FTTC Will the January switch off affect me?

We had a visit from an Openreach engineer in the summer. He wanted to use an existing duct to run the fibre cable from a hole in the ground on the grass verge to a socket on the wall of the house. We were expecting to be offered a choice about where the cable would be sited. This is what Openreach's documents seem to say. We explained that we use the internet at the other end of the house and that we have experienced connection issues in the past when the router was placed in the part of the house he was suggesting. We said that we would prefer it to be installed at the other end. He said he couldn't/wouldn't do that and cancelled the installation. He said we could stay on FTTC if we wanted to - there was no need to change.

I should say that our current set up hear in Milton Keynes is just fine. The speed is good enough to meet our needs and the service is very reliable.

We heard about the cut off date and phoned BT. We waited over an hour to speak to somebody and then were told that the only type of contract BT will be issuing in the future would be full fibre.

Does that mean we have to accept the kind of installation they offer? All BT say is that they will message Openreach and ask them to contact us.

We can't run a cable from the router to the room we mainly use. Could the router be placed in a cabinet to hide it with a booster to extend it's range? If the router is placed where the cable comes in it will not look good and that's important to us.

I would be grateful for any advice.

FTTC will still exist but as SOGEA i.e. no copper voice service, but VDSL2 can still arrive over the copper wire you have now.

If you don't have a voice service today with your BT broadband you are probably already on SOGEA

The choice on ONT location for full fibre is such that a difficult long run will be refused. Or put another way when you say 'we can't run a cable from the router to the room we mainly use' the 'can't' probably also applies to Openreach.

You can have the ONT installed in one place, and run ethernet to a more suitable location for the router.

At some point and already happening in some areas, future orders on openreach network are always full fibre this has been ongoing for a good couple of years now

Boosters which are connected by wireless only can be quite hit and miss. And if you hide the router in a cabinet you are likely to need a booster, wired back to the router.

We have no idea of the type of house you live in, but regardless, you will require some form of cable to your required router position for a reliable connection. So that is either the OR fibre or your CAT6 cable inside or outside the house. Something must give here and if you live in a mid terrace, it is likely you will need something inside the house.

OR are probably not going to stress themselves too much about solving this, they can just move on to the next job, so you really need to come up with a feasible solution for yourself. This forum can help, but we need a lot more info about your house to really understand the problem.