Openreach installing full fibre - only half of street?

Hi all, apologies if this has been asked before. I live in a fairly new property (built in 2014) and I noticed multiple Openreach vans on my street 2 weeks ago. I spoke with one of the engineers briefly and he confirmed they were installing full fibre for the street. They had 2 reels, 1 which appeared to be fibre cabling and another of blue rope.

We don't have any overhead poles and all properties are served from underground cabinets/ducts as is pretty standard for newer builds. My worry is when I put in my postcode and house number on the checker (I live in an odd numbered house, 19) on the Openreach website, it states "At the moment, we don't have any plans to upgrade your area to full fibre, but provide your contact details and we'll keep you up to date if things change - we add new locations into our build plan every three months". This is also the case for several other odd numbered properties when I've searched them.

However, when I do the same with an even numbered property on my street, it states "We're starting to build our ultra-fast, ultra-reliable Full Fibre broadband in your area". Is it common for Openreach to only account for 1 side of a street, or is this more a database issue which will be updated once their work is complete? I noticed they were back briefly today after 2 weeks of no progress but didn't get a chance to speak with them.

Is there anything different about your side of the street - in particular, are the properties on that side flats (MDUs)?

No nothing out of the ordinary on our side, all houses. The underground cabinets are on the even numbered side of the road's footpath but we currently have FTTC broadband. I'm assuming our copper cabling would be coming via ducting that would cross underneath the street.

Does your copper cable emerge from a duct beside your house?

If the cables are buried across the road, that might be the issue. But like you say, it could also just be a database issue. Basically: you'll either get it or you won't, and you'll have to wait and see.

Yes that's right, we have a duct with a grey plastic cover next to our front door, similar to what you see on the "rodding and roping" process that Openreach explain in their FAQs. I think it's a wait and see like you said, I'll keep an eye on the availability checker. Thanks for your help!

I had the exact same issue, OR claimed our side of the street was not financially viable, don’t know why, they haven’t really provided much of an explaination. We’ve ended up going down the community fibre partnership route. The bottom line is Openreach will do what Openreach want!

Edited by Maverick567 (Tue 23-Nov-21 19:02:41)

Maverick - that is not corrrect. There is a commercial case and premises are in the commerical case or outside of it (its very black and white) (whether you think that is correct or not) there are a whole number of reason why some premises wont be , CFP should only ever be covering things that are not in any current or proposed plan, - (interesting did you fund your CFP or use vouchers to fund it).

Where a new build has been done with copper and that site has been registered with Openreach possibly under different phase and different registration by developers and different build timelines and also when royal mail address and postcode are available are available that some time only part of a development gets covered (as they rest may not be visible to the plan. this all around timing

Edited by Fastman3 (Tue 23-Nov-21 20:44:49)

In reply to a post by Maverick567:

I had the exact same issue, OR claimed our side of the street was not financially viable, don’t know why, they haven’t really provided much of an explaination. We’ve ended up going down the community fibre partnership route. The bottom line is Openreach will do what Openreach want!

That's true as Openreach won't care! They only want profit money!

I’m not sure what you disagreeing with, but I can absolutely assure you that half of my street is being built as part of the commercial build, with my half being not commercially viable so not within any form of build plan. I have several emails from the Openreach project manager confirming as much. As to the CFP, I live in a “rural town” so the commercial gap will be funded by vouchers, just waiting for the DCMS sign off.

I commented purely to point out to the Op that it’s not uncommon for parts of streets to be built and the decision is Openreach’s to make, with its sometimes being unclear as to why the decisions are made.

the bit i am disagreeing with is The bottom line is comment Openreach will do what Openreach want! - there are very clear rules - it about what passes the commercial case and what doesnt