Openreach fttp gap.

My town has fttp deployed. My street has one telegraph pole without fibre That's because Openreach didn't deploy the fibre while they were in the process of replacing a rotten pole, and didn't deploy it after replacing the pole (twice - they took out a sewer the first time).

I've tried raising a case with OR, which petered out, and then with Sky, whose last response was

"... I have now had it confirmed by Open Reach that at this time FTTP is not available for your address and they don't have plans for your area."

Which seems a bit weak as I can see from the fttp availability that it's available to all other poles in the street, and nearly all residences in the town.

Any thoughts on how can I progress this to get OR to fill in this gap?

mtc

Any thoughts on how can I progress this to get OR to fill in this gap?

Order FTTPoD ?

Post deleted by BuckleZ

Has your property ever been in scope? If Openreach say you're not now then you have an uphill struggle.

You could email the chairman's office, others have had some luck when going down that avenue but nothing is guaranteed.

In reply to a post by dect:

<snip>
You could email the chairman's office, others have had some luck when going down that avenue but nothing is guaranteed.

Exactly that. I was in a similar position, in that our entire road was serviced, but the last two houses were not. Following advice from the users here, I emailed the CEO of Openreach and after a lot of back and forwards, eventually after 6 months, they agreed to install ducting to the last two houses. The ducting was necessary as the area was originally DIG phone lines.
So, a good result in the end for myself and my neighbour.

I believe it's always been in scope (how can I check?)

afaict, the telegraph pole in question is the only one in the whole town that has not had fibre connectivity added to.

What case did you raise with OR? I think this is what the "I can't get fibre but my neighbour can" form is for.

QIS519077

where's that form? Any reason why I (and my neighbours who have similar cases, but have given up chasing) wasn't pointed to it?

why the message coming from Sky?

Looking more closely at the local poles, all except the one of concern seems to have the fibre connectors on it, and a yellow tag noting the existence of fibre above. There are other types of connection that have also been enabled.

One of the reasons listed in the dropdown on this form is about your neighbours getting fibre but you can't

https://www.openreach.com/forms/fibre-broadband-avai...

I think that's where I started last time, but that got bounced as there was an outstanding case against my property.

In reply to a post by timcoote:

I believe it's always been in scope (how can I check?)

Since the change to the Openreach Fibre checker I am not sure you can self service the current scope status yourself.

I tweeted OR and got a response within an hour. The case has now been reopened (I hadn't been informed that it had been closed, and it's existence was blocking new case creation).

Let's see if any progress happens.

Looks like the fibre's installed. Needs a check, and I've actually got an estimate to completion!

While looking at this problem, I did check all local FTTP availability and mapped it. There are some very significant holes.

What strikes me is the poor linkage between market opportunity for the ISPs and the planned/achieved rollout by OR. In most markets that I've worked in the head of marketing would have been all over this opportunity to grow.

Openreach are a bit like an oil tanker, delivering a huge amount of FTTP but unable to change course quickly. This means small pockets get missed because they were overlooked or didn't fit into the program at the time.

That would be fine if there were a more direct link from consumers to OR. The ISPs that I tried (Sky and Vodafone), just checked the fibre checker and said 'no'. In Sky's case, they regarded the gap from a missing pole as an area that wasn't going to be connected on any current plans.

Plotting out the distribution, it's clear that many of the gaps are in areas that one might expect to support higher adoption density (new properties, expensive properties).

Order FTTPoD instead

In reply to a post by witchunt:

Openreach are a bit like an oil tanker, delivering a huge amount of FTTP but unable to change course quickly. This means small pockets get missed because they were overlooked or didn't fit into the program at the time.

It seems they don't do enough post analysis to re-asses areas so they fill in areas or don't do it quick enough. But whole oil tanker analogy is accurate for project gigabit as well perhaps for all large infrastructure projects. My area the new forest for instance, my postcode has 12 properties under review and one white. I can't see wessex internet laying fibre for one property. The New forest was separated from Hampshire for the pots because of its unique issues and yet its still being failed. Lets give WI a chance anyhoo.

In reply to a post by timcoote:

That would be fine if there were a more direct link from consumers to OR. The ISPs that I tried (Sky and Vodafone), just checked the fibre checker and said 'no'. In Sky's case, they regarded the gap from a missing pole as an area that wasn't going to be connected on any current plans.

Plotting out the distribution, it's clear that many of the gaps are in areas that one might expect to support higher adoption density (new properties, expensive properties).

This is the other thing, The OR checker will say YAY, but it can weeks/months for the BTwholesle checker to go from Non to YAY and thats why Sky will say no for longer.

In reply to a post by Taras:

This is the other thing, The OR checker will say YAY, but it can weeks/months for the BTwholesle checker to go from Non to YAY and thats why Sky will say no for longer.

Sky don't use BT Wholesale?

You don't need a direct link to OR, you need ISPs that are more competent or willing to put the effort in. They exist, they just aren't Sky and Vodafone.

In reply to a post by Taras:

This is the other thing, The OR checker will say YAY, but it can weeks/months for the BTwholesle checker to go from Non to YAY and thats why Sky will say no for longer.

Sky only need Openreach availability. They can and do provide service without BT Wholesale availability. They don't use BT Wholesale but use their own backhaul instead.

The BT Wholesale checker is only checking availability/capacity for BT Wholesale GEA cablelinks and its backhaul. It's only relevant for providers who use them.

I was able to order FTTP from Sky for over a month before BT Wholesale had everything ready and showed availability. Talktalk were months behind both of them.

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

In reply to a post by Taras:

This is the other thing, The OR checker will say YAY, but it can weeks/months for the BTwholesle checker to go from Non to YAY and thats why Sky will say no for longer.

Sky don't use BT Wholesale?

the comment was about availability, and both voda and sky use their own databases (which i was not aware of) and seem to be more up-to-date than btwholesale looking at some recently updated premises that now can receive fttp.

But my whole post was not about sky but about how large infrastructure projects can be slow and boggy in nature. But poking at the sky boo boo was more important in your reply.

I'm only using the OR checker. I doubt that updates are sent downstream in real time.

I have also looked at Ofcom's tracking approach: it looks error prone to me. It track % coverage by postcode, based on the postcodes in late 2022, and mapping these to OS UPRNs. However, the reported coverage is often impossible at the implied precision (1 decimal place).

It's pretty easy to check this by working out the minimal number of delivery addresses that would be required to get a specific figure. It's not unusual for the reported value to require 2x the number of addresses reported for the postcode by royal mail.

Dunno who this could be reported to, unfortunately.

In reply to a post by Taras:

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

In reply to a post by Taras:

This is the other thing, The OR checker will say YAY, but it can weeks/months for the BTwholesle checker to go from Non to YAY and thats why Sky will say no for longer.

Sky don't use BT Wholesale?

the comment was about availability, and both voda and sky use their own databases (which i was not aware of) and seem to be more up-to-date than btwholesale looking at some recently updated premises that now can receive fttp.

But my whole post was not about sky but about how large infrastructure projects can be slow and boggy in nature. But poking at the sky boo boo was more important in your reply.

The Sky stuff, relating to availability, was incorrect which was why I queried it. I apologise if having errors based on faulty assumptions pointed out offends you.

My post was short because I was multitasking and didn't have the time to write about availability checker APIs, cablelinks, why Sky have their own availability checker, etc.

my assumption was that that if sky uses OR products they'd have to use OR availability data, and given how btwholesale's checker is so slow at updating and its like months - been checking some local addresses to guage how quickly BTW update, and its around 6 to 8 weeks.

And if you were multitasking, cool and don't worry about it. Sometimes forum replies can look alot worse than they are .. 😁

I'm not sure if you're misunderstanding what was said or just being a bit sloppy with writing it out, but for the avoidance of doubt the Openreach checker and the BTw checkers are different things, checking for different services.

The Openreach checker is showing whether your property can be served by an FTTP service delivered from the headend exchange, that the infrastructure exists and it's connected to something at the other end. The BTw checker is checking whether a handover exists from Openreach to BTw at that exchange, and whether it has capacity for BTw to offer services. BTw sit at the same level as a customer of Openreach as Sky, TalkTalk etc. If FTTP is being built to a new area then it's not uncommon for Openreach to show FTTP availability months before BTw have connected themselves up, and in the meantime suppliers that don't use BT are often able to provide service.

In reply to a post by Taras:

my assumption was that that if sky uses OR products they'd have to use OR availability data, and given how btwholesale's checker is so slow at updating and its like months - been checking some local addresses to guage how quickly BTW update, and its around 6 to 8 weeks.

And if you were multitasking, cool and don't worry about it. Sometimes forum replies can look alot worse than they are .. 😁

Got it.

Their checkers actually run a check on Openreach's data through an API when you enter your details and from there they also have their own data on top to check if they're able to serve you, so no big lag there - they aren't copying Openreach data periodically it's realtime.

The lag you've seen would've been waiting for BT Wholesale to get their network in order and buy the interconnect with the Openreach OLT serving you.

Openreach checker = is it available between your address and the OLT in the exchange.
BTW/Sky checker = do Openreach show it as available AND is it marked as live on our system, as we've the interconnect and capacity in place to serve it.

If the areas you mention are, broadly, brand new to FTTP they may well be having new Openreach kit installed to serve them as the OLT serving the cabinets will be Huawei or ECI and will be full or Openreach aren't provisioning more areas on them.

From there once Openreach have commissioned the OLT Sky, BTW, etc, have to order fibre between that OLT and their own kit. If they have other capacity upgrades they need to do on top to do anything with that fibre before they start selling that'll ensure further delay between when Openreach release an area and when service providers will.

Worst case Openreach release an area, Sky/BTW/TalkTalk/Zen/Vodafone realise they need more switch ports and bandwidth to connect to the OLT serving that area so have to upgrade their own equipment, order backhaul, and order the Cablelink between the Openreach OLT and their equipment once they have the port in place for it.

Edited by XGS_Is_On (Fri 23-Jun-23 10:43:05)

thank you XGS and Jpm.

My mistake was this

ont --> olt to btwholesale and sold onwards to {talktalk,sky,zen, pn,bt, ee, voda, etc}


where it is

ont --> olt and then btwholesale{zen, pn,bt, ee, etc}, {talktalk, sky, voda, etc}.

note, obviously removed the gpon splitters to make it quicker to type

Ah you were thinking it runs like ADSL where Openreach supply the cabling and someone else puts things at the ends. FTTP runs similarly to FTTC except rather than having a DSLAM in a cabinet in between customers connect to a device, sometimes the same one their FTTC cabinet connects to, in an Openreach exchange.

All now seems to be updated for most ISPs, but not BT (?)

In reply to a post by timcoote:

All now seems to be updated for most ISPs, but not BT (?)

Same with my villiage - circa 12 postcodes have fttp, OR says yay; Zen, sky etc says yay; BT umbrella isps nada ..