Human contact about FTTP

I’ve just moved to a rural property with very poor broadband speeds, I knew this before buying and am looking to now put in place either 4G broadband or my preference would be to access BT fibre, there is FTTC from my exchange and to property 0.4 miles away. The copper overhead connection serves just two properties one of which is ours so I assume BT will not voluntarily connect fibre to us so I’d like to speak to someone about how much it would cost to commission this (if that’s possible)!However, all BT help is now online and I really need to speak to a human to explain this I think, does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?

You won't be able to speak to BT/Openreach directly, you need to contact a special ISP like Cerberus who will get you an initial desktop quote from Openreach and if you like the quote you can then request a survey to give you a more accurate figure but that survey will incur a cost of around £250+vat.

How poor is very poor? If you are below 10Mbps down then you could speak to the BT USO helpdesk on 0800 783 0223 but they are likely to propose a 4G solution.

Half a mile of FTTPoD network build could easily be a six figure estimate.

Just to expand on that a little: the service referred to is called FTTP On Demand. Recent experiences can be found in this thread.

The very minimum you can expect to pay for installation is £8,000+VAT, and likely substantially more. Depending on where you are, there may be vouchers you can apply for to offset the cost.

The distance to the local exchange doesn't count. What matters is the nearest Fibre Aggregation Node, but since the locations of those are not published, you'll have to go via the quotation process. The free desktop quote usually takes a few days, but often bears no resemblance at all to the actual cost, which could be much higher or lower. Until you've paid the non-refundable deposit (which is now £295+VAT with Cerberus) and the survey is completed, you won't know.

Once the survey is complete, you have 30 days to accept the quotation and pay the *full* amount due, otherwise the order lapses. If this happens, and you start the process again, you may find that the cost is substantially higher - there was a recent experience here where after a second survey the price had doubled.

And finally: even once you've paid your money, there are no timescales for delivery. You might have it completed in 6 months if you're lucky, or a year, or 18 months (mine was 14 months from full payment to live service; or 17.5 months including the survey). That was in 2018-2019. With fibre engineers now committed to full FTTP rollouts, Openreach now seem even less keen to divert resources away to FTTPoD.

Do you run a business? As well as the good suggestions here for FTTPoD you could also explore a leased line connection - especially if FTTPoD constructions costs are over the top.

These days they can deliver EAD services (leased line) using the same physical network infrastructure up to the splitter node, that delivers FTTC fibre to the cabinet and FTTP to the premises.

I’ve just installed another LL service in a rural area which uses the FTTP infra that I paid to install in 2018/19. There was no excess construction charge for this - albeit your monthly costs will be well in excess of a domestic broadband connection - but as said of your run a business then you have some alternatives.

So, the property 0.4 miles away has FTTC - what speed do they get and how far from the cabinet are they. With the right ISP you may be able to get FTTC if it improves the speed.

For example: One property I work with had a 9+km line from the exhange and speeds of 0.5Mbps on a good day with wind behind it! Cabinet 3+km away and with FTTC from there, 3-4 Mbps was acheived (and occasionally more).

Thanks for the help all, I’ve inherited a few months of Zen broadband and am getting 9 to 10 mbs so not disastrous but obviously we’d like to improve it. 6 figures sounds scary!

Hmm yes we run a small consulting business but it’s very small scale as we are both semi retired, so not sure if the higher monthly costs would be viable but an interesting option to investigate.

The rest of the village are on gigaclear, I’m not sure of exact speeds will ask, but when it works they seem happy, they are a bit grumpy about them at the moment as a car wiped out a cabinet and gigaclear were in no rush to resolve it.

Edited by 914Phil (Wed 01-Feb-23 14:39:42)

Is there anyone you know well in the village that has a clear line of sight to you?

If so, would they entertain you paying for an (extra) install there and to host a Ubiquiti AirMax link? For example a pair of NanoSation 5AC Loco would cost around £100 and provide a 300 or 600 Mbps link to you.

Great advice I shall see what the voucher situation is, it sounds like a 4g solution may be advisable in the interim. We have good strong 4g signal as we are quite high up and in reasonable distance of Swindon which seems to have several masts. Unfortunately we are on the cusp of 5g, that may become possible although there is a lot of resistance to the masts in Swindon. I kind of thought that it may be better to retain a relationship with BT in the hope they eventually find ways of upgrading but from what you are saying they seem a step removed from the end user to the point it doesn’t matter that they may have a 4du dang set of telegraph poles !

That’s an interesting thought, we don’t know anyone yet as we’ve just moved into the area but they all seem very friendly and as we are up high there is a possible line of sight, I’ll have a chat with the nearest neighbours.

Have you spoken with Gigaclear to see if they would build out to you?

In reply to a post by 914Phil:

The rest of the village are on gigaclear, I’m not sure of exact speeds will ask, but when it works they seem happy, they are a bit grumpy about them at the moment as a car wiped out a cabinet and gigaclear were in no rush to resolve it.

Have you contacted Gigaclear? https://gigaclear.com/contact-us

I’ve emailed gigaclear, I hadn’t thought of them as I assumed it would have to be BT that connect so it will be interesting to see what gigaclear say. Thanks for the suggestion.

In the first instance you can just put your address into Gigaclear's online checker which will tell you if you're either a) able to order or b) on their plans

Gigaclear use their own network, not OR's. They will offer speeds up to 900Mbps (it is 1Gb, but they advertise cautiously). Uploads speeds are the same as download, and speeds don't vary with distance so you will get whatever speed you order.

They are quite good at building to areas and leaving a handful of properties out of the build, and quite bad at completing those remaining properties even if there is demand. However, it is worth speaking to them.

If it does become available, go for the residential deal even if you have a business - the only real difference is the price (they will install residential as long as you live at the address).

They also have an awful customer service record.

In reply to a post by Grimers:

They also have an awful customer service record.

Helps if you know their director of network delivery