The fitter that did the install was an old hand with 40 years experience with BT and Openreach.

Their numbers are falling. They were trained differently back in the day.

Imagine too, if everyone had such a complex install …. appointment times would treble, costs would rise.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

The fitter that did the install was an old hand with 40 years experience with BT and Openreach.

Their numbers are falling. They were trained differently back in the day.

Imagine too, if everyone had such a complex install …. appointment times would treble, costs would rise.

idealy you need a mixture of the two, routine stuff done to price and time and the complex stuff sent to the experienced bods. Note that comment doesn't mean those who do stuff quickly aren't good etc.

I have a similar issue to the OP. Six months ago Openreach installed overhead fibre cables to a telegraph pole on the edge of my rural property. The current phone line is buried (but not ducted unfortunately) underground from that pole to my house via a BT manhole which is also on my property (c 80 metres from the pole and 10 m from my house) that contains a black box connector that serves myself and 2 other properties (according to the Openreach engineer).

I don't want an overhead cable to my house, so the only way to connect my house to FTTP is for 'someone' to dig a trench....probably 100+ metres as it cant be a simple straight line because of typography.

I have a number of questions....
1) who would pay for the trench? while the ground is soft and there's no hardstanding....its long trench!
2) while is not my problem, my 2 neighbours phone lines are currently served from a connector in a manhole on my property. If I don't sign up to FTTP (am thinking I wont as its too messy and my current FTTC is adequate for our needs with 26Mbps) how will Openreach solve my neighbours needs should they ever sign up to FTTP?

Edited by AndrewinDevon (Tue 26-Aug-25 13:32:02)

1) Openreach/your ISP won't pay the full cost for 100m of ducting (plus possible manholes) between the pole (with the CBT on it) and your property.

2) same as above.

If it was me and you didn't want to install the ducting yourself raise a FTTP order with your ISP and Openreach will then come round and do a survey and let you know how much you need to contribute and at that point if you are not happy with the cost you cancel the FTTP order.

Thanks, that's helpful. Do you know how deep a trench for ducting needs to be?

In reply to a post by AndrewinDevon:

Do you know how deep a trench for ducting needs to be?

I did mine 450mm and when I put a veg plot over the top, I ended up snagging out the warning tape I put over the duct. So if I did it again, I would do 500mm. Although at 450mm, the duct has not been touched.

Edited by DFScale (Wed 27-Aug-25 17:03:34)

https://www.openreach.com/content/dam/openreach/open...

In reply to a post by Iniltous:

https://www.openreach.com/content/dam/openreach/open...

Yup the first thing the digger bucket hits are the comms ducts. Typically dangling off the cables they’re supposed to protect when someone’s digging the place up 😂

In reply to a post by Iniltous:

https://www.openreach.com/content/dam/openreach/open...

Aye. My garden, my rules.