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Stop sell of copper broadband to multi occupancy community with no wayleave agreement

Sp99 — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:18:03 GMT

Hi. I've bought a house that had a (now disconnected) copper to the premises broadband service. Fibre is available in the street but the house is in a gated community with no wayleave agreement in place. BT say they won't supply a copper service. If this is the case, are there not millions of properties in this crazy situation?

Additionally, Plusnet say they can supply a copper solution...simply switching the old service back on. Is this not true...will Openreach block it?

Any help much appreciated...

Re: Stop sell of copper broadband to multi occupancy community with no wayleave agreement

Jane2018 — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 10:15:15 GMT

Sounds hard. Our private estate has a BT wayleave agreement (although from a long while back, not relating to broadband and BT won't do FTTP here either). We raised funds to have Community Fibre provide FTTP ie we paid the installation costs and that is going well. However Community Fibre only cover the London area - we are outer London.

Elsewhere in the country we have a relative who has got Starlink this year (satellite, the Elon Musk service) and that has been better than their previous copper fibre to the cabinet with BT by the way so that may be worth considering. I don't thikn it is as fast as the 5GB download speed service I bought from Community Fibre however although is much faster than anyone currently probably needs.

Re: Stop sell of copper broadband to multi occupancy community with no wayleave agreement

iniltous — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 11:24:32 GMT

There are exceptions to the copper stop sell in FTTP areas , but are difficult to arrange and require valid reasons to override the usual compulsory FTTP infrastructure if FTTP is available , something like considerable construction costs , it’s upto individual providers to use this exception path , if they don’t want to be involved they are at liberty to say No and just not take the order , presumably in your case Plusnet are willing to do this exception type work to use copper , although you are correct to assume that Openreach could decide themselves that your situation just isn’t exceptional enough for you to not use FTTP .

FWIW , your assertion that there must be millions in this situation is wildly exaggerated, not very many live in gated communities where the road and footpaths outside are not accessible under the network operators code powers , and even your gated community may already have Openreach ducts (especially if built after mid 1990 ) and the existing ducts can be used for FTTP , it’s more an access issue than a wayleave issue to provide FTTP in that situation.

Unless you happen to be in an area where 75% or more of the available addresses have access to FTTP , where all addresses have the copper stop sell , then presumably your address is showing FTTP as available, so what does Openreach/BTw show for your address ,

Post the entire return for your address here from this site but remember to obscure your address
https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/AddressHome

Re: Stop sell of copper broadband to multi occupancy community with no wayleave agreement

36ULW — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 12:27:02 GMT

What does Openreach need a Wayleave for?

If there is already BT Ducts/Poles/Joint Boxes on site for existing Services provided by a Metallic Path any Fibre Cabling would be put in/on those and they wouldn’t need a Wayleave to add/put extra cabling on/in it.

Any existing Wayleaves would purely be for the Poles/Ducts/Joint Boxes themselves, not what’s in them.

Re: Stop sell of copper broadband to multi occupancy community with no wayleave agreement

Sp99 — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 06:53:31 GMT

A huge thanks for replies. Very helpful comments and I now understand my predicament much better. The BT wholesale URL was so helpful.

Sounds like existing ducting could be used, although it's described as "underground congested". I guess an engineer can pull out old copper and run fibre in, if the ducting is good enough (it's c 1986).

Thanks again. You guys have restored my faith in humanity 😁

Re: Stop sell of copper broadband to multi occupancy community with no wayleave agreement

36ULW — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 11:51:40 GMT

Congested Duct is a term used when the existing Duct is at about 75% capacity.