This topic

Voneus or BT fibre, long term ?

RuthRvs — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 10:33:51 GMT

Voneus is putting in new cables on BT poles in my village. The Guy told me if I don't choose to go with Voneus Digital when its available, BT wont provide the digital lines in future. So we would be locked in to Voneus Broadband forever. Sounds like a trap! So, if I choose not to have Voneus fit fibre to my house this summer, will BT refuse to connect fibre to my house in future?

Re: Voneus or BT fibre, long term ?

gg30340 — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 10:49:22 GMT

No. BT like all ISPs will happily take you on as a customer if the relevant infrastructure is there.

Re: Voneus or BT fibre, long term ?

RuthRvs — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 11:34:14 GMT

Hi, thanks for your reply. It's more about the installing of the infrastructure. This summer Voneus will fit fibre from the cabinet (which is outside my house) to my home, if I want it. But they say if I don't take it from them, as it's available, then BT will not fit fibre to my house in future. I've also read that BT won't use other companies infrastructure. So I'll then be left with copper connection from cabinet to house, or tied to Voneus indefinitely. They made it sound as though if I didn't take their fibre connection to the house, I'll never get it.

Re: Voneus or BT fibre, long term ?

gg30340 — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 16:09:41 GMT

BT and at least 25 other ISPs use the Openreach infrastructure and would not use the Voneus fibre. However there is nothing to stop Openreach running fibre to your location at sometime in the future.

Only Openreach know if they have that scheduled and in the event that they have you could wait until that happens or you could go with Voneus and then change over to another ISP when your contract ends if that is what you want to do.

You can check to see what Openreach are planning here.

Ultrafast Full Fibre broadband build plan | Openreach

Fibre availability | Openreach

Re: Voneus or BT fibre, long term ?

RuthRvs — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 15:56:26 GMT

Thanks for your reply. I think I will avoid Voneus and wait for BT, whenever that might be 👍.

Re: Voneus or BT fibre, long term ?

NigelB72 — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 17:21:18 GMT

@RuthRvs absolute tosh... In our street we've got Openreach fibre, CityFibre and Virgin Media full fibre and they all happily share the same ducting I assume as no roads were dug up by any of them... It took an Openreach chap half an hour to pull our fibre through and do his bits outside

Re: Voneus or BT fibre, long term ?

RuthRvs — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 17:32:49 GMT

Thanks, good to know. We are a semi rural village and Openreach don't have any proposed dates (or years...) planned to bring Digital to our area, but I've asked to be updated as and when they do, as I would prefer to go with them when connecting fibre from bt cabinet to house. Luckily we've got reasonable speeds on the existing connection. Thanks for your reply 👍

Re: Voneus or BT fibre, long term ?

gg30340 — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 17:37:43 GMT

Just so that you are aware, full fibre does not come from the Openreach or as you have called it BT cabinet in the same way as copper does.

See link

Fibre broadband | Openreach

Re: Voneus or BT fibre, long term ?

RuthRvs — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 17:50:19 GMT

Hi , thanks for the info... the Voneus guy referred to pulling their lines through to the house. The wires are currently coiled up and hanging from every pole in the village. To be honest he never mentioned the cabinet, which is outside my house. I just made naive assumptions... I appreciate all your replies and helpful information. Thanks 👍

Re: Voneus or BT fibre, long term ?

RuthRvs — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 17:59:48 GMT

Also, thanks for the link... connections explained! We're currently FTTC, and already get good fibre speeds. 👍

Re: Voneus or BT fibre, long term ?

NigelB72 — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 20:43:26 GMT

@RuthRvs it looks like Voneus specialise in connecting rural communities to full fibre and they also act as an ISP.

Re: Voneus or BT fibre, long term ?

steephill — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 22:31:40 GMT

There is lots of IT media speculation (e.g. current edition of PCPRO magazine) that the currently dozens of alt-net providers might be reduced to just a handful or even less within a couple of years so I wouldn't worry about being tied to one company for anything like the long term. It seems inevitable that there will be consolidation of providers as the fibre business matures - just look at the cable market which is now all Virgin Media.

Incidentally VM do not share any OR infrastructure as far as I am aware. There are also some upset communities out there where alt-nets have been putting up new poles and ducts rather than trying to share infrastructure.

Re: Voneus or BT fibre, long term ?

RuthRvs — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 06:24:44 GMT

Thanks for that information. They seem to be using existing poles (so far) in the village. Voneus said they'll update us with their progress by email. Also asked Outreach for updates on their plans...👍

Re: Voneus or BT fibre, long term ?

Anonymous — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 08:07:24 GMT

There seems to be two issues here:

Will Openreach install fibre in the future? Almost certainly a some point, but I'd suspect that will be only when all highly populated & therefore more profitable areas have been fully completed. The fact that a competitor has beaten them to it pushes it even further back from an economic point of view IMO. I'm in a similar position with Gigaclear having done half the village (not my half!) & County Broadband promising to do the rest (without actually doing anything). So I don't expect to see Opereach installing in my lifetime.

Will you be tied to Voneus forever? No, there's nothing to stop you moving back to BT or another ISP on FTTC. A number of Gigaclear customers here have done just that because the service was too unreliable.

Re: Voneus or BT fibre, long term ?

RuthRvs — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 08:16:28 GMT

Hi, thanks for your response. I agree that BT will not be in a hurry to update the village, and I would also be concerned with the reliability and customer support from other providers. Luckily I am already getting good speeds with the existing BT fibre to the cabinet, and happy with that.👍

Re: Voneus or BT fibre, long term ?

iniltous — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 09:18:01 GMT

I wouldn’t necessarily assume that if an Alt Net has a presence in an area , that area gets pushed back down the order of areas OR are considering rolling out FTTP to imminently, in fact some commentators suggest the opposite and state OR target those areas , to stop losing market share , and if an Alt Net gets fewer customers than they expect, ( because OR FTTP becomes available not long after the Alt Net ) , then that makes the Alt Net financially less able to continue, …it’s obviously not in every case , especially if the Alt Net has received funds from the public purse via BDUK ( or whatever ) , because the area woukd never normally be a viable economic proposition, but as OR cannot use Alt Net infrastructure ( even if tax payers paid for it ) then the economics may not stack up for Openreach.

Re: Voneus or BT fibre, long term ?

MaBM — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 16:32:55 GMT

If you sign up to Voneus you will only have to stay with them for 24 months, after 24 months you can stay with them or choose another provider like BT. As you are in a rural village it will probably be a while until Openreach install fibre so Voneus will probably be the best at the moment.

Re: Voneus or BT fibre, long term ?

RuthRvs — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 16:37:34 GMT

Hi, thanks for the input. I'm planning to just stay with BT. Don't mind not having fibre for now as current BT speeds are good. Also, I won't have to replace my alarms system for a while 😊👍