Openreach FTTP Rollout Missed My Road

My road is a cul de sac of 31 houses in total, 24 of which (including mine) were built in 1962 and are served underground with a JB22 ‘GPO’ concrete footway box for each pair of houses, lead ins are mostly direct buried. There are 7 other houses (slightly later build I think) served from a pole.

At the end of January this year the through road my road connects to was able to order (but not my road) and since then a large part of the surrounding area has been enabled.

I waited a few months to see if there was any sign of any installation work in the road but none seen so at the end of April I contacted Openreach Fibre Enquiries. I was informed my road was marked as needing 180m of new duct (that matches the entire length of the road). At that point it wasn’t explicitly stated that there would be no work done.

After another 3 months of no sign of any work being done on my road I raised another query. This time this resulted in a call from a project manager who claimed they had checked 3 times and were adamant there was no pre existing ducting and out of budget. There is no evidence of any of the covers in the road having been lifted and presumably no ‘rod and rope’ attempt. I know for a fact there is a 2” duct entering the JB22 outside my own house. The project manager’s explanation of this is it must be a later ‘overlay’.

Could any of the Openreach experts please comment on whether a 1962 build should have pavement ducts between the JB22s? I think from what I’ve read here and elsewhere the DIG era didn’t start until the mid ‘60s? And, as I say, there is definitely at least some duct present. I’ve noticed that since the start of the year multiple other similar cul de sacs locally have been enabled, some after quite extensive ‘civils’ work which is making the situation for my own road extra frustrating.

Thanks for reading this far!

Drawn a bit of a blank here so far!

In summary what I’d like is some expert opinion on please is whether my 1962 built cul de sac with a footway box for each pair of houses would be expected to have been built with duct between the boxes or ‘it depends’.

As already stated I know for a fact there’s an incoming 2” duct into the box serving my own house (I’m end of the road so no outgoing duct).

In summary what I’d like is some expert opinion on please is whether my 1962 built cul de sac with a footway box for each pair of houses would be expected to have been built with duct between the boxes or ‘it depends’.

It depends, as simple as that. There are a myriad different scenarios as to why some ducted, and some is direct in ground.

The expert opinion you seek comes from Openreach, who own and manage the infrastructure, and they've given your answer already.

There is no hard-and-fast rule like "if a house was built in 1962 it *must* have been built in this particular way". Builds vary from place to place and time to time, and whilst statistically the overall mix of builds done in a particular way may have changed from 1960 to 1990, that doesn't mean you can predict with certainty how any individual build was done.

My street falls into the same category: built in early 1960's, some houses have ducted lead-in and some DIG; some footway boxes have ducts between them and some are DIG.

And yes, sometimes when a DIG lead-in failed, at the time of reinstatement it was replaced with 2" ducting. Was DIG a bad idea? Yes - and the replacement ducting implicitly acknowledges this.

A lot of corners were cut in post-war 1960's construction, and not just in comms. For example, my house was built with pitch fibre drains - basically papier mâché infused with tar, designed to last no more than 30-40 years. We recently replaced the last of it, which was an expensive job.

i'm not going to repeat what Zarjaz and candlerb have said, because its 100% correct.

I will say this, we have seen many instances on this forum of one side of a road getting fttp and the other side (for what ever reason) not.

Some do get infilled later. There is many reasons why this happens, for instance OR may have run out of funding for that quarter or financial year. It may be that in some instances the tech to make that last mile connection is currently too expensive. How a build is done, is constantly changing for OR. From using extensively Overhead cabling on a build to smaller csps and cbts to faster onts.

The other two things are this, a quarter for OR is tiny, its a rarity that a build from the ground up is done in a quarter, mine was and that was mostly due to it being overhead (design dec - build between jan to the end of march). Normally you are looking into multiple quarters for a build cycle.

Thee other thing is to check the project gigabit, get your urpn number for your property and download one of the csvs and check where your property status.

The ‘DIG’ era was immediately after the telegraph pole era , if an area doesn’t have poles , and was constructed before the fully ducted era ( very early 1990’s and onwards ) then it’s DIG , it’s a little odd , if told directly by OR that your road is not ducted , to question that , why would they lie ? , the date of construction and the lack of poles as well as the OR representative statement all confirmed the same thing …not ducted, it’s ridiculous to think anything else is the case .

OR have the same financial pressure as every other network builder , and the current focus quite understandably is to enable the greatest number of addresses at the lowest possible cost …if your street has no usable infrastructure and jointbox 21,22 and 23’s were never intended to be connected by ducts and aren’t , they are simply access points onto cable joints on a buried armoured cable network and are of no use whatsoever when it comes to the FTTP build and consequently areas like that currently fail the financial test (from a cost/benefit perspective ) they are deferred , for who knows how long , until the economics for Openreach make better sense.

There will be small pockets of retro fitted duct in these area to get around individual faults on buried cables ( when unarmored cable in duct became the standard so used in repairs ) so the odd jointbox 23 may have a bodged duct entry or exit , or an individual property has a duct when the neighbours don’t , but that would have been a local ‘solution’ to a specific small scale problem and is not a viable large scale solution regarding the installation of FTTP in DIG areas , for one thing all these small jointboxes are too small to house a CBT , even a regular 4 port CBT won’t fit within these boxes .

If your area is deemed uneconomic, in the short term that’s it , end of story ( unless an Alt Net , given their exclusive use of any infrastructure they build ) takes a punt and builds underground infrastructure , or they may ignore any local resistance and put up poles , or they may just wait until Openreach take the hit ( financially ) and build a ducted network that they can then use at a regulated ‘rent’ , but for now if OR have put your street on the ‘back burner’ , from OR point of view, that s it , there isn’t an appeals process to dictate how OR should spend their own money, how long on the back burner ?, no one on this forum can possibly predict that with any certainty

Edited by Iniltous (Sat 02-Nov-24 11:08:35)

In reply to a post by Iniltous:

If your area is deemed uneconomic, in the short term that’s it , end of story ( unless an Alt Net , given their exclusive use of any infrastructure they build ) takes a punt and builds underground infrastructure , or they may ignore any local resistance and put up poles , or they may just wait until Openreach take the hit ( financially ) and build a ducted network that they can then use at a regulated ‘rent’ , but for now if OR have put your street on the ‘back burner’ , from OR point of view, that s it , there isn’t an appeals process to dictate how OR should spend their own money, how long on the back burner ?, no one on this forum can possibly predict that with any certainty

Completely agree with your reply, DIG was one of those "its cheep now" but expensive later - nobody back then imagined a world with inter connected groups and groups of computers.

coming back to my area and the vast majority of the properties have been done, except for the DIG areas. I feel for them, as I was told over a 6 year period "fttp is coming in xxx time", that is why I feel for the OP.

The areas now being covered are becoming more expensive to upgrade, there is though an economic interest for OR to do these properities but its always "is it cost effective". That is why theres government intervention, because those people should not be left out as fttp is transformative.

In reply to a post by Taras:

That is why theres government intervention, because those people should not be left out as fttp is transformative.

Only in areas where VM isn't present. My own town, and where my parents live, the housing estates are 1950s, 60s, and 70s build. The OR infrastructure is mostly DIG, but CableTel/NTL cable dug up and put ducts in back in the 1991 to 1993 era.... so right now the only choice for anything over 40 to 50 Mbps is cable.

I don't see any taxpayers money here, unlike towns such as Horsham which had no VM cable, so now has some of the most competitive high speed options (see Thinkbroadband news).

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by Taras:

That is why theres government intervention, because those people should not be left out as fttp is transformative.

Only in areas where VM isn't present. My own town, and where my parents live, the housing estates are 1950s, 60s, and 70s build. The OR infrastructure is mostly DIG, but CableTel/NTL cable dug up and put ducts in back in the 1991 to 1993 era.... so right now the only choice for anything over 40 to 50 Mbps is cable.

I don't see any taxpayers money here, unlike towns such as Horsham which had no VM cable, so now has some of the most competitive high speed options (see Thinkbroadband news).

have you checked your parent's uprn against the may update. ?

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/project-...

In reply to a post by Taras:

have you checked your parent's uprn against the may update. ?

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/project-...

Prioject Gigabit overbuilding VM shouldn't ever happen. Premises with VM coverage are not eligible.

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

In reply to a post by Taras:

have you checked your parent's uprn against the may update. ?

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/project-...

Prioject Gigabit overbuilding VM shouldn't ever happen. Premises with VM coverage are not eligible.

PG is based on if suppilers are going to build gigabit capable infrastructure in the next (from memory) 3 years. Anyways the link should give everyone an idea of what the state of play is for their property.

In reply to a post by Taras:

PG is based on if suppilers are going to build gigabit capable infrastructure in the next (from memory) 3 years. Anyways the link should give everyone an idea of what the state of play is for their property.

Fair. In this case won't be informative. If the infrastructure is already there as with VM cable the plans for the next three years don't matter. The OMR outputs will list an area as covered, planned or unplanned they don't care about overbuild.

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

In reply to a post by Taras:

PG is based on if suppilers are going to build gigabit capable infrastructure in the next (from memory) 3 years. Anyways the link should give everyone an idea of what the state of play is for their property.

Fair. In this case won't be informative. If the infrastructure is already there as with VM cable the plans for the next three years don't matter. The OMR outputs will list an area as covered, planned or unplanned they don't care about overbuild.

All they care about and rightly so is the white premises and also the grey - because as you know some become non-economic as soon as they say hello to the chambers (or lack of) etc .. if theres overbuild then its gigabit black.. (its either f1 or f20 - not sure which way the f scale they use is numbered)

the point is, as vm have infrastructure there, but it may not be on their list to upgrade which would mean gigabit grey or white. its still worth 5 minutes opening that uprn file just to confirm ...

Thanks all for your replies, was hoping the build style might be a bit more predictable.

As pointed out I have already had the OR opinion - the problem I have with that is there has been zero sign of any inspection or survey work - no covers have been disturbed at any point in the last few months or any point in the last few years - still the same dirt/weeds around the covers.

Also odd is the fact that several other side roads off the same road have also been missed, including a cul de sac served from a pole and already has fibre and wireless available. Maybe they took the last space in the duct but the OR project manager wasn’t aware F&W were already there when I spoke to him.

There is definitely at least some duct present and no sign it was installed other than as part of the original build - pavement scars from the VM cable install are clearly visible and would now be 30 plus years old. But no scar from the GPO box outside my property to the next one 10 - 15m away.

In reply to a post by Taras:

All they care about and rightly so is the white premises and also the grey - because as you know some become non-economic as soon as they say hello to the chambers (or lack of) etc .. if theres overbuild then its gigabit black.. (its either f1 or f20 - not sure which way the f scale they use is numbered)

the point is, as vm have infrastructure there, but it may not be on their list to upgrade which would mean gigabit grey or white. its still worth 5 minutes opening that uprn file just to confirm ...

I'm not sure I understand. Repeating myself again if a property has access to VM it's out of scope for taxpayer funding. End of. Project Gigabit is taxpayer subsidy of gigabit-capable access, VM's network is gigabit-capable. Am I mistaken?

I’m not sure what more you need , the area built in the 1960’s , places it as DIG area ( as confirmed by your own observations and lack of telegraph poles serving you or near neighbours ) Openreach would need to provide significant new infrastructure, 180m of duct , not to mention the associated joint boxes etc ( capable of housing CBT’s ) this would require significant expenditure to build, the relative small amounts of existing duct overlay basically ignored as it’s not worth the hassle of trying to incorporate it into any scheme, but even if they did , it would have only a minimal impact from a cost point of view, so there is a reasonable case that the construction costs could easily be in the £15k range ..so potentially £480 to £680 per dwelling , ( approximately 20 or 30 dwellings ) that’s well over the target budget …put another way , if in another area , for the same £15k ( in an area served overhead or a fully ducted area ) you could deliver FTTP to 100 to 200 dwellings , where would you choose to spend your money ?

It’s a little amusing that you consider the Openreach PM’s statement as an opinion, rather than a statement of fact , even if you don’t agree , it’s not going to change anything,

Edited by Iniltous (Sun 03-Nov-24 19:17:55)

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

I'm not sure I understand. Repeating myself again if a property has access to VM it's out of scope for taxpayer funding. End of. Project Gigabit is taxpayer subsidy of gigabit-capable access, VM's network is gigabit-capable. Am I mistaken?

if vm deems that the existing vm infrastructure is not viable for upgrade and would be too costly - wouldn't that then be gigabit white. Just because OR, or VM or Cityfibre are there already doesn't mean its out of scope for PG. All you need one property in a postcode not being economically viable for the whole postcode classed as gigabit white (under the previous gov's version).

you are thinking oh "vm are there already" that means its going to be automatically upgraded. It may do so but it could take 1 to 5 years, if its over 3 years it would go from gigabit grey (under review) and to gigabit white.

In reply to a post by Taras:

if vm deems that the existing vm infrastructure is not viable for upgrade and would be too costly - wouldn't that then be gigabit white. Just because OR, or VM or Cityfibre are there already doesn't mean its out of scope for PG. All you need one property in a postcode not being economically viable for the whole postcode classed as gigabit white (under the previous gov's version).

you are thinking oh "vm are there already" that means its going to be automatically upgraded. It may do so but it could take 1 to 5 years, if its over 3 years it would go from gigabit grey (under review) and to gigabit white.

Okay think confusion explained. No cable network upgrade is necessary. VM's network is gigabit capable. The last round of plant upgrades were to enable higher upload speeds not gigabit. Anywhere it's not for sale is due to faults or awaiting capacity upgrades, both business as usual and irrelevant for state aid purposes. The OMR response from VM includes these as covered.

In both earlier BDUK and PG any upgrades that enable premises that already have access are 'collateral damage' and don't get funded for anything bar the premises that needed the upgrade.

Believe we were talking UPRNs not postcodes so upgrading postcodes irrelevant. In the earlier BDUK projects grey postcodes were those with partial coverage at target, individual premises were addressed by the project though and paid for accordingly.

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

In both earlier BDUK and PG any upgrades that enable premises that already have access are 'collateral damage' and don't get funded for anything bar the premises that needed the upgrade.

In PG, its not. For instance, my postcode (and thus road), all bar 3 premsis are now gigabit capable. Because 3 properties are not with PG, my postcode is gigabit white. So the whole post code gets funding. In my postcode that means Wessex internet has been given the contract to bring fttp to all properties in the postcode.. Instead of actually just funding OR to bring fttp to those 3 properties

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

Believe we were talking UPRNs not postcodes so upgrading postcodes irrelevant. In the earlier BDUK projects grey postcodes were those with partial coverage at target, individual premises were addressed by the project though and paid for accordingly.

before may the OMR csvs only had data at postcode level, the may set include urpn level data, so you can find out per property what the Gigabit status is. That is really usefull as you now can tell somebody to check their property against it ..

Morning Taras!

In reply to a post by Taras:

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

In both earlier BDUK and PG any upgrades that enable premises that already have access are 'collateral damage' and don't get funded for anything bar the premises that needed the upgrade.

In PG, its not. For instance, my postcode (and thus road), all bar 3 premsis are now gigabit capable. Because 3 properties are not with PG, my postcode is gigabit white. So the whole post code gets funding. In my postcode that means Wessex internet has been given the contract to bring fttp to all properties in the postcode.. Instead of actually just funding OR to bring fttp to those 3 properties

Unless I'm very much mistaken only the 3 without were part of the funding: the rest commercial made viable through the subsidies for those 3. Given they had to get cabling out there anyway getting the rest of the postcode done was pretty cheap per premises. The 3 came off the procurement target the rest were commercial build.

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

Believe we were talking UPRNs not postcodes so upgrading postcodes irrelevant. In the earlier BDUK projects grey postcodes were those with partial coverage at target, individual premises were addressed by the project though and paid for accordingly.

In reply to a post by Taras:

before may the OMR csvs only had data at postcode level, the may set include urpn level data, so you can find out per property what the Gigabit status is. That is really usefull as you now can tell somebody to check their property against it ..

The data exposed to the public in earlier BDUK projects and prior to this year's release perhaps. The actual data held was per premises and I believe the odd local authority did expose this. At very least there was data informing of premises in each postcode with and without coverage exposed by some. Entirely agree the UPRN information is potentially useful for sure just not in this case which was my only point way back when:

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

Project Gigabit overbuilding VM shouldn't ever happen. Premises with VM coverage are not eligible.

Understand you thought VMO2 premises needed an upgrade to presumably full fibre before being considered covered. Happy to have cleared that up. I should've been slightly clearer that directly subsidised build overbuilding VM shouldn't ever happen however subsidised build nearby absolutely facilitates overbuild - you'll notice press releases talking about commercial build 'unlocked' by contracts.

When you're building a PON to reach a few premises in an area new to you be foolish not to take in nearby ones. You've built the spine, the OLT port is there, get some CBTs into chambers or on poles, dig to connect your new bit to the PIA infrastructure: nice.

In reply to a post by AL66:

Drawn a bit of a blank here so far!

In summary what I’d like is some expert opinion on please is whether my 1962 built cul de sac with a footway box for each pair of houses would be expected to have been built with duct between the boxes or ‘it depends’.

As already stated I know for a fact there’s an incoming 2” duct into the box serving my own house (I’m end of the road so no outgoing duct).

Given your cynicism over the information Openreach have provided I'd suggest having a look yourself. Cable and duct look quite different in the boxes and be easy to tell which is which.

The nature of the chambers and that there's one every other home strongly indicates no duct as standard. Even if there's duct and it's all usable getting to each home will require digging and new chambers will be required to hold the CBTs.

From their point of view nothing to rod and rope and presumably inspecting chambers in the main road would've told them what they needed to know about the feed to your street alongside their records. They haven't built ducted network with that type of chamber anywhere they've only installed duct as a repair when a directly buried cable failed. I can't speak for the actual experts but the areas where cable was directly buried or used tiny ducts to homes that did have duct between boxes used more regular chambers not JB22s ever other property.

Not impossible that the building of it went rogue of course just vanishingly unlikely and they presumably are confident enough that a survey of every chamber on the off-chance not required.

On the point with the lack of pavement scars it's perfectly possible that the cable to your box failed during install and was repaired before the final fix was done to the pavement. Both cable and duct fail most frequently during reinstatement above them. Like most things a spike of unreliability right at the start then stable for ages. If you were to follow streetworks building a new ducted network you'd see those then some more to unblock and repair anything that took on silt or was crushed.

If they did other streets that you know are built the same way yours is and it took extensive civils that's your answer there. They haven't built to you because they've gone over budget for the project. Until they find some underspend, get more budget from the wider company or are given government subsidy they won't continue. Just the costs of building the new chambers put you outside of the regular budget window let alone digging in between the new chambers and new build to get to each property.

Depending where in the country you are VMO2 should have you covered with full fibre in the not too distant. If you've a new cabinet next to the older ones they probably have fibre ready to go.

If only you lived in Orkney...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clygd9nznj9o

London uses sewers.

The canal network has also been used for decades - though typically within the towpath.

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

On the point with the lack of pavement scars it's perfectly possible that the cable to your box failed during install and was repaired before the final fix was done to the pavement. Both cable and duct fail most frequently during reinstatement above them. Like most things a spike of unreliability right at the start then stable for ages. If you were to follow streetworks building a new ducted network you'd see those then some more to unblock and repair anything that took on silt or was crushed.

Also if this is a '60s direct buried it's had six decades for pavements to be resurfaced, hiding any work that was carried out.

As pointed out I have already had the OR opinion - the problem I have with that is there has been zero sign of any inspection or survey work - no covers have been disturbed at any point in the last few months or any point in the last few years - still the same dirt/weeds around the covers.

The schematic records show clearly if it’s duct, and what type, or if it’s no duct. No need to go lifting any lids.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

The canal network has also been used for decades - though typically within the towpath.

Wow, that brings back memories. The network originally known as Fibreway. Part of Marconi then Easynet after they bought Marco it's Ipsaris unit. Now part of the Comcastic Sky after they bought Easynet and Comcast acquired them.

Was indeed in the towpaths no idea if any on the sides if the actual canals. Optical kit may be found to this day happily sitting locked up in 'sheds' next to the canals amplifying, regenerating and multiplexing.

Indeed. There’s some very high voltage cabling as well in many of those towpaths. Good (re)use of pre-Victorian infrastructure! 😀