Thing is as soon as any FTTP becomes available (from any provider) the cab will be have huge amounts of spare capacity available, so the payback time for any investment is very short relatively speaking, given the UK will probably be at high 90s% FTTH coverage by the end of the decade, so say really a cab upgrade on average will only be required for 2-3years. And also doing that cabinet upgrade is taking OR resources away from the FTTH upgrade.

You also have starlink and 4G/5G in very rural areas taking demand off it.

It is possible that before you considered buying the property the FTTC availability did not have "waitlist" but now you are in the unfortunate situation where the cab got filled up.

I've had this a couple of years ago in my building for about a week and then it returned back to normal. I was already a customer and I made an experiment to try and use the broadband checker for various ISPs and it was showing up as unavailable.

Then after approximately a week or so the availability returned to normal and those ISPs showed up as available.

I don't think it is a good idea to buy a property with only FTTC in mind. Most of the new properties already have FTTP and the focus now is on FTTP. You must also question yourself why the person is trying to sell away this home? Maybe he has a similar problem that you are now facing and he/she wants to get rid of it and buy somewhere that does have decent broadband.

So, even if Openreach only had FTTC at that time, you should've checked to see if there are other Altnet providers available like Virgin Media, Nexfibre, Hyperoptic, CityFibre, Community Fibre (if in London), etc so that way you aren't dependent only on Openreach FTTC.

You can also check the postcode for other ISPs to see if they are planned for your area. If they are not then maybe this property should be skipped. Of-course I'm not the best judge here and you must assess the property on all the pros and cons.
But broadband is very important. I suffered for many years on ADSL prior October 2019 when I finally had FTTC and I too would not have returned back to my old property in 2009 if I had known that my internet was that unreliable. We were renting out back then. Now we have FTTC, Community Fibre and Virgin Media soon.

If I were to buy a property today, I'd look at all Altnet providers not just rely on Openreach.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

I don't think it is a good idea to buy a property with only FTTC in mind.

I think that's over-generalising. For many (I'd say most) people, if they are close enough to the cabinet to get a stable 80/20 or nearly that, FTTC is more than enough. People on thinkbroadband forums are not representative of the population as a whole.

Not having FTTP might put off a proportion of buyers when you later come to sell, but that's a different issue. Over time, you're increasingly likely to get FTTP anyway. Eventually Openreach is going to want to get rid of the runt copper network and the maintenance of obsolete VDSL technology, just as they are doing now with obsolete telephone exchanges.

Therefore, the issue is really about what you do *now* when FTTC is on wait list. 4G/5G/Starlink may be reasonable short-term workarounds.

I suggest you monitor the cabinet status twice daily, and pounce when a line becomes available. The fact that most ISPs now *don't* support the waitlist process is actually an advantage to you: it's unlikely that the port will be automatically grabbed by someone else.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

I don't think it is a good idea to buy a property with only FTTC in mind.

I think that's over-generalising. For many (I'd say most) people, if they are close enough to the cabinet to get a stable 80/20 or nearly that, FTTC is more than enough. People on thinkbroadband forums are not representative of the population as a whole.

i think for many 150 to 300mbits is more than enough. Most can get away with 80/20. Larger downloads become reasonable and uploads are also okish. Once you hit 80/20 you don't have to worry too much what the other people in your household are doing.

even in tbb land i don't think there's too many battering their 1gbit plus wan connections 24/7.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Not having FTTP might put off a proportion of buyers when you later come to sell, but that's a different issue. Over time, you're increasingly likely to get FTTP anyway. Eventually Openreach is going to want to get rid of the runt copper network and the maintenance of obsolete VDSL technology, just as they are doing now with obsolete telephone exchanges.

Very much so, its OR and thus bt group's interest to do so.Plus you can deploy higher rated pon technology with nationwide revenue growth quickly and cheaply than what you could with dsl.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Therefore, the issue is really about what you do *now* when FTTC is on wait list. 4G/5G/Starlink may be reasonable short-term workarounds.

if there's decent 4g/5g get a decent lte/5g router and then sell after fttc/fttp is available

In reply to a post by candlerb:

I suggest you monitor the cabinet status twice daily, and pounce when a line becomes available. The fact that most ISPs now *don't* support the waitlist process is actually an advantage to you: it's unlikely that the port will be automatically grabbed by someone else.

The biggest predication on that is fttp on the cab footprint so people can leave vdsl2.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

I don't think it is a good idea to buy a property with only FTTC in mind.

I think that's over-generalising. For many (I'd say most) people, if they are close enough to the cabinet to get a stable 80/20 or nearly that, FTTC is more than enough. People on thinkbroadband forums are not representative of the population as a whole.

Not having FTTP might put off a proportion of buyers when you later come to sell, but that's a different issue. Over time, you're increasingly likely to get FTTP anyway. Eventually Openreach is going to want to get rid of the runt copper network and the maintenance of obsolete VDSL technology, just as they are doing now with obsolete telephone exchanges.

For me the main issue would be to avoid a property that would be difficult to get fibre to, if I had to move somewhere that didn't already have it available. Things like private roads, small clusters of new development with a shared driveway, an apartment that was stuck with ADSL indicating the freeholder had spent 15+ years watching FTTC roll out and not shown an interest in getting Hyperoptic into their block, that sort of thing. Everything else is more or less fixable.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by daern:

What is Openreach's process for extending cabinet capacity at a given location?

In short, they don't any more

My cabinet had waiting list status from Spring 2020 when lots of people started working from home until earlier this year when an altnet went live in most of the area it serves.

If (SO)ADSL doesn't meet the 10Mbps minimum for the USO, BT will offer a 4G mobile broadband product capped at 15Mbps and priced at the USO price cap (expensive) and one capped at 30Mbps priced above the USO price cap.

Three Home Broadband is much cheaper, if it's available.

In reply to a post by CJ8:

Three Home Broadband is much cheaper, if it's available.

I can recommend it. Driving a Smart TV, mobile, and iPad, sometimes all three at once when F1 is on NOW (TV) and Live Timing on my iPad.

Been on it since December 2018, with a few re-contracts to remove the accumulated annual price rises by getting the "new user" offer as required by Ofcom, and getting a router upgrade for free.

(Three seem to have cottoned on to that idea, as the price after the half price six months is now a few pence above what I now pay. Grrr).

Edited by pluralist (Fri 18-Oct-24 14:40:58)

In reply to a post by jpm:

main issue would be to avoid a

Blocks of flats with social landlord that owns the freehold and is not interested in even talking to an AltNet whom are right outside, nevermind when OR decide to turn up. Quite a lot of these in UK.

In reply to a post by fiox:

As I advised there was FTTC at this propery before it went on sale.

Jesus this forum is a waste of time. No one reads anything.
The neighbour has FTTC as we speak and the bt link still says "waitlist" as well.

I will indeed by going with Starlink. As the attitude of the people here is the same as OpenReach can't be effed to read anything.

The line doesn't go to the FTTC cabinet, it will go back to the copper cabinet and onwards to the exchange.

You're hitting issues due to no-one wanting to sell you SoADSL when there's an FTTC cabinet there, even if it's full. The Wholesale checker shows availability. TalkTalk or Vodafone may be useful here as they will take the entire line.

Contact Andrews and Arnold as an alternative option - https://www.aa.net.uk/

Not quite.

The copper does indeed go straight to the PSTN cabinet but then routes through the FTTC cabinet where the mini DSLAM routes the copper back to the PSTN one which then routes that to the exchange. The fibre link from the DSLAM going to the head-end fibre exchange. The same routes also in reverse of course.

The OP told us Openreach still thinks that setup was still in place when starting the topic. Given you say the cabinet now shows FTTC available the relevant jumpers may or may not still be there by now as a result of the OP's communications with them.

I'm pretty sure you know all this, but it isn't what you said and not everyone reading six months on from now might know. Almost by definition they won't.

What is almost certain is the OP won't be coming back here.