As others have said - This is likely a BDUK Infill project, and whilst your local team may not appear to know they funded the 11 properties, chances are they are doing so because they full under the sub 30mpbs BDUK threshold.

Openreach will sometimes expand their own commercial rollout alongside these BDUK infills if they think it's commercially viable, but as you've experienced, they may only go after the properties they need to.
In Derbyshire, they've regularly targeted small numbers of properties, which are near by to slightly larger villages but fall outside of the 30MPB threshold from existing FTTC cabs, and OR has then not expanded or rolled out commercially any further.

Openreach aren't a charity, they are a business nor do they owe anyone FTTP or need to be held accountable by anybody bar their Customer ISP's. The only way we will blanket cover the UK with FTTP is by way of massive government investment in both the cost of actually implementing it, but also people to do it and plan it.

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by TechGuyUK:

OR say the properties were upgraded to FTTP "Because they could not get 30Mbps"

This has all the hallmarks of a BDUK rollout including the OR comment above, you won't be the first person to find out BDUK don't know their [censored] from their elbow.

I'll second that, for our FTTP neither BT/OR, or local council BDUK leason officer had a clue what was happening, it was only when I contacted another council officer who had older/longer contacts that we found out it was BDUK funded. So half our village is FTTP the other half has the fibre running past them but are still on FTTC.

100% that will have been done by BDUK probably as part of gainshare

its the only likley explantion and it could only have been done if those premises did not reach 30 meg and none others would have been done as they could not have been funded by the programme

the cab done under commercial would have been as FTTC and tthat could have been now anything up to 5 - 10 years ago

Not my network and i dont know how OR decide what and where to deploy, but I have to agree with the OPs comments that running fibre up a cul de sack and not provisioning for the other houses on that same street seems like an incredible waste of time and resources when OR are invested in a massive nationwide roll out.

Once the teams are already there to deploy surely the cost per premise passed at that point for the extras is negligible by comparison to coming back later and as such you'd think would make sense both financially and from purely the numbers game.

People cite nearby villages in this thread or streets close by , but that's a whole different ball game than the same cul de sac, bypassing a few houses in the same street.

Even the fttpod scenario quoted doesn't really seem to make any financial sense when you figure they ran fibre right up the road but don't consider it a good long term plan to provide for the few extras 'as they were there anyway'

If i paid for fttpod then connecting more along he way would be quite a big ask given the distances between properties and the amount of junctions or cbts required each serving maybe one or two houses.

Although I totally understand your frustration, as I am in a virtually identical scenario, I’ve come to accept that OR have shareholders, who want to make money. My advice is go down the community fibre partnership route and see what the projected build cost would be and whether your eligible for gigabit vouchers. Due to the close proximity of the network and the small number of houses the excess build charge is likely to be fairly small.

I'd guess, and we are all guessing here, duct issues. Like they have them and your houses doesn't.

In reply to various posts...

No lack of Ducts - they cleared the ducts and ran the fibre up the whole road to the end, I have ducting at my front door as does every house to the nearest underground chamber.

My view is that OpenReach are supposed to be running out Fibre broadly to the whole country and logically should do it in the most efficient manner and use of resources and manpower - this is a ideal goal, obviously and there will always be exceptions but...

If we expect this road and area to be upgraded in the next 4 years, along with most of the country, then is makes sense to do a logical area like a whole postcode and tick it off as completed... Not do a bit - come back again and again to do a bit more, that is CLEARLY inefficient - unless the incremental funding provides a financial incentive to do it that way, in which case OR are profiteering from the rollout at our expense AND stretching it out over a longer timeframe as well. There's only one benefit to this and it is to OR.

The argument that these 11 properties were upgraded because a couple were not getting 30Mbps, where the stats indicate a wort case impacted speed of 28Mbps or so is equally silly.. After all, what exactly stops working at say 28Mbps that works at 30Mbps? The OR response of "Quick , under 30Mbps, get FTTP in there ASAP" just makes no sense at all. Surely, there are areas with much lower speeds that would benefit far more? and in either case, get the best value for the engineers on the ground by knocking off a whole postcode and not creating a "Digital divide" within one street.

Edited by TechGuyUK (Sat 13-Nov-21 11:29:22)

In reply to a post by Whitehall11:

Openreach aren't a charity, they are a business nor do they owe anyone FTTP or need to be held accountable by anybody bar their Customer ISP's. The only way we will blanket cover the UK with FTTP is by way of massive government investment in both the cost of actually implementing it, but also people to do it and plan it.

Openreach are receiving massive direct and indirect subsidies to provide FTTP infrastructure. Any organisation receiving government funding needs to be accountable to tax payers.

In reply to a post by Woolwich:

In reply to a post by Whitehall11:

Openreach aren't a charity, they are a business nor do they owe anyone FTTP or need to be held accountable by anybody bar their Customer ISP's. The only way we will blanket cover the UK with FTTP is by way of massive government investment in both the cost of actually implementing it, but also people to do it and plan it.

Openreach are receiving massive direct and indirect subsidies to provide FTTP infrastructure. Any organisation receiving government funding needs to be accountable to tax payers.

I am presuming that Openreach satisfy that accountability by fulfilling any contracts which they take on as a result of public funding. Where they are investing on their own account, they have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders to make a return based on their best judgement of the overall benefit to the business. If they have decided that they will get a better financial return investing elsewhere or a better benefit in terms of social accountability then that is where they will put their resources. That may not be palatable to you but it is how business works.

I'm Sorry but this is completely ignoring the simple facts...

EVEN IF OR has a contract to upgrade a couple of properties and do another 9 because the route to the same distribution point or underground chamber, it STILL makes FAR more sense to also do the other properties passed in the process as part of their national rollout at their own expense, because it is overall cheaper and faster than sending contractors back 2 , 3 or more times.

What you are suggesting is that it is not possible to allocate more than one cost centre to the work being done and that the paperwork is more costly than actual people on the ground, travel, scheduling and so on.

But hey - If OR can get PAID MORE to do it piecemeal and take longer, making more profit and dragging out the rollout for years longer than needed, then yes I understand they will most likely do that, UNLESS they are held accountable to provide the rollout as fast and economically as possible,

If they are NOT being held to this remit, then they are not offering the best value to us, the end users and tax payers - and are not fit for purpose.

Edited by TechGuyUK (Sat 13-Nov-21 12:23:47)