In reply to a post by Pheasant:

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

Why don't you also get a quote from FluidOne? AFAIK they don't have an exchange surcharge.

My understanding is that only one FTTPoD quote for a particular premises can be raised/worked on at a time via OpenReach. You cannot have two or more simultaneous quotes raised for the same service via different ISPs, they lock it out.

Therefore I would need to "conclude" my quote with Cerberus. However as I have now undertaken to pay for the survey (£250+VAT) to to get a final install charge I would no doubt lose this fee and have to pay it over again should I decide not to proceed.

I very much doubt it, but if anyone knows if the final build charge is somehow "portable" (between ISPs) or OpenReach will honour the confirmed build charge, if going ahead via a different ISP then the quote was originally raised through, then please do let me know.

Think of it this way:

Site survey is an activity that occurs as a part of a full order, which you have now placed.
If you cancel once you have the results (before proceeding, but for whatever reason), you pay for the effort involved so far, i.e. the survey work.

If you proceed, you are not charged this cost (or at least, OR & Wholesale don't charge this).

If you did cancel, but now knowing the survey results then raised a new order, they may survey it again, but it's practically going to come out the same/similar, so you'll only be charged a second time if you cancelled that order for some reason.

We've actually re-placed an in-flight order when the commercials changed and a re-survey was not required, cost was just recalculated based on the prior survey results and accepted to progress.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

It is a bit like buying a house but then not owning it, how would you feel about that?

Lots of people do, it's called leasehold, mostly flats, but recently houses have also been sold as leasehold.

Cars too, leasing them has become increasingly popular.

Leasing is more akin to rental though - you pay for the time you use it as you would with renting a house. With a car you pay for depreciation as well whereas houses mostly appreciate.

I'd say it's more like when a new housing estate is built. If you want water, electricity or gas, the developer (and hence indirectly the house purchaser) will have to pay for it to be brought in. That's surely the right thing; it would be unfair for anyone else to pay. But once it's built, the utility will own and manage the asset and charge for its use.

Another comparison is the roads in the new estate, which again are paid for by the developer, but are normally "adopted" by the local authority.

In that situation, it's possible for homeowners to assert "ownership" of the road they paid for, by letting it remain private and unadopted. This does happen sometimes, but normally people see the benefit of handing over responsibility. (Of course, the local authority is not a for-profit corporation, and that might make a difference to some people)

It seems to me that a fibre backbone is a similar shared-use resource to a road network. Certainly, there's a small part which is dedicated to you: the bit from the DP to your house, like your driveway connecting to the road. But the vast majority is potentially usable by many people, and claiming "ownership" over it would imply preventing its use by anyone else. That is, you'd be putting a toll booth on your private road.

In the long term, OpenReach may be able to use this resource to serve other people, and therefore save some construction cost - although not as much as you might think, compared to doing a full roll out from scratch.

If you don't think that getting fibre sooner isn't worth the cost, then you don't have to buy. Or you can try to persuade other people nearby to join in and share the cost.

I'd say it's more like when a new housing estate is built. If you want water, electricity or gas, the developer (and hence indirectly the house purchaser) will have to pay for it to be brought in.

Indeed, as I said yesterday in this same thread here

Hi

Well had my initial estimate back and unsurprisingly it's


Estimated Build Cost: in excess of £39,000.00 ex VAT
The build charge includes the estimate for the work and materials required to deliver the service. It also includes the connection charge.


However what i cant figure is the premises passed ,

Number of premises passed for FTTP: 1

Is that additional to my own ? or just mine
Having walked and driven the routes out from our house, Properties are very far apart some up fairly long farm type gravel tracks in the 100's of meters but to get to the nearest cabinets or what i guess are BT road hatches you have to pass more than 1 property.

Still mulling over paying for the survey, its going to be expensive but based on the variance in peoples estimated and quoted prices I thought it would be worth a punt to get an actual price, I'd thought however the option of seriously talking someone else into a cost share might be viable but it doesnt look good.

Gary

Edited by Swac3 (Thu 19-Jul-18 19:12:56)

I think that's additional to your own.

It's in addition to your own, but it is NOT every property the fibre passes.
It is ONLY those properties that share the same Distribution Point.

With the kind of layout you describe I would only expect 1 or 2 (or even none) to be counted as "passed".
Openreach don't help themselves with the terminology but it has been repeated on here dozens of times that it isnt literally the premises the fibre passes.

With my area the fibre from the Agg Node to my property probably passes 400+ properties. Installation would end up free!

Yeah, actually reading the entire email, does make the distinction clear, 1 additional.

This is that part that seems odd to me tho John83, In your case passing hundreds which i guess have different routes to their cab/AG potentially, But out here given the single track road and houses spread along its length, i'd figured that as i'd be basically funding the entire run if i was to order,they would service as many properties as possible along the way as well as extending the fibre reach.

That said maybe the cost of whatever junction boxes would be required for that is deemed unjustifiable based on the off chance those properties decided they wanted native fttp. or

If some houses closest to the AG are within range of an fttc cab would OR not include them in the passed number? , i could see that logically.

Still pondering paying for the survey. Its going to be a painful result regardless, but given the realistic deployment timescale of R100 in Scotland and the USO doing nothing in reality for a huge number of the slowest due to the cap at £3400, fine if like me you could absorb a chunk of excess charges but for many that cap just means potentially by 2033.

Looking at this as a total write off of funds vs a potential 10years plus with no improvement. Of course that might turn out to be false but i dont have a crystal ball.