FTTP / Full Fibre query - how much to install to house?

I am planning to move house to a new property.

This property is limited to FTTC with speeds quoted up to 30mbit by BT. Curiously, all houses numbered 13 onwards on the street have Full Fibre.

I contacted BT and they informed me the entire street is 'likely' to receive Full Fibre but could not quote me a suitable time frame.

If I wanted Full Fibre at my own expense, how much would this realistically cost, and how would I best contact?

You could search this forum for Cerberus or contact Cerberus Networks. It would be quite expensive depending on the amount of work needed.

The service you refer to is called "FTTP On Demand". Normally you would expect to pay £8000+VAT or more for installation, but given that there is fibre nearby, you might be eligible for the new trial pricing (which only started on Dec 1st this year).

This is £1625+VAT or £2650+VAT, depending on whether your property is within the footprint of an existing splitter or a new splitter needs to be installed. There is a non-refundable £250+VAT deposit to find out what the pricing will be for your property. Then if you wish to proceed you have to pay the remaining balance in full and up-front within 30 days. If you don't, then you lose your deposit.

It can take anything from 4 to 18 months for installation to be completed.

Then you have to pay a higher monthly price for the first 12 months of service:
https://www.cerberusnetworks.co.uk/connectivity-broa...

After that you can regrade to standard FTTP or switch to standard FTTP with another ISP. The infrastructure at that point is indistinguishable from standard FTTP rollout.

and how would I best contact?

You buy FTTPoD through an ISP. However very few ISPs provide FTTP on demand, and not all have national coverage. Your best bet will likely be Cerberus Networks.

Edited by candlerb (Mon 20-Dec-21 17:12:20)

In reply to a post by RAY21:

I am planning to move house to a new property.

This property is limited to FTTC with speeds quoted up to 30mbit by BT. Curiously, all houses numbered 13 onwards on the street have Full Fibre.

I contacted BT and they informed me the entire street is 'likely' to receive Full Fibre but could not quote me a suitable time frame.

If I wanted Full Fibre at my own expense, how much would this realistically cost, and how would I best contact?

What street number is your intended property in relation to no. 13 onwards and also rough distance from those properties? Is this a new estate or more established housing stock?

Given your neighbours have FTTP, it would be worth raising with Openreach via their availability checker enquiry form.

Within the enquiry form reason, use the dropdown selection "I cannot get fibre but my neighbours can". You ought to get a meaningful response fairly quickly. There are further escalations but this is a useful start.

Good news - I contacted Openreach and they confirmed my postcode is expected to have full FTTP coverage within 6 months.

The property is going to be a new build.

Excellent. I believe Openreach are now offering all new-build developments of 2 or more houses FTTP for free. The developer would be mad not to take them up on it (but strangely, some don't)

👌👍

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Excellent. I believe Openreach are now offering all new-build developments of 2 or more houses FTTP for free. The developer would be mad not to take them up on it (but strangely, some don't)

Oh that is interesting. I did not know that. Yes it will involve a build of two separate detached houses.

Forgive my ignorance but is the fibre cable transmitted to each property?

In reply to a post by RAY21:

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Excellent. I believe Openreach are now offering all new-build developments of 2 or more houses FTTP for free. The developer would be mad not to take them up on it (but strangely, some don't)

Oh that is interesting. I did not know that. Yes it will involve a build of two separate detached houses.

Forgive my ignorance but is the fibre cable transmitted to each property?

The clue is in the acronym. There is FTTC which is Fibre To The Cabinet; this relies on a copper connection from the cabinet to the house and is what has been sold to the less technical amongst us as "Fibre". Then there is FTTP (Fibre To The Premises) which brings the fibre-optic connection into your house so you get full fibre speed and reliability with none of the losses incurred over the final copper connection necessary for FTTC.

Edited by GonePostal (Wed 22-Dec-21 20:32:10)

Ray21

Contact the builder and ask what he is providing and whether he has contacted OR to get FTTP developers kit and to let them know he is building!

He should be providing Ducting etc and arranging for OR to fit the ONTs.and fibre.

In reply to a post by RAY21:

Forgive my ignorance but is the fibre cable transmitted to each property?

Yes.

In fact, a single fibre from the exchange can serve up to 32 properties. That fibre finds its way to a "splitter node" where the light is split 32 ways. From there, cables carrying multiple fibres are run to one or more Connectorised Block Terminals (CBTs) which sit either underground or on a pole, close to the properties being served. Each fibre is terminated on a separate port on the CBT.

When you order FTTP for the first time, a fibre cable is run from the CBT to the property by the installation engineer, who also mounts a small powered box called an Optical Network Termination (ONT) inside, that the other end of the fibre connects to. Your ISP-supplied router then plugs into the ONT. If you change ISP you may get a new router, but the Openreach ONT stays the same.

So yes, the fibre runs all the way to your house. But 32 properties share the same data signal - with current technology that's 2.4Gbps downstream and 1.2Gbps upstream. The ONTs are responsible for decoding only the traffic for your property, and for taking it in turns to transmit upstream data - following instructions from the Optical Line Termination (OLT) equipment in the exchange.

Reply to this post Quote this post in a reply
Excellent. I believe Openreach are now offering all new-build developments of 2 or more houses FTTP for free. The developer would be mad not to take them up on it (but strangely, some don't)

not sure it that is correct (though might have recently changed) even if that is the case it is still subject to a 9 month Window from Registration by Developer to Openreach (via Openreach New site Process and confirmation that called First Occupancy Date (this is nothing to do with Technology) is circa 9 months from Date of Registration (so anything that is being released now is based on a metric agreed either 2 or 3 years ago depending when the site was registered (biggest issue (which is nationwide) are small Plot Development (circa 2 - 20 ish) where there would have need to be a contribution by the developer for FTTP and Developer chose not to - so first question when developer register site and what option did they decide to do , and when

You're right, I misremembered this. The threshold for free FTTP was reduced to 20 homes in Jan 2020. At the same time, the developer contribution for sites with 2-19 properties was reduced (but not to zero).

See the new rate card: it varies from £2,000 per plot (for 2-4 properties) down to £255 per plot (for 19 properties).

See also:
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/01/openre...
https://www.openreach.com/news/openreach-extends-fre...

Plus of course, the developer is responsible for installing ducting to Openreach's specification.

Edited by candlerb (Thu 23-Dec-21 10:14:46)