Is there any chance of a close CBT ever making a difference

I live in a semi-rural location in Essex, in a group of six houses that have constantly degrading* FTTC (down to about 15 down and 1.5 up now, used to be 30/5) and no prospect of FTTP any time soon.

We are frustratingly close to fibre on all sides, the 10,000 person town just 500 metres across the fields from us is currently getting fibre to the whole town, via a local council owned company. The next group of houses along the road from us got FTTP last year (they had even worse ADSL/FTTC, some on exchange only lines).

That FTTP install along the road from us means that there is a completely empty CBT just 520 metres away from us.

I did a FTTPoD survey recently to see what the costs would be, it came in at £10,000 + VAT. Unfortunately even with vouchers that is not something my neighbours are likely to be interested in weighing in on.

That FTTP install was both EO lines and lines on a different cabinet than we are on. I'm 99% sure there are no OpenReach ducts between the CBT and us (and there are no poles), our lines go via poles/ducts the opposite way down the road.

So, my question is, will the fact that the FTTP install happened just down the road ever mean that the FTTPoD costs come down or is that likely no help to us at all ?

I am on Starlink at the moment, but would love to be able to switch to fibre one day...

* several of us have spent many, many engineer visits over 8 years trying to get them to improve the degraded cabling, with limited success

Are you able to supply a postcode?

I did a FTTPoD survey recently to see what the costs would be, it came in at £10,000 + VAT. Unfortunately even with vouchers that is not something my neighbours are likely to be interested in weighing in on.

Was it a desktop quote or paid an ISP like Cerberus to obtain a firm/proper quote?

Within the last 6 months by any chance - as the FTTP on Demand near network commercial trial- ran from 1 December 2021 to 31 May 2022.

May have reduced costs if you were in scope.

So, my question is, will the fact that the FTTP install happened just down the road ever mean that the FTTPoD costs come down or is that likely no help to us at all ?

You may find that once all that 'low hanging fruit' has been picked, not up the road in Tiptree, but by Openreach, that they may return to complete "in-fill" properties such as yours - which are costlier to provision for/hence lower down on their priority list.

Edited by Pheasant (Fri 22-Jul-22 21:59:39)

It was with Cerberus, within the trial period.

I talked to the surveyor about the nearby CBT, but he didn’t seem at all interested and as far as I could tell all he wanted to do was survey the route following back our phone line in the direction of the landline routing.

Although that said, the properties listed as passed on the build quote are the five between us and the unused CBT, rather than the one property between us and the cabinet.

CO7 7HA

Although that said, the properties listed as passed on the build quote are the five between us and the unused CBT, rather than the one property between us and the cabinet.

In that case the direction to the serving/planned splitter, etc would be in the direction of the last (unused) CBT - so if the CBT was 520m from you the splitter would be further away and thus you could safely say you were out of scope of the trial (500m distance to splitter / Ag Node) unfortunately. Close but no cigar.

I mean you could lobby and lean on the OR exec. complaints team via the CEO office.

They are known to make things shift even though it may take some time.

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

That FTTP install was both EO lines and lines on a different cabinet than we are on. I'm 99% sure there are no OpenReach ducts between the CBT and us (and there are no poles), our lines go via poles/ducts the opposite way down the road.

AFAIK they will follow existing infrastructure routes. From the limited plans I have access to I suspect the issue is that the two poles serving the premises in your postcode are fed with a directly buried cable going west back to crossroads by the football club, connecting to a duct along Elmstead Road. It would need a fair amount of civils works with road restrictions to run fibre.

There doesn't appear to be anything going south towards the plant hire company. There is a duct coming up Keelars Lane which then proceeds east, as this already had fibre for the mobile masts adding more for that CBT may not have been that expensive (going back to the low-hanging fruit comment).

Given your should have good coverage from all mobile operators that would have been a less expensive option than Starlink until fibre does appear.

BDUK (Superfast Essex) currently say for that postcode

Broadband available or planned by a Commercial operator

and a previous source from March 2021 says

Gigabit broadband infrastructure available or planned, although this information has been judged as potentially being at risk.

so I would contact them to find out more as the next block of houses (CO7 7EP) got upgraded to FTTP by them.

Thanks for that detail, the fact that the cable back to Elmstead Road is direct buried I guess explains OpenReach's reluctance to really fix our FTTC problems.

Over the years they've replaced all the easy bits, they ran a (6 pair ?) cable direct from the pole over the road into our kitchen for example, to avoid the dodgy large number pair drop that was there before (though four of the other houses still have to use that failing larger cable on whichever pairs are best). And they rebuilt the box at the end of the buried section which was flooding regularly.

And they've identified that there are faults along the buried section. But the buried section is 450 metres and under an extremely overgrown mature sort of a hedge (more like a series of closely packed trees). With almost no verge, on a single carriage way 60 limit road.

Doing any work along that road edge would be a nightmare and it only serves our six houses. I only got the drop wire over the road added in the end by OpenReach engineers bending the rules/calling in some favours on a quiet Sunday to get it installed without any traffic control (this was some years ago now).

And yes LTE in theory is the answer, we have a handy Three/EE tower only 1,500 metres away. And that is what we swapped to after giving up on expensive bonded FTTC. With a Mikrotik high gain antenna we were getting a very stable 80 down, 40 up. That worked well for about three years.

Unfortunately that all fell apart during COVID. Clearly a lot of people working from home started using mobile for their broadband. During the evening streaming period the downstream speeds were down low enough that 4K HDR streaming was no longer an option and even HD streaming had loads of buffering and low quality fallbacks. When we moved to Starlink last year, EE was still very poor in the evenings.

So Starlink is expensive (though not more so than bonded FTTC was) and not as reliable as FTTC/FTTP/LTE, but at the moment it is our only real option for a modern Internet connection.

I tried contacting them in March 2021. Their reply was that we didn't get FTTP from them because we had over 30 Mbps (in reality we never did have over 30 Mbps and the neighbours are struggling to hit 15 now). And that we weren't eligible for anything now, because a commercial provider (County Broadband) has said they are thinking about it...

Which sounds like a load of nonsense. County Broadband say "We are currently canvassing for support for services in this area". It seems extremely unlikely that they are suddenly going to decide to run fibre to six random house that are surrounded by other fibre that isn't theirs.

I guess I could try contacting them again.

Does having Starlink in place now weaken our case though ?

From Openreach’s data, I can see that whilst technically you should be able to achieve 32 Mbps download speeds, I agree that in practice this may unlikely be the case.

For the addresses that received an FTTP upgrade within the Superfast Essex programme, at the time the contract was agreed upon, had download speeds below 30 Mbps. Because your addresses had download speeds of 30 Mbps or above at contract signature, due to State Aid laws you could not be included within the Superfast Essex programme.

Over the last four years, we’ve carried out an open market review and public consultations to find out which areas in Essex already have access to superfast broadband or are in commercial plans to receive a service. This has helped us to identify properties that are not included in any plans and are therefore eligible for investment in future phases of the Superfast Essex programme.

If an operator tells us they already provide a property with fibre broadband, or have commercial plans to, this address cannot be included in the Superfast Essex programme. This is due to State Aid rules for broadband, which say that we’re legally unable to invest public funding where commercial broadband coverage is already available or planned to be made available.

However, we’ve had a look into your enquiry further and can see that there are additional broadband upgrade works planned at your property, which sit outside of the Superfast Essex programme.

This is because the operator County Broadband has told us that it has commercial (non-state funded) plans to provide you with access to a broadband service, or that a service is already available to you.

To find out if a service is already available to you, visit County Broadband’s website. If it is, you won’t be automatically connected so you’ll need to ask a broadband provider to upgrade your service to access faster speeds. A list of some of the broadband service providers available in Essex can be found on our website.

If County Broadband’s website says fibre is coming but is not yet available, you can register to receive updates on their website: https://countybroadband.co.uk/

If you believe the information provided on our website or by commercial operators to be inaccurate, please complete our broadband survey. We’re currently running the survey to help us shape future broadband rollouts across Essex.

In reply to a post by dect:

the next block of houses (CO7 7EP) got upgraded to FTTP by them.

CO7 7EP is where that completely unused CBT is. The only properties that could be reasonable served by it are a single house and the plant hire business. I strongly suspect that the plant hire business have had a leased line for many years...

The ~500 metres between there and us is a far easier route to work on than where our landline goes, nice wide verges with just long grass/weeds on them. But it sounds like it is that stretch that is the £10k of work (I did a desktop quote a few years ago before that CBT was there that came in at over £20k).

It is so frustrating watching all the areas around us gradually get fibre, with just our six houses in the middle seemingly with little chance of getting it any time soon

I have two 4g routers, the Openreach surveyor for R100 saw them and did not remove me from the R100 build list so I doubt having Starlink would stop you qualifying for a grant aided connection. Your 4G being overloaded by people stuck at home by covid should have eased by now and if my area is to go by then 5G is inching closer. If it was not for a particular hill then I would be in my closest neighbours position and have 5G now.

Edited by kommando (Sat 23-Jul-22 09:41:56)

In reply to a post by kommando:

Your 4G being overloaded by people stuck at home by covid should have eased by now and if my area is to go by then 5G is inching closer.

It has not. We were still on EE back in October 2021 and it was still poor then. I still have the LTE router in place, but using Smarty (Three), as a backup to Starlink. Performance is still poor in the evening.

What might help is that fibre installs are happening across the housing estates that lay between us and the mast.

5G is creeping closer here. EE claim we have outdoor coverage already, but I have a 5G EE SIM in my iPhone and have never actually managed to get 5G in the areas around us where their models say we should get it.

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

Does having Starlink in place now weaken our case though ?

I wouldn't think so.

I would recommend you speak to them again as a lot has changed with BDUK seen March 2021 and would also suggest raising it with your local MP and councillors.

Edit: also talk with County Broadband before you do above as you can use that info if they have decided not to go ahead with enabling your properties.

Edited by deleted (Sat 23-Jul-22 10:02:02)

Thanks for your help, I've sent them over another up to date "Why are we not included ?" question.

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

CO7 7EP is where that completely unused CBT is.

Remember in rural locations they often put up a CBT with only 1 port enabled (specially BDUK funded projects) and that will be allocated to a specific property, so although their may be no one currently connected to it it will be still allocated.

I'll bet there are plenty of people in OR who wish you couldn't see whether a CBT port was in use or not, to help avoid smart-[censored] like me, who don't know as much as they think they do, asking annoying questions

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

I tried contacting them in March 2021. Their reply was that we didn't get FTTP from them because we had over 30 Mbps (in reality we never did have over 30 Mbps and the neighbours are struggling to hit 15 now). And that we weren't eligible for anything now, because a commercial provider (County Broadband) has said they are thinking about it...

Which sounds like a load of nonsense. County Broadband say "We are currently canvassing for support for services in this area". It seems extremely unlikely that they are suddenly going to decide to run fibre to six random house that are surrounded by other fibre that isn't theirs.

I guess I could try contacting them again.

Does having Starlink in place now weaken our case though ?

From Openreach’s data, I can see that whilst technically you should be able to achieve 32 Mbps download speeds, I agree that in practice this may unlikely be the case.

For the addresses that received an FTTP upgrade within the Superfast Essex programme, at the time the contract was agreed upon, had download speeds below 30 Mbps. Because your addresses had download speeds of 30 Mbps or above at contract signature, due to State Aid laws you could not be included within the Superfast Essex programme.

Over the last four years, we’ve carried out an open market review and public consultations to find out which areas in Essex already have access to superfast broadband or are in commercial plans to receive a service. This has helped us to identify properties that are not included in any plans and are therefore eligible for investment in future phases of the Superfast Essex programme.

If an operator tells us they already provide a property with fibre broadband, or have commercial plans to, this address cannot be included in the Superfast Essex programme. This is due to State Aid rules for broadband, which say that we’re legally unable to invest public funding where commercial broadband coverage is already available or planned to be made available.

However, we’ve had a look into your enquiry further and can see that there are additional broadband upgrade works planned at your property, which sit outside of the Superfast Essex programme.

This is because the operator County Broadband has told us that it has commercial (non-state funded) plans to provide you with access to a broadband service, or that a service is already available to you.

To find out if a service is already available to you, visit County Broadband’s website. If it is, you won’t be automatically connected so you’ll need to ask a broadband provider to upgrade your service to access faster speeds. A list of some of the broadband service providers available in Essex can be found on our website.

If County Broadband’s website says fibre is coming but is not yet available, you can register to receive updates on their website: https://countybroadband.co.uk/

If you believe the information provided on our website or by commercial operators to be inaccurate, please complete our broadband survey. We’re currently running the survey to help us shape future broadband rollouts across Essex.

you are "lucky" getting 15-30 before we got fibre here we got 3 down on a good day

An unused but ‘live’ CBT just means the ‘targeted’ addresses that CBT was provided to serve haven’t yet ordered OR based FTTP , it doesn’t mean it could be repurposed for other addresses just because it’s currently not in use ….a 4 port CBT ( the smallest size ) could be provided for a single address , if that address never orders FTTP from an ISP using OR , the CBT could remain unused forever , but still wouldn’t be used to serve other addresses it was never designed to , even if the ‘unserved’ address that wants FTTP is pretty close by.

We used a Holiday property in Finchinfield which had CountyBroadband Radio link (Micro wave) are you in reach of that the other side of Colchester ?.
Virgin Media are in parts of Colchester.

In reply to a post by APTMAN:

We used a Holiday property in Finchinfield which had CountyBroadband Radio link (Micro wave) are you in reach of that the other side of Colchester ?.
Virgin Media are in parts of Colchester.

That is 23 miles from us, there are no wireless ISPs in this area.

While we are only 3.5 miles from the centre of Colchester, there is no Virgin Media within 2 miles of us.

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

That is 23 miles from us, there are no wireless ISPs in this area.

That's nothing for a Micro wave link as long as you have a line of sight.

If there are other neighbours interested then they may provide a link to you.

Ask CountyBroadband if there is anything set up in your area.

…easy. With a 260 ft high mast 😎

More like 300 I think 😉

Yeah while your building that behemoth in the back garden for Arqiva just whack another 40' on for good measure.

https://www.everythingrf.com/rf-calculators/line-of-...

I checked their coverage, the closest they come is far on the other side of Colchester. They aren’t suddenly going to setup something to cover six houses miles away.

In reply to a post by threelegs:

you are "lucky"

I'm sure the OP doesn't feel "lucky" with the current broadband speed in their area. May be suggestions on how they can get better would be more supportive.

Edited by deleted (Sun 24-Jul-22 09:42:25)

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

In reply to a post by dect:

the next block of houses (CO7 7EP) got upgraded to FTTP by them.

CO7 7EP is where that completely unused CBT is. The only properties that could be reasonable served by it are a single house and the plant hire business. I strongly suspect that the plant hire business have had a leased line for many years...

Would the plant hire business or the single hous allow you an FTTP connection to their address which you could then wifi or microwave the 500M to you.

In reply to a post by kommando:

Would the plant hire business or the single hous allow you an FTTP connection to their address which you could then wifi or microwave the 500M to you.

Maybe. The tree cover between them and us would mean you'd need probably a 10 metre mast (maybe more) at each end though, making it a distinctly non trivial exercise.

I don't really have an issue with the cost of Starlink, it is less than I used to pay for bonded FTTC and if I did have FTTP I'd likely be going for a 550 or 1,000 service from someone like AAISP, so I'll be paying about the same as I do for Starlink.

The issues I have with Starlink are:

- it isn't as reliable as a fixed line (a setup with my FTTP terminated on someone else's property, that I'd have limited access to, with a DIY installed microwave link is likely to be as much or more hassle than the current level of Starlink reliability)
- if something goes seriously wrong with it I have to retrieve it from the top of the 3 metre pole I have it mounted to (the microwave link option would be far worse in this regard)

So not something I'm going to explore.

PM sent

PM not received.

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

I checked their coverage, the closest they come is far on the other side of Colchester. They aren’t suddenly going to setup something to cover six houses miles away.

It would be prudent to ask them to confirm their plans. From the earlier quote there may be a discrepency between their actual plans and what Superfast Essex believe their plans are:

However, we’ve had a look into your enquiry further and can see that there are additional broadband upgrade works planned at your property, which sit outside of the Superfast Essex programme.

This is because the operator County Broadband has told us that it has commercial (non-state funded) plans to provide you with access to a broadband service, or that a service is already available to you.

Just to add...

VX Fiber / Lila Connect are presently doing streetworks in The Avenue, Bellevue Rd and surrounds of Wivenhoe

Gigaclear look like their up in Elmstead Market

Its been a problem for a long time now, altnets and Openreach claiming they are going to deploy (within the following 18 months,I believe) FTTP to an area so BDUK put the properties out of scope but the deployment never happens its just totally unfair for those affected.

The thing I find strange is those properties within 500m of the OP must have also been on the County Broadband radar but they still got upgraded by Openreach with BDUK funding so surely BDUK must have known County Broadband weren't going to deploy in the area so could have done the OP as well.

In reply to a post by dect:

The thing I find strange is those properties within 500m of the OP must have also been on the County Broadband radar but they still got upgraded by Openreach with BDUK funding so surely BDUK must have known County Broadband weren't going to deploy in the area so could have done the OP as well.

That is a good point. They also funded 30 properties all along the same road of us just past those properties. And also another set just over the fields to the north of us.

I suspect I know what happened though. All of those other properties would have sub 30Mbps lines (I've kept an eye on various lines ADSL/FTTC estimates over the years). Many of them weren't even on FTTC.

Whereas according to OpenReach our lines are still supposed to be capable of 33 (32.4 impacted) Mbps

Yes and they are getting through it remarkably rapidly with very little fuss.

There will also be a new estate going in between us an Wivenhoe, which I'm guessing will get fibre. I guess I should track down the developer, find out who is doing their fibre and see if they can help. Though the edge of that is a good 350 metres away, across some else's land.

When the Wivenhoe fibre is done (and a few BDUK ones pending), I think we'll be the only 6 houses out of about 5,000 within a 3 mile circle around Wivenhoe stuck on poor quality broadband.

Don't forget that the line of sight distance that you are interested in is between two antennas. Therefore you need to include the height of the other mast.

http://www.calculatoredge.com/electronics/lineofsigh...

( I get over well over 200 miles range from a UHF receiver antenna on our rooftop, however the other antenna is at around 30,000 feet on an aircraft - ADS-B transmissions.)

Cheers!

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

PM not received.

Just found it stuck and will not send ! ?.

One thing were is the CBT you have seen ?, near Sibbons Ltd.? , how many ways is it,they could have had FTTPoD installed, go and ask Mr Sibbons or sons, be cheeky and ask if they can help your 6 properties 500M away down the road..

The longest CBT 'Tail' is only 350M that Openreach use.

It is six way, right by Sibbons, none of them are occupied (though we don't know how many are actual enabled).

But we know it wasn't FTTPoD, they Superfast Essex map identifies them as funded by them.

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

It is six way,

I believe standard CBT's come in 4, 8, 12 so if its a 4 port type then at least 1 port would be enabled, if its a 8 port type then it would be safe to assume at least 4 ports would be enabled.

Edited by deleted (Mon 25-Jul-22 08:34:10)

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

It is six way,

I believe standard CBT's come in 4, 8, 12 so if its a 4 port type then at least 1 port would be enabled, if its a 8 port type then it would be safe to assume at least 4 ports would be enabled.

Ah, I should have counted more carefully

if its a 8 port type then it would be safe to assume at least 4 ports would be enabled.

Not such a safe assumption. I’ve seen 8 port CBT’s with all manner of number of ports lit. No rhyme nor reason to it.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Not such a safe assumption. I’ve seen 8 port CBT’s with all manner of number of ports lit. No rhyme nor reason to it.

My wrong assumption, sorry

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Not such a safe assumption. I’ve seen 8 port CBT’s with all manner of number of ports lit. No rhyme nor reason to it.

My wrong assumption, sorry

No apology required Dect.

I think there’s a few posts in this thread which might prove to give the OP false hope.

Not a helpful post from me, just trying to be realistic.

Don’t worry, I’m very pessimistic generally.

I don’t expect the presence of the CBT to help, I’m confident County Broadband will never give us service and I think it highly unlikely that we’ll get BDUK funding.

I’m very pessimistic generally.

Ahh, a sour-puss after my own heart then.

Pessimists do get more pleasant surprises in life I believe.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Not a helpful post from me, just trying to be realistic.

I understand where you coming from.

I think the CBT is a red herring, but still worth pursing Openreach, especially as other new build / housing developments progress. You may find their footprint gets closer to your properties.

That fact there are 3 other AltNets in reasonable proximity actually bodes better for you also in this respect. Although they may not opt to serve you directly, their presence often “encourages” Openreach shall we say.

Trying not to give false hope, but a balanced, pragmatic view.

Without reading all the posts again have you contacted CEO office team. ?
[removed by tbb]
If not give them all the facts.

Edited by seb (Mon 02-Feb-26 21:39:59)

In reply to a post by APTMAN:

Without reading all the posts again have you contacted CEO office team. ?
[removed by tbb]
If not give them all the facts.

Come on, really!!

Edited by seb (Mon 02-Feb-26 21:40:09)

Took a quick look at the CBT yesterday (hadn't looked at it since I spotted it had been installed a couple of months ago). Two of the ports are now occupied, so at least it is being used.