This sounds intriguing

In reply to a post by mnbvcxz:

The copper goes up her driveway on poles but partly through a brick arch under a railway bridge and possibly they don't want to pin the fibre up with the copper but bury it instead?

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

This sounds intriguing

In reply to a post by mnbvcxz:

The copper goes up her driveway on poles but partly through a brick arch under a railway bridge and possibly they don't want to pin the fibre up with the copper but bury it instead?

Yep, some idea of number of poles or total length, would be handy.

Perhaps the mention of "railway bridge arch" was the straw that broke the camels back

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Does anyone have any direct or indirect experience of being through this process and how long it takes to action etc.?

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/06/openre...

Ah yes. I remember that story. Interesting how the ECCs there varied so considerably between the ISPs

Thank you for the ideas, sorry late reply, everything is slowly going nowhere.

Short answer I'm going to write a grovelling message to openreach and see if they can just let her continue on adsl for a while. Otherwise will look into the very helpful links above on ECC exceptions.

Longer answer,

Drive is about 400m up a hill from main road and goes under main railway line.

http://oakhouse.byethost32.com/fibre/fibre1.jpg
http://oakhouse.byethost32.com/fibre/fibre2.jpg

If curious you can see above where the line goes along poles under the railway line. Having extracted a powerpoint from zen it does indeed appear they wish to bury a duct between the two poles through the tunnel. Possibly solid rock ground there. Why they can't leave it on poles who knows. That and cutting back seven trees is the main costs. Quote below which doesn't make sense to me, how that translates to us paying £1500 as contributing half?

What a mess, reading up on ECC charges they are indeed in the terms and conditions though most people say they apply where a line is additional or where they wouldn't commercially chose to put one. Which if its the customers only option on an existing line you would think they would be obliged to do it to continue some sort of universal service obligation, but perhaps not. Tried communicating with BT and asking if they were more generous in costs but they just insisted, "special offer no install costs" and when I pushed about ECC charges they just dodged confusedly and then ended chat or hung up.

############

ECC Chargeable Items:

Survey x 1= 0

Softway duct x 53M = 1585.76 (CP)

Tree Cutting X 7Span = 604.41 (OP)

Total Cost: 2190.17

Split Cost = (NO)

Total Cost to Openreach =604.41

Total Cost to CP = 1585.76

Build Days = 115

Job Description: 53M Softway duct and 7span tree cutting required.

There is a product she should be able to move to but no one can provide it atm.
The product is called SoTAP and is ADSL with out the PSTN line.
This would then allow VOIP to be used for a phone line.

Thanks
Dan

Just an outside chance, but you could try ordering FTTP with Vodafone. Anecdotally, they have been known to swallow ECCs.

USO usually requires OpenReach to cover up to a certain amount for any particular line - over that you pay the ECCs even if it is the only line to the building. I guess the only question is what level of ECC is covered for going from copper to FTTP.

However, I understood that it would cover up to about £3K whereas in your case it only seems to be covering about £600 - that doesn't feel right so worth challenging back. It might be that you would need to go via a good ISP that you can get to challenge the ECC.

In reply to a post by ian72:

USO usually requires OpenReach to cover up to a certain amount for any particular line - over that you pay the ECCs even if it is the only line to the building. I guess the only question is what level of ECC is covered for going from copper to FTTP.

However, I understood that it would cover up to about £3K whereas in your case it only seems to be covering about £600 - that doesn't feel right so worth challenging back. It might be that you would need to go via a good ISP that you can get to challenge the ECC.

If you're invoking the broadband USO, then the only ISP you can deal with is BT, for the simple reason that BT is the only provider of the USO (outside of Hull).

In reply to a post by ian72:

However, I understood that it would cover up to about £3K whereas in your case it only seems to be covering about £600 - that doesn't feel right so worth challenging back. It might be that you would need to go via a good ISP that you can get to challenge the ECC.

£1,500 for 53m of ducting sounds cheap so may not be the full price, openreach may have already taken off the bit they are willing to pay.