In reply to a post by JonRennie:

Does the property have any service currently (even a phone line) - if so how does this get to the house?

I live on a private road which has BT ducting installed to each house. When I moved in there was only a copper service delivered to the house but I have since had FTTPoD installed in the same ducts without any wayleave issues.

Since I had the FTTPoD installed, a couple of neighbours have had FTTP installed using the same infrastructure.

If wayleave is required then the owner of the land needs to agree it. Is the land over which the service will be delivered owned by a single landowner? Is it shared between the properties?

I'm in a similar situation but no one has rolled out fibre to the home even though an altnet has gone close and the 'private' but is really quite tiny (20 metres cabling).. it's probably in the 'PITA' category even though ducting is there. I'm sure there won't be issues here with wayleaves, it's just a complexity.

YMMV so I wouldn't rule it out but don't assume it will be easy to happen quickly.

I live on a private road. We have 3 FTTP providers. Openreach, F&W and Swish. All cabling is from poles.

OR just upgraded their infrastructure. The 2 AltNets asked for permission (wayleave). Our private estate is a resident managed one. After explaining to the committee that FTTP can only have a positive effect on the prices of all houses on the estate, it was an instant yes to the wayleave.

In reply to a post by Morfik:

1) Has anyone had any success getting Fibre companies to cover Private Roads?
2) Is FTTPoD an option or will they also refuse a Private Road without a Wayleave?
3) If the wayleave was an option does every resident have to agree?

Wayleave's are a pain, I live in a housing association owned block of flats, and we have a new Alt-Net in the street, yet neither the residents (half RTB purchased, half renters) nor the alt-net management are able to get a response from the building owner on wayleave permission. Stalemate.

I live on a private road in Leicestershire. Although the estate dates back to the 1890s, the roads have never been adopted and each resident owns half of the width of the road that faces his/her property. When Virgin Media came to the area, they did not install any services in the estate, so all of the existing telecoms infrastructure is owned and maintained by Openreach. Properties are served by a mix of overhead, buried, or ducted copper cabling.

FTTC has been available for at least 5 years and I presently have reliable ADSL speeds of 60/20. Last year, Openreach installed fibre optic cabling throughout the entire area, including the private estate. They used ducts that were available and if there were no ducts, they used existing poles (plus some new poles) to carry overhead cabling throughoutthe estate.

When, I enquired about the availability of FTTP to my home, I learned that the database showed the service could be provided, but there were "line of sight issues". So when I placed an order in mid-March, I mentioned that Openreach would need to install an additional pole, to carry the cables the last 50 metres to my home. BT accepted the order and agreed an installation date.

I signed a wayleave to allow Openreach to install the pole, and they even paid me for my agreement. The service should have commenced on 12th April but when the engineer arrived on that day, he discovered that the pole hadn't been erected. Openreach returned this week to erect the pole so I hope everything will be completed before too long.

So the message seems to be that if Openreach provide existing telecom services on unadopted roads, they can upgrade those services to FTTP, as part of their current programme. However, each upgrade will probably have to wait until the national programme reaches the area.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by jpm:

Mid-1990s would have you ducted, they will use existing chambers and ducts to deploy FTTP to you without any issues.

But in that case, Swish would also be able to use the same infrastructure via PIA. If they have chosen not to, that could indicate there's an issue. For example, there may be ducted pavement chambers but the lead-ins could be buried. Unlikely in 1990's, but not impossible.

If that were the case, OR could decide to install poles when they get around to FTTP. Swish could also install their own poles, but it probably wouldn't be worth their while (and in any case you'd get two sets of poles if OR install their own later).

See if you can find someone to talk to at Swish about their plans and why/if you have been excluded. But even if they said you were in plan, there are no guarantees that they will actually deliver. It's not available until it's available.

You therefore have to decide: if broadband is important to you, could you live on 5G or Starlink for a (possibly) substantial number of years? Or should you forget this house and find somewhere else?

My understanding is that a wayleave granted to BT to install and maintain their network doesn't automatically extend to PIA providers who might want to access the land to deploy their own service. Swish might have simply looked at who owned the road and decided not to bother trying to service it.

I have Lit Fibre on a private road through PIA because AFAIK nobody actually checked who owned the land, and I wasn't about to tell them.

Private road here, or maybe you would call it a long drive. A semi and our bungalow down a drive, and we have FTTP via overhead telegraph poles. Openreach lady said they have a wayleave to run the 104 metres of cable via the neighbour's house.

In reply to a post by jpm:

My understanding is that a wayleave granted to BT to install and maintain their network doesn't automatically extend to altnets....

This. The property owner has an agreement with Openreach only, others even using PIA are installing equipment so need wayleave.

In reply to a post by Taras:

Private road, here, and overhead cables.........

fttp 1gbits.........with the smaller new csp! (sorry i had to😂)

Private road here and underground cables....

FTTP 8 Gbits with a 550/75 Mbit backup alongside the option of CityFibre up to 2.5 Gbit symmetrical and imminently, fibre is in the ground, Nexfibre up to symmetrical 2 Gbit. Sorry, I had to.

Over 60% of the population can get it now. It's nothing special anymore and not worth gloating over especially when your only option is Openreach.

Could've at least answered the guy's questions.

I live on a private road, which I own and other properties on it have right of way, in a town in Surrey and I have Swish. I had to do a bit of persuading to get them to serve me and a wayleave needed to be in place, which only I had to agree to as the owner of the road.

Swish decided, with consulting me, that their best option was to dig a trench and lay a new duct down the length of the private road from their chamber on the public pavement all the way to my gate. I just managed to catch the civils guy before he started digging and told them to stop and use the Openreach duct that was already in place. After some grumbling from head office about PIA costs they agreed to do this instead. Then it turned out that the OR chamber outside my gate had been tarmac'ed over some years ago so Swish, to their credit, uncovered it, put a new lid on it and installed a toby box next to it to serve my property. Then came the challenge of getting from the Toby to the house across a good 20m of hard landscaping. More on that story here...

I live in a small village and on a private lane, it's a mixture of pole and there are only two houses with UG Duct (mine being one of them because I put it in when I built this house and I have my own 4 way CBT in my manhole). BT and contractors installed.

I would send an email to [removed by tbb] he will get the team to look into it.
One of his team phoned me up when I was inquiring about FTTP, 6 months later it was being installed.

Edited by seb (Mon 02-Feb-26 21:36:46)