FTTPoD cost with a CBT 100m away

Hi,
I'm wondering what the maximum distance engineers will run fibre to a property from a CBT is? As I don't want to bother wasting £300 on a field survey if it's gauranteed to be extortinate.
I'm located right in a deadzone on the middle of my road where the maximum i can get on FTTC is 30/5, while a few doors to the right can get in excess of 60 and a few doors to my left can get native FTTP. The nearest pole mounted CBT is about 100m away, and there is ducting running all the way up the road - with an access chamber directly in front of my property. My copper line is currently ducted from this chamber directly into the property so i don't forsee any civils work being required either.

In reply to a post by emcacc:

Hi,
I'm wondering what the maximum distance engineers will run fibre to a property from a CBT is? As I don't want to bother wasting £300 on a field survey if it's gauranteed to be extortinate.
I'm located right in a deadzone on the middle of my road where the maximum i can get on FTTC is 30/5, while a few doors to the right can get in excess of 60 and a few doors to my left can get native FTTP. The nearest pole mounted CBT is about 100m away, and there is ducting running all the way up the road - with an access chamber directly in front of my property. My copper line is currently ducted from this chamber directly into the property so i don't forsee any civils work being required either.

FTTPoD never installs just a drop fibre to a CBT. Each CBT is planned to serve a specific set of properties. Therefore, either you are in the service footprint of the existing CBT - in which case you can order fibre - or you are not. There are occasional errors, so if database says No, then you can fill in the Openreach contact form and select the reason "I cannot get fibre but my neighbours can". However, if you are served from a different copper DP than them, then almost certainly you're not served from that CBT, and you're simply unlucky to be just outside the existing FTTP coverage area.

With FTTPoD, a new CBT will be installed, which will then either be connected to an existing spiltter, or a new splitter will be installed too, which will be connected to an upstream fibre aggregation node. The new CBT will likely cover a handful of other properties in addition to your own.

If you get your order in before the end of May, then there is a near network trial which gives a limited fixed cost if you are within 500 metres of an existing splitter or fibre aggregation node. If you are within range of an existing splitter, the cost to you will be £250+VAT for the survey deposit and then £2620+VAT to complete the installation. If a new splitter is required but you are still within 500 metres of a fibre aggregation node then there will be an additional £1025+VAT to build the new splitter node. There are various exclusions including MDUs and where any civils are required.

The costs I show are higher than the published Openreach prices. This is because there are additional charges slapped on by BT Wholesale and by Cerberus (the ISP that you'll deal directly with). See here and here for real quotes obtained by forum members.

You will then pay an elevated service charge for the first 12 months of service, after which you can either recontract at a lower rate or switch ISP. With Cerberus a 300/50 service costs £80+VAT per month instead of their standard £40+VAT per month, an additional uplift of £480+VAT over the year. Higher and lower speeds are also available.

So your first year's worth of 300/50 service will cost, at minimum, (250+2620+960)+VAT = 3830+VAT = £4,596, after which you can get regular FTTP prices and speeds.

Cerberus have national coverage for FTTPoD. There are a handful of other ISPs who will provide it, but either they are resellers of Cerberus (e.g. Amvia) or they have limited geographic coverage and/or are very expensive. By all means check if any of them apply to you.

I started the FTTPoD process with Cerberus in March 2018, and although it didn't get running until Sep 2019, I am glad I did it. These days, it is an expensive gamble as to how much use you'll get out of it before FTTP would be rolled out for free by Openreach in your area. Even if all the duct and pole infrastructure is in place as you describe, you should expect the process to take a minimum of 6 months from placing your survey order to getting service, and possibly 12.

I hope that gives you something to think about!

Edited by candlerb (Sat 19-Mar-22 09:12:44)

The post from 'candlerb' gives some excellent information on the charging structure but the whole idea of a survey is to determine the level of work to achieve the job, unless you know the outcome of the survey before you have it done its always going to be a risk. If you can't afford to lose the money on a survey sit and wait for the FTTP infrastructure (for your property) to come along for free.

The gamble at survey time is that you may end up being quoted more than the figures I've given (because your connection is not suitable for the near-network trial).

But remember that even in the best case there's a minimum spend of £4,596 for the first year's service. So if you already accept you're going to pay at least that much, the survey itself is only 6.5% of that; it's a low amount to risk, and if you don't like the results of the survey you are free to withdraw without paying any more.

The much bigger gamble is that say one year later, Openreach come along and do a native FTTP rollout. Then you'll have paid about £4,000 over the odds for that one year's FTTP service. That gamble is against the whole amount, and there's no information you can use to assess realistically how long it will be before native FTTP comes along.

Publicly, Openreach is aiming for about 85% UK FTTP coverage by end of 2026, and that will be all the easy-to-reach areas - including expanding existing FTTP to adjacent areas.

I wonder if there’s going to be any appetite from Openreach to extend the near network trial beyond May?

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

I wonder if there’s going to be any appetite from Openreach to extend the near network trial beyond May?

With the project gigabit tenders going into build phase later this year, i doubt it .. I can see fftpod only being available in areas that are not being covered by PG

Finished your post off for you

In reply to a post by Taras:

I can see fftpod only being available in areas that are not being covered by PG tips.

In reply to a post by dect:

Finished your post off for you

In reply to a post by Taras:

I can see fftpod only being available in areas that are not being covered by PG tips.

But but i like Tetley 😂

In reply to a post by Taras:

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

I wonder if there’s going to be any appetite from Openreach to extend the near network trial beyond May?

With the project gigabit tenders going into build phase later this year, i doubt it .. I can see fftpod only being available in areas that are not being covered by PG

How do you figure that? Project Gigabit is aimed at the hard to reach areas, virtually all rural locations and selected.

FoD on the other hand is a nationally available product irrespective of area. “Near network” is a subset of FoD. There will be plenty that don’t qualify under the present criteria.

There’s no talk or inkling of removing FoD completely. I’m struggling to conclude how there any relationship to PG builds which aren’t really going to cover a huge number of premises. Only the non-commercially viable places.

Thanks for the reply - incredibly helpful!
I've now contacted OR via their form to see what's going on with the infastructure in my area.

and regarding CBT's being reserved for their intended addresses only - i'm assuming they still won't connect my property even if the nearest CBT has zero utilised connections?

MJ Quinn have been carrying out various works on the road in the past few months so maybe the intention is to eventually offer native fttp at my address even though it currently shows as not planned on the OR checker.

In reply to a post by emcacc:

and regarding CBT's being reserved for their intended addresses only - i'm assuming they still won't connect my property even if the nearest CBT has zero utilised connections?

That's correct: there will be a fixed set of properties (UPRNs) associated with that CBT, whether they use it today or not.

In reply to a post by emcacc:

MJ Quinn have been carrying out various works on the road in the past few months so maybe the intention is to eventually offer native fttp at my address even though it currently shows as not planned on the OR checker.

That is certainly possible, i.e. it has been known for FTTP to arrive at a property with no prior warning. I have also seen a couple of cases where people have ordered FTTPoD and had the order rejected with the reason that FTTP is being rolled out already (even though no announcement was made of this). I don't know whether they got their survey fee refunded though.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

I wonder if there’s going to be any appetite from Openreach to extend the near network trial beyond May?

I guess that's the point of a trial. They'll measure whether their actual costs come in close to the fixed price, and how often they exceed it substantially. The other point of a trial is to assess demand. If they get hardly any extra FTTPoD orders as a result of this offer, then they may just not bother keeping it.

I think it's small beer to them anyway. Suppose they do 100 FTTPoD orders per month which are *all* at the fixed cost of £1625 + £250 survey. That's only £2.25 million per year. Of course, that's all network extension which they'd have to do themselves sooner or later, but it's still a drop in the ocean, and more work than doing a large area in one fell swoop.

It's a shame that both BTW and the SP put their own chunk of markup on this, as it nearly doubles the total cost, making the payback much riskier for the end user.

Given that commercial rollouts are passing some 50K premises / week on average, I guess FoD is really small beer for them. This trial akin to the beer mat under the small beer!

Openreach I’m sure know their cost base pretty well. They been doing this for a long while and having passed 6.5M odd premises you’d hope they’d have figured it out

Seemed to me like FoD demand was flagging, based on levels of natter about it on here. Not that it was surprising given the increase in average price was probably discouraging the punters - coupled with the huge increase in the commercial footprint over the last 2-3 years. Perhaps this was a trial to see by how much they could increase interest in a flagging product by lopping 5K or so from the previous “floor” price…for not very much work (and even less risk).

I just noticed Cerberus have increased their minimum contract term for FTTPoD to 24 months for all speeds (previously it was 12 months, except 24 for the very slow 40/2 "basic" service)

Apart from locking you in for an extra year, it's also a hidden price rise, because you're paying an extra 12 months at the FoD rate, which is higher than Cerberus' own standard FTTP pricing.

Can't blame them though. It must get harder and harder to make a business case for continuing to sell FoD at retail, and employing staff to manage the delivery process.

I genuinely like Cerberus. I think they earned their fee when we did our FTTPoD install a couple of years ago. However I’m glad not to be repeating the exercise in 2022!

Hi there,

We recently reduced the rental costs on FOD. For example. FoD Pro (300/50Mbps) was £80+VAT per month and it is now £60+VAT per month. The service does now have a 24 month contract, but this is no different to many other providers, FOD is not like any other broadband service as it includes the network build and this involves considerable time and resources on our part to keep the project on track. Obviously, at the end of the contract, the customer is free to move to any other provider offering Openreach FTTP so there is no long term tie-in unlike some of the alt-net offerings.

One thing to note, the near-network trial ended on 31st May and there are no plans to extend it. Any FOD order placed up until the end of the trial will be priced as "near-network" if they are eligible. New orders will be priced using standard Openreach pricing tools.

FOD will be a valuable and useful tool for areas deemed as "Voucher Priority Areas" (VPAs) by BDUK once they have established the scope of any larger government-funded FTTP roll-outs in any given areas. The premises that are not covered by those procurement plans will, by their very nature, be hard to reach and likely be in small clusters of properties rather than in a contiguous settlement. This is the sort of scenario that works well for FOD and, although it was never intended to be a high volume product, does offer a solution for residents in these locations. Without FOD, some people could be waiting a very long time indeed.

I hope this is useful.

Cerberus Networks

In reply to a post by Buggs8:

In reply to a post by emcacc:

Thanks for the reply - incredibly helpful!
I've now contacted OR via their form to see what's going on with the infastructure in my area.

and regarding CBT's being reserved for their intended addresses only - i'm assuming they still won't connect my property even if the nearest CBT has zero utilised connections?

MJ Quinn have been carrying out various works on the road in the past few months so maybe the intention is to eventually offer native fttp at my address even though it currently shows as not planned on the OR checker.

You will get comments from others saying I am talking bull but ignore it - I am not..

It took just over 6 months to get my leased line installed (127 working days) - while it's not FTTPoD it might be similar in process? Firstly Ignore what any Surveyor tells you on the day, Mine told me he had no problems getting fibre from my house to the box where the CBT was going to be - but then I was told a chamber had collapsed in between. The G.fast I had with AAISP at the time started to play up from the day that survey happened so my advice would be to wait until you get the e-mail from OR stating any Excess Construction Charges you might have to pay. Mine was £822 Inc VAT. I am not sure if they will do this to you but they charged me £31.97+VAT to drill a hole in the wall.

I had to have 455M of cable and other stuff and a telegraph pole installed. They managed to do a lot (apparently) overhead which they say cut down the time - they also found another 5 blockages which I was not charged for, I suspect they were doing this anyway to get FTTP to this area but I don't know.

I was given 10 working days to walk away from any ECC's so you are not totally high and dry. From memory I think I paid something like £247+VAT for my survey

So as others have said try and get a feeling of whatever else is coming and possibly when - and decide if it's worth the risk/investment.

There will be no external infrastructure for your openreach leased line

In reply to a post by Buggs8:

In reply to a post by emcacc:

Thanks for the reply - incredibly helpful!
I've now contacted OR via their form to see what's going on with the infastructure in my area.

and regarding CBT's being reserved for their intended addresses only - i'm assuming they still won't connect my property even if the nearest CBT has zero utilised connections?

MJ Quinn have been carrying out various works on the road in the past few months so maybe the intention is to eventually offer native fttp at my address even though it currently shows as not planned on the OR checker.

You will get comments from others saying I am talking bull but ignore it - I am not..

It took just over 6 months to get my leased line installed (127 working days) - while it's not FTTPoD it might be similar in process? Firstly Ignore what any Surveyor tells you on the day, Mine told me he had no problems getting fibre from my house to the box where the CBT was going to be - but then I was told a chamber had collapsed in between. The G.fast I had with AAISP at the time started to play up from the day that survey happened so my advice would be to wait until you get the e-mail from OR stating any Excess Construction Charges you might have to pay. Mine was £822 Inc VAT. I am not sure if they will do this to you but they charged me £31.97+VAT to drill a hole in the wall.

I had to have 455M of cable and other stuff and a telegraph pole installed. They managed to do a lot (apparently) overhead which they say cut down the time - they also found another 5 blockages which I was not charged for, I suspect they were doing this anyway to get FTTP to this area but I don't know.

I was given 10 working days to walk away from any ECC's so you are not totally high and dry. From memory I think I paid something like £247+VAT for my survey

So as others have said try and get a feeling of whatever else is coming and possibly when - and decide if it's worth the risk/investment.

Why would a leased line need a CBT installing?

If you had G.Fast that means your line must have been quite fast, now, if yours is the chances are your neighbours would be too, no?

Ah lads....

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Ah lads....

What have I missed

The Swiss cheese 🧀 story of the mythical leased line, is back again with more myths and legends (and complete [censored]).

CBTs, survey fees, blockages, new poles. Wee have everything 😅. Jesus wept.

Tasty Poultry out.

Factitious disorder, a.k.a. Munchausen Syndrome by HTTP Proxy

If only he could keep his story straight for 5 minutes, one minute he wants to share his leased line with his neighbours because they have poor broadband and now the story changes and they can order G.Fast.

I would say you just couldn't make it up but he clearly is 😅

Little Willy out.

In reply to a post by Buggs8:

Okay thanks for the reply -I called BT Net as they said it is possible but I need to sign some more paperwork in regards to being responsible for stuff put over the connection - There was no extra monthlies and I have sourced a good wireless router which I can set up to 10 profiles and assign IP's on - I have a local tech coming round at 4PM tomorrow to set it up for me.

Buggs8-ISP to the stars is all totally sorted @dect. One AP and it’s done. Keep up inspector!! 😂😂

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Factitious disorder, a.k.a. Munchausen Syndrome by HTTP Proxy

Baron von Munchausen. Perhaps that should be his next serial nic…good grief. 🫤

In reply to a post by GenuineCerberus:

One thing to note, the near-network trial ended on 31st May and there are no plans to extend it. Any FOD order placed up until the end of the trial will be priced as "near-network" if they are eligible. New orders will be priced using standard Openreach pricing tools.

As a matter of sheer curiosity - can I ask you how many (very roughly) of the Near-Network orders were placed via yourselves during the trial period?

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Keep up inspector!! 😂😂

I would if it wasn't for his story keep changing 😂

In reply to a post by Buggs8:

You will get comments from others saying I am talking bull but ignore it - I am not..

I've previously given the benefit of the doubt but this time you most definitely are and the OP deserves more useful responses. I am just going to pick on a subset of the issues.

In reply to a post by Buggs8:

It took just over 6 months to get my leased line installed (127 working days)

That lead time is outside the requirements and should've attracted compensation.

In reply to a post by Buggs8:

Firstly Ignore what any Surveyor tells you on the day, Mine told me he had no problems getting fibre from my house to the box where the CBT was going to be - but then I was told a chamber had collapsed in between.

The picture you previously posted of the install you claimed was yours used a non-connectorised cable. No CBT involved.

Had a CBT been installed it would've been in your closest chamber or very close for future FTTP usage. You claimed no prospect of FTTP to your immediate area so were starting your own ISP, though you've also claimed that an altnet installed PIA infrastructure so who knows?

In reply to a post by Buggs8:

I was given 10 working days to walk away from any ECC's so you are not totally high and dry. From memory I think I paid something like £247+VAT for my survey

This is the most blatant part. No, you didn't. The EAD survey as part of an install does not attract a charge. I reckon you read the Openreach price list and quote numbers from it.

The product that CPs might use for survey, whose cost is in the ball park of your claimed number, isn't part of the install process, results in firm pricing for the circuit from Openreach and provides for a refund if the circuit is purchased so no survey charge will ever reach the end user.

It's done before a customer or CP commit to anything: nothing to back out of. Given this and your previous posting history the most likely course of events is that this post is fiction.

Edited by XGS_Is_On (Sun 03-Jul-22 17:34:38)

In reply to a post by Buggs8:

I am talking bull

100% accurate on this point.

In reply to a post by Buggs8:

I saw the other day you said you only had FTTPoD - does that not only go up to 300mbps? so maybe it's YOUR ficticous leased line we should be amused at!

Nope.

It doesn't only go up to 330Mb/s. It can be bought directly at 1000Mb/s.
Also as soon as FTTPoD is live the property becomes native WBC FTTP available, allowing standard Openreach FTTP to be ordered.

Pheasant's FTTPoD was installed a few years ago. They now have a standard FTTP service.

In reply to a post by Buggs8:

It took just over 6 months to get my leased line installed (127 working days) - while it's not FTTPoD it might be similar in process? Firstly Ignore what any Surveyor tells you on the day, Mine told me he had no problems getting fibre from my house to the box where the CBT was going to be - but then I was told a chamber had collapsed in between.

The G.fast I had with AAISP at the time started to play up from the day that survey happened so my advice would be to wait until you get the e-mail from OR stating any Excess Construction Charges you might have to pay. Mine was £822 Inc VAT. I am not sure if they will do this to you but they charged me £31.97+VAT to drill a hole in the wall.

I had to have 455M of cable and other stuff and a telegraph pole installed. They managed to do a lot (apparently) overhead which they say cut down the time - they also found another 5 blockages which I was not charged for, I suspect they were doing this anyway to get FTTP to this area but I don't know.

I was given 10 working days to walk away from any ECC's so you are not totally high and dry. From memory I think I paid something like £247+VAT for my survey

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/06/why-so...

simon says:
June 2, 2022 at 12:07 pm
I had a survey for a line – Surveyor said all was good after he put the fibre through the ducts – and then our existing internet started to have disconnects – I am then told there is a collapsed duct and there were ECC”s – they have now just found another 5 blockages months down the line.

What a remarkable coincidence. A perfectly smooth survey however after it was done the existing service became problematic, then a collapsed duct/chamber was found, then 5 additional blockages.

Can't have been you though, surely, given:

In reply to a post by Buggs8:

BTNet - been in just over 6 months

Edited by XGS_Is_On (Tue 05-Jul-22 13:57:20)

In reply to a post by Buggs8:

I am going to get someone to come in and get all the nerdy stuff you seem to crave to prove once and for all this is NOT a Mythical Line - Even emails from BTNet telling me what's been done are made up apparently (also I would like to know what they are)

You will soon have a speed test/trace route and a screenshot of me typing the reply as it's being done

Sorry but it is very difficult to get my head around that someone with a gigabit DIA to home can't handle a speed test and traceroute. 5 minutes on Google.

Far more likely you're stalling for time while you either get someone else to do it for you or are on a work service you can claim is home.

Either way you've completely derailed another thread where a person asked a quite reasonable question and you've taken it as another opportunity to indulge what has to be a bizarre fantasy and it's not the first time you've popped up in a thread vaguely or not even remotely related to talk about this alleged leased line: you crowbar it in regularly.

Whether real or not, and I find it far more likely not, you're trolling. Enough already.

In reply to a post by Buggs8:

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

The Swiss cheese 🧀 story of the mythical leased line, is back again with more myths and legends (and complete [censored]).

CBTs, survey fees, blockages, new poles. Wee have everything 😅. Jesus wept.

Tasty Poultry out.

I am going to get someone to come in and get all the nerdy stuff you seem to crave to prove once and for all this is NOT a Mythical Line - Even emails from BTNet telling me what's been done are made up apparently (also I would like to know what they are)

And sorry if believed anything the Openreach engineers said to me - And yes The survey fees and stuff was from the original survey e-mail which I paid!

I saw the other day you said you only had FTTPoD - does that not only go up to 300mbps? so maybe it's YOUR ficticous leased line we should be amused at!

You will soon have a speed test/trace route and a screenshot of me typing the reply as it's being done - to shove up the [censored] of that "Tasty Poultry"

I’ll say this once.

None of us really could give a damn about your precious leased line, whether it actually exists or as suspected is merely a twisted figment of your ridiculous overactive imagination.

It truly is very sad, extremely pathetic and an utterly boring spectacle watching you repeatedly make a complete spectacle of yourself.

Please stop and get help.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

None of us really could give a damn about your precious leased line, whether it actually exists or as suspected is merely a twisted figment of your ridiculous overactive imagination.

It truly is very sad, extremely pathetic and an utterly boring spectacle watching you repeatedly make a complete spectacle of yourself.

He is an absolute nightmare, he tries to crowbar his imaginary leased line into every thread he posts in which then derails the thread, I can only speak for myself but I am sick and tired of this happening as its not fair on the OPs of these threads and I am surprised management have not yet taken any action as he is a serial offender.

Independent of this thread I had reason to go to the website of a provider mentioned several times in it, and occasionally elsewhere on these forums.

Namely Amvia. Quite small but look from a short look at their finances at Companies House seem to be viable. However I was a little disturbed to read the following !:

BT's FTTC product is called BT Infinity

It is delivered using fibre to the distribution box, then VDSL over the final copper loop. There are two variants of BT Infinity, Unlimited Infinity and Premium Infinity. Unlimited Infinity & Premium Infinity only offer guaranteed speeds of up to 22Mbps download and 3Mbps upload. These speeds are considerably less than the capability of FTTC. The only difference between Unlimited and Premium is that Premium has PC support and Symantec security protection for your desktop devices.
...
©2022 Amvia Ltd.

It's at the start of a comparison of FTTC providers. The only other "major providers" of FTTC being TalkTalk and Virgin Media. (They do explain that VM use a different technology).

I think I know why the page is so out of date, and given the reason it probably isn't anything to worry about. Hence the "laugh" icon in the post header.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

I think I know why the page is so out of date, and given the reason it probably isn't anything to worry about. Hence the "laugh" icon in the post header.

https://xkcd.com/386/