FTTP for semi-rural property

My parents live in a village and a couple of months ago there was a lot of activity with openreach engineers surveying the existing cable ducts in preparation for a FTTP roll-out in the village.

During the surveying an engineer visited my parents house to see where the current copper cables came into the property.

Long story short - the property is a farm house and the existing copper cabling comes from a telegraph pole on a main road and then ~300 meters underground to the house. This 300m stretch of wire serves only my parents house.

The engineer said he didn't think they would be able to run a fibre cable to the house as they wouldn't have the budget for it in the initial build out.

He said there might be grants available to do this but I haven't been able to find anything relevant online. All I can find are community grants whereby multiple neighbouring properties can come together and apply for "vouchers", but as my parents is the sole property that will be impacted then this isn't applicable.

Anyone got any ideas of how we can get openreach to run fibre to the property?

A map of the village can be found here, with the existing ~300m stretch of copper wire shown in red:

https://ibb.co/XkLX4s4L

You could find a communications provider who could establish what the excess charges for providing service to the property will be. Look at some of the smaller companies who might go beyond the ‘computer says no’ approach.

The OP reads like the property hasn't flipped to served on the checker, so nobody can place an order to find out what the ECCs are. .

Yep, could be.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

You could find a communications provider who could establish what the excess charges for providing service to the property will be

Although note that won't be normal "FTTP"; it will be a Leased Line with much higher monthly fees and long contracts (typical £300+ per month and 3 year contract), on top of any initial Excess Construction Charges.

Once there is Openreach FTTP close by you could order FTTP On Demand but the costs would be anything £10K upwards, paid up-front and with no guaranteed timelines for delivery.

I'd suggest your best option is to sit tight. If you're lucky, Openreach will deploy FTTP to you anyway (existing poles and usable ducts work in your favour), and the problem goes away. After all, it does help Openreach to get rid of bits of legacy copper network.

And if you're not lucky, Starlink will be a much cheaper option, with no long-term commitment in the event that FTTP comes along in future.

I think the key questions are:
a) Is that 300m underground in duct or direct buried?
b) whose land is the cable on?

If it is duct on their own land then there may be hope, it isn't a very big job.. If it is direct buried then it is a fairly big job. If it on their own land, or they are on good terms with the landowner then them paying to get duct installed (and agreeing a wayleave with the landowner) may be a solution, assuming that Openreach are happy with that approach.

In reply to a post by DantD9:

Long story short - the property is a farm house and the existing copper cabling comes from a telegraph pole on a main road and then ~300 meters underground to the house. This 300m stretch of wire serves only my parents house.

Was able to find the location. There's no altnet coverage so the FTTP nearby is Openreach. If they have ducts/poles as others have said it may not be crazy but beyond standard I imagine.

If I was there and you had a friendly neighbour with coverage, I'd look at what you could do get your own fibre to the neihgbour and order service there. This is more of a hack but it may work. This would rely on you having a fibre path you can use if you own the land. You can't use Openreach poles/ducts for this.

An altnet could use OR poles/ducts and pay something to them for it but if they don't have a network nearby it might not be interesting.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

You could find a communications provider who could establish what the excess charges for providing service to the property will be

Although note that won't be normal "FTTP"

Hmm? Normal FTTP has ECCs if the build is complex.

In reply to a post by behuk:

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Although note that won't be normal "FTTP"

Hmm? Normal FTTP has ECCs if the build is complex.

I remember reading some time back where a property was technically enabled for regular FTTP but due the cost of getting from the CBT to the property the owners were slapped with a £6K bill by Sky (although this was being passed on from Openreach) and the owners weren't prepared to pay it so there was a stand off, so you're right about the ECCs.

The difference with the OPs case is that Openreach are not technically enabling the property like the one I described

Edited by PCJM40 (Fri 27-Feb-26 17:12:50)

Does not need a pysical path from teh neighbours though. Ubiquiti has their UISP range - easily transmit Gbit over a km from ONT to a gateway and not too expensive either. I have a 300Mbps wireless link - equipment cost under £100

In reply to a post by MHC:

Does not need a pysical path from teh neighbours though. Ubiquiti has their UISP range - easily transmit Gbit over a km from ONT to a gateway and not too expensive either. I have a 300Mbps wireless link - equipment cost under £100

Fair point, that could be a solution but you'd need active equipment.

In reply to a post by behuk:

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

You could find a communications provider who could establish what the excess charges for providing service to the property will be

Although note that won't be normal "FTTP"

Hmm? Normal FTTP has ECCs if the build is complex.

Depends on what you mean by "normal" but fair point

But if terminating a fibre connection at a friendly neighbour, that would need power too.

In reply to a post by MHC:

But if terminating a fibre connection at a friendly neighbour, that would need power too.

Not if you patch the fibre

True. But paying for power will be way easier.

patching the fibre from the neighbour would be one route - and if theres an issue bring the ont back to the connecting point.

a super janky hack but for fibre it works

it might be worth looking at contacting or and saying "my neighbour can get fttp but i can't" and when you get a reply expain the situation and go from there.

If your parents own the land - i would sugget they duct the path back and put that to or.

You may have a journey (and pulling hair out ) in the process though.

In reply to a post by Taras:

If your parents own the land - i would suggest they duct the path back and put that to or.

Depends if the parents have the appetite to do the work themselves or pay someone to do it, it wouldn't just be ducting as its over 200m in length so would need a joint box somewhere in the middle.

yeah i was expecting a joint box needing to be put in but i didn't want to add that, as i might have been wrong it that suggestion. OR can supply joint boxes as this would be classed a new build (effectively)

As you said, depends on the person and their need for fttp and the reality of a potentially a wait. You can't really do do overhead even though OR can order 300m spoils of fibre to conect a premise because you need to insert 12+ poles .

They used to do a 300m connectorised cable on special a few years back.

was it 300m or 350m the max.

I don't think the cable would be problem - its the ducting. and for OR to be happy. The problem is getting the right group in OR - yes i know where this leads to.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

They used to do a 300m connectorised cable on special a few years back.

Its the rodding length thats the issue not the connectorised cable.

You can't really do do overhead even though OR can order 300m spoils of fibre to conect a premise because you need to insert 12+ poles

Except it wouldn’t be 12+ poles .. approx 50m between carrier poles, so 6 poles required.
Of course this is all based on the OP’s guess at distance.

In reply to a post by Taras:

OR can supply joint boxes as this would be classed a new build (effectively)

In these cases I am not sure they would provide the Stakka boxes for free or even the ducting, they do for FTTPod but for that your paying £10k+ for the privilege.

that was based on 25m span lol.......

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by Taras:

OR can supply joint boxes as this would be classed a new build (effectively)

In these cases I am not sure they would provide the Stakka boxes for free or even the ducting, they do for FTTPod but for that your paying £10k+ for the privilege.

its a case of a lot of not sures at this point. its a good discussion as we will find more and more cases like this as fttp fill in becomes the norm

ECC are not billed randomly - you are told that extra work is needed and a quote is supplied.

It is possible that Sky managed not to pass this on, or impact of a conversation financially was not made aware to them.

Issues like this may be why Openreach is abandoning some difficult streets for a period of months or maybe years e.g.
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/ten-point-drop-i...

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

ECC are not billed randomly - you are told that extra work is needed and a quote is supplied.

It is possible that Sky managed not to pass this on, or impact of a conversation financially was not made aware to them.

No one said ECCs were random, the area in question was in a stop sell for copper and the fact that the property had been in theory enabled for FTTP caused the issue when Sky presented the £6K ECC quote (if I remember correctly). I think in the end Openreach agreed that the property could go back to copper. I'm sure if someone is interested they can find the story somewhere on ISPReview site.

Here is the article Openreach and the Case of a Tricky FTTP Transition Problem

Didn't remember the story exactly but it was more than 3.5 years ago

Edited by PCJM40 (Mon 02-Mar-26 10:07:57)

Thanks for the replies everyone. The land is owned by my parents so that simplifies things a bit. The existing copper line actually runs overground - openreach bodged this as part of a repair many many years ago so the cable runs nicely along the bottom of a fence all the way up the field!

It wouldn't necessarily be a difficult job for us to dig a trench for OR to lay the rest of the equipment in but it's knowing who to get hold of at OR.

For now I guess we will have to sit tight and see what happens. I know Starlink is an option but would pain me to see them giving Musk any money.

It wouldn't necessarily be a difficult job for us to dig a trench for OR to lay the rest of the equipment in but it's knowing who to get hold of at OR.

You don’t need to get hold of Openreach … they work for the service providers. What you need to do is find a service provider who will go above and beyond … and who will accept an order from you.

repair many many years ago so the cable runs nicely along the bottom of a fence all the way up the field!

This is a perfect example of how excessive pressure causes bodged repairs, and once bodged, and line tests OK .. the remedial action needed never gets done. The box gets ticked … end of story.

know Starlink is an option but would pain me to see them giving Musk any money.

Well said.

But at this point Dent9 can't even order fttp.

I would at this point, ask your isp for their response. Then use the form below

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

and ask their plans for your parents premises. You should get a reply and then reply that yes there is a long distance, to the premise and you are willing pay for the ducting then explain your isp's response.

you may need to escalate at after that.

In reply to a post by Taras:

But at this point Dent9 can't even order fttp.

Yes, I appreciate that. He also has no recourse to speak with Openreach either, as there is no Open order with a CP.

Catch 22 for sure

So was a quote rather than a bill.

A quote you have a choice, a bill is usually to pay

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

In reply to a post by Taras:

But at this point Dent9 can't even order fttp.

Yes, I appreciate that. He also has no recourse to speak with Openreach either, as there is no Open order with a CP.

Catch 22 for sure

Oh true, and the problem is that its a double catch 22 as many isps won't entertain doing anything at this stage as the database says no. Thats why i said dent9 should talk to his isp regardless to be able to say to OR; "look my isp isn't helping "

In reply to a post by Taras:

Oh true, and the problem is that its a double catch 22 as many isps won't entertain doing anything at this stage as the database says no. Thats why i said dent9 should talk to his isp regardless to be able to say to OR; "look my isp isn't helping "

We know of a man at the top who accepts emails who may be prepared to listen to a customer willing to do the work and also help OR turn off more copper

@DantD9 check for PM.

When I built my own house Openreach gave me all the ducting and draw rope free to put in myself ready for them to pull the service in.