Open Reach Advice

I like at the end of a road which has had five new houses built.

Open reach have installed internet in 3 of the five new builds, the other two houses are unfinished.

Looking online they have installed Full Fibre with speeds unto 900mb, My house which is 30/40meters away form where the underground cable will be ending is currently on over head wires and gets 54Mbps.

How do I go about getting Open reach to connect me to the Full Fibre they are laying for the new houses? My concern is once they have finished and If I'm not connected my home will be forgotten about as it won't be considered for any future area upgrades as I'll now be at the end of a road which has full Fibre, all be it not to my house.

Any suggestions on getting Open reach to run the cabe to my property. I can't seam to get a number to phone them direct.

In reply to a post by laststar:

How do I go about getting Open reach to connect me to the Full Fibre they are laying for the new houses? My concern is once they have finished and If I'm not connected my home will be forgotten about as it won't be considered for any future area upgrades as I'll now be at the end of a road which has full Fibre, all be it not to my house.

Any suggestions on getting Open reach to run the cabe to my property. I can't seam to get a number to phone them direct.

The official, but expensive, way is to order FTTP On Demand - a product which is rumoured to be withdrawn shortly. There is a "near network trial" which runs to the end of this month, and means you pay a fixed cost if your property is within the footprint of an existing splitter, and some other conditions.

However, the costs are high. You can find breakdowns here and here from people who've had it done, but what you can expect is:
* £250+VAT survey fee (non-refundable, paid up front; the rest is paid before construction starts)
* £1625+VAT Openreach installation fee
* £495+VAT BT Wholesale connection fee
* £500+VAT Cerberus connection fee
* A higher-than normal broadband rental for the first year: e.g. £60+VAT per month for a 300/50 service.

(Those figures are not guaranteed. If the survey reveals a problem which means you're not eligible for the near-network pricing, you may get a higher quote - perhaps thousands higher. At this point you can drop out, but you don't get your £250+VAT survey fee back).

That makes £3590+VAT = £4,308 for the first year's service. After that, you're back to standard FTTP charges from an ISP of your choice.

Assuming this is an easy install, you can still expect to wait 4-6 months from placing the survey order to getting live service. So the question is, how long would it be for Openreach to install this at their own expense? You *could* be left out for a long time, but equally you *could* become part of an in-fill programme, one of the "quick wins" which Openreach spot.

The other approach is to make an enquiry to Openreach directly using the form here:
https://www.openreach.com/forms/fibre-broadband-avai...

Try "I cannot get fibre but my neighbours can". Include specifics of the other properties which can. You *might* be lucky and this might trigger them to extend the network.

Edited by candlerb (Tue 24-May-22 11:13:00)

Are you in one of the new builds or not?

In reply to a post by jpm:

Are you in one of the new builds or not?

5 new builds, 3 have FTTP and the other 2 are unfinished so I believe the answer is no

No, I’m actually in a house at the end of the road. The new houses have been built between myself and the main road buy a private developer who purchased the land from the old church.

Therefore, it sounds like Openreach would have to extend the FTTP network *beyond* the new houses to reach you, albeit not by much.

Most new build developments of more than 2 houses have FTTP these days; it comes at relatively low cost to the developer. Hence this is probably still an "island" of FTTP in your town or village.

When Openreach eventually come back to fill in the rest of the area, it's unlikely that you will be missed simply because *some* houses in your road already have FTTP. Their records will show the existing copper connections. But equally, you won't have any priority over anyone else in terms of getting FTTP. You'll get it when everyone else does.

So if you want it now, FTTPoD sounds like your only option. But £4,000 buys a lot of Starlink and/or 4G.

llaststar

As Dect says best way is using the OR form and if you are lucky they will be able to serve you from the same CBT if your pole is served from the same duct. Would be much easier if you were ducted as well.

I assume the new houses are ducted not Overhead. You could always ask the builder to run some duct the extra 50m as the CBT is likely to have 8 ports and therefore some spare from the 5 new houses.

In reply to a post by kitcat:

As Dect says best way is using the OR form

It was candlerb not me, If I only knew half the stuff he does I would be extremely happy

Edited by deleted (Tue 24-May-22 14:00:10)

Interestingly after sending an email to the Open reach CEO I've had a response and a phone call form them today.

Unfortunetly its not sounding too promising. Because the street has been developed and paid for privately they won't just add me onto the Full fibre network at the same time because the developer has paid for it, even if I was happy to pay the cost. They've stated that they'll look into any upcoming project in the area to see if I can get it before 2026 and come back to me. Sounds like an absolute farce that they won't do it.

Next email is to the developer to see if there any way of getting added on via them .

The usual point is "where do they stop?". If they are doing 5 houses for a developed then why wouldn't they do the neighbours as well? But then, if they are doing the neighbours then why wouldn't they do their neighbours? And then their neighbours? Etc, etc. At some point they have to have a boundary - the simplest boundary is the area that has been requested by the developer - if they go any further than this then everyone will be saying "but my neighbour got it so why haven't I". Unless they do whole urban areas at once there will always be a neighbour on the edge of the provision that says "why not me".