No Openreach GEA Fibre presence on your exchange, and my bet is on it coming from Cranbrook if they were to quote. In which case quote is fairly cheap

So how do you know this ia an Openreach fibre? Location suggests might actually be some Callflow fibre strung up on Openreach poles (duct and pole access means this is possible). Or there may be a business with a leased line.

Even if not Cranbrook then the other likely locations are roughly same distance anyway.

Getting more of the other slow properties on the road to increase size of CFP may reduce the price per property i.e. overall cost would go up but split equally individuals might pay less. Enlarging to cover a business or two with their larger vouchers would help too.

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by sjr:

I'm no Openreach engineer but in my mind if they could somehow patch in to the cable running past the estate and install a small cabinet they could use the existing copper for the last couple of hundred yards it could reduce the cost significantly or is that simply not how it works?

I suspect the cost to providing the smallest FTTC cabinet for just 7 properties would be greater than the £33K you have been quoted for FTTP.

+1
Which is why - before Fibre First came along - rural areas had a disproportionately higher % of FTTP deployment especially in BDUK funded rural areas. I�m sure Openreach would be quite happy to provide a FTTC cabinet for the OP but he would be mad to pay a higher cost for an inferior solution.

I'm assuming it is Openreach fibre because a little while ago Openreach gave us advance warning of a road closure so that contractors could cut back some trees to give Openreach engineers access to the telegraph poles on the road to hang some fibre cable.There is a prep school just up the road a little, maybe that's what the fibre is for?

Yikes

I just thought FTTP would involve digging up to lay cables and that to me suggests expensive. Obviously if FTTC is more expensive it is even less of a starter than the FTTP solution.

Most likely in which case wrong type of fibre deployment, i.e. this will be a leased line

Digging is avoided where possible, i.e. if poles exist then they are used and if duct exists that is used. In your case believe the cost is the distance, i.e. not really the cost per metre of the fibre itself but the time it takes people to string it up on poles or in the existing ducts along with costs of things like road closures or traffic lights to manage traffic so people can work safely.

Just make sure you go through the quote with a fine toothed comb.

Openreach were trying to charge me £1000 just to dig a 12m trench on my front lawn and £2800 for two pavement boxes that were not needed, and £800 to dig a trench across the road, when in fact, it was across the pavement so would be half the quoted cost.

Didn't like it when i pulled them up on it.

i suggest people from now on, check exactly what they are paying for.

I had a good chat with the Openreach contact for the proposed partnership today. He confirmed that a FTTC solution would probably be more expensive than the proposed FTTP solution so better speeds for less money is good news. He also said that in addition to the rural gigabit vouchers Kent County Council are now providing top up grants of £1000 per residential premise (nothing for businesses). So with £2500 available in grants for each residential premiise and £3500 for premises with a business, we're looking at under £2k per property. I can live with that, hopefully everybody else can too and we can finally have decent broadband here

Edited by sjr (Tue 03-Sep-19 16:23:41)

Fingers crossed that everybody feels the same and you can progress.

Normally you need to pay 50% at time of signing contracts and the remaining 50% at completion (check with CFP to see if you need to pay via a CIC), the cash plus some of the grant for each property will be part of the initial 50% and the remaining 50% will be completely funded by the grants.

Make sure the Kent CC top up is not time limited as you don't want any surprises further down the road.