Neighbours can get fibre but i cannot

I am stuck in the frustrating situation where I cannot get fibre whereas my immediate neighbours can so looking for advice on how to proceed. I am sure I should be able to get it and I am just stuck in a "computer says no" limbo stage.

The Openreach CBT is in a box in the ground that is directly on the boundary of my property next to my drive. I can see the existing pipes / ducting carrying the existing copper cable to my house. Most houses near my are connected by poles and these are all able to order fibre.

I have done the following so far:

Contacted Openreach via their online form. I received a response that confirmed the following:

I have a "gold" address and a NAD

I know my CBT number which has a technical RFS date but not a commercial RFS date

My house is classified as being in a DIG area and there are no concrete plans as to when fibre may be come available

I originally made an enquiry checking the box "when will fibre be available". I have submitted another query checking the box "my neighbours can get fibre but i cannot" and explained that the CBT is right next to my house and there is an existing duct, no digging required, and asked if they can please send out an engineer to look. I have not had a response to this yet

I have also made an enquiry via Zen Broadband who have made a request to Openreach with same information as above. This was in the hope that as a broadband supplier they might have more luck unblocking this.

I have asked Cerberus for a desktop quote for FTTPoD

HeyBroadband (altnet) is in my area but after trying to place an order through them they are saying they cannot connect my house to one of their poles due to minimum height clearances. There are a couple of poles near my property. They do not have their equipment in the CBT manhole in the road so that is not an option apparently.

It is so frustrating. Is there anything else I can or should do at this stage!?

Many thanks

In reply to a post by pg1981:

I have submitted another query checking the box "my neighbours can get fibre but i cannot" and explained that the CBT is right next to my house and there is an existing duct, no digging required, and asked if they can please send out an engineer to look. I have not had a response to this yet

I have also made an enquiry via Zen Broadband who have made a request to Openreach with same information as above. This was in the hope that as a broadband supplier they might have more luck unblocking this.

Is there anything else I can or should do at this stage!?

Wait for OR/Zen to get back to you.

We were in the same position until last month when Openreach fibre suddenly appeared as orderable despite being at neighbours for some time.
I think they re-evaluate infrastructure to see if they can run overhead fibre and it's also now available at our other neighbour but no further on our side.
I got it installed but they had a bit of a struggle and had to put an elevated platform vehicle on our car ramp.
Goodbye Virgin for now but Virgin does have the far more elegant under-footway duct. The Openreach duct is on the other side of our road and there's a pole about 60 metres away.
I also picked Vodafone and got a £165 voucher which is very generous. Vodafone also credited me with 2 days missing service while OR worked out how to connect. Worth going with VF for service I think.

Post deleted by seb

This is a grotesque regulatory failure in my view, as someone who has been intimately involved with telecoms regulation.

There is just no excuse for not implementing universal passive infrastructure in inner-city areas. especially given the multiple digs to install partial alt nets, legacy Virgin coax, water and other utilities. You can be a few hundred metres from Silicon roundabout and have no fibre broadband in 2026.

In reply to a post by stamford13:

This is a grotesque regulatory failure in my view, as someone who has been intimately involved with telecoms regulation.

There is just no excuse for not implementing universal passive infrastructure in inner-city areas. especially given the multiple digs to install partial alt nets, legacy Virgin coax, water and other utilities ...

Absolutely agree. Imagine having 4 or more different electricity supplies down the street:

• 415/230V 50Hz 3 phase
• +/-200V DC
• 240V 50Hz 3 phase, no neutral, one phase grounded (Aylesbury 3 phase)
• 115/200V 60Hz 3 phase

The forums would be interesting:
What cooker do you get with FF?
Can I use my kettle from Maiden if I move to Rural String?
I am moving to Karma. How do I set up my washing machine to work on Aylesbury 3 phase?
Below the Horizon won't tell me how to connect my fridge so the light goes off when I shut the door.

Grotesque is the right word.

Edited by DFScale (Sun 21-Jun-26 08:39:51)

In reply to a post by DFScale:

In reply to a post by stamford13:

This is a grotesque regulatory failure in my view, as someone who has been intimately involved with telecoms regulation.

There is just no excuse for not implementing universal passive infrastructure in inner-city areas. especially given the multiple digs to install partial alt nets, legacy Virgin coax, water and other utilities ...

Absolutely agree. Imagine having 4 or more different electricity supplies down the street:

• 415/230V 50Hz 3 phase
• +/-200V DC
• 240V 50Hz 3 phase, no neutral, one phase grounded (Aylesbury 3 phase)
• 115/200V 60Hz 3 phase

The forums would be interesting:
What cooker do you get with FF?
Can I use my kettle from Maiden if I move to Rural String?
I am moving to Karma. How do I set up my washing machine to work on Aylesbury 3 phase?
Below the Horizon won't tell me how to connect my fridge so the light goes off when I shut the door.

Grotesque is the right word.

You are correct …

There is just no excuse for not implementing universal passive infrastructure in inner-city areas

And the whole damn country.
Trouble is , government, telco regulators, communications providers, and Joe Public all thought their way would be much better.
A lo ! The Wild West approach to telecoms has arisen.

Unfortunately one person had to wait a few months for a phone line to be installed in the 80s, or went three weeks without a bin collection in the 70s, so now everything has to be open to competition. Just ignore the people who wait over a year for Virgin Media to install a service, never manage to get the civils contractor talking to the parent company, and then have the install cancelled.

In reply to a post by stamford13:

This is a grotesque regulatory failure in my view, as someone who has been intimately involved with telecoms regulation.

If money was no object I would agree with you but cost is a factor and you can regulate as much as you like but if something doesn't make finance sense why should private companies subsidies it. People can sit in their ivory towers saying what should and shouldn't happen but its normally not their money thats being wasted.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

If money was no object I would agree with you but cost is a factor and you can regulate as much as you like but if something doesn't make finance sense why should private companies subsidies it. People can sit in their ivory towers saying what should and shouldn't happen but its normally not their money thats being wasted.

Plenty of red tape bureaucracy as well, such as having 2 FTTP suppliers in the street outside, and not being able to sign up as the building owner (non profit making social landlord) won't engage in any discussion.

Edited by jchamier (Sun 21-Jun-26 13:07:39)

It's cheaper to put in one system than multiple ones that don't cover everyone. There are also multiple utilities that dig up streets multiple times.

I worked to fix an old ladies phone back in the late 90’s . She told me she had moved into the newly built property with her parents as a small child in 1939. Her father thought they should get a telephone line fitted, and so ordered. Then not long after, WW2 broke out … things didn’t get sorted immediately after either. Finally, they waited 7 years to get the line installed.

The fault was that the hard wired handset which they had rented had finally given up the ghost. Beyond repair, (and I really tried) I had to fit an NTE, and left her with one of the temporary ‘trout phones’ we used to carry. She rang once the new handset was delivered, and I popped back after work to set it up for her.

A different time.

I recall beiing forced to have a party line in the 1960s, as some one else had moved into the area.and wanted a telephone line.

In reply to a post by stamford13:

It's cheaper to put in one system than multiple ones that don't cover everyone. There are also multiple utilities that dig up streets multiple times.

In broadband there are other things at play; if we had one national broadband "last mile" provider, for say FTTP and/or coax, would we have any offerings of symmetric speeds (e.g. 250/250, 500/500, 1024/1024) or even any offerings of 8 Gbps that are available today?

The problem of having one super huge, and one very very large provider is that the smaller providers have to fight in what has become a very small margin industry.

The ideas of the late 1980s were not wrong, but the money has changed radically.

In reply to a post by stamford13:

It's cheaper to put in one system than multiple ones that don't cover everyone.

Rose tinted glasses maybe or naiveite !!

Even if there was one infrastructure provider not everyone would be covered, the cost to reach some individual UK properties is well over £100,000 per property. Where would the money come from to get the infrastructure to those properties? Should tax payers money be used for this? do we have a bottomless pit of money to spend?

Also we already have a situation where niche providers using the Openreach network try to offload customer issues to Openreach engineers to fix, at least with the altnets they have no one but themselves to blame when issues occur.

Of course I accept there are areas not suitable for fibre to the premises. I can't see any technical obstacle for urban areas.
And we have one infrastructure provider anyway in Openreach (apart from in Hull). it is hamstrung by lack of joined-up planning and access.

Openreach is already the last mile wholesaler but it is hamstrung by poor joined-up planning and access such that rollouts are often slow and incomplete and duplicate other providers, some of which will go bust.

In reply to a post by stamford13:

And we have one infrastructure provider anyway in Openreach (apart from in Hull). it is hamstrung by lack of joined-up planning and access

Virgin Media is in a LOT of the built up area Openreach is in. They are also in Hull.

Virgin Media don’t normally use any of Openreach’s infrastructure, having started as the various cable firms in the 1990s they built their own. No such thing as PIA back then.

Edited by jchamier (Sun 21-Jun-26 19:54:56)

I've had plenty of these arguments in the past about "commercially not viable" when my problem living in an urban area that is a 10 minute walk to the City of London is more to do with wayleave agreement than my building not being commercially viable.

Most of the time in urban areas, particularly MDU buildings the problem is more to do with wayleave than it being commercially unviable.

For example, we have Community Fibre here and in the same estate where I live (Holland Estate, London) under the same management EastendHomes, Nexfibre (Virgin Media) was upgraded to a few buildings that are just next to mine 2 years ago. They now have both Community Fibre and Nexfibre.

Upon inquiry, it was still needing route approval to upgrade our building. So, despite a wayleave agreement and a letter 2 years ago we were left out. I even chased up SCCI Alphatrack via email who are responsible for the upgrades and they responded by saying they are waiting for my Housing Association to grant (pending route approval). They even offered that they can upgrade us with Openreach FTTP as well.

Since then I have given up and have not chased further as I am happy with Community Fibre for now.

Yet, at the same time you will find social housing residential buildings like Winterton House that have 4-5 FTTP overbuilds that is predominantly made up of social housing/council tenants. These tenants don't even pay service charge but get more privilege than some private buildings like the Heron Tower in Barbican that have only ADSL and Hyperoptic. Hyperoptic is worse in this regard than Community Fibre as they don't even have a few other wholesale options to switch to.

It really is a postcode lottery. There is no formula that I see that suggests that one area is more viable than another when I see important places like in the City of London that have no fibre at all! And less important areas having multiple FTTP overbuilds.

In reply to a post by stamford13:

Openreach is already the last mile wholesaler but it is hamstrung by poor joined-up planning and access such that rollouts are often slow and incomplete and duplicate other providers, some of which will go bust.

If you believe there should only be one infrastructure provider for urban areas then how far does your mindset go for other things? for example should there only be one supermarket chain or even one bank chain to reduce the amount of duplication in urban areas, would this make regulation a lot easier for the various sectors 😎 The fact that we allow altnets to build out should be considered positive as they are private companies who are investing their money. Do you believe that if we never had altnets and only a single infrastructure company (take Openreach for example) we would be further down the road to blanket full fibre than we are today?

Edited by PCJM40 (Sun 21-Jun-26 23:22:41)

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

]
And the whole damn country.
Trouble is , government, telco regulators, communications providers, and Joe Public all thought their way would be much better.
A lo ! The Wild West approach to telecoms has arisen.

Openreach / BT Group chose to build PON rather than point to point to avoid having to unbundle it. Pretty sure I've written exactly this in response to the exact same point and might even have been in response to your good self. From the moment they decided on PON in Ebbsfleet and the other trials the rest was inevitable. Having had to share their copper they didn't want to share their fibre and ended up having to share their ducts and poles instead. That and trying to sweat copper on the cheap left a means, motivation and market for altnets. Openreach are most directly responsible for where we are.

Do you believe that if we never had altnets and only a single infrastructure company (take Openreach for example) we would be further down the road to blanket full fibre than we are today?

It's possible we'd have been further ahead. BT wanted to roll out FTTP in the 1990s back when they owned factories and were arguably world leaders in the technology. But Margaret Thatcher refused to grant them a broadcast license because she favoured the open market.

https://webreturn.co.uk/how-thatcher-killed-the-uks-...

Edited by Andrue (Mon 22-Jun-26 07:52:07)

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

If you believe there should only be one infrastructure provider for urban areas then how far does your mindset go for other things? for example should there only be one supermarket chain or even one bank chain to reduce the amount of duplication in urban areas, would this make regulation a lot easier for the various sectors

If goods were delivered by transporter beam, like Star Trek, there could be many such systems. If goods were delivered to the premises by conveyor belt system, then there should only be one such system. In the first case, there would naturally be many suppliers. In the second case it would require regulation to ensure that companies other than (Amazon?) could supply via the system

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

The fact that we allow altnets to build out should be considered positive as they are private companies who are investing their money. Do you believe that if we never had altnets and only a single infrastructure company (take Openreach for example) we would be further down the road to blanket full fibre than we are today?

Railways are probably the nearest comparison. Lots of duplication, which ultimately had to be culled. And a lot of coercion to enforce a single gauge.

In reply to a post by DFScale:

Imagine having 4 or more different electricity supplies down the street:

If you're ever in Niagara Falls I highly recommend you pop down to the old power station, it tells of the fight between Tesla and Edison who championed AC and DC power in Canada. When you're their you go down and see the old water turbines and come out under the Falls its very special.

People should remember or research the major issue with connecting new power sources into the National Grid before using the electric infrastructure to justify why a single broadband feed into each property is/was the way to go. It takes years and sometimes up to ten years for a new feed to be integrated even for an existing supplier. When you have a single point like that things start to fall apart and thats why we have a major issue with electric in the UK

Edited by PCJM40 (Mon 22-Jun-26 08:58:53)

Broadband is considered now as the fourth utility and BT and Kcom have a universal service obligation to supply broadband to every home, albeit a slow connection. It's a legal right.
We don't expect multiple water, electricity and gas pipes.

It's a legal right as long as the installation comes in under a specified level - if it is over that level then you have to pay the excess (which can be a lot) or BT will provide you with a 4G router on EE if that gives sufficient speeds. The USO does not mean everyone can get broadband at a reasonable price.

In reply to a post by stamford13:

Broadband is considered now as the fourth utility and BT and Kcom have a universal service obligation to supply broadband to every home, albeit a slow connection. It's a legal right.
We don't expect multiple water, electricity and gas pipes.

considered is not a legal right
expect is not a legal right
universal service obligation doesn't mean FTTP

Water, Electric and Gas are not the same as broadband technology, you may want to disagree but it is the truth. I for one don't have Gas and if I wanted it I would have to pay 10's of thousands to get it so if people really want FTTP and none of these private companies (e.g.BT Group) are willing to supply it within the required timescales then they should have to pay.

Edited by PCJM40 (Mon 22-Jun-26 12:16:09)

In the 1960s it was far worse. A friend of my mother moved to Worthing and was quoted 2 YEARS to get a phone!. In Manchester it was a similar situation.

We happened to know a person what was the area manager for a different area and my mother mentioned this to him and gave him details when he asked. A week later my mother had a call from her friend saying "I don't know what happened but I have just had a phone installed!"

It was normal for it take many months or sometimes years to get a phone. The handsets were all rented. You were not allowed to connect a privately owned phone.. I was fortunate. I bought a house in 1965 on a new estate near Macclesfield and applied for a phone in mid 1966. I posted the application form and went on holiday. I found a note on the mat saying we tied to install your phone. It was then connected the day after we returned from holiday.

Party lines were then very common. Two households sharing one line with different ring connections. No privacy! My parents were on such a line in the mid1950s for a time and I knew of some lines in the 1980s that were still on party lines. The national issue then was lack of wires back to the exchange.

Things are quite different now! How our expectations have changed.

In reply to a post by steelej02:

How our expectations have changed.

Expectations change faster than infrastructure... ducts, poles, wires, coax cables, and fibres, all take decades to roll out.

As it happens my choices of broadband are now apparently limited by changes to the rules.

All of our mains electricity is delivered using overhead poles I have one in my garden and it is owned by the power company and I get a wayleave payen each year.

Although this is, as I understand it, no longer allowed the SAME pole is also used to distribute BT telephone wires to many propertie up and down our road. I get a wayleave payment from BT.

We have ducting installed in the road by Swish, now Cuckoo, for a full fibre connection but although the rest of our village has been cabled for overhead fibre our road has not.

I have been on full fibre via Swish/Cuckoo for 18 months but I have no other choice other than FTTC. The Swish service was cheaper than FTTC and after some initial teething problems (the fibre failed and had to be replaced) the service has been excellent.

The USO is hopelessly outdated and a current regulatory failure.

You're not going to convince me that a single fibre infrastructure is not technically or financially feasible so I suggest we leave it there. You may though want to square your thoughts with the analogue switch-off and the rollout of Openreach fibre.

In reply to a post by stamford13:

The USO is hopelessly outdated and a current regulatory failure.

Of course you're going to blame it on a regulatory failure, I suspect if you was told that your broadband bill was going up £100 a year to help pay for a better USO you would be outraged by that as well. I hope you realise that someone has to ultimately pay for this and money doesn't grow on trees.

In reply to a post by stamford13:

You're not going to convince me that a single fibre infrastructure is not technically or financially feasible so I suggest we leave it there. You may though want to square your thoughts with the analogue switch-off and the rollout of Openreach fibre.

I come from the doing side of this topic not the pen pushers side who have no idea.

In reply to a post by steelej02:

I have been on full fibre via Swish/Cuckoo for 18 months but I have no other choice other than FTTC.

I'm similar. Due to wayleave issues I have Virgin Media coax broadband (with a street cabinet fault they seem unable to fix) or FTTC from Openreach with speeds of around 35 Mbps down and 6 Mbps up. No FTTP in sight, and even when OR FTTP turns up I suspect the wayleave issue will stop even that.

Analogue telephone switch off (Jan 2027) does not mean a copper pair to your home stops working, it just changes how voice is delivered to you. Does not mean everyone has FTTP by then from OR.

FTTC is of course not 'full fibre' and is a marketing ploy.
Virgin has a fibre programme but seems to be in no hurry to get rid of much of its coax despite the rollout of other fibre, mainly Openreach.
I'd have been happy to stay with Virgin but after being ripped off while I waited for an alternative rather than sign another contract I was happy to get a good deal on OR fibre last month although it means an overhead cable rather than the Virgin footway duct.

I am in a similar situation.

Getting FTTC and 32 mpbs d/l. Cuts out when it rains. Have had openreach out but they won't climb the pole to test. Had to raise this as a complaint with ISP which is ongoing. Level 2 OR have closed the case as speeds and tests on a bright sunny day suggest the line is good. OP engineer told me that he would raise to line manager to get up the pole. Seems higher ups at OR wont touch this pole as too difficult to get at.

The pole is in a hard to reach area, between the back gardens of two sets of houses on two different roads. About 30 houses affected. Cannot get a cherry picker to the pole

Was in the gigabit area that had a blue dot on (under review) but has now changed to a yellow dot (no current plans). We must be one of those in an urban area that has been dropped as to expensive / diffcult to convert.

My frustation is finding out information about these areas and what, or if, the plans are.

In reply to a post by stamford13:

FTTC is of course not 'full fibre' and is a marketing ploy.

I've never seen it described as "full fibre" but just "fibre", but the problem is that the Advertising Standards authority let them get away with it for 8+ years, and only last year realised they had screwed up. Too late.

Virgin has a fibre programme but seems to be in no hurry to get rid of much of its coax despite the rollout of other fibre, mainly Openreach.

Its in no hurry as can deliver gigabit over coax without issue. So the reason to roll out FTTP is more to future proof the asset. In areas with no coax either VM themselves, or Nexfibre are installing pure XGS-PON and in those areas they also sell Giffgaff broadband. I hope the FibreUp project gets to me soon and replaces the cabinet that can't take the heat.

I'd have been happy to stay with Virgin but after being ripped off while I waited for an alternative rather than sign another contract I was happy to get a good deal on OR fibre last month although it means an overhead cable rather than the Virgin footway duct.

I would have jumped but nothing to jump to, so had to sign up with Vermin again.