stuck in a FTTP dead zone

Hi All,

Our estate was built in 2017 before FTTP was being deployed widely in new-build developments. The estate opposite us has had FTTP for a long time as it was part of an initial early trial/digital scotland rollout.

I have been following the BT FTTP checker and mapping out areas that can or cannot get FTTP and noticed that half of the 'morgan way' estate can get service now.

The DSLAM for our estate is on the roundabout, so those at the very back of the estate have very poor (sub 30mbit) FTTC connections.

We approached openreach and asked for a FTTPoD quote - openreach suggested the black line as a possible route via telegraph poles, with an install cost of £13k (!) which we were not prepared to pay - and it only enabled some properties at one side of the back street rather than taking a more sensible route of enabling the whole estate.

the aggregation node is roughly where the black dot is.

Anyone know how to get openreach to consider enabling our estate? we seem to be the only area locally who does not have access to either virgin or FTTP, as there is a mass-rollout of both which unfortunately all seem to stop before the roundabout on the diagram!

Thanks

diagram - https://imgur.com/F8wBvuN

Edited by deleted (Sun 08-Nov-20 00:29:24)

FTTPoD provides a fibre DP(CBT) roughly at the location of your existing copper DP. Those served by your copper DP can then order FTTP.

Could it be that what you need to investigate is a Community Fibre Programme ?

https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/community-...

Edited by Zarjaz (Sun 08-Nov-20 06:34:49)

Anyone know how to get openreach to consider enabling our estate?

Some people have been successful at having a couple missed houses or a missed street added to an upcoming rollout, before work has started.
I'm not aware of anyone just asking OpenReach to FTTP their estate and getting anywhere.

If it were that easy everyone would have FTTP and nobody would pay for FTTPoD.

There's a very high possibility they will come do your part of the estate sooner rather than later.
It's fully ducted and easy pickings. Cheap and quick to roll out to.

They are doing a considerable amount of retro new build work which is basically revisiting new builds and adding FTTP.
The monthly tracking of the FTTP rollout that Andrew does on this site shows that the retro new build work is a large chunk of what OpenReach are doing and the pace of it is increasing.

Keep an eye on the fibre checker at OpenReach.com to see when your address is planned for FTTP.

If you can get enough people on your estate to put themselves forward for a CFP, then Openreach may proceed on a "demand-led" basis (i.e. no up-front cost). Being a modern estate with good ducting helps too.

99,99999% trying worng trying to do a FOD where there is a large community of premsies especially on a recent new build estate - you should be trying to do all of it via a demand led CFP

fod is normally 99.999% the wrong answer to the wrong question

openreach were not going to do this - instead they were intending to add a telegraph pole at the back of the estate and feed us drops from there with FTTPoD. we currently have underground copper fed down from the top of the estate.

will look at the community fibre partnership as I think we are also eligible for gigabit vouchers.

unfortunately this has now turned out to be very strange.

openreach have enabled the majority of our estate for FTTP now - except both sides of the street at the very end of our development (who are the furthest away from the FTTC cabinet!).

I suspect but have no evidence that this is due to poor ducting, as the end of the development appears to be missing a sensible layout of openreach manholes and some people had to have the estate dug up to add telephone lines.

does anyone know what layout is required to deploy FTTP? do the manholes need to follow a particular pattern for overlay?

due to only 10-15 houses now missing out out of 100+ how do we move forward from here?

Edited by deleted (Sun 12-Dec-21 18:13:29)

In reply to a post by wifigeek:

does anyone know what layout is required to deploy FTTP?

None in particular. If the underground infrastructure isn't good enough, then as has already been said on this thread, Openreach may install poles just to deploy FTTP.

If Openreach have decided that your part of the area isn't commercially viable for them to upgrade, then you may be out of luck; however it's not impossible that your area was missed out by accident. A polite E-mail to the Openreach CEO may be able to get a definitive answer.

In reply to a post by wifigeek:

due to only 10-15 houses now missing out out of 100+ how do we move forward from here?

If it turns out that Openreach have decided not to upgrade your area for commercial reasons, then you may be able to go the CFP route. Expect it to be expensive, unless you're in an area where gigabit vouchers are still available.

We approached openreach and asked for a FTTPoD quote - openreach suggested the black line as a possible route via telegraph poles, with an install cost of £13k (!) which we were not prepared to pay - and it only enabled some properties at one side of the back street rather than taking a more sensible route of enabling the whole estate.

That doesn't make sense. If the estate was built in 2017 then it will be all ducted and they would be using that rather than putting up a series of telegraph poles.

A lot of estates like yours are getting FTTP retro fitted by Openreach because they are what you might describe as "low hanging fruit", in terms of getting as many people connected as quickly as possible for the lowest possible cost. If it is only five years old there should be new ducting to use that is likely to be free of blockages which makes it much cheaper and quicker.

If you are sub 30Mbps you may well be in line for intervention from R100 even though you are in the central belt. What does this say?

https://www.scotlandsuperfast.com/how-can-i-get-it/c...

As other have suggested a community fibre scheme would probably be the right approach if the whole or most of the estate has poor broadband. What happens if you are in line for R100 intervention though who knows.

Edited by jabuzzard (Sun 12-Dec-21 21:54:00)

The "estimates" given by Openreach for FTTPoD often bear no resemblance to the final price you have to pay.

If you are prepared to gamble a non-refundable £250+VAT to place an FTTPoD order, then you may be eligible for the new trial pricing which started on December 1st:

* £1625+VAT if you're within 500m of an existing splitter which covers your property (i.e. they only need to add a new CBT)
* £2650+VAT if you're within 500m of an existing aggregation node, and they need to install both the splitter and CBT.

On top of this you'll be paying a higher monthly fee for the first 12 months, although after this you can recontract with either the same or a different ISP at standard FTTP rates.

Unfortunately there's no way of finding out whether you're eligible short of paying the non-refundable deposit.