In reply to a post by darren_mccoy:

Hey there, I recently got a desktop quote of £21800 + VAT = £26160. My question is... If i get the more accurate quote how long will it last?

30 days.

Technically, you're not paying for a quote. You're actually placing an order, signing a contract for installation of the service. When the final pricing comes back, you have 30 days to accept it and pay the balance. If you don't, then the order is cancelled, and the OpenReach cancellation charge at this point is £245+VAT. That is: you're not paying for a survey, you're paying to withdraw from the order contract you've signed.

If you place another order later, then you're starting from square one again.

Note: the people at Cerberus are good. If they tell you something, it's almost certainly correct!

In reply to a post by darren_mccoy:

Also how does the houses passed discount work? They say there are three houses passed but there are eleven housed on my country road to the green box and even more in the opposite direction to the exchange.

The discount is already applied by the time you get your final quote.

"Properties passed" is a technical term which means "properties where service is made available". Normally this means the properties served by the same Distribution Point (DP). This might be an underground chamber, or a pole. So "three properties passed" could mean that a single pole serves three properties (or yourself plus three others), and this is where they would install a fibre block terminal to serve those properties.

These are the only ones which will have the infrastructure available to be able to take up FTTP service. The fibre cable may run "past" other properties on its way from the fibre aggregation node to your distribution point, but that's irrelevant. Those properties can't take service - they won't break into the fibre cable - so there's no discount for them.

In reply to a post by darren_mccoy:

I have beed reading here how some quotes are vastly different from the desktop quote, I don't want to save up £26k and then find out it will cost half of that. That would be nice don't get me wrong, but would mean i wasted six months saving.

Will I have to pay for a new quote in a years time if I pay for a quote now?

Yes. There's a summary of the estimates and final quotes reported in the forum in this spreadsheet.

Given that your quote is so high, it's hard to give a good indication of what your final quote might be. There's a good chance that it won't exceed 75% of the original quote, which works out at just under £20K including VAT. If you're lucky it might be as low as 45%, or £12K.

My advice is: if you really want the service then get a loan facility agreed, place the order, then take up as much of the loan as you need when you get the final quote.

If you don't want to take a loan, then:

1. Decide how much you'd be willing to pay
2. Start saving
3. When you're about 3 months away from reaching the target, place your order

It's a bit of a poker game. On the one hand, OpenReach could aggressively increase the pricing of FTTPoD, or even withdraw the product entirely. On the other hand, if you wait a bit you might find that some fibre infrastructure is built nearby which it would be cheaper to connect to.

Good luck!

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

If you're only getting 15 Mb/s on FTTC then you will be around 1 mile away from your FTTC cabinet, not half a mile

Both figures could be correct: it might be half a mile as the crow flies, but one mile by the route taken by the cable (which may not be the "obvious" walking route either)

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

If you're only getting 15 Mb/s on FTTC then you will be around 1 mile away from your FTTC cabinet, not half a mile

Both figures could be correct: it might be half a mile as the crow flies, but one mile by the route taken by the cable (which may not be the "obvious" walking route either)

Good point, I've edited my post accordingly

Wow, thanks for all the help. You've all been very informative. I think i'll save up 90% of the money then send off for a quote, i'll let you know how it goes.

Great. From placing the order, to the surveyor coming out to do the survey, to getting the final quote back, is likely to take about 2 months (for me it was over 3 months)

i placed the order on 20th November, just chased up and they will be contacting me w/c21st for payment, then w/c 28th for the survey. Will update once i have the figure, fingers crossed its not the full £8900 desktop quote (or more!).
There is some native FTTP about 0.5 miles from my house, so fingers crossed!

Well this isn't going well ...

Openreach have advised that the Civils estimate has been cancelled as no Permission to Dig form has been received and dig is required on Private Land.

.... and had you previously signed the permission to dig form ?

They will not carry out any civils work on private land without it.

It is not me that is being asked to sign the form.

I know this has been asked before but I can't find which thread it was in.

Have any private individuals applied for FTTPoD through Cerebus?
If so, what did you put in the company field on the application form?