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We had fibre installed under our roads last year (not to our property) but still no signs of when we can connect. We think the fibre was laid by a private company (not Openreach).
When the fibre is finally activated, will we be able to connect and carry on using our current provider or are we going to be tied into whichever company installed the fibre?
I assume there is no way of finding out who laid the fibre and when it will be activated?
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We had fibre installed under our roads last year (not to our property) but still no signs of when we can connect. We think the fibre was laid by a private company (not Openreach).
When the fibre is finally activated, will we be able to connect and carry on using our current provider or are we going to be tied into whichever company installed the fibre?
I assume there is no way of finding out who laid the fibre and when it will be activated? If the fibre deployment is not being done on behalf of Openreach then its very likely that your options will be limited.
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If you gave an indication of the location/town then people may be able to suggest which network it is, and then you could check on their availability checker.
A fibre can go "under your road" for many reasons - it may a leased line to another (distant) property, or part of a third-party provider's backbone network.
It may already be "activated", in the sense that it's carrying traffic. It doesn't necessarily mean you can order service for your property.
If it's a third party network then you may be able to order a business leased line type service from them, and the fact that the cable goes close to you means that you won't have to pay Excess Construction Charges - but you would expect to have to pay £150+ per month for this type of service, on a 1-3 year contract.
There are very few networks apart from Openreach which wholesale to other providers: Cityfibre is the main one, Gigaclear does some too (but only with small and relatively unknown resellers). So you're right to say that if this is a non-OR fibre, chances are you wouldn't be able to continue to take service from your current provider, whoever that is.
Edited by candlerb (Tue 16-Apr-24 10:45:19)
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We live on a cul-de-sac on the very edge of Glossop (Kilmory Fold, SK13 7PH). Next stop Peak District so fibre would have been laid for our road.
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Looks like Full Fibre Ltd (BeFibre) to me. They're the ones that are all over Glossop
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Does this mean we are tied into BeFibre as a provider?
If the case then it does not sound right/fair, do they have an exclusivity period or do they have a permanent monopoly?
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Does this mean we are tied into BeFibre as a provider? If the case then it does not sound right/fair, do they have an exclusivity period or do they have a permanent monopoly?
Some alternate networks have a single ISP, similar to Virgin Media's cable offerings around the UK. Other alternate networks (e.g. CityFibre) are wholesale operations in the same way as Openreach and multiple ISPs can use. Either way, you might be waiting a few years for Openreach FTTP to arrive... there is no "monopoly"; as each company pays to dig the road themselves.
You could argue that why have duplication, but that gives competition. Many of the alternate network offerings will offer symmetric speed services, from 150/150, 300/300, 500/500 and 900/900 whereas Openreach offer asymetric speed services, e.g. 900/150 or 1600 / 115. If you want high upload speeds, try an alternate network operator.
24 years of broadband connectivity since 1999 trial - Live BQM
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I just checked the Openreach site and it is telling me that "Build planned between now and Dec-2026" Pretty vague...
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We're in the process of getting Netomnia fibre put down our street. Likewise, they only retail it through their own ISP (YouFibre), but as they are cheaper than any OR provider (£30 for 1000/1000), I'm quite happy about this. They also offer a static IP address for a fiver a month (BT won't even offer this on a domestic connection), and can offer up to 8000/8000 so it should be significantly more future proof than OR too.
Personally, I'd be happier to see an altnet than I would to see OR fibre in my street!
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Does this mean we are tied into BeFibre as a provider?
If the case then it does not sound right/fair, do they have an exclusivity period or do they have a permanent monopoly?
I really don't know where to start picking apart this comment, so I won't! 🤣
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Hi @ajd1
We were connected to Full Fibre aka FibreHeros just over a year ago. In our case the fibre is installed by OR, but arranged by Fibre Heroes who have an initial one year exclusivity deal. Fibre hero’s don’t deal with end users and you get a choice of about 6 ISPs. I opted for IDnet as they were the only ones I had heard of and they also give proper static IP4 address and proper IP6 network. Now the exclusivity period is ended we also get the choice of BT and the other OR networks. I think councils are making the arrangements so it may be worth asking them. I’m very pleased with IdNet, my neighbour went with BeFibre and less so.
Edited by DrBob (Tue 16-Apr-24 13:32:21)
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Hi @ajd1
We were connected to Full Fibre aka FibreHeros just over a year ago. In our case the fibre is installed by OR, but arranged by Fibre Heroes who have an initial one year exclusivity deal.
...
Now the exclusivity period is ended we also get the choice of BT and the other OR networks. I think councils are making the arrangements so it may be worth asking them. I’m very pleased with IdNet, my neighbour went with BeFibre and less so.
Are you sure? It sounds like maybe Fibre Heroes installed a fibre and then Openreach came along afterwards and made their network live. I'm not aware of any situation where Openreach are installing FTTP for other network providers or where BT are providing service over anything other than Openreach.
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Does this mean we are tied into BeFibre as a provider?
If the case then it does not sound right/fair, do they have an exclusivity period or do they have a permanent monopoly?
It's their fibre and their network; if that's the only network that goes past you at the moment, that's the only one you can connect to.
There's no monopoly though. If BeFibre have used Openreach ducts, then other networks are free to pull their own cables too, on the same terms.
It's up to BeFibre what services they sell. If they wish, they could decide to make it available for wholesale: i.e. allow ISPs X, Y and Z to connect to BeFibre's network, and BeFibre carries the traffic between those ISPs and their end customers.
However, since the cost to each ISP of connecting to BeFibre's network and integrating with BeFibre's ordering and support systems is high, and they'd only pick up a small number of customers this way, it's generally not commercially attractive and is unlikely to happen.
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Does this mean we are tied into BeFibre as a provider?
If the case then it does not sound right/fair, do they have an exclusivity period or do they have a permanent monopoly?
If you sign onto this ( once it becomes available, if it were ‘live’ , the door knockers would have been around ) then you are tied in the sense that only they will be available over that network, but as stated , other networks can ( and will in Openreach’s case ) eventually be available,
if ( for arguments sake ) 12 months after BeFibre install service for you , Openreach becomes available and are offering service to ISPs , then you could order service from an ISP that use Openreach, and have another fibre and ONT installed alongside the BeFibre equipment, once you cancel with BeFibre their fibre and ONT is ceased
Edited by Iniltous (Tue 16-Apr-24 14:46:27)
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They also offer a static IP address for a fiver a month (BT won't even offer this on a domestic connection), and can offer up to 8000/8000 so it should be significantly more future proof than OR too.
Personally, I'd be happier to see an altnet than I would to see OR fibre in my street!
This whole comment is horribly wrong, many OR based isps can provide a static ipv4 or ipv6 either as part of their package or you pay extra per month.
Many Altnets have just straight jumped to xgs-pon, whilst OR started with Gpon, it doesn't make an Altnet "more future proof" as OR will go to XGS-Pon in time.
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This whole comment is horribly wrong, many OR based isps can provide a static ipv4 or ipv6 either as part of their package or you pay extra per month.
I feel that this is a trifle unfair.
Out of the top five ISPs by volume in the UK (BT, Virgin, Sky, Talk Talk, Vodafone), only Vodafone will give you a static IPv4 address on a residential service, with the others either declining full stop, or requiring a significantly more expensive business service in order to be eligible to spend even more to request a static IPv4 address. I'm using Vodafone today and when I requested a static address several years ago it was FOC and required just an email to request, but it looks like this too might now be trapped behind a business connection firewall.
Yes there are smaller providers who will provide this service, but most of them will be significantly more expensive or will introduce other limitations (i.e. data caps) which make them less favourable.
Many Altnets have just straight jumped to xgs-pon, whilst OR started with Gpon, it doesn't make an Altnet "more future proof" as OR will go to XGS-Pon in time.
I think you're a little more optimistic than me about just how long it will take OR to upgrade their network to match the newer altnet deployments. My guess is that it will be a significant time before they get close the current offerings being offered by the current generation of altnets.
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I just checked the Openreach site and it is telling me that "Build planned between now and Dec-2026" Pretty vague...
I have the same as you. But I email Openreach via this site: https://www.openreach.com/forms/fibre-broadband-avai...
and they email me back saying
I have checked your address and found there is a plan to bring full fibre to your house. The engineering work is scheduled by financial quarters and I can see the project that covers your address is scheduled to complete by the end of quarter 4 of 2024/2025. I realise this is still some way off and our plans and schedules can change but if this goes ahead as planned you should be able to order your full fibre broadband in early October 2024.
But not sure if they mean October 2025? Because of the wording - I realise this is still some way off. So, I guess more likely in 2025 not 2024. If it was in October 2024 live date, then that's great, if not, then it look likely in October 2025!
Edited by adslmax (Tue 16-Apr-24 16:29:46)
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I just checked the Openreach site and it is telling me that "Build planned between now and Dec-2026" Pretty vague...
I have the same as you. But I email Openreach via this site: https://www.openreach.com/forms/fibre-broadband-avai...
and they email me back saying
I have checked your address and found there is a plan to bring full fibre to your house. The engineering work is scheduled by financial quarters and I can see the project that covers your address is scheduled to complete by the end of quarter 4 of 2024/2025. I realise this is still some way off and our plans and schedules can change but if this goes ahead as planned you should be able to order your full fibre broadband in early October 2024.
But not sure if they mean October 2025? Because of the wording - I realise this is still some way off. So, I guess more likely in 2025 not 2024. If it was in October 2024 live date, then that's great, if not, then it look likely in October 2025!
Surely by end of financial quarter 4 of 2024/25 is by 5th April 2025
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Surely by end of financial quarter 4 of 2024/25 is by 5th April 2025
5th April 2025 is Q1?
I just found this site: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/q/quarter.asp
January, February, and March (Q1)
April, May, and June (Q2)
July, August, and September (Q3)
October, November, and December (Q4)
Edited by adslmax (Tue 16-Apr-24 16:49:36)
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I thought the financial year started 6 Aprils and financial quarters would start from April as well (not from January) but I am no expert. Are fiscal quarters the same as financial quarters?
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I thought the financial year started 6 Aprils and financial quarters would start from April as well (not from January) but I am no expert. Are fiscal quarters the same as financial quarters?
I have no idea. But I just wish Openreach site just put live date on it subject to non issues rather than Build planned between now and Dec-2026 are not very helpful at all.
Edited by adslmax (Tue 16-Apr-24 17:01:19)
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Companies can choose their end-of-year date; so each company could see Q1-Q4 differently with Q4 ending on their end-of-year date.
Or they could choose to follow HMRC quarters (with the year from 6th April) or calendar quarters.
In short, each company can decide their own...which isn't that helpful in this context,
 Comms is hard |
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Yeah I agree these context isn't very helpful at all. Can be very confused by wrong date.
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its the first of jan to first 1st of april for q1. I only know this from various comments by OR via phone and email. I got confused by a initial response by OR last year - same as max.
You can also look at the bt group financials to gather the quarter dates for them.
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its the first of jan to first 1st of april for q1. I only know this from various comments by OR via phone and email. I got confused by a initial response by OR last year - same as max.
You can also look at the bt group financials to gather the quarter dates for them.
Are BT Group financials might be difference to Openreach financials?
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Out of the top five ISPs by volume in the UK (BT, Virgin, Sky, Talk Talk, Vodafone), only Vodafone will give you a static IPv4 address on a residential service, with the others either declining full stop,
The whole thread is confusing the network operator that runs the physical fibre (or copper) network with the ISP. That there are 5 "big ISPs" on a network doesn't impact the services that are available for those whom can use the ISP selector in the main site.
Just as in 2000 you could dial up any ISP you like using copper wires, in 2024 if you have Openreach or CityFibre FTTP in your road, you can choose from a selection of ISPs each whom has different products.
Static IP is useful to some people, I had one from Plusnet for years, but I'm now with Virgin Media whom don't offer. Its not a critical feature for the majority of home users. (even IT professionals shouldn't need as nobody should use IP address as authentication).
24 years of broadband connectivity since 1999 trial - Live BQM
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I just checked the Openreach site and it is telling me that "Build planned between now and Dec-2026" Pretty vague... Deliberately so... as was reported on this site and ISPreview, in the early days of the FTTP project, Openreach were getting a lot of stick from media and pressure groups, so now they don't publish their plans. (As they need to change them often!).
24 years of broadband connectivity since 1999 trial - Live BQM
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Does this mean we are tied into BeFibre as a provider?
If the case then it does not sound right/fair, do they have an exclusivity period or do they have a permanent monopoly? I don't know anything about BeFibre, but the reality is that it makes little sense to have several different providers offering fibre in the same place.
Like mains water, gas or electricity, it's a natural monopoly.
OK, some providers are rubbish (hello Virgin), but this MLM scheme of reselling connectivity is just adding cost and complexity.
One good connectivity provider is all you need.
Jeremy Corbyn was right: free fibre broadband service ought to be a basic entitlement, but that was too radical an idea for the voters, who preferred to have posh spivs in control.
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Try https://bidb.uk/ and then click on Full Fibre Ltd and then click Full List Of ISPs - you can also see if your area has any other planned rollouts. The Fibre Heroes site should also list all the resellers.
The main thing with Full Fibre Ltd is the price can be great but normally a really good price means a shared CG NAT IP address. If that is a problem remember to factor in having to pay for a proper IP address usually £4/5 per month extra. Some of the Full Fibre Ltd resellers already include a proper IP address that is why they are more expensive than BeFibre.
There may be an exclusivity deal for 1 or 2 years it is not unusual CityFibre certainly have in the past before they open up to all resellers not heard of Full Fibre Ltd doing it though.
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I thought the financial year started 6 Aprils and financial quarters would start from April as well (not from January) but I am no expert. Are fiscal quarters the same as financial quarters?
I have no idea. But I just wish Openreach site just put live date on it subject to non issues rather than Build planned between now and Dec-2026 are not very helpful at all.
They tried that with FTTC and people complained to the ASA and Ofcom.
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Hi @ajd1
We were connected to Full Fibre aka FibreHeros just over a year ago. In our case the fibre is installed by OR, but arranged by Fibre Heroes who have an initial one year exclusivity deal. Fibre hero’s don’t deal with end users and you get a choice of about 6 ISPs. I opted for IDnet as they were the only ones I had heard of and they also give proper static IP4 address and proper IP6 network. Now the exclusivity period is ended we also get the choice of BT and the other OR networks. I think councils are making the arrangements so it may be worth asking them. I’m very pleased with IdNet, my neighbour went with BeFibre and less so.
No idea who told you this but it is most definitely not true.
Fibre Heroes installed the fibre, not Openreach. They may have used Openreach duct and poles. They may even have used the same subcontractors as Openreach, but Openreach do not install fibre for Alt-Nets.
There is no exclusivity period on Fibre Heroes network. They own it and will always own it unless they sell their network or merge with another network. This fibre will never be available to all Openreach based providers. It connects to completely different equipment that Openreach fibre connects to.
If BT becomes available to order in your street then it means that Openreach must have installed their own fibre, their own CBT's, their own splitters with the fibre terminating on an Openreach OLT in an Openreach exchange.
Such a scenario has never been and will never be.
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I think you're a little more optimistic than me about just how long it will take OR to upgrade their network to match the newer altnet deployments. My guess is that it will be a significant time before they get close the current offerings being offered by the current generation of altnets.
For the vast majority of "normal" people (i.e. people not members of this forum), 80/20 is plenty of Internet. 1000/110 is way more than they either need or want.
At some time in the future when that changes, and a significant number of people want faster speeds than 1G (or 1.8G), then Openreach will upgrade, and that will be an easy change as it's just adding equipment in the head-end exchange. They could even leapfrog the altnets.
In the mean time: those who are lucky enough to have altnet coverage are free to choose it, if the combination of features suits them. That's not just speed, but price, reliability, customer service, IPv6, static IP, CGNAT etc.
Personally I'd take 300/50 from a reliable ISP over Openreach with static v4+v6, rather than 10G from an altnet at the same price, if that meant I was behind a CGNAT, dynamic IP and no IPv6, and a network that goes down for hours at a time. Speed isn't everything.
Meanwhile, Openreach are happy that a small proportion of really heavy Internet users are going to altnets, leaving the more profitable normal customers on their network.
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Just to add to the discussion, we have just had a small housing development approved which is some 30 metres away (7 houses). I understand all new developments must have fibre to the home. I suspect we may be activated when they are given the proximity as I suspect they will be using the same infrastructure?
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I think you're a little more optimistic than me about just how long it will take OR to upgrade their network to match the newer altnet deployments. My guess is that it will be a significant time before they get close the current offerings being offered by the current generation of altnets.
For the vast majority of "normal" people (i.e. people not members of this forum), 80/20 is plenty of Internet. 1000/110 is way more than they either need or want.
At some time in the future when that changes, and a significant number of people want faster speeds than 1G (or 1.8G), then Openreach will upgrade, and that will be an easy change as it's just adding equipment in the head-end exchange. They could even leapfrog the altnets.
In the mean time: those who are lucky enough to have altnet coverage are free to choose it, if the combination of features suits them. That's not just speed, but price, reliability, customer service, IPv6, static IP, CGNAT etc.
Personally I'd take 300/50 from a reliable ISP over Openreach with static v4+v6, rather than 10G from an altnet at the same price, if that meant I was behind a CGNAT, dynamic IP and no IPv6, and a network that goes down for hours at a time. Speed isn't everything.
Meanwhile, Openreach are happy that a small proportion of really heavy Internet users are going to altnets, leaving the more profitable normal customers on their network.
At the moment i am on G.fast 240/40 will upgraded to FTTP 550/75 soon when FTTP go live.
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Just to add to the discussion, we have just had a small housing development approved which is some 30 metres away (7 houses). I understand all new developments must have fibre to the home. I suspect we may be activated when they are given the proximity as I suspect they will be using the same infrastructure?
I can't speak with more than just a bit of anecdotal evidence, but around 3 years ago, half a dozen new houses built opposite my parents' home in their very rural Yorkshire village. They have historically poor wired connectivity and use a rural, distributed mesh service that was installed around 10 years ago.
The new houses were installed with fibre, as were others further up the village. As I understand it, the ones opposite were done by an altnet, but the ones in the village were Openreach. Either way, that service has not been made available to as much as a single house beyond the newly installed provision. Even though my parents live right opposite the new houses, they are not interested in discussing further connectivity. Whether or not this changes in the future is unknown, but right now their address on OR's checker gives a resounding "no, get stuffed".
Obviously, you may have more luck (and I hope you do!) but I wouldn't assume anything...
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New sites are offered FTTP by Openreach, the overwhelming majority take it , some may chose to use an Alt Net or their own ‘in house’ network, but as far retro building existing copper pair areas with FTTP in the adjoining areas , newsites is a different program and budget, retro build has its own programs and budget , so a new site with FTTP makes no difference to the retro rollout for the rest of the surrounding area.
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Would you take "up to" 80/20 OR over an altnet? OR have not rolled out to a fair amount of areas where altnets exist.
I think CityFibre could do with getting a better ISP portfolio, when it became available for me I was surprised how barren the ISP list is in terms of the existing players. However I later found out some of it was because of how my property was initially categorised so there is a few more on there now. As an example Zen and Vodafone dont do MDU orders that have no existing wayleave agreement (4 month lead time).
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Would you take "up to" 80/20 OR over an altnet? OR have not rolled out to a fair amount of areas where altnets exist.
I would. I value the choice of ISP. 40 on an 80/20 was well adequate for our usage. 30 from an altnet would have been OK, but misconfigured CGNAT with the wireless ISP was a pain. Do I want to do captchas EVERY ****** TIME I use google?
The only reason I took FTTP at 160 rather than 80 is because it was the same price as the wireless I had.
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Would you take "up to" 80/20 OR over an altnet? OR have not rolled out to a fair amount of areas where altnets exist.
I would. I value the choice of ISP. 40 on an 80/20 was well adequate for our usage. 30 from an altnet would have been OK, but misconfigured CGNAT with the wireless ISP was a pain. Do I want to do captchas EVERY ****** TIME I use google?
The only reason I took FTTP at 160 rather than 80 is because it was the same price as the wireless I had.
Yeah I have stayed away from the likes of hey broadband lol, but there is also more established ISPs available on CityFibre.
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I would. I value the choice of ISP. 40 on an 80/20 was well adequate for our usage. 30 from an altnet would have been OK, but misconfigured CGNAT with the wireless ISP was a pain. Do I want to do captchas EVERY ****** TIME I use google?
The only reason I took FTTP at 160 rather than 80 is because it was the same price as the wireless I had.
Interesting. CGNAT aside, I wouldn't entertain this. We're stuck on 35/5 right now (end of the wire VDSL) and OR passed our street by because the ducting wasn't in the best condition and they couldn't be bothered to do any digging or even put up a couple of extra poles (the houses are fed 75% by poles anyway), which has left us stuck for almost 5 years since they originally began rolling out around this area. What really hurt was when the put a business fibre connection up the street to the local farm / business park that went right across the pole serving my house, but two years later they are still to follow that up with any residential service.
Fortunately, we're getting a single-provider altnet (Netomnia / Youfibre) who have, since January, dug a few holes and have cleared out the blocked OR ducts. They are are now mid-install (area activation next month apparently!). In an ideal world, I'd prefer a service with multiple ISP offerings (and I suspect this will come in time, especially with the rumoured Brsk merger), but right now I'm very much in an "any port in a storm" mindset when it comes to getting out of our current bandwidth hole. Fortunately, Youfibre do at least offer a static IPv4 for £5/mo - expensive, but as you say, CGNAT has quite a few drawbacks.
As for reliability - it remains to be seen, but they seem to be doing something right. I suspect the early weeks might be a bit lumpy as this is a brand new deployment into this whole area, so I'm expecting a few hiccups here and there while the network is still being extensively worked on, but I go into it with my eyes open. I probably won't even cancel the old service for the first couple of months to see how things settle down. ([censored] internet better than no internet at all!)
Edited by daern (Mon 22-Apr-24 09:37:10)
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