That's good to know. I have a neighbour who might be interested once my FTTPoD has installed.

You also have to factor in the first year's rental uplift (100-62.50 = 37.50 per month, so an extra £450+VAT over the year)

Well my recent progress...

The roadworks were meant to start a week ago but nobody turned up, was rescheduled to a week later. This morning a vehicle turned up with a digger, what appeared to be the underground chamber, and various other bits and pieces. They unloaded the digger, did something for an hour or two, then packed up everything (including the barricades and signs) and never returned. They didn't install the underground chamber so I can only assume something has prevented them from continuing at the moment.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

That's good to know. I have a neighbour who might be interested once my FTTPoD has installed.

You also have to factor in the first year's rental uplift (100-62.50 = 37.50 per month, so an extra £450+VAT over the year)

Yes, but I paid £5k install and am paying £315/mo for three years (25 months to go) to get it here so I think that's a bit of a bargain!

Ixel, it looks like we are both at a similar stage in the build. I'm awating 93m of new ducts to be "installed" along with a blockage clearance.

The 93m of ducts sounds like a huge job! Anyone know what this actually means?

When did you place your order/accept the build cost?

In reply to a post by Ixel:

Well my recent progress...

The roadworks were meant to start a week ago but nobody turned up, was rescheduled to a week later. This morning a vehicle turned up with a digger, what appeared to be the underground chamber, and various other bits and pieces. They unloaded the digger, did something for an hour or two, then packed up everything (including the barricades and signs) and never returned. They didn't install the underground chamber so I can only assume something has prevented them from continuing at the moment.

I've had a couple of incidents like that.

My confirmed order went in end of June 2018, and is still ongoing. The route to the fibre aggregation node is approx 1.2km, through existing ducts all the way, apart from 34m of new duct identified in the survey.

In the first few months they were dealing with blocked ducts along part of the route nearest me. At one point they had to uncover a buried box, which was dug up and reinstated twice.

Then they had to install the new duct. In October they came along, barricaded the area and dug a small test hole, left it like that for about two weeks, then put a temporary filler in and removed the barricades. A couple of weeks later they came back and put in permanent filler. A few more weeks after that they came and dug it all up again to do the duct installation for real.

I am told the problem was with the wording on the original permit, which was unclear whether the work was in footway or carriageway.

They are now working further back along the route, and keep discovering new problems. December update identified another stretch of footway with duct blockages, requiring multi-way traffic signals (now scheduled for mid-Feb). Then in January they identified that a further 164m of new duct would be required, due to congestion and multiple blockages - not yet scheduled.

It's great that they're doing all this work, but it would have been so much faster if they'd identified all the problems along the route when they started!

In reply to a post by rman:

Ixel, it looks like we are both at a similar stage in the build. I'm awating 93m of new ducts to be "installed" along with a blockage clearance.

The 93m of ducts sounds like a huge job! Anyone know what this actually means?

When did you place your order/accept the build cost?

Its one of those how long is a piece of string. Its can be quick and cheap with the right road/verge layout or a right PITA if you dig a busy road or other pipes are in the way. Same with blockage clearance. It can be small roots or mud or the whole thing has collapsed and has to be completely rebuilt.

Google something like "fibre ducts build explanation" and you'll find lots of guides to what they're doing

Well I've received my desktop quote back from Cerberus, the estimated cost is £14,100 + vat.

According to the email, I'm approximately 1000 - 1499m from the aggregate node & 12 properties would be past.
I think I'm going to pay the £300 deposit tomorrow to see what the final cost would be, although I won't hold my breath, it will come down too much.

Some good news. An Openreach entry has popped up on Roadworks.org for unblocking ducts, it is just around the corner from me so hopefully this issue is getting resolved. Dates are 24-26 so it is soon.

I guess it could be for something unrelated but it is definitely on the route to our house and is an Openreach entry to unblock ducts. I'm still not sure what the private permission was all about - maybe it was from the developer but I thought the roads were adopted years ago.

So my update is that OR claimed to have cleared all the blocked ducts and the OR guys were on site this morning to run the cable from the DP to my house. However it turns out the final section of duct outside my house is still blocked - they reported it after Christmas but it hasn't actually been fixed so they have left my fibre cable coiled up in the pavement box one house away. So now back to waiting for OR to clear ducts again - very frustrating!

One strange fact is that the DP is now about 15 houses away not near my house - I'm expecting just the three neighbours either side to be enabled for FTTP once mine is installed. They said anyone having FTTP will have to have a cable run from this DP and they reckon there is only room in the ducts for a couple more FTTP cables so not sure who is going to end up with native FTTP at this point.

Payment went out yesterday, so hopefully my survey will take place next week.