Almost about to get full fibre

3 years ago, i spotted Openreach surveyors reviewing the ducts, checking the location of the boxes and presumably preparing to roll out full fibre. Nothing happened after that.

Until yesterday, when M Group contractors working on behalf of Openreach [not an altnet] opened up the boxes/covers into the ducts and then conducted TRR on the ducts [succesfully by putting the rod in and then roping the duct]. Then today, they’ve fully cabled the ducts and added the CBT in the box servicing my property.

So i guess full fibre is on the way to me very very soon, once they do a CBT test to confirm light is coming through, as presuming the backhaul has been done without needing to raise roadworks requests, so could see it all active in a couple of weeks. Happy days that finally, the long saga of waiting for someone to install full fibre is at an end and i can join the 21st Century and be done with 80/20 part-fibre which isn’t keeping up with my data/speed demands.

Edited by some_edin_guy (Thu 10-Sep-26 12:54:49)

So i guess full fibre is on the way to me very very soon,

Don’t get too excited. These roll outs are often done piecemeal. The CBT for my place was sat for a month before it was connected to the splitter. Then when the contractor came to get the fibre to the front of the property, he didn’t complete as no light at CBT … it dragged on for a good while longer.

Many wait much longer too.

I hope you buck the trend.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

So i guess full fibre is on the way to me very very soon,

Don’t get too excited. These roll outs are often done piecemeal. The CBT for my place was sat for a month before it was connected to the splitter. Then when the contractor came to get the fibre to the front of the property, he didn’t complete as no light at CBT … it dragged on for a good while longer.

Many wait much longer too.

I hope you buck the trend.

In my case, the CBT was already spliced onto the fibre and the unconnected end of the fibre that the contractor used was unspooled down the duct [automatically, as he just sat on the edge of the box while the cable went down by itself] all the way to, presumably, another team who i couldn’t see and who would receive the unspooled fibre to connect it onto the other splitter/manifold serving this area. So just assuming its all gonna be completed very quickly [within a month or so].

ours once the spline route to the cbt was done and connected to the agg node, the rfs was 7 to 10 days. My cbt, the splice trays had to be redone, twice from the original install in 20/21, with one accident occuring - the splice cylinder/pill thingy got droped along with a few swear words and a quick resplice.

In reply to a post by some_edin_guy:

the CBT was already spliced onto the fibre

This is how CBTs come by default with different tail lengths, Zarjaz was giving you good advice not to get your hopes up until it does go live as there are various stages both on site and back in the exchange before a service can go live.

It’s all good chief 👍 There won’t be any obvious indication once it’s ready for service. I swear they employed invisible garden gnomes to install into the chambers here. Nobody saw anything and they didn’t bother updating the DB either 😅

Saying that just keep an eye on the various trackers.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by some_edin_guy:

the CBT was already spliced onto the fibre

This is how CBTs come by default with different tail lengths, Zarjaz was giving you good advice not to get your hopes up until it does go live as there are various stages both on site and back in the exchange before a service can go live.

yeah cbt install april 20(or april 21 - can't remember which). Nicely going, and then stopped for 3 to 4 years to april 24 - which is when it went live.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by some_edin_guy:

the CBT was already spliced onto the fibre

This is how CBTs come by default with different tail lengths, Zarjaz was giving you good advice not to get your hopes up until it does go live as there are various stages both on site and back in the exchange before a service can go live.

I'm aware of the advice, however given all the "surveying" happened 3 years ago and they've already been building across the exchange area for the past 2 years (admittedly extremely slowly and with a lot of new poles in the older part of the town), its more likely that they've arrived to actually deliver full fibre here.

Unlike some areas, large parts of the deployment here have been without significant roadworks in use (except notices about putting up a pole somewhere to string a wire to another pole that is then used to serve full fibre, the odd blockage clearance in ducts or repairing covers). Even the cabling and TRR work they've done today and yesterday came with no roadworks notices as its on an adopted road which feeds a private estate. Most of the deployment has been stealthily done, which rather suggests they don't need to do too much work to roll out here.

I'm obviously going to keep my expectations low, but I very much doubt I'll be waiting another 3 years for it to go live, given that the only network competition here is just Virgin Media, who haven't done anything with their network since deploying it in 2018 (though I bet I will see nexfibre out and about in the area within the next year, now that Openreach have done their bit)

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

It’s all good chief 👍 There won’t be any obvious indication once it’s ready for service. I swear they employed invisible garden gnomes to install into the chambers here. Nobody saw anything and they didn’t bother updating the DB either 😅

Saying that just keep an eye on the various trackers.

Yeah I'm probably going to be monitoring the trackers.

Openreach's checker has been largely useless as it just keeps saying "We'll be building in this area in the next year", and apart from the wording change last year, it hasn't changed from that status since I got the original email back in 2023 to say "You're part of our build plans" lol. I'm expecting it to just go from "We'll be building in this year in the next year" to "Available to order now" with no intermediary steps lol.

I've largely just been using the BT Wholesale Checker and TBB's own labs maps to monitor rollout progress, which seems far more accurate than Openreach's checker these days. I'd wager Openreach aren't updating their database as much that the checker uses, hence the long delays/misleading statuses.

I kind of expect to get the notification within the next month or two to indicate its ready for service tbh. Can't imagine Openreach would be fine just stucking fibre and CBT's in the ducts and not make money off them, given they've waited 3 years between the initial duct surveying and actually getting a contractor to do the spine works lol.

Edited by some_edin_guy (Thu 10-Sep-26 19:49:07)

In reply to a post by some_edin_guy:

3 years ago, i spotted Openreach surveyors reviewing the ducts, checking the location of the boxes and presumably preparing to roll out full fibre. Nothing happened after that.

Until yesterday, when M Group contractors working on behalf of Openreach [not an altnet] opened up the boxes/covers into the ducts and then conducted TRR on the ducts [succesfully by putting the rod in and then roping the duct]. Then today, they’ve fully cabled the ducts and added the CBT in the box servicing my property.

So i guess full fibre is on the way to me very very soon, once they do a CBT test to confirm light is coming through, as presuming the backhaul has been done without needing to raise roadworks requests, so could see it all active in a couple of weeks. Happy days that finally, the long saga of waiting for someone to install full fibre is at an end and i can join the 21st Century and be done with 80/20 part-fibre which isn’t keeping up with my data/speed demands.

Not intending to hijack the thread, but just to add my own experience of this.

At one premises I’ve been monitoring for availability of FTTP, I decided we couldn’t wait any longer, due to worries about losing the landline number. It’s a business so that’s a high priority.

Double and triple checked with Openreach and CityFibre and “no plans for full fibre”. So I ordered a new FTTC to allow me to go ahead with telephone changes as well.

Came the installation one day last week. Got chatting with the Openreach guy, and got onto the topic of FTTP. “Well you know there’s a CBT right outside your door” he said. Right enough, he opened up the chamber, there it was. He showed me on the map on his phone, I’ve got a picture which includes the CBT number.

It’s annoying to think that maybe we’ll be able to go through another installation before this new contract is up. There’s probably a number of these instances all over, so you’re not alone. Partially installed, not (yet) available.

Did you directly contact Openreach about the CBT?

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Did you directly contact Openreach about the CBT?

No, the job's done, new FTTC up & running.
I will though send the info to the ISP (one of the smaller well regarded ones).

In reply to a post by clyde123:

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Did you directly contact Openreach about the CBT?

w

No, the job's done, new FTTC up & running.
I will though send the info to the ISP (one of the smaller well regarded ones).

Fair enough. I’m not alien to the situation, I had a similar thing at the back end of 2024.

You can just complete the Openreach form rather than having to contact an ISP

”Well you know there’s a CBT right outside your door” he said. Right enough, he opened up the chamber, there it was. He showed me on the map on his phone, I’ve got a picture which includes the CBT number.

But is it lit ? Is it ready for service ? Has the CBT been fitted to provide service to one specific business near your place ? (i.e. a private wire)

An aside, if you got the Openreach person’s name or ID …. please do not mention it to whomever you contact next. They have shared sensitive information, which they ought not to have done. A warning as a result is one thing, but a disciplinary, or the sack, are possible outcomes for the foolhardy fellah.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

”Well you know there’s a CBT right outside your door” he said. Right enough, he opened up the chamber, there it was. He showed me on the map on his phone, I’ve got a picture which includes the CBT number.

But is it lit ? Is it ready for service ? Has the CBT been fitted to provide service to one specific business near your place ? (i.e. a private wire)

An aside, if you got the Openreach person’s name or ID …. please do not mention it to whomever you contact next. They have shared sensitive information, which they ought not to have done. A warning as a result is one thing, but a disciplinary, or the sack, are possible outcomes for the foolhardy fellah.

Morning Zarjaz,
No it seems not yet ready for service.
Ref the map and the engineer - not to worry, I know what you're saying. I learned that lesson many years ago.
But I do appreciate being made aware that at least the location is on someone's plans.