Moving to Central London - in mobile blackspot and no fibre

I'm moving to central london with EC1 postcode to live in a flat. This building has no fibre but next building has open reach FTTP.

The only internet connection I can get is ADSL and it's approximately 10mbps. BT guarantees 3mbps.

Also it's mobile signal blackspot - my phone gets reasonable signal but no connection. I think it's signal congestion or something but this even happens at nights when it's quiet, so probably blackspot.

Is there anything I can do to get a company to connect us via fibre?

If it were me, I’d not move to those flats.

Tend to agree. Less agro all round, especially if broadband is reasonably important to the OP (which presumably bit is otherwise the post would be redundant)

In reply to a post by rtcw:

Also it's mobile signal blackspot - my phone gets reasonable signal but no connection. I think it's signal congestion or something but this even happens at nights when it's quiet, so probably blackspot.

If that is on 4G then congestion. Given there are four (currently) national mobile companies, you would have to check the other three. Forget the virtual brands until you find a working physical network. (Vodafone, EE, Three, O2).

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

If it were me, I’d not move to those flats.

Neither me too.

Ask Community Fibre for a business connection, they seem to do these on a really ad-hoc basis where someone looks at the Openreach ducting in the area and says yes/no based on what comes back. Unfortunately this does mean you're paying at least £80 a month for two years.

Have you checked with the building owner/management company to see if they have refused wayleaves for FTTP installation. If they have refused wayleave then you are never going to get a decent connection as no FTTP supplier would be able to install. If the building next door is flats with OpenReach then my guess is your building rejected wayleave - if the case then, as others say, steer clear if you want more than ADSL.

Type your postcode in Hyperoptic, Community Fibre, etc checkers and see if these are on a plan. Normally their checkers will show if wayleave has been agreed.

If it does not show permission granted then it means this postcode for that building is not in plan yet or is awaiting a wayleave agreement.

The building next to it may have Openreach FTTP because it is under a different authority or because it is newly built.

I'd also out of curiosity look at all the other MDUs of that particular management company to see if all those residential buildings also don't have FTTP. If some of them have it, it means a wayleave is agreed and the installation will commence shortly. But if all of the buildings have no FTTP then it means this management company is a culprit for denying wayleave for all of them.

Any chance you could make friends with someone in the neighbouring block that has FTTP then get them to run a wire across to you into a switch?

As ridiculous and improbable as that sounds, it's probably more likely than you getting your own connection any time soon.

Avoid!

Edited by Cheule (Fri 21-Jul-23 06:03:07)

Let’s keep that one in the ridiculous and improbable bucket where it belongs 😅

This is impossible! You can't connect cables from one building to another because it has lifts, stairwells, etc. This requires professional help from engineers that once again will need wayleave agreements.

This is realistically more possible in a rural village where one house has FTTP but the other house does not. You can then connect a LAN cable from the house to another house fairly easily.

But not in block of flats where you are in a high rise as you have to have cables traveling in the entire stairwell. The authority will not allow that even if it was theoretically possible. Some time down the line someone will tear these cables and it will be a matter of days if not hours.

Then those cables need to travel in the street pavements or edges of the building walls. Unless the building was right close to the other one, I don't see how the cables will survive for long, they'll be punctured either by people on the streets, cars, cycles, etc.

This is like trying to steal electricity from your next door flat neighbour. Complete fantasy and even if it worked you'll be taken to prison because soon the authority will discover as neighbours will report you and then eventually the police will arrest you.

I think even for this Fibre cable work using switch from a neighbour may be an arrestable offense as it will be leaving the building and this operation was done without permission from local authority.

It might be realistic if you are on the same floor and the cable were to travel from one flat to the other. But of-course this would be useless as none of the flats will have Fibre.

Maybe, just maybe if you are in a very low block like ground floor that leads to the street directly and the residential block was small and surrounded by a car park area then this might work.

Most MDUs have internal corridors that will present an obstacle for such an ambitious plan.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

This is impossible! You can't connect cables from one building to another

You could connect using microwave though. There's a whole range of products available to do this.

something like this Unifi litebeam but finding someone willing to be on the other end might prove impossible. I would avoid too

Or a NanoStation Loco 5AC

The problem isn’t the “tech” guys. That’s the easy bit.

Convincing some stranger that it’s a good idea to wack up some kit on their wall, power it and hive off their internet connection to a perfect stranger, and assume responsibility for whatever stuff they consume (also against the terms of their agreement) is why this is pure fantasy or stupidity. Probably both. But hey it’s entertaining so carry on.

I know, my reply was somewhat tongue in cheek but it seems the options are quite limited.

Not quite as crazy as it sounds.

I went to a presentation a few years back on how a local community ISP started up. Three locals wanted better service at their houses whoch were outside a village. They persuded two villagers to let them install links at their village centre houses and connect to their internet service .... And from there it expanded rapidly when they found a utility company had a fibre link, used for just hundreds of bits per second.


I di post about it at the time ...

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

The problem isn’t the “tech” guys. That’s the easy bit.

Convincing some stranger that it’s a good idea to wack up some kit on their wall, power it and hive off their internet connection to a perfect stranger, and assume responsibility for whatever stuff they consume (also against the terms of their agreement) is why this is pure fantasy or stupidity. Probably both. But hey it’s entertaining so carry on.

What a wonderful positive attitude. Here's a solution to a problem but you're negative to the point of offence. There are difficulties, nothing is easy. Other than slagging off from he sidelines. Got nothing good to say, say nothing.

Have you approached the building management company as any operator wishing to install FTTP will have to go through them.

In reply to a post by Woolwich:

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

The problem isn’t the “tech” guys. That’s the easy bit.

Convincing some stranger that it’s a good idea to wack up some kit on their wall, power it and hive off their internet connection to a perfect stranger, and assume responsibility for whatever stuff they consume (also against the terms of their agreement) is why this is pure fantasy or stupidity. Probably both. But hey it’s entertaining so carry on.

What a wonderful positive attitude. Here's a solution to a problem but you're negative to the point of offence. There are difficulties, nothing is easy. Other than slagging off from he sidelines. Got nothing good to say, say nothing.

Realistic, legal and not in dream world. This is EC2 not a village in Wales. Get a grip.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

In reply to a post by Woolwich:

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

The problem isn’t the “tech” guys. That’s the easy bit.

Convincing some stranger that it’s a good idea to wack up some kit on their wall, power it and hive off their internet connection to a perfect stranger, and assume responsibility for whatever stuff they consume (also against the terms of their agreement) is why this is pure fantasy or stupidity. Probably both. But hey it’s entertaining so carry on.

What a wonderful positive attitude. Here's a solution to a problem but you're negative to the point of offence. There are difficulties, nothing is easy. Other than slagging off from he sidelines. Got nothing good to say, say nothing.

Realistic, legal and not in dream world. This is EC2 not a village in Wales. Get a grip.

What if the OP manages to negotiate so that he has an independent connection terminating somewhere outside his/her own property then something like a microwave link. It would negate most of your points. I will always stand back and say that you have a long history of helpful and technically accurate responses but every now and then you suddenly wear a chip on your shoulder and consider that you are the only person on this forum with any intellectual capabilities.

Honestly? Do you guys seriously actually think its economically viable / realistic for a tenant in a flat in EC1 to negotiate the installation of a broadband or other service in a property they don't own, have no connection with (pardon the pun), don't know the owners or inhabitants from Adam and to put in a microwave link?

I must have landed in cloud cuckoo land.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Honestly? Do you guys seriously actually think its economically viable / realistic for a tenant in a flat in EC1 to negotiate the installation of a broadband or other service in a property they don't own, have no connection with (pardon the pun), don't know the owners or inhabitants from Adam and to put in a microwave link?

I must have landed in cloud cuckoo land.

They clearly don't know London, while working for BT in East London (E1) I had a gun pointed at me for disagreeing with someone and on another occasion while in a footway box someone tried to use my head as a football. Worth saying things are so much worse now than they were then.

Apologies for not getting back to this thread for a while. Moving and all that stuff was quite a chaos. I am now in the area aforementioned in the OP.

So, to answer some of questions/discussion points in this thread:

1. I wouldn't have moved but there was extenuating circumstances that I had to move to this area.

2. As expected, the internet connection is terrible. BT is dragging their heels and I actually get 5 mbps. USO doesn't apply because I have good 4G/5G coverage. The problem is that I've tried O2, Three, EE and Vodafone, all of them have signal congestion issues. I do get over 10 mbps at 2am but that's it. The rest of the day, its 1mbps or so.

3. There is hyperoptic available in multiple buildings (opposite of mine and a few more MDUs around this building). There's also openreach FTTP available in a building next to mine. I've contacted the building management company asking about this, they haven't replied to my email. Hyperoptic say my building is registering interest but nothing much else. There's like 10+ buildings within 3 minutes walk of mine that is hyperoptic available. I suspect this is a wayleave agreement issue but I'm just a tenant, not leaseholder, there's not much I can do.

4. Community fibre said they're in very very early stages of rollout in my area. They're not in my area yet unfortunately, the nearest building they service is 5 minutes away.

5. Asking random people in next building or nearby buildings if I can use their connection is not a good idea. I'm not going to do that as this is EC1 area and people aren't as friendly as a village in Wales for example.

6. I've tried using Poynting 4g-xpol-a0002 antenna but it doesn't work very well as it turned out that the issue is mostly congestion. I'm going to return it soon.

My next steps are:

1. Investigate whether I can get Wi-Fi antenna - I can see some hyperoptic SSIDs at my flat so I may consider getting a fancy wifi antenna to connect to them with their permission but this is last resort because this requires me to getting a random non-techie stranger to agree to my idea.

2. Speak to councillor.

3. Speak to freeholder.

4. Speak to hyperoptic to find out what's really going on and why my building is in "registering interest" stage when all buildings around me have been enabled.

I've checked other MDUs of that building management company, only a few have fast connection, most of them don't. I suspect this is the main culprit.

That's pretty much it for now. Any other suggestions would be welcomed but do keep in mind that it is EC1 postcode area, and londoners aren't as friendly as you might think.

Constructively, I think you're generally on the right track and it's best to try and get to the bottom of why the building has been skipped over.

I suspect its building management / wayleave issues; which is why you have neither CF, Hyper or Openreach running fibre into the building. Speak to your building management representative directly and perhaps also approach your local councillor to try and raise the profile of the issue preventing your building from getting an ultrafast connection.

There may be a known issue that's preventing access. In the meantime I'd pursue 4 and 5G options. There is definitely good access speeds to be had in the area. I'm there semi-regularly for work and meetings.

Good luck.

In reply to a post by dect:

They clearly don't know London . . .

We'll ignore the 10 years when my job required that I had a desk in various offices in Central London or that we are regular visitors to family who until last year lived in Surrey Quays if it will help your argument.

Edited by GonePostal (Sat 22-Jul-23 21:30:47)

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

I had a desk in various offices in Central London or that we are regular visitors to family who until last year lived in Surrey Quays

Congratulations.

It turns out my line is EO.

I was wondering if it's possible to convince BT that their USO is not fulfilled by 4G/5G due to my area being very congested? I think there may some signal interference from multiple masts.

My phone connection speed goes up if I walk a few minutes away from the building I live in. I don't get good speeds if I'm outside the building and even worse speeds if I am inside it.

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

I had a desk in various offices in Central London or that we are regular visitors to family who until last year lived in Surrey Quays

Congratulations.

Thank you for the constructive comment while ignoring your point about not knowing London.

Edited by GonePostal (Sat 22-Jul-23 23:38:31)

Yes, my line was also formerly Exchange Only Line until October 2019 when my area got upgraded to FTTC. I got Community Fibre here live as of 03/12/2022. We are fortunate to see the service go live after 20 months following the wayleave agreement!

There are places that can take 3 years to go live after a wayleave. I'm also a registered Hyperoptic Champion since February 2015 and at that time I failed to convince my Technical Services Manager to sign a wayleave saying FTTP was not a priority at that stage.

This only happened after a recent government intervention. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/03/new-uk...
It is no surprise that around just 1 month after this announcement finally my management team who are EastendHomes signed a wayleave agreement with Community Fibre.
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/05/commun...
As you can see from my links just 1-2 months after the law was passed by parliament to ease wayleave agreements for MDU's my management company signed a wayleave for Community Fibre.

This is despite the fact that I managed to get 30+ people to register their interest between August of 2014 to February 2015. EastendHomes did not respect this pledge considering that my parents are leaseholder's. I attended the leaseholders meetings at that time on numerous occasions in the EastendHomes office but the Technical Services Manager was never there to attend those meetings. So there were lots of staff politics as usual, one staff member passes onto the Tech Services Manager so that way they get relieved from their duties.

One other major problem in London high rise buildings is that tenants are coming and going. We are one of the few people who are permanent residents of the building, all others are just temporary tenants and some are council tenants. But the majority of the leaseholder's in those buildings rent out their flats.

This is why you can't convince those tenants to apply pressure on local authority as they know they will leave those flats soon.

The same goes with trying to get an FTTP link from other buildings. A) they have to be very sincere and B) they have to be stable residents because if they are not, they'll leave the flat within a few months and you'll have to find other neighbours to convince you to give you their WiFi password. They might not offer you this favour for free and will probably ask you to pay them a monthly fee.

You'll also have to rely on them not to turn off their routers or you'll lose your access to their internet connection. If you need port forwarding you'll need access to their router settings, which again you have to rely on their generosity because as you'll probably know you can't port forward multiple devices at the same time. If they need to open ports for their game consoles/PCs then they won't agree for you to open ports for your PC/Consoles as they will have their ports closed.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Yes, my line was also formerly Exchange Only Line until October 2019 when my area got upgraded to FTTC. I got Community Fibre here live as of 03/12/2022. We are fortunate to see the service go live after 20 months following the wayleave agreement!

There are places that can take 3 years to go live after a wayleave. I'm also a registered Hyperoptic Champion since February 2015 and at that time I failed to convince my Technical Services Manager to sign a wayleave saying FTTP was not a priority at that stage.

This only happened after a recent government intervention. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/03/new-uk...
It is no surprise that around just 1 month after this announcement finally my management team who are EastendHomes signed a wayleave agreement with Community Fibre.
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/05/commun...
As you can see from my links just 1-2 months after the law was passed by parliament to ease wayleave agreements for MDU's my management company signed a wayleave for Community Fibre.

This is despite the fact that I managed to get 30+ people to register their interest between August of 2014 to February 2015. EastendHomes did not respect this pledge considering that my parents are leaseholder's. I attended the leaseholders meetings at that time on numerous occasions in the EastendHomes office but the Technical Services Manager was never there to attend those meetings. So there were lots of staff politics as usual, one staff member passes onto the Tech Services Manager so that way they get relieved from their duties.

One other major problem in London high rise buildings is that tenants are coming and going. We are one of the few people who are permanent residents of the building, all others are just temporary tenants and some are council tenants. But the majority of the leaseholder's in those buildings rent out their flats.

This is why you can't convince those tenants to apply pressure on local authority as they know they will leave those flats soon.

The same goes with trying to get an FTTP link from other buildings. A) they have to be very sincere and B) they have to be stable residents because if they are not, they'll leave the flat within a few months and you'll have to find other neighbours to convince you to give you their WiFi password. They might not offer you this favour for free and will probably ask you to pay them a monthly fee.

You'll also have to rely on them not to turn off their routers or you'll lose your access to their internet connection. If you need port forwarding you'll need access to their router settings, which again you have to rely on their generosity because as you'll probably know you can't port forward multiple devices at the same time. If they need to open ports for their game consoles/PCs then they won't agree for you to open ports for your PC/Consoles as they will have their ports closed.

Wow this was extremely helpful reply. Exactly what I was looking for.

I prefer community fibre compared to other fibre networks. Do you have a contact at Community Fibre I could use to progress this using the law? I've been fobbed off with "we're in very early stages of rolling out", I'm looking for someone who has a knowledge to deal with this matter.

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

Thank you for the constructive comment while ignoring your point about not knowing London.

OK you need me to be a little more direct.

Just because you visited it a few times over the years doesn't mean you know the real London, I have flown over various cities and countries over the years but I don't go round saying I know them.

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

Thank you for the constructive comment while ignoring your point about not knowing London.

OK you need me to be a little more direct.

Just because you visited it a few times over the years doesn't mean you know the real London, I have flown over various cities and countries over the years but I don't go round saying I know them.

Just for once it would be good if you could put to one side the arrogant assumptions you make about other people.

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

Just for once it would be good if you could put to one side the arrogant assumptions you make about other people.

To quote you "We are getting into the pot . . .kettle game here"

I think we are both as bad as each other if you want my honest answer which I suspect you wont.

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

Just for once it would be good if you could put to one side the arrogant assumptions you make about other people.

To quote you "We are getting into the pot . . .kettle game here"

I think we are both as bad as each other if you want my honest answer which I suspect you wont.

Fair comment. I've sent you a PM to let you know that no offence has been taken!

More to the point, let's hope the OP manages to solve his/her problems.

Edited by GonePostal (Sun 23-Jul-23 11:47:32)

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

Fair comment. I've sent you a PM to let you know that no offence has been taken!

More to the point, let's hope the OP manages to solve his/her problems.

All good

In reply to a post by rtcw:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Yes, my line was also formerly Exchange Only Line until October 2019 when my area got upgraded to FTTC. I got Community Fibre here live as of 03/12/2022. We are fortunate to see the service go live after 20 months following the wayleave agreement!

There are places that can take 3 years to go live after a wayleave. I'm also a registered Hyperoptic Champion since February 2015 and at that time I failed to convince my Technical Services Manager to sign a wayleave saying FTTP was not a priority at that stage.

This only happened after a recent government intervention. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/03/new-uk...
It is no surprise that around just 1 month after this announcement finally my management team who are EastendHomes signed a wayleave agreement with Community Fibre.
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/05/commun...
As you can see from my links just 1-2 months after the law was passed by parliament to ease wayleave agreements for MDU's my management company signed a wayleave for Community Fibre.

This is despite the fact that I managed to get 30+ people to register their interest between August of 2014 to February 2015. EastendHomes did not respect this pledge considering that my parents are leaseholder's. I attended the leaseholders meetings at that time on numerous occasions in the EastendHomes office but the Technical Services Manager was never there to attend those meetings. So there were lots of staff politics as usual, one staff member passes onto the Tech Services Manager so that way they get relieved from their duties.

One other major problem in London high rise buildings is that tenants are coming and going. We are one of the few people who are permanent residents of the building, all others are just temporary tenants and some are council tenants. But the majority of the leaseholder's in those buildings rent out their flats.

This is why you can't convince those tenants to apply pressure on local authority as they know they will leave those flats soon.

The same goes with trying to get an FTTP link from other buildings. A) they have to be very sincere and B) they have to be stable residents because if they are not, they'll leave the flat within a few months and you'll have to find other neighbours to convince you to give you their WiFi password. They might not offer you this favour for free and will probably ask you to pay them a monthly fee.

You'll also have to rely on them not to turn off their routers or you'll lose your access to their internet connection. If you need port forwarding you'll need access to their router settings, which again you have to rely on their generosity because as you'll probably know you can't port forward multiple devices at the same time. If they need to open ports for their game consoles/PCs then they won't agree for you to open ports for your PC/Consoles as they will have their ports closed.

Wow this was extremely helpful reply. Exactly what I was looking for.

I prefer community fibre compared to other fibre networks. Do you have a contact at Community Fibre I could use to progress this using the law? I've been fobbed off with "we're in very early stages of rolling out", I'm looking for someone who has a knowledge to deal with this matter.

You lose nothing (and possibly gain quite a lot) if you politely and concisely email the CEO at Community Fibre, Graeme Oxby:

https://ceoemail.com/s.php?id=ceo-1872133&c=Communit...

He ought to be able to direct this to the appropriate person, like the Area Manager for EC1, who would be able to deal with your enquiry.

Good luck.

In reply to a post by rtcw:

I was wondering if it's possible to convince BT that their USO is not fulfilled by 4G/5G due to my area being very congested?

You said "The only internet connection I can get is ADSL and it's approximately 10mbps" - that will also probably make you ineligible for USO (even if BT only *guarantee* 3Mbps).

Having said that, USO does also require 1Mbps upload.

In reply to a post by rtcw:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Yes, my line was also formerly Exchange Only Line until October 2019 when my area got upgraded to FTTC. I got Community Fibre here live as of 03/12/2022. We are fortunate to see the service go live after 20 months following the wayleave agreement!

There are places that can take 3 years to go live after a wayleave. I'm also a registered Hyperoptic Champion since February 2015 and at that time I failed to convince my Technical Services Manager to sign a wayleave saying FTTP was not a priority at that stage.

This only happened after a recent government intervention. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/03/new-uk...
It is no surprise that around just 1 month after this announcement finally my management team who are EastendHomes signed a wayleave agreement with Community Fibre.
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/05/commun...
As you can see from my links just 1-2 months after the law was passed by parliament to ease wayleave agreements for MDU's my management company signed a wayleave for Community Fibre.

This is despite the fact that I managed to get 30+ people to register their interest between August of 2014 to February 2015. EastendHomes did not respect this pledge considering that my parents are leaseholder's. I attended the leaseholders meetings at that time on numerous occasions in the EastendHomes office but the Technical Services Manager was never there to attend those meetings. So there were lots of staff politics as usual, one staff member passes onto the Tech Services Manager so that way they get relieved from their duties.

One other major problem in London high rise buildings is that tenants are coming and going. We are one of the few people who are permanent residents of the building, all others are just temporary tenants and some are council tenants. But the majority of the leaseholder's in those buildings rent out their flats.

This is why you can't convince those tenants to apply pressure on local authority as they know they will leave those flats soon.

The same goes with trying to get an FTTP link from other buildings. A) they have to be very sincere and B) they have to be stable residents because if they are not, they'll leave the flat within a few months and you'll have to find other neighbours to convince you to give you their WiFi password. They might not offer you this favour for free and will probably ask you to pay them a monthly fee.

You'll also have to rely on them not to turn off their routers or you'll lose your access to their internet connection. If you need port forwarding you'll need access to their router settings, which again you have to rely on their generosity because as you'll probably know you can't port forward multiple devices at the same time. If they need to open ports for their game consoles/PCs then they won't agree for you to open ports for your PC/Consoles as they will have their ports closed.

Wow this was extremely helpful reply. Exactly what I was looking for.

I prefer community fibre compared to other fibre networks. Do you have a contact at Community Fibre I could use to progress this using the law? I've been fobbed off with "we're in very early stages of rolling out", I'm looking for someone who has a knowledge to deal with this matter.

It really depends on the authority. You may certainly want Community Fibre over the other providers. It is indeed probably the best FTTP service you can get right now in London.
The most important thing I believe at this stage is to be able to convince your authority to sign up to an Altnet provider whether it be Hyperoptic, Community Fibre, G.Network, The 4th Utility, etc.

For example my management company never wanted to sign up to Hyperoptic. In my case if I go to the postcode and check the status in the Hyperoptic website it will show
We're rolling out in your area

We're bringing our full fibre network to your area!
"Before we can connect you, we'll need permission from the Freeholder or Property Manager - so be sure to let them know you're interested."

E.g. my Housing Estate Manager in 2015 said that "If we are going to agree on Fibre we will do it with another provider, not Hyperoptic". I never knew the reason for this even though the Hyperoptic representative was very much eager to bring the service to my building. He made me a Hyperoptic Champion and promised me 1 year free broadband if I could get hold of the manager at EastendHomes. He was happy to meet him in person in the office, but alas no, the technical services manager who is John Hinds will ignore any such requests.

In the end they decided to go with Community Fibre, which even I am extremely surprised when I saw the news. I still have no complaints despite the fact that I probably missed out on the chance of having a year free service with Hyperoptic. Some management companies are less pedantic and will agree on multiple overbuilds like for example Tower Hamlets Homes. I see several properties that will have Hyperoptic, Community Fibre and G.Network/Virgin Media. I know this is unfair especially for someone like yourself waiting for the first FTTP network.

I'd try and first find out what your management company is and who the manager is responsible for your estate. I'd also look to search whether other buildings under the same management are also without FTTP. If it is a case where other buildings managed by your same company have FTTP but yours does not, then wayleave is probably not the obstacle. But most probably all buildings owned by your company didn't grant wayleave to any of them because usually if a wayleave is granted all of them will get FTTP like in our case and most of the places.

I'd also try to find neighbours who you know are stable residents who have been living in your block for years. Try and convince them to put pressure on the managers. If there are any monthly leaseholders meetings taking place in your local office, attend those and bring your neighbours along on the day. This is bound to make a difference because the managers will eventually become fed-up. If they still insist that they won't agree, threaten them by involving your local MP. I know when they just hear MP they panic and do take action.

On a side note (although off-topic) recently we had problems with noisy roosters from our neighbours balcony waking us up every morning at 3-4am. I finally identified them after 2 years and took a recording of them and emailed it to my estate manager. Within the following week they were removed from their balcony! They only take action when something constitutes a legal issue. Although not having FTTP doesn't constitute a legal issue but if you can show them that you are working from home or your connection isn't reliable. The management company won't be happy if you involve neighbours or MP to complain to them.

Edited by BLaZiNgSPEED (Mon 24-Jul-23 23:32:43)

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by rtcw:

I was wondering if it's possible to convince BT that their USO is not fulfilled by 4G/5G due to my area being very congested?

You said "The only internet connection I can get is ADSL and it's approximately 10mbps" - that will also probably make you ineligible for USO (even if BT only *guarantee* 3Mbps).

Having said that, USO does also require 1Mbps upload.

True, BT has said they guarantee 3 mbps and the line quality appears to be rather poor according to Openreach engineer, so I'm expecting a getting a figure at the lower end of their estimation range. I haven't really tested the broadband line yet due to Openreach Engineers failing to attend 5 different confirmed appointments to fix the line. The estimated upload speed is below 1mbps too.

So some new developments if anybody is still interested - managed to get to relevant people from Hyperoptic and my council.

The issue is lack of wayleave agreement.

One of these people have told me try to talk to residents in my building and get them on board. If anyone has tips or anything like that, I would be appreciated.

Since the last post, Openreach engineers continued to fail attend multiple appointments until yesterday when they managed to attend the appointment and even then, they still failed to get my broadband working. The engineer said the line syncs fine but my router isn't working. I checked the technical log my router, it just says "Timeout during PPP initialization LCP/IPCP". BT Wholesale availability checker says this line has "Left in Jumper", is that the cause?

The line has line attenuation between 50-54dB and signal attenuation of 29-30dB/54-55dB, so the line is quite far away according to BT Smarthub. It also says I'm getting 3mbps down and 1 mbps up sync which is exactly the minimum speed guarantee BT has given me so they will not do anything.

Weirdly enough, I found a router left from previous occupier and it says ECI Telecom Ltd - the model is B-FOCuS V-2Fub/r Rev.B.

A quick google tells me that it is FTTC/FTTP router. Last time I checked, this building wasn't FTTC/FTTP. So, I've spoken to a small ISP hoping they have access to a internal database that has info that we don't. They came back saying my building is definitely wired for FTTP. BT Wholesale checker says it isn't.

I'm confused at moment to be honest.

That ECI box is an FTTC modem

what does

https://www.openreach.com/fibre-checker do you get a fttp available. If so check the two links below

and
https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL you are looking wbc fttp.

annnnnnd https://www.sky.com/broadband/full-fibre-broadband

In reply to a post by jpm:

That ECI box is an FTTC modem

yeah the crappier fttc modem 😁

Actually your line attenuation is far away from your street cabinet and not your BT Smarthub. The BT Smarthub is actually the name of the router. Mine is a BT Smarthub 2 router. The previous is simply the older model of the BT router.

Either you are connected to a street cabinet that is not FTTC enabled or your FTTC service for your cabinet is not able to give you more than 3Mbps. 50-54dB is very long, with that line attenuation you either have ADSL or FTTC cabinet that is too far away.

Your previous occupier probably simply bought an FTTC/FTTP router to use with their ADSL service.

You could go here https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/... and enter your postcode and see what your minimum and maximum download speeds are.

If it shows VDSL available but with 1-3Mbps then it means cabinet is too far away. If it shows WBC ADSL 2+
WBC ADSL2+ Annex M
Then that will mean you have ADSL only.

Obviously if you had FTTP there's no way you'll be restricted to only 3Mbps download and 1Mbps upload. You'll also not have 50-54dB line attenuation.

If you had Openreach FTTP your wholsale checker will show WBC FTTP Up to 1000 Up to 220. You'll also have an ONT in your property with fibre cables inside your property. Those cables you've got coming to your house/flat are copper.

My line attenuation is Line attenuation:10.7 / 17.1 Data rate:20 Mbps / 79.689 Mbps but sometimes it would show 16.8dB. Mine is a BT Openreach FTTC service. Though, soon I'll be switching to Community Fibre.

Openreach says not available and not in any plans to roll out.

Wholesale says not available either.

https://imgur.com/a/gFopyQw

Sky say it's not available. I also tried Talktalk, not available either.

Weird thing is that Talktalk usually offers ADSL if fibre isn't available but in this cirumstance, they even refused to offer an ADSL broadband in the first place.