In reply to a post by emcacc:

and regarding CBT's being reserved for their intended addresses only - i'm assuming they still won't connect my property even if the nearest CBT has zero utilised connections?

That's correct: there will be a fixed set of properties (UPRNs) associated with that CBT, whether they use it today or not.

In reply to a post by emcacc:

MJ Quinn have been carrying out various works on the road in the past few months so maybe the intention is to eventually offer native fttp at my address even though it currently shows as not planned on the OR checker.

That is certainly possible, i.e. it has been known for FTTP to arrive at a property with no prior warning. I have also seen a couple of cases where people have ordered FTTPoD and had the order rejected with the reason that FTTP is being rolled out already (even though no announcement was made of this). I don't know whether they got their survey fee refunded though.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

I wonder if there’s going to be any appetite from Openreach to extend the near network trial beyond May?

I guess that's the point of a trial. They'll measure whether their actual costs come in close to the fixed price, and how often they exceed it substantially. The other point of a trial is to assess demand. If they get hardly any extra FTTPoD orders as a result of this offer, then they may just not bother keeping it.

I think it's small beer to them anyway. Suppose they do 100 FTTPoD orders per month which are *all* at the fixed cost of £1625 + £250 survey. That's only £2.25 million per year. Of course, that's all network extension which they'd have to do themselves sooner or later, but it's still a drop in the ocean, and more work than doing a large area in one fell swoop.

It's a shame that both BTW and the SP put their own chunk of markup on this, as it nearly doubles the total cost, making the payback much riskier for the end user.

Given that commercial rollouts are passing some 50K premises / week on average, I guess FoD is really small beer for them. This trial akin to the beer mat under the small beer!

Openreach I’m sure know their cost base pretty well. They been doing this for a long while and having passed 6.5M odd premises you’d hope they’d have figured it out

Seemed to me like FoD demand was flagging, based on levels of natter about it on here. Not that it was surprising given the increase in average price was probably discouraging the punters - coupled with the huge increase in the commercial footprint over the last 2-3 years. Perhaps this was a trial to see by how much they could increase interest in a flagging product by lopping 5K or so from the previous “floor” price…for not very much work (and even less risk).

I just noticed Cerberus have increased their minimum contract term for FTTPoD to 24 months for all speeds (previously it was 12 months, except 24 for the very slow 40/2 "basic" service)

Apart from locking you in for an extra year, it's also a hidden price rise, because you're paying an extra 12 months at the FoD rate, which is higher than Cerberus' own standard FTTP pricing.

Can't blame them though. It must get harder and harder to make a business case for continuing to sell FoD at retail, and employing staff to manage the delivery process.

I genuinely like Cerberus. I think they earned their fee when we did our FTTPoD install a couple of years ago. However I’m glad not to be repeating the exercise in 2022!

Hi there,

We recently reduced the rental costs on FOD. For example. FoD Pro (300/50Mbps) was £80+VAT per month and it is now £60+VAT per month. The service does now have a 24 month contract, but this is no different to many other providers, FOD is not like any other broadband service as it includes the network build and this involves considerable time and resources on our part to keep the project on track. Obviously, at the end of the contract, the customer is free to move to any other provider offering Openreach FTTP so there is no long term tie-in unlike some of the alt-net offerings.

One thing to note, the near-network trial ended on 31st May and there are no plans to extend it. Any FOD order placed up until the end of the trial will be priced as "near-network" if they are eligible. New orders will be priced using standard Openreach pricing tools.

FOD will be a valuable and useful tool for areas deemed as "Voucher Priority Areas" (VPAs) by BDUK once they have established the scope of any larger government-funded FTTP roll-outs in any given areas. The premises that are not covered by those procurement plans will, by their very nature, be hard to reach and likely be in small clusters of properties rather than in a contiguous settlement. This is the sort of scenario that works well for FOD and, although it was never intended to be a high volume product, does offer a solution for residents in these locations. Without FOD, some people could be waiting a very long time indeed.

I hope this is useful.

Cerberus Networks

In reply to a post by Buggs8:

In reply to a post by emcacc:

Thanks for the reply - incredibly helpful!
I've now contacted OR via their form to see what's going on with the infastructure in my area.

and regarding CBT's being reserved for their intended addresses only - i'm assuming they still won't connect my property even if the nearest CBT has zero utilised connections?

MJ Quinn have been carrying out various works on the road in the past few months so maybe the intention is to eventually offer native fttp at my address even though it currently shows as not planned on the OR checker.

You will get comments from others saying I am talking bull but ignore it - I am not..

It took just over 6 months to get my leased line installed (127 working days) - while it's not FTTPoD it might be similar in process? Firstly Ignore what any Surveyor tells you on the day, Mine told me he had no problems getting fibre from my house to the box where the CBT was going to be - but then I was told a chamber had collapsed in between. The G.fast I had with AAISP at the time started to play up from the day that survey happened so my advice would be to wait until you get the e-mail from OR stating any Excess Construction Charges you might have to pay. Mine was £822 Inc VAT. I am not sure if they will do this to you but they charged me £31.97+VAT to drill a hole in the wall.

I had to have 455M of cable and other stuff and a telegraph pole installed. They managed to do a lot (apparently) overhead which they say cut down the time - they also found another 5 blockages which I was not charged for, I suspect they were doing this anyway to get FTTP to this area but I don't know.

I was given 10 working days to walk away from any ECC's so you are not totally high and dry. From memory I think I paid something like £247+VAT for my survey

So as others have said try and get a feeling of whatever else is coming and possibly when - and decide if it's worth the risk/investment.

There will be no external infrastructure for your openreach leased line

In reply to a post by Buggs8:

In reply to a post by emcacc:

Thanks for the reply - incredibly helpful!
I've now contacted OR via their form to see what's going on with the infastructure in my area.

and regarding CBT's being reserved for their intended addresses only - i'm assuming they still won't connect my property even if the nearest CBT has zero utilised connections?

MJ Quinn have been carrying out various works on the road in the past few months so maybe the intention is to eventually offer native fttp at my address even though it currently shows as not planned on the OR checker.

You will get comments from others saying I am talking bull but ignore it - I am not..

It took just over 6 months to get my leased line installed (127 working days) - while it's not FTTPoD it might be similar in process? Firstly Ignore what any Surveyor tells you on the day, Mine told me he had no problems getting fibre from my house to the box where the CBT was going to be - but then I was told a chamber had collapsed in between. The G.fast I had with AAISP at the time started to play up from the day that survey happened so my advice would be to wait until you get the e-mail from OR stating any Excess Construction Charges you might have to pay. Mine was £822 Inc VAT. I am not sure if they will do this to you but they charged me £31.97+VAT to drill a hole in the wall.

I had to have 455M of cable and other stuff and a telegraph pole installed. They managed to do a lot (apparently) overhead which they say cut down the time - they also found another 5 blockages which I was not charged for, I suspect they were doing this anyway to get FTTP to this area but I don't know.

I was given 10 working days to walk away from any ECC's so you are not totally high and dry. From memory I think I paid something like £247+VAT for my survey

So as others have said try and get a feeling of whatever else is coming and possibly when - and decide if it's worth the risk/investment.

Why would a leased line need a CBT installing?

If you had G.Fast that means your line must have been quite fast, now, if yours is the chances are your neighbours would be too, no?

Ah lads....