Stuck in black hole - cave in and renew Virgin coax?

Our part of the street in London is in a fibre black hole:
- G.Network stopped short two doors away
- Hyperoptic say they can supply on broadband checkers but can't
- Community Fibre stops short a few doors away in other direction
- Openreach fibre is on a pole a few doors down on opposite side and in duct on opposite side but only connects no 3 on our side (we are no 11)
- Our landline came in through back garden but blew down recently and Openreach will only replace the copper, bizarrely to the side of premises across the road and right by the fibre pole...

Thankfully we are on Virgin coax but I was holding out for FTTH and are paying a lot for an out of contract service.
Should we cave in and sign up to an 18 month cheaper Virgin contract as fibre may never arrive?
I toured the area with an Openreach guy when our landline went down and he said he could see no plan to connect us despite the ongoing fibre build at our exchange.

I think only you can decide if signing up to an 18 month contract is better value than paying your current out of contract price. It is a gamble - you might find a better/cheaper service becomes available in that 18 months or if you don't decide to do it you could end up paying more for the service than if you bought into a new contract.

People here may give an opinion but we don't have any more information than you so it is down to your risk appetite and how much you want to pay. I don't see how we can really help you make that decision - you already seem to have all the info you are going to get.

Have you tried the "my neighbours can get FTTP but I can't" route with BT? @Pheasant gives the process in this post.

In reply to a post by stamford13:

Our part of the street in London is in a fibre black hole:

- Openreach fibre is on a pole a few doors down on opposite side and in duct on opposite side but only connects no 3 on our side (we are no 11)
- Our landline came in through back garden but blew down recently and Openreach will only replace the copper, bizarrely to the side of premises across the road and right by the fibre pole...

What does it say for those other properties who where connected to the blown down pole ....... Also check TBB's fibre mapping

I guess the info I'm missing is whether Openreach will cover us in the foreseeable future or do they often just not bother with one side of a street.
I've checked and fibre is available from the pole at no 5 and we are at no 11. I can see it is installed at no 3. Then it is not available until no 45 on our side, but 'we are building in your area'.
This I think is because landlines run from behind the houses overhead our gardens but some have been severed now including ours, and there is no footway duct on much of our side (apart from Virgin).
What is the length they'd run overhead fibre from a pole?
Are they putting in ducts? It's frustrating as the duct and an access chamber are tantalisingly close under the opposite footway of a fairly narrow road.
All this could have been solved years ago with shared passive infrastructure. I'm especially cross with G.Netwok, which has done all the streets here bar a short leg of our road. The neighbour at no 15 paid them to extend it to them as it stopped at 17 but they won't do it for us.

As far as I know no-one here can tell you if Openreach will come to you. The "building in your area" is not property specific so they are building in your area - in fact they have already built in your area, unfortunately it doesn't necessarily mean they will build to your property. There is no detailed plan available to the public that I am aware of so people here can only speculate and the fact they have stopped before they got to you suggests that was probably the limit of that phase of the build - whether there will be another phase and when that might be is not going to be public knowledge.

Someone else suggested the "my neighbour has fibre" form - that is probably your best bet. Other than that it is just sit and wait. You already have Virgin so already are capable of gigabit speeds so the government won't help and Openreach may not see adding your houses as worth the cost as there is already competition.

Well another factor is this is inner London (Kingsland Green exchange) and I would expect Openreach to make a reasonable effort to not leave out half of a street.

Also, they will reinstate our landline from the same location as the fibre and offer FTTC - I do find it odd that they'll install copper but not fibre at this stage of the switch off.

And a word about Hyperoptic - are they cowboys? I can order it for our address and have done so twice but they visit and tell us they can't service our address, but persist in offering it to us and our neighbours. I pointed out that new neighbours bought their house happy in the knowledge they'd get Hyperoptic...

Well another factor is this is inner London (Kingsland Green exchange) and I would expect Openreach to make a reasonable effort to not leave out half of a street.

I don't think being London makes any positive difference - historically I think London has often been harder for Openreach.

And they still support FTTC in any area that doesn't have a stop applied (that is areas that have high levels of FTTP coverage) and even then they will still provide FTTC if they don't service FTTP at the specific address. They stopped FTTP for some reason (usually cost) so someone ordering a service that provides them an income of a few quid a month is not enough to override those project/cost considerations.

No idea about Hyperoptic. Chances are they go by postcode/general area when sending marketing - a lot of providers find when they market they are not to the granular level where it can account for small pockets of addresses not yet covered.

The fact that the providers have stopped before your address suggests there is something in your location that is making it harder to deliver - Virgin may have used a different method or had historic provision that means they can provide where others cannot.

https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/index.php?tab=...

whats apparent is theres a scattering of properties don't have fttp but are surrounded by properties that do have fttp.

The problem for the op is that he is already on a Gigabit capable connection, that means no vouchers or state intervention.

Yes, the OP has as much access as quite a few other people will - they have gigabit via Virgin - a lot of people only have gigabit via a single network provider and whether they like that provider or not they won't have any other option. If they are lucky then they might get other providers but it is down to the market and whether other providers have a business case to provide.

It isn't a black hole - a black hole is where there is no gigabit capable provider available (and in a small number of cases likely still only having ADSL).