FTTC Will the January switch off affect me?

We had a visit from an Openreach engineer in the summer. He wanted to use an existing duct to run the fibre cable from a hole in the ground on the grass verge to a socket on the wall of the house. We were expecting to be offered a choice about where the cable would be sited. This is what Openreach's documents seem to say. We explained that we use the internet at the other end of the house and that we have experienced connection issues in the past when the router was placed in the part of the house he was suggesting. We said that we would prefer it to be installed at the other end. He said he couldn't/wouldn't do that and cancelled the installation. He said we could stay on FTTC if we wanted to - there was no need to change.

I should say that our current set up hear in Milton Keynes is just fine. The speed is good enough to meet our needs and the service is very reliable.

We heard about the cut off date and phoned BT. We waited over an hour to speak to somebody and then were told that the only type of contract BT will be issuing in the future would be full fibre.

Does that mean we have to accept the kind of installation they offer? All BT say is that they will message Openreach and ask them to contact us.

We can't run a cable from the router to the room we mainly use. Could the router be placed in a cabinet to hide it with a booster to extend it's range? If the router is placed where the cable comes in it will not look good and that's important to us.

I would be grateful for any advice.

FTTC will still exist but as SOGEA i.e. no copper voice service, but VDSL2 can still arrive over the copper wire you have now.

If you don't have a voice service today with your BT broadband you are probably already on SOGEA

The choice on ONT location for full fibre is such that a difficult long run will be refused. Or put another way when you say 'we can't run a cable from the router to the room we mainly use' the 'can't' probably also applies to Openreach.

You can have the ONT installed in one place, and run ethernet to a more suitable location for the router.

At some point and already happening in some areas, future orders on openreach network are always full fibre this has been ongoing for a good couple of years now

Boosters which are connected by wireless only can be quite hit and miss. And if you hide the router in a cabinet you are likely to need a booster, wired back to the router.

We have no idea of the type of house you live in, but regardless, you will require some form of cable to your required router position for a reliable connection. So that is either the OR fibre or your CAT6 cable inside or outside the house. Something must give here and if you live in a mid terrace, it is likely you will need something inside the house.

OR are probably not going to stress themselves too much about solving this, they can just move on to the next job, so you really need to come up with a feasible solution for yourself. This forum can help, but we need a lot more info about your house to really understand the problem.

In reply to a post by Infomat:

We heard about the cut off date and phoned BT. We waited over an hour to speak to somebody and then were told that the only type of contract BT will be issuing in the future would be full fibre.

Does that mean we have to accept the kind of installation they offer? All BT say is that they will message Openreach and ask them to contact us.

This sounds to me like you're in a "Fibre Priority" area with "Copper stop sell" active. This means, if you have FTTP available, no more copper orders will be accepted. This includes any changes to your existing copper service (e.g. migrate to a different ISP, regrade to a different speed profile), and your service provider (BT) may refuse to renew your existing contract. Basically you're going to have to take FTTP sooner or later; they've covered so much of the area with fibre that they are moving towards retirement of the copper network.

Now, whether voice switchoff affects you is a different matter. This depends entirely on what your existing service is. Does it have an associated phone service - i.e. it has a phone number, and if you plug in a phone to the BT socket on the wall (not into the router) you can make and receive calls?

If so, then this is very likely to stop working in January 2027. You would in theory need to migrate to broadband-only on the copper (SOGEA as others have said), but because you're in a copper stop sell area, this will not be allowed except in extreme exceptional cases. Openreach's systems will simply not accept the SOGEA order for your property. And BT may refuse to renew your contract and you'll be on sky-high out-of-contract pricing.

BT *is* putting in a temporary solution in place for refuseniks who won't migrate to a digital voice service. It was supposed to be only for voice-only lines (i.e. it would not apply to voice+broadband lines), but they've recently announced they're trying to make it work with broadband too. If so, you *might* retain your existing service for a little while.

But you should beware: once in your situation with FTTP available in a mostly-FTTP area (I believe the threshold is 90%), Ofcom has said they will remove the regulated pricing on copper lines. This means you can expect your existing service to become *MUCH* more expensive if you insist on keeping it - this is on top of the fact that you'll be unable to renew and unable to migrate the copper service to another provider.

The other situation is that if you currently have "digital voice" from BT, i.e. you plug your phone into a socket in the router, rather than into the master socket in the wall. In this case, you're already on SOGEA so you won't be affected by the PSTN switch-off. However, everything else about pricing and inability to switch service provider still applies.

So my advice for you is: don't swim upstream. Accept an FTTP service, because you'll need to sooner or later. It will give you are more stable and reliable connection, even if your current one is good enough.

Now, there are several things you can do if you don't like the router location. One is to get the fibre run internally to where you need it. You should be able to arrange this via your service provider by requesting a "premium" or "advanced" installation, but this is a chargeable extra. "Premium" allows up to 30 metres of internal cabling from the point of entry to the building; "Advanced" is up to 100 metres (and usually more applicable to business premises).

Another is to run a Cat5e cable from the ONT location to where you want the router to be (up to 100 metres is fine). Another is to put the router by the ONT but install an additional wireless access point somewhere else in the house, preferably also linked back to the router via Cat5e, although wireless "mesh" systems can work reasonably well if properly installed.

You say you "can't" install such a cable, but haven't said why (is this a rented property?) You also say "If the router is placed where the cable comes in it will not look good and that's important to us". The router can go elsewhere, but at some point you'll need the small box which the fibre plugs into, called an ONT (Optical Network Termination): this is usually a white box and has LEDs on it, and has a power supply, so to all intents and purposes will look like a "router" to the untrained eye, although it's smaller than a typical router (slightly bigger than a box of playing cards). It's best mounted directly on the wall; a fixed cupboard would probably be OK, moveable furniture definitely not. You *could* mount a box over the top to hide it. It would be good to have a few ventilation holes, although power consumption is very low, 2W or less.

Bearing all that in mind: think about where you want the ONT and router, and enquire about a premium install: if you're lucky it will be around £50 extra. An Openreach engineer booked on a "premium" install should also be happy to spend a bit more time with you to ensure the installation meets your requirements.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/08/openre...

Edited by candlerb (Wed 11-Nov-26 09:50:30)

You say you cannot run a cable from the router location to te room you use. But you expected teh BT technician to do so ... How did you expect his to run the cable?

A few points, it won't be "an existing duct" it will be the existing duct, as in the only one running from a BT chamber in the street to your property. If you would like to redirect this then you can do the civils work yourself to move it.

The fibre cable will come up out of this duct and the CSP will be installed on the wall. The fibre cable exiting the CSP can be routed more or less where you like, including around the side of your house if you like, with certain distance limitations. If you're a terraced property then you will either need to arrange a route yourself for the fibre (conduit with draw string), or accept the ONT installation on the front wall patched into internal cabling.

Edited by jpm (Wed 11-Nov-26 12:56:42)

What is more important to you? A reliable internet connection or seeing a small conduit with a cable inside.

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply to my post. I can now see the simple solution to my problem is a ethernet cable, not ideal but realistic and workable.

Thanks again,
I

Hi,
Thanks very much for the info, I'm very grateful.
I