Community Fibre Partnership

[CRG66]

H

Our neighborhood is shortly to engage in a Community Fibre Partnership (CFP) with Open Reach (OR).  We have a quotation and will form a limited company for the length of the contract.

Approximately half of the homes that are suitable for FTTP are funding the work along with OR and the fibre connection will be run into each of these homes.  Will OR install the infrastructure for the whole road so that in the future the remaining households can obtain FTTP, or will they install sufficient to cover only the initial contributing households? The organizers of the CFP are understandably a little coy on this question, fearing I think that households may drop out of the arrangement and the funding won’t be possible.

If the full infrastructure for the road is in place is it then the responsibility of the fibre service provider in the future, say BT to then organise the connection from the road to the remaining houses and if so do they charge for this or is it part of the monthly fibre cost?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Many thanks

[Ribblelancs]

An open topic at the moment!

The fttp install procedure is ongoing in some areas.

You may receive notifications through your post box, ( letter box), asking you to follow procedures on claiming grants. Follow those instructions! Presumably the more grants that are awarded, the better the chances are of installation.

You may also be receiving emails from Bt re upgrade to Halo 3. Apparently the upgrade installation cost to fttp is free with Halo 3 (+)? And you receive the guarantee of a connection.

Seems a little uncertain at the moment...Should you go to Halo 3 first, or should you wait until fttp is a definite install?

[CRG66]

Hi

Thanks for the info!

We have all the funding in place and contract about to be signed.

Do you know if OR generally install al  the infrastructure or only enough to cover the 50% or properties that have contributed?

Thanks again.

[pompey1898]

Hi @CRG66 ,

Good luck with your CFP.

I submtted all my villages registrations on 9th October I never got any final offer before all CFP's were closed.  In summary, a complete waste of time and effort.  Albeit OR now have a lot of information that could be of use to them sometime in the future.

This was the final response from OR received on 9-2-21, i.e. 6 days notice !!

"If you have received an offer that is subject to contract for your community and wish to make use of the Rural Gigabit Vouchers to fund your share of your Community Fibre Partnership, we will need to have confirmation of acceptance of your final offer by 15th February. We will then submit this to the BDUK for approval and will be need have all required vouchers approved and issued to the members of your community by 31st March 2021."

[CRG66]

Hi

Thanks for the reply!

Ours is being funded solely by residents contributions, no vouchers or other funding is being used.

Those residents that haven't contributed are now asking if they will be able to get FTTP in the future having not contributed. Hence my question will OR install the infrastructure for the whole road or only enough to support fibre to those residents that have contributed? Does anybody know?

Cheers

[iniltous]

AFAIK, a community funded project, even if the ‘community’ don’t qualify for Government vouchers, (or for some other reason don’t use Government vouchers) don’t pay the full construction costs , it’s a jointly funded project, Openreach contribute what they consider to an appropriate  ‘commercial’ investment and the CFP contribute the remainder, no doubt in many cases the lions share of the ‘costs’ are borne by Openreach.

The property’s that are capable of being served after the network is built but did not contribute can still order, those that did contribute may feel that this is a little unfair, but it’s not like they have built the network ‘privately’ , perhaps the way they should consider it  is , that the non CFP customers benefit from OR contribution to the build.

Residents of an area ‘served’ via a CFP are under no obligation to use BT as their ISP , so posting on a BT Consumer forum isn’t really the appropriate place for Openreach CFP’s.

[Ribblelancs]

You are correct.

The mail box posts received from Openreach are impartial: user is given choice of claiming govt voucher for all providers...not just BT. At least that’s how it looks! Don’t know yet. I’ve applied for Openreach govt voucher, and there’s no response yet. In the meantime, Halo 3 is being promoted.

However, there’s a very real risk in being left behind in the race for Fttp. If the majority subscribe to the Fttp service then others will find themselves being left behind...I.e. of lower priority, when it comes to maintaining the service.

[pompey1898]

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@iniltouswrote:

Residents of an area ‘served’ via a CFP are under no obligation to use BT as their ISP , so posting on a BT Consumer forum isn’t really the appropriate place for Openreach CFP’s.

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Can you let us know which forum we should be using please ?

[iniltous]

I’m not sure I understand your question, I suppose a question for you, has the same question been posted about this Openreach product ( in this case a CFP ) on ( for example ) the Talk Talk community forum ?, both BT and TT are ISP’s that consume OR products, BT has no preferred customer status with OR.

BT have no involvement with CFP’s , but can ( once the network has been provided and shown as available ) accept orders from customers , in the same way TT ( amongst others ) could.

BT isn’t a proxy for OR, so any questions about OR would be no less ‘appropriate’ on a TT forum , or any ISP that offers service over OR FTTP,  as  posting questions here , but asking  questions about OR perpetuates the misapprehension that BT and OR are one and the same , and interchangeable when they are not,  I very much doubt the OP has posted similar questions on any other ISP forum.

If the OP’s CFP delivers FTTP to the location, there is no obligation on anyone to use BT for service , hence my reply,  as far as a forum for organisations trying to set up a CFP with Openreach ,  I’m not sure there is one, if there was, it would ( presumably ) be aligned to the product provider OR and not BT

This may come over as argumentative, it’s not intended to be, simply that questions for OR addressed to BT are inappropriate, having said all that, I believe I addressed the OP’s point anyway, that is service will be available to some that don’t contribute, but the CFP doesn’t contribute the full cost, so those that do contribute are not in a position to dictate that those who don’t contribute should be excluded.

[CRG66]

My apologies, yes of course this question should have been directed at OR and not BT, when I stumbled across this forum and found a few posts on CFP I got carried away I'm afraid!

Your posts have been very helpful and certainly given me a better understanding of CFP arrangements.

One final question, when the network is in place would BT or whatever provider charge to connect those households without a fibre connection from the network in the road to their premises , like a line installation charge, or is there no additional cost other than the price of whatever  fibre monthly package is chosen?

Thanks again for all the help