person able to speak to them on our behalf!

Am I understanding correctly, DCMS are refusing vouchers and you're in a voucher eligible postcode?

You are, yes. They state the scheme does not pose value for money!