Business Voucher

Hey!

I live in Central London and i am stuck on an EO line and getting around 12mbps download. I have tried to ask Openreach and BT multiple times about when it will be installed but it turns out that it would be too expensive for them. I have been pretty desperate since we got over 8 devices and are constantly streaming, downloading and video chatting which led to alot of slow speeds with really high latency even with a wired connection. We even started to get daily disconnects in the past week.

I applied for a Community Funded Fibre solution. I was quoted just under £4.7k for FTTP for around 58 flats. It would come out to around £80 a flat if everyone would actually pay which i doubt would happen. The person at Openreach also told me about a scheme that the government are running for a £3k voucher towards an installation of gigabit cable brodaband.

If i were to just register a business but not actually use it or do anything with it would i be eligible for this voucher since it would be a small business and i would get the highest tier speed package ? The £3k would really bring costs down.

Thanks

Are you sure that BT quoted £4.7K for a community funded FTTP installation serving over 50 flats. If so it is hard to understand how £80 per property can be considered commercially unviable. As for raising £4.7K, even if most of the flats are tenanted rather then occupied by leaseholders having FTTP should make the flats easier to let and warrant a possibly higher rent thus aiding recovery of the installation cost by the landlord or leaseholder.

Alternatively have you considered contacting Hyperoptic who specialise in providing FTTP, or rather fibre to the building, to blocks of flats.

Yeah the Intial estimate is £4684 and is serving 58 flats. The women over the phone ,who sent me the estimate ,said that we are over how much Openreach are willing to invest to make a return.
Also 33 of the flats are Council so selling or making them worth more is not important to the landlord or the tenants. I did contact the landlord who said that they would rather use their money else where but we could split the cost with other residents.

Hyperoptic was my first choice however i have sent nurmerous emails in which they might reply once then ignore the others probably sick of me pesterring them. They even service the building directly touching us and can see the building through the balcony.

Im really out of choices here. I have contacted the MP, contacted the landlord , spoke to the building commitee and even considered a leased line.

In reality how many of those 58 tenants would actually have a requirement for more than the 12Mbs they get at the moment and would be happy to pay the increased monthly rental of FTTP? Flats by definition are small households who won't have multiple family members using it simultaneously and if council tenants hardly well off.

On creating a shell company - they are checks in place to try and avoid this sort of thing, time to see if there is someone who maybe works from home who could make genuine use.

Which London Borough as a couple have reached agreement with Hyperoptic to roll-out to council stock.

The £4.7k sounds like a zero is missing, so I'd want to get that in writing and if really is that low it is in the realms of some fund raising or a few residents valuing the uplift in speed enough to pay for it.

Fibre these days is not too expensive considering Plusnet is offering FTTP at the same prices. I am gonna try and make some leaflets and see how many people are interested.

Being in Central London you may find Leased Line costs are a lot less than you think. Worth getting in touch with linebroker.co.uk to get a custom quote, however take the costs on the website with a large pinch of salt as they aren't location specific.

In reply to a post by Sammm_:

Fibre these days is not too expensive considering Plusnet is offering FTTP at the same prices.

AIUI Plusnet still do not offer FTTP except to existing customers on ADSL2+. Non-customers have to join on ADSL2+ and hope they can upgrade.

Are you really sure you have been quoted for FTTP anyway? Which exchange is it please?

Yeah i am pretty sure it is FTTP and it is £4.7k. I can send the email on PM if you would like to. Its on the PIMLICO Exchange.

I also never knew you had to be an existing Plusnet customer and that makes a big difference since BT like to hike their prices up alot. Zen and AAISP are not as affordable aswell. :/

Right, Pimlico does have a mixture of FTTC and FTTP, but normally these will be in different areas. (There are occasional areas on some exchanges with both).