What is OpenReach's long term plans to fill the FTTP gaps

Does anyone know/understand what OpenReach's long term plans to fill the FTTP gaps ?

I know they are spending a lot of money at the moment to roll out FTTP.

If I use the search on the OR site, it says that our exchange (Wivenhoe) is "To be built between April 2021 and December 2026".

https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/where-when...

A few areas of the exchange already have FTTP, much of it funded by BDUK (possibly all of it). Does the "To be built between April 2021 and December 2026" mean that the whole exchange will actually get FTTP by December 2026 or does it just mean that by then they'll have built as much as they plan to and there will still be premises with no FTTP ?

Based on what the OR surveyor said to me when he came for R100 (paid by Scot Gov) there will possibly never be 100% FTTP. My install needs a wayleave so I asked him if it was refused when I would be getting FTTP. Reply was I would be dropped from R100 have to pay an excess build charge of £'000s to get FTTP later post R100, If I did not pay then I would continue on copper. Based on this copper will be used past 2026 on difficult lines but the voice will be VOIP.

Does the "To be built between April 2021 and December 2026" mean that the whole exchange will actually get FTTP by December 2026 or does it just mean that by then they'll have built as much as they plan to and there will still be premises with no FTTP ?

The latter.

There will be copper lines in place until well into the 2030s (and probably beyond). Saying that the FTTP rollout won’t just stop in 2026. They will keep incrementally replacing copper beyond that date.

WLR/PSTN retirement at the end of 2025 is still on track. It’s not predicated on ripping out all the copper by then though.

So basically for a group of 5 houses, where the FTTPoD install cost is around £3,000 + VAT per house, that are not passed by existing OR fibre infrastructure, OR are never going to suddenly turn up and connect us to FTTP without some extra funding from somewhere ? In the foreseeable future at least.

I think you know the answer to that rhetorical question 😀

They will try and maximise the number of property passed / served within their various budget pots.

Beyond that it’s anyone’s guess when / if they they will do it. But being realistic it will be latter rather than sooner unless some other factors come it play which change the commercials and logistics.

Correct. If it's going to cost £15k to connect the houses to a product that will generate £1750 annual revenue (assuming 100% takeup of a 550Mbps service) then some contribution from elsewhere is going to be required. You can see if any altnets are interested but unless they are reasonably close by it's unlikely they would be able to make the sums work either.

Your best bet might be to make the properties very appealing to Openreach execs who might be looking to move house.

Even in the built-up part of Wivenhoe there is no indication that Openreach are about to start deploying FTTP via a commercial rollout. Once they start deploying to the built-up part you will then have a better idea if they are coming out to you.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

I think you know the answer to that rhetorical question 😀

They will try and maximise the number of property passed / served within their various budget pots.

Beyond that it’s anyone’s guess when / if they they will do it. But being realistic it will be latter rather than sooner unless some other factors come it play which change the commercials and logistics.

One such factor is that eventually they will need to close local exchanges down, in which case they'll want to remove any SOTAP that's coming from there. At that point they may swallow the cost of moving those users to FTTP. But this won't affect users who have FTTC available.

FWIW, the published goal is 25 million homes, or about 83% FTTP coverage, by Dec 2026. Clearly that will be a mix, with some areas at or close to 100%, and some considerably lower.

In reply to a post by jpm:

You can see if any altnets are interested but unless they are reasonably close by it's unlikely they would be able to make the sums work either.

It is the fact that one of the altnets (County Broadband) is supposedly interested that stopped us getting FTTP via BDUK funding.

But I don't believe there is any real prospect of them providing service. Their nearest install is over 3 miles from us and they quite reasonably are targeting areas with no other OR FTTP or altnet presence. We are surrounded by existing or on going OR FTTP or other altnet installs. It would cost County Broadband far more than £3k per house to connect our little group of houses.

I've emailed County Broadband to challenge their claim that they plan to provide service, waiting on a response.

In reply to a post by jpm:

Your best bet might be to make the properties very appealing to Openreach execs who might be looking to move house.

lol

With two separate altnets installing in Wivenhoe at the moment, one wonders whether OpenReach will ever do a commercial rollout ?

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

With two separate altnets installing in Wivenhoe at the moment, one wonders whether OpenReach will ever do a commercial rollout ?

Of course they will.

The presence of an altnet causes customers to migrate off Openreach's legacy but profitable copper network. This means there is suddenly a very positive business case for Openreach to deploy FTTP.

Conversely, the places where it's hard to make a business case for FTTP are those where there is no competition. Openreach would only be migrating their own customers from copper to fibre - and the wholesale rental price they charge for both is about the same.

There is a little cream from selling higher bandwidth services. However, only a small fraction of users take them, and the wholesale price that Openreach charges is only very slightly higher. There is also a small ongoing benefit from reduced fault rate.

But really, it's the risk of losing a substantial portion of their customer base which has forced OR into deploying FTTP.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

I think you know the answer to that rhetorical question 😀

They will try and maximise the number of property passed / served within their various budget pots.

Beyond that it’s anyone’s guess when / if they they will do it. But being realistic it will be latter rather than sooner unless some other factors come it play which change the commercials and logistics.

One such factor is that eventually they will need to close local exchanges down, in which case they'll want to remove any SOTAP that's coming from there. At that point they may swallow the cost of moving those users to FTTP. But this won't affect users who have FTTC available.

FWIW, the published goal is 25 million homes, or about 83% FTTP coverage, by Dec 2026. Clearly that will be a mix, with some areas at or close to 100%, and some considerably lower.

Sure that is one factor, but it’s “in the long grass” as far as the OP timescales are concerned (2030s to be fair). Nearer term factors are as you point out the presence / absence of AltNets coverage and the creeping growth of their own commercial deployments which may reduce the cost gap to serve these properties in time.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Of course they will.

The presence of an altnet causes customers to migrate off Openreach's legacy but profitable copper network. This means there is suddenly a very positive business case for Openreach to deploy FTTP.

Conversely, the places where it's hard to make a business case for FTTP are those where there is no competition. Openreach would only be migrating their own customers from copper to fibre - and the wholesale rental price they charge for both is about the same.

There is a little cream from selling higher bandwidth services. However, only a small fraction of users take them, and the wholesale price that Openreach charges is only very slightly higher. There is also a small ongoing benefit from reduced fault rate.

But really, it's the risk of losing a substantial portion of their customer base which has forced OR into deploying FTTP.

This. 100, 1000 or infinity times over this. The presence of an altnet is probably the single biggest driver in terms of business case for where and when Openreach deploy FTTP. You see it time and time again throughout the country and, frankly, it's just good and smart business. Openreach would be remiss to not be doing it.

The senior altnet people I know don't consider it unfair competition either: they accept that it'll happen and take it for granted in their business plans just as they do overbuilding VMO2.

Yes, a good example is Jurassic Fibre in Sidmouth, Openreach are now rolling out their FTTP network there, too.

If OR didn’t respond to an Alt Net entering an area , especially one that uses PIA , you could get a ( ludicrous in my opinion ) situation where the Alt Net uses up the capacity available in ducts , jointboxes , poles etc…then OR have the expense of having to build new infrastructure to house their own ‘kit’ simply because the Alt Net got in first ….it would be like a family with a 3 bed house , one child and a ‘spare’ bedroom, being screwed over by the Government , because they decided there is a need to house people, and that spare ’ bedrooms have to be rented out , ( and for a relatively small cost) the householder then has a family addition , and could use their own property, but they cannot ‘evict’ the occupant of the previously spare bedroom , the Government says if you need another bedroom build one at your own expense…..

I get the feeling that the government doesn't really consider the Openreach infrastructure to be owned by them but more like Openreach are the managers of it and they get a small fee when others use it. I still think PIA is wrong.

In reply to a post by Iniltous:

If OR didn’t respond to an Alt Net entering an area , especially one that uses PIA , you could get a ( ludicrous in my opinion ) situation where the Alt Net uses up the capacity available in ducts , jointboxes , poles etc…then OR have the expense of having to build new infrastructure to house their own ‘kit’ simply because the Alt Net got in first

Happening around here right now. CityFibre and Netomnia putting kit on poles leaving no capacity for Openreach's own CBTs. Openreach having to either upgrade poles or install new ones.

PIA - more like PITA.

In reply to a post by dect:

I still think PIA is wrong.

It's probably the least bad of all evils. What would you prefer: every altnet doing their own parallel sets of civils? Or at the other extreme, all altnets being forced to use only Openreach-provided fibres?

A single point-to-point fibre network that was presented as layer 1 at handover exchanges ready to be patched into whatever provider wanted to provide whatever they wanted down it would be preferable to PIA or a shared wholesale PON network.

You could put satellite TV wavelengths down it and run a symmetric 25Gb data service at the same time.

Edited by jpm (Thu 20-Oct-22 15:45:36)

BT did have a Fibre Integrated Reception System (FIRS) in the late 2000's. Technically pretty straightforward to run that as a separate wavelength as you say in conjunction with XGS/GPON but not sure the commercials etc. would stack up.

Think OFNL still run FIRS on their FTTP builds in new resi. estates around the country.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

What would you prefer: every altnet doing their own parallel sets of civils? Or at the other extreme, all altnets being forced to use only Openreach-provided fibres?

I would prefer altnets provide their own separate full fibre infrastructure and if the financial sums don't add up then its not a viable business. Easy for government to dictate that one company has to subsidies another when its not the governments money.

Edited by deleted (Thu 20-Oct-22 18:04:31)

In reply to a post by jpm:

A single point-to-point fibre network that was presented as layer 1 at handover exchanges ready to be patched into whatever provider wanted to provide whatever they wanted down it would be preferable to PIA or a shared wholesale PON network.

But how are you going to get it built in the first place, and at a suitable speed? Who's going to pay for it? Openreach? The government? Someone else?

We were playing fantasy networks, not only saying things that were viable. FWIW the point-to-point system is what exists in Switzerland and I think the monopoly telco were almost bullied into building it by the government.

Altnets are 'squatting' pole tops at the moment. fitting kit to reserve space. Probably easier for Openreach to deal with than other altnets as they can out-rig their copper stuff.

More troublesome and expensive is the severe congestion in joint boxes designed for local copper distribution kit rather than local copper distribution kit and 3 fibre network provider's fibre gear.

I think that if you talk to the Altnets, they'll strongly agree that PIA is problematic - the biggest gripe being that Openreach themselves don't have to use their own PIA processes to access the infrastructure.

Capacity is indeed an issue too, since the network was only built to carry copper, and not one more more additional fibre networks alongside.

But they'd still rather use PIA than do their own civils from scratch. Even if it involves building the odd extra footway box here and there, it's still much cheaper, quicker and less disruptive than digging up entire roads and pavements.

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

Of course they will.
The presence of an altnet causes customers to migrate off Openreach's legacy but profitable copper network. This means there is suddenly a very positive business case for Openreach to deploy FTTP.

I had an interesting chat with an Openreach engineer a few days ago - he was putting a couple of CBTs on a pole in the next street from us, the installation of which which had been delayed from June because a replacement pole was required. My initial question to him was whether he know why three poles in our street had been left out from the recent Openreach build (he didn't have that information - my guess is some damaged/missing ducts that considered aren't economical to dig at present) but then we got talking about CityFibre, whose service went live in the area just before Openreach turned up. He told me that not surprisingly a lot of CityFibre contractors are ex-Openreach and they all get together in the pub, so build plans are inevitably going to be shared informally between Openreach and altnets. This would certainly explain why Openreach followed hot on the heels of CityFIbre in our area.

He told me that not surprisingly a lot of CityFibre contractors are ex-Openreach and they all get together in the pub, so build plans are inevitably going to be shared informally between Openreach and altnets. This would certainly explain why Openreach followed hot on the heels of CityFIbre in our area.

I’d take that with a hefty pinch of salt if I were you.

In reply to a post by Stargazer99:

He told me that not surprisingly a lot of CityFibre contractors are ex-Openreach and they all get together in the pub, so build plans are inevitably going to be shared informally between Openreach and altnets. This would certainly explain why Openreach followed hot on the heels of CityFIbre in our area.

Hahaha.
Openreach aren't finding out about ANY of CityFibres build plans from ex employees in the pub.

For starters Cityfibre publicly announce what Cities/towns they are building to months and months before a single spade touches the ground.
They also rent use of Openreach's ducts and poles.

Other Alt-Nets rent space in Openreach exchanges to house their kit in.

There's no espionage going on to find out rivals plans.
Openreach owning so many strategic assets that others rely on means it's next to impossible to plan anything without Openreach knowing about it.

Thats ok, some of us have "not in our plans".

Openreach engineer who came here yesterday we had a interesting conversation on Openreach FTTP (the lack of it).

Engineers have been witnessing customers leaving to VM for a long time (VM is dominant here) and now city fibre in parts of the city, but still barely anything planned from Openreach. Most of the city is still unplanned for Openreach FTTP, and the engineer who was a proper broadband geek was down about it.

We talked about this exact issue with Openreach getting to use their own ducts last because they moving in too late.

Edited by Chrysalis (Sun 30-Oct-22 06:47:05)

I saw this article and thought of you

Colchester Fibre will offer FTTP in Wivenhoe in early 2023

Good spot and well remembered! Perhaps the OP can garner some interest and neighbours support in getting them to build on their patch.

That including my area "not in our plans". Openreach never liked me!

🥲 all the local Facebook groups are full of:

"they dug up our road last week, why won't they let me order fibre yet"
"my wifi hasn't worked properly since they dug up the road, they just want me to pay for fibre instead"

Well be thankful at least they’re not moaning about new 5G masts causing covid or similar brain-dead mumsnet piffle. 🤣

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

🥲 all the local Facebook groups are full of:

"they dug up our road last week, why won't they let me order fibre yet"
"my wifi hasn't worked properly since they dug up the road, they just want me to pay for fibre instead"

Can't keep everyone happy, social media has a lot to answer for 😎

Wivenhoe has no 5G coverage and pretty poor LTE coverage, because every time the mobile companies try to put up new masts they get masses of objections from the local population. 🙁

In reply to a post by adslmax:

That including my area "not in our plans". Openreach never liked me!

Gee I wonder why?

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

Gee I wonder why?

Probably messing them around so much with his G.Fast order.

Ordered, cancelled, then ordered again, before cancelling again, then ordered again. It must have kept someone busy for weeks 🤣

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

Gee I wonder why?

Probably messing them around so much with his G.Fast order.

Ordered, cancelled, then ordered again, before cancelling again, then ordered again. It must have kept someone busy for weeks 🤣

Hang on there. My G.fast order didn't cancelled as been with G.fast for 12 months then revert back to FTTC. End of. Reason: G.fast far too expensive due to cost of living.

I only want FTTP 80/20 or 160/30 if the price is right spot on. For now, with FTTC SoGEA 80/20 as there is no plans for FTTP from Openreach in my area until 2030!

Edited by adslmax (Wed 02-Nov-22 18:54:55)

In reply to a post by adslmax:

there is no plans for FTTP from Openreach in my area until 2030!

You have absolutely no idea what Openreach's plans are for your area.

By end of 2026, 80-85% of the UK will be covered, but so far they have only announced specific areas amounting to a small fraction of this. Roughly every 3 months they announce another tranche. That's because planning work itself takes a lot of resource; it can't all be done at once, and there's no point having detailed plans to such a long horizon anyway.

However, if you are in any sort of urban or semi-urban area, chances are you'll be included before 2026.

What do you expect people to say when you post comments like this?

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Openreach never liked me!

I was only going on all your previous threads/posts about the on-off saga of getting G.Fast and what speed you may or may not get.

To be absolutely honest I am fed up of hearing about the lack of FTTP in Cuckoo Oak (sorry to the other people who live there).

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by adslmax:

there is no plans for FTTP from Openreach in my area until 2030!

You have absolutely no idea what Openreach's plans are for your area.

By end of 2026, 80-85% of the UK will be covered, but so far they have only announced specific areas amounting to a small fraction of this. Roughly every 3 months they announce another tranche. That's because planning work itself takes a lot of resource; it can't all be done at once, and there's no point having detailed plans to such a long horizon anyway.

However, if you are in any sort of urban or semi-urban area, chances are you'll be included before 2026.

Announced before 2026 or done by then?

Am in urban and its not in plans currently.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

Announced before 2026 or done by then?

*Done* by 2026.

More precisely, the target is 25m properties done by Dec 2026, which is about 82%. They have to up their build rate a bit, from about 800K/quarter to 950K/quarter, to achieve this. At current rate they may hit 22-23m or 72-75%.

There is regional variation too. For example, Northern Ireland already has very high coverage, which means proportionately less elsewhere.

In reply to a post by dect:

What do you expect people to say when you post comments like this?

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Openreach never liked me!

I was only going on all your previous threads/posts about the on-off saga of getting G.Fast and what speed you may or may not get.

To be absolutely honest I am fed up of hearing about the lack of FTTP in Cuckoo Oak (sorry to the other people who live there).

If you are fed up with my post, then don't read mine then. U can muted me anyhow!

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by adslmax:

there is no plans for FTTP from Openreach in my area until 2030!

You have absolutely no idea what Openreach's plans are for your area.

By end of 2026, 80-85% of the UK will be covered, but so far they have only announced specific areas amounting to a small fraction of this. Roughly every 3 months they announce another tranche. That's because planning work itself takes a lot of resource; it can't all be done at once, and there's no point having detailed plans to such a long horizon anyway.

However, if you are in any sort of urban or semi-urban area, chances are you'll be included before 2026.

I hope u can proved me wrong as it will be done by 2026! I doubt it.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

If you are fed up with my post, then don't read mine then. U can muted me anyhow!

Hopefully you realise that bleating here and feeling sorry for yourself won't get FTTP to your door any quicker? if you don't then may I be the first to enlighten you on that fact.

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by adslmax:

If you are fed up with my post, then don't read mine then. U can muted me anyhow!

Hopefully you realise that bleating here and feeling sorry for yourself won't get FTTP to your door any quicker? if you don't then may I be the first to enlighten you on that fact.

I don't mind of waiting. Cos my SoGEA FTTC are fine for my own need 80/20 still stable for 103 days.

I think this is somewhat vague estimate. For me it says "To be built between April 2022 and April 2025" with blue marking.

Yet if I go to Openreach website and enter the same postcode there, it will show.

"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."

I don't think it is even anything to do with wayleave as another postcode next to me same management authority (EastendHomes) will show...

"We're starting to build our ultra-fast, ultra-reliable Full Fibre broadband in your area.
Provide your details below, and we'll keep you up to date with how we're getting on and what this could mean for you and your property."

Here's another postcode: E1 6LW and E1 6NE CityScape Kensington Apartments in London that's near where I live.

We're sorry, our fibre products aren't available for you yet.
"However, we are starting to roll out our Superfast Fibre product in your area, giving you speeds of up to 80Mbps - provide your contact details and we'll keep you up to date with progress and what this means for your address and let you know if our ultra-fast, ultra-reliable Full Fibre, with speeds of up to 1Gbps is planning to come to your area.
In the meantime you may still be able to get our Standard copper products - check with your provider of choice."

They have been waiting for FTTC for the last 2 years and they aren't upgraded yet. However, they have been upgraded to CommunityFibre FTTP before us same street in Commercial Street. CommunityFibre prioritised them before us because they don't have FTTC so they can capture all the customers.

This means that the plan that shows for FTTC has absolutely no chance of it happening for them. Openreach will see no point upgrading them to FTTC, but they have not updated the records yet! Even though these plans are meant to be updated every 3 months this has not changed last 2 years in the Openreach checker!

The reason I care to know is because I'm curious whether Openreach will really decide to upgrade them to FTTP instead assuming it's under the same authority as my building next to it that's Denning Point (E1 6DJ/E1 6DH).

I'm also questioning whether an area exchange upgrade is dependent on a combination of wayleave agreement for all the buildings much like how Altnets like CommunityFibre, Hyperoptic and G.Network tend to rollout their services to all the residential buildings/houses where wayleave was signed.

Meanwhile, I am still waiting for CommunityFibre to come to my building last 19 months. I think Openreach FTTP will be much slower to roll out if at all. I also think they'll only consider upgrading if they lose all their existing FTTC/ADSL customers on Openreach to the Altnets.

I think the openreach checker will only show plans once work has started. Openreach plan to do your area/town/city in next few years, but they almost certainly haven't planned it down to an individual street or property level at this stage

The Openreach checker only includes the Openreach self initiated plans, if does not include as an example the Scottish R100 project which was won by Openreach. So an address within the R100 project will show no plans for FTTP until the day it goes live despite Openreach being the contractor.

If I use the OR checker I get the "you don't have FTTC yet" message:

"However, we are starting to roll out our Superfast Fibre product in your area, giving you speeds of up to 80Mbps - provide your contact details and we'll keep you up to date with progress and what this means for your address and let you know if our ultra-fast, ultra-reliable Full Fibre, with speeds of up to 1Gbps is planning to come to your area.

In the meantime you may still be able to get our Standard copper products - check with your provider of choice."

Which is odd as we had FTTC before we dropped it for LTE and then Starlink (and FTTC arrived about 9 years ago). And our neighbours are still on it, getting a heady 11Mbps.

Maybe it is because our cabinet currently appears to be full. So we couldn't go back to FTTC at the moment even if we wanted to 🙁

In reply to a post by mwarby:

I think the openreach checker will only show plans once work has started. Openreach plan to do your area/town/city in next few years, but they almost certainly haven't planned it down to an individual street or property level at this stage

I'm positively certain that the checker shows this without any planned works starting. I check https://one.network and https://bidb.uk (Better Internet Dashboard) and I have never seen any Fibre Optic works starting anywhere near my area from Openreach. Though I have seen CommunityFibre working a couple of times outside our streets and inside my building. Though service hasn't gone live for me yet.

"We're starting to build our ultra-fast, ultra-reliable Full Fibre broadband in your area."
It doesn't mean works have started, it is just a pledge that they'll start to work, but it doesn't really promise that works will be started. Maybe it's Openreach showing interest in the area.

If Openreach are indeed serious about upgrading one of these buildings with FTTP that is under the same management then it would seem odd for us to be left out without a plan. I think the checker plan doesn't have any coordination.

Just look what happens with Hyperoptic and CommunityFibre, if wayleave gets granted all the buildings/houses then are planned to be upgraded. We don't see that with Openreach, there's no proper coordination with the plans as you'd think all of them will be equally planned if they are managed by same housing authority.

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

If I use the OR checker I get the "you don't have FTTC yet" message:

"However, we are starting to roll out our Superfast Fibre product in your area, giving you speeds of up to 80Mbps - provide your contact details and we'll keep you up to date with progress and what this means for your address and let you know if our ultra-fast, ultra-reliable Full Fibre, with speeds of up to 1Gbps is planning to come to your area.

In the meantime you may still be able to get our Standard copper products - check with your provider of choice."

Which is odd as we had FTTC before we dropped it for LTE and then Starlink (and FTTC arrived about 9 years ago). And our neighbours are still on it, getting a heady 11Mbps.

Yeah, I've also had that happen. This is when the cabinet becomes full and all lines on the cabinet have been filled up with customers. In this scenario it will temporarily show as FTTC being unavailable until the capacity is upgraded with more slots available in the cabinet.

I've seen it happen for up to 2 weeks before returning back to normal. But this is different from rare cases where an FTTC upgrade has not yet occurred. Like in the case of E1 6LW/E1 6NE where they have no FTTC at all. They used to be Exchange Only Line, but were connected to Cabinet 27 however, they never got upgraded to FTTC.

While I was luckily upgraded to FTTC in October 2019 from EO Line previously. Though, I'll admit that prior to that a few months before it was planned for FTTP. However, my management EastendHomes refused to give permission for FTTP and so Openreach decided to revert it to FTTC and so I got upgraded to FTTC while the building next to me has been left out.

Last year finally wayleave was granted for CommunityFibre and they got upgraded to FTTP. I'm not sure if this will help convince management to grant wayleave for Openreach FTTP as well. But even so, I'm not sure if Openreach are really that interested to rollout FTTP. Should it really happen, I'd expect them to work on all the buildings owned by same management just like how the Altnets do.

Is your building a house, or a flat.

If the latter its common for delays as they are much less straightforward, if the freeholder isnt very responsive or is demanding re how the job is done, that can be enough to drop the property from the plan

It's a flat, high rise building with 82 flats in Commercial Street, London.
Wayleave agreement has already been complete last year for Community Fibre. https://www.eastendhomes.net/latest-news/eastendhome...
Community Fibre have already started working and I've seen cabling works inside my building and also outside in the streets. I was excited but the service hasn't gone live yet and no further works observed since then in my area. Most of the buildings however, have had their service gone live.

For many months it was showing “Great news, we're bringing full fibre broadband to you within the next few months.” for all the buildings under EastendHomes.

This message has now disappeared and been replaced with "Great news!"

"London's fastest 100% full fibre broadband is coming to your area."

I read somewhere on google that it could take up to 3 years before their service goes live after a wayleave agreement is signed. But this generic message is like that now for all buildings for Community Fibre.

So, seeing how slow it takes for both Community Fibre and Hyperoptic to go live in most of the buildings in London. I don't think Openreach FTTP will go live within the next 3 years, it just feels too good to be true. Looking at ThinkBroadband map data Openreach FTTP coverage is less than 20% in most of the boroughs while the Altnets account for 70% FTTP coverage.

Fact of the matter is if wayleave can be agreed for Community Fibre it means wayleave should not be an issue for Openreach FTTP as I'd expect the permission to be more easily granted. However, something tells me that Openreach's plans are not in coordination with any wayleave agreements. As I've seen various buildings under same management that have plans for FTTP and others do not.

Similarly I've seen this with different buildings owned by Tower Hamlets Homes, some will have plans for FTTP others will not.

This is why we are seeing so many overbuilds. Areas that have been left behind with no Altnets tend to have no plan for Openreach FTTP as there's no competition. Openreach are more likely to target areas that have an Altnet. I'm going to have to observe and see if Community Fibre goes live in my area, whether Openreach will show interest.

But I highly doubt Openreach will be able to catch up on the Altnets at least in London's FTTP coverage. This will probably take more than a decade! That's why I'm not going to take this "Where and When" seriously. They will not be able to build every where (they even admit that in their website)! It will be pockets of coverage's across each area by December 2026. With a combination of Altnets and Virgin Media UK will reach 85% FTTP coverage by 2026.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

Announced before 2026 or done by then?

*Done* by 2026.

More precisely, the target is 25m properties done by Dec 2026, which is about 82%. They have to up their build rate a bit, from about 800K/quarter to 950K/quarter, to achieve this. At current rate they may hit 22-23m or 72-75%.

There is regional variation too. For example, Northern Ireland already has very high coverage, which means proportionately less elsewhere.

Just had a look at the openreach map.

Essentially they doing most of the low density villages north of the city (and even those have late 2025 dates), but then leaving out entire of Loughborough which is a cheaper higher density area to roll out to, and also most of Leicester. The parts of Leicester been covered are around the two universities and part of the cityfibre area.

Looks like urban is been left behind by openreach. Problem is government voucher program is rural only, do gov have any plans to subsidise urban areas for openreach?

Seems politically led as other telco companies around the world dont do villages ahead of cities, what a strange rollout, it was the same with FTTC, the villages got it, and then the city only got it because our old MP was a BT board member, until she intervened it wasnt planned.

Edited by Chrysalis (Tue 08-Nov-22 02:00:43)

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

do gov have any plans to subsidise urban areas for openreach?

There are no subsidies available where any Ultrafast networks operate. The fact Virgin are around is enough to mean no voucher will ever be available.

Vouchers are/were only available to those with no Superfast broadband available from any operator and with no preferential treatment given to Openreach.

I'd be surprised if there was many (or any) densely populated urban areas with no Ultrafast networks present or planned.

Edited by j0hn83 (Tue 08-Nov-22 17:06:06)

Some suburbs of my city are currently in the bottom 10 LA's list on TBB news page.

Although they do at least have CF FTTP planned.

Luckily we getting CF coverage (albeit extremely slow rollout), thoughts was on Openreach seemingly bypassing our local populations hubs.

I am guessing once CF complete the city Openreach will then move in late as seems common with them.

Loughborough might not be so lucky though as I dont think has CF planned.

Edited by Chrysalis (Tue 08-Nov-22 16:48:07)

Huh, Northern Ireland. Yes, they are advertising all over the cab's in the area and, yes I opted to order FTTP 500 from BT and that was the start of my problems.
Long story short, I've ended up in a catch 22.
Initially after a conversation with BT sales who promised FTTP in mid Aug and indeed Openreach arrived with the diggers and put in a toby and conduit to my house. Also as agreed with BT sales, I ported my landlind number to Sipgate on that day.
So all good so far. However, it turns out the digger man can't find the OR duct, so OR return and say oops, there is meant to be one.? Not only that, it also transpires the digger man has cut through my Virgin cable in the garden !
Anyway fast forward to last week when BT send me an email asking for just over £6K so the ducting can be installed..... Naturally I declined and the FTTP order was cancelled.
Can I get my VDSL back please? No, as my area is now FTTP enabled, the copper VDSL is now defunct, along with the copper phone lines. It's fibre only now .....
In effect, my copper service was ceased as the landline was ported, I can't afford to pay for <50 metres of duct from 2 doors up, and I can't get my VDSL back.
So back to VM for me, after I get the cable repaired.
With all this in mind, it looks as if my property will never see FTTP or even a digital phone line.

Well VM have kind of bailed out the gov, their plan to build fibre over their existing coverage I think is going to solve a lot of gaps, as this current political intervention is leading to some city/town areas getting no openreach FTTP.

Also moving back to VM might be fruitful as a short term solution, my area historically has been a bad area for VM, I moved back a week ago and its completely transformed. Gigabit speeds 24/7.

Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 09-Nov-22 17:38:18)

Not good, we were discussing this sort of scenario in another thread recently

In reply to a post by candlerb:

if there were a copper stop sell on the property, then Openreach would be obliged to provide fibre service at no extra cost (IMO).

Openreach don't appear to have received the memo

Have you considered contacting Mark Jackson at ISPReview and see if his interested in doing an article about your case?

In reply to a post by dect:

Openreach don't appear to have received the memo

High level complaints should sort it. You can get your copper back, if fibre is not available. It's just their database wrongly says that fibre *is* available at the property, when it isn't.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

Well VM have kind of bailed out the gov, their plan to build fibre over their existing coverage I think is going to solve a lot of gaps

The government changed their ambitions from full fibre coverage targets to gigabit coverage targets. They did this specifically to include Virgin.

VM already satisfy the gigabit requirements and the government use VM in their "gigabit covered" stats.

VM overlaying their already gigabit capable HFC with full fibre doesn't help the government. Those areas wouldn't be eligible for funding with or without upgrades.

Almost everywhere with Virgin coverage or an Alt-Net coverage will eventually get commercially funded FTTP from Openreach.
I'll eat my hat if Openreach skip any City from their commercial build. It's just lack of Openreach resources that means some Cities haven't been covered so far.

It's the rural properties with no FTTP at all that should be concerned about not receiving a commercial FTTP rollout and that may need public funding to be reached.

They almost skipped my city on FTTC until my MP intervened, so you might have to eat that hat.

I do agree that openreach are likely to eventually cover areas with alt nets, not so sure about VM though, as in the past VM wasnt enough to entice investment from them.

But there is urban areas with no alt nets or openreach and unlike rural they dont get gov funding. So lets see how the hat survives.

Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 09-Nov-22 23:19:16)

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

They almost skipped my city on FTTC until my MP intervened, so you might have to eat that hat.

2012 isn't almost skipping Leicester.
On the grand scheme of the FTTC rollout 2012 is fairly early, Phase 9a early.
The rollout only started proper in 2011.
Particularly for areas with Virgin coverage as Openreach initially massively underestimated FTTC take up.

Leicester getting FTTC had nothing to do with a BT board member living there either or even MP pressure. The MP pressure would simply have sped up what would have happened anyway.
There isn't a single City in the UK that is served by Openreach that has no FTTC and Leicester wouldn't have been any different.

Some areas will always be before others. They just don't have the resources to cover everywhere at once.

There's millions that would have bit both your hands off for FTTC in 2012/13 in a city already blanketed by Virgin.

But there is urban areas with no alt nets or openreach and unlike rural they dont get gov funding. So lets see how the hat survives. smile

I didn't say every urban area will get Openreach FTTP.
I said every City will. My hat is safe

The current FTTP rollout from Openreach runs until 2026 and hasn't even reached the pace required yet to hit their targets. It has been increasing in pace steadily over the last 2 years after a mammoth recruitment drive and subcontractor boom from Openreach.
They can't do everywhere at once and even some densely populated areas will have to wait.
No town or City has been skipped so far, they just haven't been picked yet.

My MP did confirm the area was not planned for FTTC at all (deemed not financially viable) until the intervention. FTTC was built out very quickly after the decision was made, but it was a late decision.

Will wait and see on the OR FTTP, the issue isnt waiting, its whether it comes at all, I can only go on whats on the planned list. Luckily not critical for me as I know both CF and VM is coming,

In reply to a post by candlerb:

You have absolutely no idea what Openreach's plans are for your area.

By end of 2026, 80-85% of the UK will be covered, but so far they have only announced specific areas amounting to a small fraction of this. Roughly every 3 months they announce another tranche. That's because planning work itself takes a lot of resource; it can't all be done at once, and there's no point having detailed plans to such a long horizon anyway.

However, if you are in any sort of urban or semi-urban area, chances are you'll be included before 2026.

Got direct email from Openreach for my area

Good Morning Mr ***********,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I tried calling the number you provided (01952******) to discuss your enquiry but wasn't able to get through.

I have taken a look at our records and I can see that we do have plans to upgrade some parts of the Madeley and Woodside areas to full fibre although we do not currently have any plans that cover your property. Our full fibre upgrade work tends to be planned for a small number of streets at a time and it is very unusual for plans to be made for an entire town or suburb to be upgraded under as single project.

We can't given out any specific information on why a given area is or is not included in our current plans as this would include sensitive commercial information but I can tell you that we take many factors into account including but not limited to, the time and cost of any required engineering work, the services currently available in the area, the number of additional properties for which service would be provided, and any likely problems obtaining permissions to work in the required areas.

Openreach are committed to providing full fibre to 25 million homes by 2026 so it is most likely we will expand our plans to include your property in the future.

We don't have any plans to upgrade your area right now, but we can keep you up to date when things change. To receive any future updates please go to our fibre checker, input your postcode, chose your address from the drop down, then scroll past the availability information and complete the Gigabit Fibre form and we’ll update you once plans change. www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband.

If you want to bring fibre to your property sooner there is an option you could look into

Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) on Demand, FTTP on demand is a product which a few select service providers offer, which will give you a full-fibre FTTP broadband, as a bespoke installation direct to your premises. It is available across the UK – even in areas that cannot reliably get FTTC.

Fibre on Demand differs from standard FTTP in a number of important ways. As the fibre is delivered to your premises as a custom build, a substantial installation. G.fast are available at your property. If you would like to look into this option you’ll need to contact a service provider to place an order.

You can find a list of service providers on this link, just scroll down the page and click on demand https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/fttp-provi...

If you have any further questions, please let us know. if we don't hear back from you by this time next week, we will mark your enquiry as resolved.


Kind regards,

***** **********

Fibre enquiries
Infrastructure solutions customer service
Openreach

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

My MP did confirm the area was not planned for FTTC at all (deemed not financially viable) until the intervention. FTTC was built out very quickly after the decision was made, but it was a late decision.

Will wait and see on the OR FTTP, the issue isnt waiting, its whether it comes at all, I can only go on whats on the planned list. Luckily not critical for me as I know both CF and VM is coming,

I think Openreach might delay upgrading areas with FTTP that were more recently upgraded to FTTC in the last few years to make the investment for FTTC worthwhile!

My area was one of the late ones to get upgraded to FTTC in October 2019 here in Central London Bishopsgate Exchange having formerly been on Exchange Only Line for years. No other Altnet option or Virgin Media is available here yet. Though Community Fibre is planned but not gone live yet.

Every other postcode around us has had FTTC that's gone live between 2011-2016 according to this. https://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/codelook.htm
This website gives information on cabinet locations and when FTTC has gone live. When you add a postcode and scroll down to the yellow line where it says "FTTC Available from...."

What's actually interesting from my observation is that areas where FTTC has gone live from around 2011-2016 have plans for FTTP.

While areas like mine that have been upgraded most recently to "FTTC Available from 2nd October 2019" have no plans for FTTP! What does this suggest?

Well it may well mean Openreach will want that investment for the cabinet to be fruitful. Because if you think about it, why would they shortly upgrade the area with FTTP when they have invested money for an FTTC cabinet?

Only scenario I believe in our case would be if the Altnet upgrade us and grab all the FTTC customers and Openreach are then left without any FTTC customers using their service. That would be the only compelling case for Openreach to feel pressured to upgrade those areas with FTTP.

Edited by BLaZiNgSPEED (Fri 11-Nov-22 02:49:27)

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

Happening around here right now. CityFibre and Netomnia putting kit on poles leaving no capacity for Openreach's own CBTs. Openreach having to either upgrade poles or install new ones.

I wonder how Openreach is going to put fibre equipment on some of their poles, the one by me looks pretty full just with zzoomm stuff on it, it is a very old pole. A lot of places Zzoomm have gone underground, but up here they have gone over ground, so I have no idea where the space is going to come from

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

I think Openreach might delay upgrading areas with FTTP that were more recently upgraded to FTTC in the last few years to make the investment for FTTC worthwhile!

Well it may well mean Openreach will want that investment for the cabinet to be fruitful. Because if you think about it, why would they shortly upgrade the area with FTTP when they have invested money for an FTTC cabinet?

My previous place FTTP went live less than a year after G.fast. Doesn't seem to be a consideration.

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

My previous place FTTP went live less than a year after G.fast. Doesn't seem to be a consideration.

Also in 'BLaZiNgSPEED' case they are in a high rise, and a stones throw from London's business district so not a good gauge on what Openreach are doing across the rest of the UK. They are more likely to get an Altnet than Openreach I would personally say which is what they have been directly involved in.

Following up with Openreach FTTP for my area:

I won't give up. I will carry on kept fighting my corner with Openreach, my local MP and Telford & Wrekin Council, I don't care if they ever get fed up with me. I suggest all Telford (Woodside & Madeley area) customers do the same too.

I guess your MP and council may only be able to help if they are willing to pay openreach to rollout FTTP. I think this can be tricky as they need to be careful on subsidy rules

If they aren't I suspect they will have very limited leverage over openreach, as openreach will do the areas in the order that makes sense for them from a business and engineering point of view.

You never know you might get an altnet covering your area with XGSPON rather than GPON

I thought my speed of just under 30Mbps (I am also in Wivenhoe!) was poor. 11Mb on FTTC must be somewhere quite far from a cab.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

fighting my corner with Openreach

You do make me laugh.

The only thing you're being is a pain in their back sides which is also wasting everyone's time. You are not prepared to pay to jump the queue so why do you think you should get priority over others who are patiently waiting.

Just an update on my last post.
I spoke to BT yesterday and with advice from here, pushed BT to escalate and to get onto Openreach as they should provide a copper service if the FF is not available, They promised to do this and get back to me.
BT rang today and it looks as if Openreach are now saying they cannot get my old VDSL landline back on, but can provide VDSL via SOGEA?
I am awaiting further update from BT hopefully next week.

In reply to a post by Adduxi:

BT rang today and it looks as if Openreach are now saying they cannot get my old VDSL landline back on, but can provide VDSL via SOGEA?

For the data service, it's the same thing. What SOGEA means is that you'll get digital voice via the router, instead of analogue dialtone directly on the copper pair.

For many people that's just fine. The only issue is if you rely on your landline for emergency calls during a power cut, in which case you'll need to get a UPS for battery backup.

Everybody will be switched to voice-over-IP by December 2025 anyway, so you might as well bite this bullet now.

zyborg47

I have been watching my local pole, it had 40plus drops on it. They provided a 4 port CBTs on each of 2 blocks of flats, provided two sub poles to take other drops away, one with a 12 plus an 8 port CBT the other just to span fibre to a further pole.

Then they took all the old insulators away and put 2 12 port CBTs up. The Pole is supposedly 1930s.

Now all working since early this week,but haven't seen any Fibre provisions yet.

Where is the mention of 2030 as you stated in a previous post?

Are you just guessing or making things up?

In reply to a post by broadband66:

Where is the mention of 2030 as you stated in a previous post?

Are you just guessing or making things up?

Phil has a few issues and the filter between his, generally chaotic, mind and his fingers/mouth can be non-existent. He was venting because he's fixated on FTTP and has no real way of influencing when it arrives. When it does he'll move onto something else.

A mistake to engage. One I've made. Best avoided.

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

Phil has a few issues and the filter between his, generally chaotic, mind and his fingers/mouth can be non-existent.

Social media has a lot to answer for.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Following up with Openreach FTTP for my area:

I won't give up. I will carry on kept fighting my corner with Openreach, my local MP and Telford & Wrekin Council, I don't care if they ever get fed up with me. I suggest all Telford (Woodside & Madeley area) customers do the same too.

They might not care to fight in the same way as you do. Your area has G.Fast. You yourself said a few months ago that you went back to FTTC as 80/20 was more than enough for you. If you really needed the high speeds you would've stuck to G.Fast.

I also don't think it's particularly fair on others who haven't yet even been upgraded to FTTC and no other Altnet to leave waiting over someone else who already has G.Fast or another Altnet.

This is my anger and irritation that I have with overbuilds. Even here in London there are areas with 2-3 overbuilds, Hyperoptic, Community Fibre, G.Network/Virgin Media.

Others like our own are waiting for the first FTTP network to go live. And I waited for over 6 years to be upgraded to FTTC from previous EO Line October 2019. I can pretty much bet no one else here on these forums has had a later FTTC upgrade than myself! It would be a very rare exception.

In my case I didn't even care so much about the extra speed but the connection drop outs in ADSL as we had a line fault where for years we would disconnect due to low SNR that would intermittently go to 0 particularly in rainy weather almost every day. Had to contact ISP on ADSL cap SNR to 9db for connection to be stable.

Certainly if I had G.Fast 300+Mbps I would be so happy that I wouldn't care much about FTTP! Even now with FTTC I'd be modest to say that I am happy enough at least my connection is stable and doesn't drop out like with ADSL.

Overbuilds should happen only when the country has already reached 90-100% FTTP coverage. Otherwise there would be a disproportionate coverage where some are left out and others have multiple providers.

Not interesting in G.fast the last time BTW checker estimated was 210/25 but getting 240/40 last May before downgraded back to FTTC 80/20. And now I want full fibre next for my area. I can see virgin media does have 1Gbps cable in my area but far too pricey at £62 per month but heard that virgin media will offer this for £45 per month by tomorrow black friday deal.

In reply to a post by kommando:

The Openreach checker only includes the Openreach self initiated plans, if does not include as an example the Scottish R100 project which was won by Openreach. So an address within the R100 project will show no plans for FTTP until the day it goes live despite Openreach being the contractor.

That wasnt actually the case with my R100 install, the local exchange is on the list, the map shows a very wild timeline till end of 2026 but when I used my postcode on the where when part of OR it showed they were building.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

now I want full fibre next for my area.

Rather than giving us all a blow-by-blow account of progress why don't you hold off posting again until you have it installed. You have recently said you're happy with SOGEA 80/20 and its stable which is great news.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

my SoGEA FTTC are fine for my own need 80/20 still stable for 103 days.

If you agree to an O2 sim, gig1 can be had for £41. Which is better then that black friday deal.

£29 to VM, £12 to O2.

I completely forgot that the quoted poster was crying about not having FTTP available while they had Virgin Media serving them on top of Gfast and getting full sync off FTTC.

I've been on FTTC syncing at 67Mbps for about ten years, nothing else is available. I think I've spent less time thinking about my Internet connection than adslmax has.

I don't need 1Gig anyway. Staying with sogea 80/20 that's more than enough for me. Don't need G.fast 330/50, don't need VM 1gig will stay on with 80/20 until full fibre come to my area around 2026 say openreach.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Overbuilds should happen only when the country has already reached 90-100% FTTP coverage. Otherwise there would be a disproportionate coverage where some are left out and others have multiple providers.

So if an altnet get in before openreach, that area should be denied Openreach FTTP ? My property is ADSL or VM only, while I welcome Netomnia building locally that would lead me with 2 ISP options VM or YouFibre

Certainly I don't think there should be state funded overbuilding, but also think especially with regard to altnets they need to be free to build where it makes sense for them, if they aren't they may go out of business or struggle to get investment to grow

Most half 50% properies in my area only get Openreach FTTC and FTTPoD but (No g.fast) but indeed have Virgin Cabled up to 1Gig The rest of 50% properies in my area get Openreach G.fast, FTTC, FTTPoD and Virgin Cabled up to 1Gig

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I don't need 1Gig anyway. Staying with sogea 80/20 that's more than enough for me. Don't need G.fast 330/50, don't need VM 1gig will stay on with 80/20 until full fibre come to my area around 2026 say openreach.

In that case do us all a favour and don't mention your connection or speeds again until 2026 when you have moved to full fibre even though you say 80/20 is enough for you

I post that knowing you will find it impossible being the forums (and not just this ones) bigger attention seeking drama queen.


.

Edited by Jack_Hackett (Sun 13-Nov-22 17:48:34)

In reply to a post by Jack_Hackett:

In that case do us all a favour and don't mention your connection or speeds again until 2026 when you have moved to full fibre even though you say 80/20 is enough for you

I post that knowing you will find it impossible being the forums (and not just this ones) bigger attention seeking drama queen.

Unless Openreach surprised me one day if I keep my patient and shut up myself.

In reply to a post by mwarby:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Overbuilds should happen only when the country has already reached 90-100% FTTP coverage. Otherwise there would be a disproportionate coverage where some are left out and others have multiple providers.

So if an altnet get in before openreach, that area should be denied Openreach FTTP ? My property is ADSL or VM only, while I welcome Netomnia building locally that would lead me with 2 ISP options VM or YouFibre

Certainly I don't think there should be state funded overbuilding, but also think especially with regard to altnets they need to be free to build where it makes sense for them, if they aren't they may go out of business or struggle to get investment to grow

I'm not saying that area should be denied Openreach FTTP, but should be delayed if there are other buildings/houses nearby that don't have an FTTP service at all. Priority should be for those that are deprived first before upgrading the ones with an Altnet with Openreach FTTP (especially those left out nearby with no other alternative).

I'm particularly annoyed & even jealous when I see residential buildings around me that have multiple FTTP networks. Some of them even have Openreach FTTP while having Hyperoptic/Community Fibre as well last 3-5 years. While I am waiting last 19 months or so since wayleave agreement and I haven't got Community Fibre yet.

My parents have got a property in Shoreditch, London that we rent out that has an FTTC cabinet that's only 36 meters from the property and gets guaranteed 80/20 Mbps at all times. Yet, they also have CommunityFibre live, wayleave for Hyperoptic and Openreach FTTP showing as planned!

Instead Openreach should really be prioritizing FTTP for the areas that get lower speeds on FTTC that are far from the cabinet or suffer crosstalk or not have an Altnet.

But instead what we are seeing is that multiple FTTP networks are overbuilding and competing with each other while ignoring out areas that have no Altnet at all.

I do think Openreach FTTP will more likely build in the areas that have an existing Altnet first but it shouldn't be that way. Remember Fibre First Programme was announced thanks to the arrival of the Altnets threatening competition. If it wasn't for the Altnets, Openreach by now would've continued milking cash using their existing FTTC network like they have done so for years. That's why we are behind rest of Europe in FTTP coverage.

Overbuilds should really be happening after UK has reached 90+% coverage not now when we are still at 43%.

in an ideal world I agree. But in practice its either you allow competition (with some subsidy for area that aren't commercially viable), or you go back to days of GPO or possibly the early cable franchises.

I think if you grant that you'd still not get 90% coverage (some sizeable towns never got cable, never mind rural areas) and you'd not see as much competition on speeds or price

No, sorry. If you want a government regulator to propose what is built where, then government can fund it. You're proposing Openreach to not be allowed to use their own ducts to deploy an FTTP service in an area and start generating revenue and instead be told to focus on a semi-rural location instead with higher costs.

It is more the quality of the line that is the issue. I had 30/6 on one line when I first had FTTC. I think it is about 1,500 metres.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

My parents have got a property in Shoreditch, London that we rent out that has an FTTC cabinet that's only 36 meters from the property and gets guaranteed 80/20 Mbps at all times.

They/you rent it out at social housing rates not market rate, right?

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

My parents have got a property in Shoreditch, London that we rent out that has an FTTC cabinet that's only 36 meters from the property and gets guaranteed 80/20 Mbps at all times.

They/you rent it out at social housing rates not market rate, right?

Minefield, previously said he rents it out while also claiming universal credit but back tracked and said parents were when challenged. Many people in that part of London are playing the system.

Yeah I do get that those of us with VM as a choice are in a better position that those who only have FTTC or even only ADSL (some parts of my city are still ADSL only e.g.)

I guess my point to John was VM cable shouldnt be considered an equivalent to FTTP by the government although its a good stop gap, as it can be considerably worse in certain use cases, such as working from home (problematic due to US congestion and jitter), and evening congestion levels.

I think your approach of just getting on with it instead of thinking about it all the time is a good one, I was kind of in that mode before my recent FTTC fault.

Edited by Chrysalis (Mon 14-Nov-22 17:16:39)

In reply to a post by jpm:

No, sorry. If you want a government regulator to propose what is built where, then government can fund it. You're proposing Openreach to not be allowed to use their own ducts to deploy an FTTP service in an area and start generating revenue and instead be told to focus on a semi-rural location instead with higher costs.

I'm not proposing Openreach to just focus on semi-rural areas! I live in London, Openreach aren't even proportionately upgrading the areas of London with FTTP.

Example Sidney Street E1 2HH no FTTC and no plans for FTTP for Openreach. E1 6LW/E1 6NE Cityscape Kensington Apartments no plan for FTTP and the FTTC plan also appears to have been cancelled for them.

My building right next to it E1 6DJ/E1 6DH no plan for FTTP yet. This is all Central London. Community Fibre are so slow, that just waiting for them alone to come live will probably take another 1-2 years minimum.

If Openreach are going to achieve 25 million premises and mostly build in all the areas that has an existing Altnet FTTP service then there's a danger that many areas even in urban may not even have Openreach FTTP where no Altnet is serving them either.

I'm not going to even place a bet for urban areas to all be covered nevermind rural areas, they will definitely be left out. I'm not confident that I'll get Openreach FTTP by 2025 and I doubt all urban areas will have FTTP by 2025!

Some will definitely be left out, 100%! Fibre First Programme build map is actually vague.

For example Openreach claim that they have completed City of London, that's false. Many postcodes in City of London have no FTTP coverage at all. Example EC4V 4BT Faraday Building and all addresses under this postcode have no FTTP at all. But it is marked on the green area of the map as Build Programme currently complete*

It is of-course the decision of Openreach they are choosing areas with Altnets because they want to compete with the Altnets while neglecting the areas that have no coverage at all. This isn't happening in just rural areas, urban areas are also affected.

All this will determine the difference between achieving 80% FTTP coverage or 90+% FTTP UK coverage by 2025.

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

My parents have got a property in Shoreditch, London that we rent out that has an FTTC cabinet that's only 36 meters from the property and gets guaranteed 80/20 Mbps at all times.

They/you rent it out at social housing rates not market rate, right?

Minefield, previously said he rents it out while also claiming universal credit but back tracked and said parents were when challenged. Many people in that part of London are playing the system.

Right: lives in a housing association property, parents have a rental property certainly making a few quid, apparently some universal credit claim somewhere, but expects a publicly held company to ignore their fiduciary duties to install FTTP to him.

My question was basically a forerunner to why, given the parents/they rent a property at market rents they should expect anything else from a publicly traded company with a fiduciary duty to shareholders.

I wasn't in housing association property but know what I did to get FTTP? I moved. I paid for it as part of the deal in the house purchase.

I guess what'll really irritate here is that I have Openreach FTTP and Netomnia/YouFibre available right now with CityFibre completing their network having installed the ducts, CBTs, etc, and just needing to get some fibre in there and connect it to places.

Despite being in the grim north our estate is fully ducted, home to people with a fair bit of disposable income as they're not paying people like his parents insane amounts to rent in London, and already Netomnia have secured 10% uptake within a few months which will grow as contracts expire. We're likely to see Openreach with perhaps 40% while CityFibre and Netomnia have 30% each. Given the respective deployment costs this gives a return to everyone. This is sustainable.

Way back when Sky and VM were all about who they could sell TV to, and a particular demographic were happy to spend on sports and potentially movies. Now broadband is much more of a carrier to other services so they don't stand to make cash from such things and have to rate areas on where they're going to have the highest uptake of the higher bandwidth, more profitable services.

Edited by XGS_Is_On (Mon 14-Nov-22 16:32:16)

BlaZingSPEED

Faraday building is actually one of BT's main London Exchanges as is the building next to it.

You are looking at Postcodes with no knowledge of what is in them. Business areas of the City of London may not have FTTP but they all have very good fibre infrastructure servicing the businesses within them. Providing FTTP would be a complete waste of effort and money where they are already served with Multi Gb synchronous PWs from a large number of different suppliers.

You have got to remember that Monument TE in GTS was the busiest telephone exchange in the world back in the 80s and 90s because of all the private wires/circuits running through it. Most addresses around Monument/Faraday/Wood Street/Moorgate are business addresses with multiple telecom providers so the need for FTTP is probably limited.

Edited by deleted (Mon 14-Nov-22 16:44:13)

Also Openreach cannot put FTTP into apartment buildings if the freeholders don't want them in there, that is the main barrier especially in the City of London, not a lack of willingness to do the job. I have dealt with clients who rent office space where their managing agents want to be paid in excess of £3000 to process the wayleave paperwork, with the condition that the cabling is removed at the end of the lease so they can make another three grand off the next tenant.

In reply to a post by jpm:

I have dealt with clients who rent office space where their managing agents want to be paid in excess of £3000 to process the wayleave paperwork, with the condition that the cabling is removed at the end of the lease so they can make another three grand off the next tenant.

Wow, thats a money maker

Yup, one of them was the crown estate who wanted £3.5k from each tenant for G.Network to go in. Made the building unviable to be served, it's sitting there with ADSL as the only option.

In reply to a post by jpm:

Also Openreach cannot put FTTP into apartment buildings if the freeholders don't want them in there, that is the main barrier especially in the City of London, not a lack of willingness to do the job. I have dealt with clients who rent office space where their managing agents want to be paid in excess of £3000 to process the wayleave paperwork, with the condition that the cabling is removed at the end of the lease so they can make another three grand off the next tenant.

Makes me feel sick, absolute horrid practice. Change the law so if wayleaved is approved once it can be assumed for the duration of ownership.

This might explain why certain blocks of properties are getting skipped on rollouts, its a pattern I am noticing in my city.

I've just had a 15 minute phone conversation yesterday with an Openreach person named Ethan Evans who called me following my email to Clive Selley inquiring on why the FTTP plan for certain postcodes in my area show FTTP while others do not despite being under the same housing association EastendHomes.

What Ethan told me is that indeed wayleave agreement will need to be done for Openreach and that Openreach will be requesting wayleave within the next 2 years. If the wayleave is granted then there's a good chance that my building along with all the others should be upgraded even if the checker does not show FTTP on a plan for certain postcodes. Those postcodes will not be left out if wayleave is granted under same housing association as others that show as planned.

Unfortunately, the checker showing plan for FTTP does not mean Openreach actually acquired the wayleave permissions yet. It simply means they are interested in the areas but haven't yet been given permission.

This is exactly how it was in 2018 when the checker was showing my area as plan for FTTP but was subsequently rejected from EastendHomes and then reverted to FTTC.

Nevertheless, just because my housing association did grant wayleave for CommunityFibre last year doesn't guarantee that they'll also grant wayleave for Openreach FTTP. That's just me making assumptions or hoping for a more positive outcome this time round!

That might very well explain why there are so many overbuilds in certain areas where a management is more inclined to give permission easily compared to others that are still waiting for the first FTTP network.

Also even if a postcode is showing as plan for FTTP, if the wayleave is rejected that area will not be upgraded to Openreach FTTP.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

This might explain why certain blocks of properties are getting skipped on rollouts, its a pattern I am noticing in my city.

Grateful both of those that asked received wayleave for here.

Wayleave premission is pretty EVIL one. Very difficult to get it resolved.

In reply to a post by Adduxi:

Just an update on my last post.
I spoke to BT yesterday and with advice from here, pushed BT to escalate and to get onto Openreach as they should provide a copper service if the FF is not available, They promised to do this and get back to me.
BT rang today and it looks as if Openreach are now saying they cannot get my old VDSL landline back on, but can provide VDSL via SOGEA?
I am awaiting further update from BT hopefully next week.

To finalise this one and update.
BT engineer arrived this week and reconnected my old phone line and VDSL copper broadband, albeit with a new phone number. This is after saying it couldn't be done !!
I enquired about SOGEA, but apparently my "job" was just a straightforward reconnect.
So basically, back to where I started after roughly 3 months of complaining. Not a good customer service I must say, but at least I did get compensation.
Interesting thing on the new Openreach database search, is that my house has now listed as "stop-sell" xx My Street and the option for Full Fibre is now listed as "Build Not Announced" and only lists VDSL as an option.

The fibre rollout in Wivenhoe has hit a bit of a road hump. They've dug up pretty much every road in Wivenhoe and some people have been connected, but...

VXFiber who are building the network have had some sort of change of plans and Colchester Fibre (the council owned company who run the network) sent the following to residents:

I am sorry to inform you that the Wivenhoe fibre network builder, VXFiber, has made a business decision to suspend building the fibre network to your address and will review this decision again in July this year.

If your road has recently been prepared for connection to the fibre network, you might question why the network builder has decided to suspend build. In the meantime, Colchester Fibre is actively exploring ways we can continue to build the network to provide fibre services to your address.

If you live on a private or unadopted road, it is very unlikely your address will be connected to the Colchester Fibre network. We are also looking at alternative ways to get your address connected to our network.

and

VXFiber are suspending the network build mainly in the lower Wivenhoe area and private roads, and they will be reviewing the decision again in July. This is due to the spiralling civils costs for all infrastructure builders, nationwide.

You should also be aware that VXFiber are the fibre network investor, builder and owner, with the works being performed by their installation build team LilaConnect.

Colchester Fibre are the internet services provider (ISP) and although we have a very close partnership with VXFiber and LilaConnect, we don’t own or have influence on their commercial decisions.

Regarding the fibre infrastructure that has been built in some areas (but not available for order) it is only the ducting that has been laid and not the actual fibre line. There is a bigger piece of project work to connect the fibre lines to the main network, which VXFiber has currently put on hold.

I would like to reiterate again that VXFiber have put the remaining build works on suspension at present, in the meantime Colchester Fibre are actively seeking ways to continue the deliver of fibre services to the suspended area. For all other areas where the build is complete, VXFiber/LilaConnect will continue as now to deliver connections.

Sadly the risk of been in the latter stages of a telecom rollout, seen this happen multiple times over the years, where at the start there is an ambition, but at the end finances rule the rollout and cuts get made.