Possibility Of Getting FTTP In A Norfolk Village.

Our Friends are classed as Vulnerable due to age and Health problems, get Quite a lot of power cuts, Have No Mobile phone signal at all.

They live in a small Norfolk village (not being named) They do have FTTC (With the DSLAM outside of there gate) so get good broadband when it works ok.

They are Not in a FTTP area with no info on when it will get done, FTTPoD is available.

BT phone through smart hub 2 with BBU.

With several problem this year from the farmer bringing down a lots of across the road phone cables in the village with no broadband for days , frequent long power cuts and the problem with No Mobile signals (all mobiles).
If they needed an Ambulance if one of them was ill someone would have to drive out of the area to get a mobile signal to dial the emergency services.

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So I have been studying Google street view around there village and tying it in with https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL
getting the data about who has a working ONT fitted.

All 20 new build (with in 5 years) at the back of there garden have FTTP all fed underground ducts, One BT duct manhole cover is very close to there back gate.

Found 3 DP poles with 8 way CBT's on (Maybe someone has paid for FTTPod ? in three areas of the village ), one looks full but one with-in 150M from there house has 4 Spare ports not used.

What do you think the chance of them getting FTTP connection to one of these spare CBT ports or maybe connected onto the new built about 25M at the back of there house. But there is No funding for this area yet.

They could try and order an FTTP service. They will loose their landline. If they want to keep the number they could port the number to a Voip provided. If they get Openreach FTTP, Openreach will install an ONT. You need to consider where they would like it installed. It does need power.

An ISP such as https://www.aa.net.uk could handle such a change.

https://www.openreach.com/fibre-checker might tell you something

If there is no mobile signal maybe phones that can do wifi calling should be considered.

In reply to a post by APTMAN:

What do you think the chance of them getting FTTP connection to one of these spare CBT ports or maybe connected onto the new built about 25M at the back of there house. But there is No funding for this area yet.

Get them to fill in the Openreach Availability Checker Enquiry
https://www.openreach.com/forms/fibre-broadband-availability---customer-form

In the drop down for ‘Please tell us what your fibre broadband enquiry is about:’
select “I cannot get fibre but my neighbours can”

All of the problems you mention would still occur with FTTP.
Is it worth speaking to some of the Technology Enabled Care providers and asking how their systems deal with poor connection. Obviously a cost attached but, if they can provide a service, it might be worth it for peace of mind.

What do you think the chance of them getting FTTP connection to one of these spare CBT ports or maybe connected onto the new built about 25M at the back of there house

Slim. 150m ….. are there the required carrier poles in place en route already ? If not, are your friends happy to pay for all this , if offered ?
Just because you see a footway box 25m away, this doesn’t mean that what is inside is all that is required to make a connection to an FTTP infrastructure that wasn’t put in to serve their property. And again, are they happy to pay for the civils to provide underground access ?

If a farmer brought down the overhead previously, then who’s to say they wouldn’t bring down the fibre too next time ?

I would imagine the easiest, and possibly cheapest option for them would be a Starlink connection , and a VOIP based phone connected to that. They also need a more robust power back up.

If their health and age make them that vulnerable, should they maybe be considering moving to a location where all these issues are not ?

I was thinking along the same lines with Starlink and some form of good UPS backup (although depending on how long they need to account for power outages that could be quite a beefy setup) - perhaps solar panels and a battery would be better but a very expensive solution.

On the idea of moving if they are vulnerable then moving could actually be worse - the stress and strain of moving (especially if it includes selling and buying houses) can be enough to cause serious impact on health for vulnerable people. They also could be very attached to their current property and not wish to move somewhere else.

You have said they have good broadband from the existing FTTC so can't really use the vulnerable card as the downtime due to the farmer needs to be resolved rather than a non standard solution for just one property.

As you are aware from your own 4 port CBT not all ports are necessarily lit, for an 8 port cbt there should be at least 5 lit, I personally think your friend will have zero luck getting hooked up to the CBTs behind their property as Openreach only seem to lit enough ports for the target properties these days but its worth a shot.

Edited by PCJM40 (Wed 19-Aug-26 11:01:06)

cbts are usually mapped to properties, hence why something even 25m away can not be connected to your friends house.

Typically you can't just "add another cbt" or add your property since they are arranged into a 30 group called a pon configured to 30 premises.

have you looked at https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/index.php?tab=... to see your friends potential future rollout status.?

Thanks for the reply's .

They are on BT Digital Phone through the BT Smart Hub 2 Via FTTC at the moment so just need them to be connected to FTTP .

Good point about the overhead routed via 'Joint User Poles' Fibre from the spare CBT with the 4 spare ports on 150M away could still be taken down with the local farmer etc.

If they could get a underground feed from the housing estate to there back gate (then the fibre could go along the brick garden wall to the house to save digging there nice garden up) .

Looking a bit deeper about the new houses were build 18 years ago not 10 as I thought, there are 33 houses and on google street view I can see the road the new estate road comes off there is a BT CW3 Carriageway cover and then I can see were a trench has been in the tarmac road surface to the new houses, then along the pavement there are 5 x BT JF4 covers along the new road, I would think the spacing of them would say the first four have 8 way CBT's in and maybe the last one about 10M from our friends gate has a 4 way CBT.
So 4 x 8 way plus 1 x 4 way CBT = 36 ports so I would say there are 3 spare ports.

I am just waiting for our friends to have a good look for any BT manhole covers nearer there gate as Google street view does not go over there.

Yes Star-link is a possible if getting FTTP fails.

I am just waiting for our friends to have a good look for any BT manhole covers

You are missing the salient point …. just because there is a footway box near their property, it doesn’t then follow that this route can just be used to hook them up to whichever CBT you feel ought to provide them service. The line plant is planned to provide service to X amount of properties, this being set at the planning and design stage.

Elsewhere you mentioned that the street cabinet is literally outside their house. So when farmer Giles brought down some overhead D side copper … why did this affect them ??

You have said "thanks for the replies" but you haven't really listened to any of us.

What you are suggesting has a zero chance of happening. I repeat zero. You didn't look at the map link i gave but more interest in the cbts in the the distance ....

This isn't me be rude, but simply stating the truth.

Further if everyone did requested what you are suggesting - Or would spend a great deal of time ripping up their spine map.

No mobile signal from any of the networks?

For 999 calls a mobile will roam to whatever network it can see, rather than just the one you are subscribed too.

On the ambulance if their mobile and broadband will not let them communicate, then a neighbouring house would be first port of call.

On long power cuts, if a major worry then a more robust solution can be constructed but would cost them a fair chunk of money if you go beyond a reasonable UPS for phones/broadband.

What does the BDUK OMR data say for their address?
https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/broadband-map#...

Andrew

Indeed. Might be unpopular or distasteful to some palates, but Starlink ‘does the job’ (even though the boss may be a kn*b) and is genuinely a solution for ‘problems’ like this - little to no mobile cell coverage / flaky or unreliable terrestrial comms.

I’m in Ecuador at the moment and Starlink has transformed the internet experience of many ordinary folks here. Plenty of SL dishes on top of very modest homes and little businesses.

Predictability of pricing for the various tiers is what I and a lot of other subscribers find most irritating. Saying that £9 (had been £4.5 just a month ago, what was I saying) for Standby Mode gives enough inclusive low speed data to handle a VoIp service.

Otherwise as stated would advise the OP to escalate to Openreach by the manner suggested in my first post and/or failing that an appeal to the executive complaints team / via CEO email.

Autonomy of power supply would also be on my to do list. Various options these days including mini DC for around 4 to 6 hours and beyond that a sustainable solution (beyond having a genny) like solar are good 👍

I don't think the intention of this thread was about a solution for a vulnerable person, power outages or the local farmer bringing down the copper service, it was about finding a way to get the OP's friend onto FTTP via the back door (or back garden in this specific case). We can discuss Starlink and back up solutions as its an interesting topic but that wasn't the intention of the OP and thats why the OP ignored those helpful suggestions.

PS- This post was a general comment about this thread and not directed solely at your comments Pheasant

Edited by PCJM40 (Thu 20-Aug-26 15:04:24)

So do you not think they would build any 'redundancy' in the build ?.

So the bad Mr farmer Giles with his high trailer loads took out most of the cables that cross the main road and a side road in the village and caused havoc.

Our friends 'D' side goes on a mystery tour with an old 'Fiberglass' PCC diagonal across the road some way, using 4 carrier poles to get there.

As there are many 'Joint User Poles' used in the village any phone or fibre cables are only just the required height or below.

If there was a slim chance they got the the point were Civil's were involved and Openreach wanted to charge them then all they have to do is supply the ducts and I plus some locals help would soon get them in.

I think I have said before when I built our house I was supplied with all the ducting an I put it in.

And they will get the same response as anyone else - the network is designed the way it is, if FTTP isn't available then OR aren't going to change their minds just because someone asked for it.

Usually they'd keep sending the repair bill to the farmer until they ran out of money or learned to stop damaging the network

In reply to a post by APTMAN:

So do you not think they would build any 'redundancy' in the build ?.

So the bad Mr farmer Giles with his high trailer loads took out most of the cables that cross the main road and a side road in the village and caused havoc.

Our friends 'D' side goes on a mystery tour with an old 'Fiberglass' PCC diagonal across the road some way, using 4 carrier poles to get there.

As there are many 'Joint User Poles' used in the village any phone or fibre cables are only just the required height or below.

If there was a slim chance they got the the point were Civil's were involved and Openreach wanted to charge them then all they have to do is supply the ducts and I plus some locals help would soon get them in.

I think I have said before when I built our house I was supplied with all the ducting an I put it in.

Not really no. Attempting to “solution” this by counting joint boxes and poles will bear no fruit.

Your friends best course of action is really to try and appeal to Openreach via the public portal noted or executive escalation / via the CEO to see if anything can be done.

In reply to a post by APTMAN:

With several problem this year from the farmer bringing down a lots of across the road phone cables in the village with no broadband for days , frequent long power cuts and the problem with No Mobile signals (all mobiles). If they needed an Ambulance if one of them was ill someone would have to drive out of the area to get a mobile signal to dial the emergency services.

If there is no signal on all 4 licensed networks (Three still separate) then Ofcom would likely class that as a proper not spot, majority of those are in rural Scotland and rural Wales, and the "Shared Rural Network" has done a big job in solving these with government funded masts that are then open to all 4 operators.

If you are nearby, have a modern (last 3 or 4 years) mobile phone (Android or iPhone etc) on any network, go to the Settings and find the Network Selection screen, turn OFF the auto mode and let it scan. You only need to look for the 4 actual networks (Vodafone, O2, Three, or EE) as the virtual networks (Sky, giffgaff, SMARTY, Voxi, 1P Mobile, etc) are renting space on the actual companies.

I suspect you will find at least one network has signal, maybe weak to get indoors, depending on the building construction. From old stone walls that kill signal, to modern foil backed insulation, indoor mobile signals CAN be problematic.

Also see Ofcom's Map My Mobile service: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/mobile-coverage-checker

More about that here:
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/covera...

Edited by jchamier (Thu 20-Aug-26 22:31:26)

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

I don't think the intention of this thread was about a solution for a vulnerable person, power outages or the local farmer bringing down the copper service, it was about finding a way to get the OP's friend onto FTTP via the back door (or back garden in this specific case). We can discuss Starlink and back up solutions as its an interesting topic but that wasn't the intention of the OP and thats why the OP ignored those helpful suggestions.

PS- This post was a general comment about this thread and not directed solely at your comments Pheasant

Yup all good. My post was in also response to the other points noted in the OP about lack of mobile signal (all networks apparently), the frequent power cuts and then farmer dropping the copper line out of order - the same will happen with an overhead fibre feed and local power outages need be dealt with irrespective now (come January in any event) of whether it’s FTTP or copper. Still need to stand up that kit somehow.

As said, the only way really to get Openreach to do anything about FTTP in this situation is to escalate it up their chain, by the escalation methods already noted.

Whether the OP wants to take any notice of any of this is their call. Just trying to help 😀

Always enjoy reading your helpful comments as I do a fair few others on this forum.