Nightmare! Paying for FTTP infrastructure? No upgrade plans in-place.

[richarde90]

Hello,

Pardon the wall of text, I have a bit of a nightmare set-up at the minute and would love to move into the current era. 

I work from home full-time currently and live in a semi-rural market town in Nottinghamshire. The town has mostly appalling broadband speeds due to FTTC cabinets serving properties a substantial distance away. Apart from some random spot-upgraded properties which had nearby telephone poles upgraded making them eligible for FULL fibre to the home connectivity, the premise is these properties didn't meet a minimum speed requirement. I lived at one of these addresses which got upgraded but recently moved to another property with the same sub-par speeds (which didn't get upgraded... makes sense).

I now pay for 18-26Mbps down not too much less than what almost everyone I know pays for 5-50x the speed. Also because this is unreliable at best and not good for having a house with streaming, downloading,  conference calls and call-out responsibilities going on, I've had to get an unlimited 4G sim and an external antenna. Which isn't massively stable but tops out at around 4x the speed of my static,  cabinet connection. I'm constantly switching back and forth, I have no issues on my main-line and have had it checked by techs on the phone and in-person.

I am in dire need of an infrastructure upgrade which was similarly offered to nearby properties, I did contact the better broadband for nottinghamshire scheme showing them proof my connection fell under their schemes remit, however they just said "well the data we have for your property disagrees" and ended it there. 

What, if anything are my options? I am a homeowner and plan to be in this residence for the foreseeable. I'm on a connection which I had much better than a decade ago. Virgin media isn't an option so I am stuck on copper from the cabinet. Can I pay for FTTH to be installed? How do I prompt an upgrade without throwing my name in some form and crossing my fingers for the next 5 years? 

Any help would be massively appreciated! 

Cheers,

Rich 

[Keith_Beddoe]

@richarde90 

Openreach provide the infrastructure.

If you are a business user, then you can normally pay for FTTP to be installed, but it costs thousands of pounds initially, and then an expensive rental charge.

If you are just a residential customer there is nothing you can do, apart from hope that Openreach upgrade your local network.

Are you still a BT customer?

[Starwire]

As Keith said the FTTPoD would be available to you as you have FTTC.

Although the cost can be extremely expensive, it’s only for Business Lines so you’ll end up paying for Business Line Prices.

Also Openreach limit the amount of FTTPoD Orders so you might not even be able to place an order.

If no other Alt Net is available and won’t be anytime soon then your best bet is getting your Neighbours together and doing a Community Funded Partnership.

https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/community-fibre-partnerships

[richarde90]

Unfortunately I have no other choice in terms of using openreach infrastructure, it's all just another service wrapper around the same line. I am not a business customer I just work from home, it basically means even though I'm on 23Mbps (sometimes less), which fell within the boundary for government backed upgrade programs, because the data was wrong I'm missed and stuck in a void.  The nature of where I live means it's an older population, the demand is not going to push BT to upgrade here for a long time IMO.. such a downright broken system. 

Quite literally the address I lived at prior in the same town, I immediately bought FTTP and had 300 down which was the max they offered at the time, down the road from people stuck on 25 and below. The spot upgrading based off inconsistent and often inaccurate data is frustrating, they can estimate speeds all they want, distance, line quality and other external factors can push people into a gap where they should be eligible but are completely forgotten. 

I challenge my situation with evidence to every official body I get in touch with and just hit a brick wall. "Well our data says otherwise". What does it matter if the data says my property should get above 30Mbps if it gets 2/3 or less than that in reality? 

FTTPoD is obviously not appropriate being I'm not a business user, I just work for an organisation from home and either way the cost is prohibitively high. Why as a user can you not front the cost from a continuation of the fibre from the cabinet to your home? Depending on the cost I would happily front a module on the nearest telephone pole that others could use. Pardon my lack of understanding in regards to FTTC/FTTP, obviously it may not be that simple. 

[Carlusha]

@richarde90 I am long retired but when I worked from home for some considerable years, only having to traipse up to London perhaps twice a month, my employers paid ALL my broadband and ad hoc internet charges together with computer hardware. Have you discussed the possibility of this with your organisation?

FTTPoD :

Openreach FTTPoD pricing 

[Starwire]

Have you considered a 4 or 5G Receiver?

[iniltous]

FTTPod can be provided as a residential service, but BT don’t offer it ( it’s unclear if you are a BT customer anyway ) you would have to use an ISP that does offer FTTPod , but as already mentioned it can be ( very ) expensive, other forums have contributors that have paid £8K and more.
If there has been upgrades to FTTP provided nearby, the reason for those deployments could be someone paid for FTTPod and their neighbours benefited, a CFP ( community funded project ) a ‘BDUK’ type project although if that’s the case those areas may well have been ‘slower’ than you, or a regular Openreach deployment, any of which are neither any benefit to you but are not to your detriment either.
BT have no more influence on where OR chose to install FTTP than any other ISP, and personally  I’m always puzzled by the apparent double standard of those that simply shrug their shoulders if Virgin Media are not available , but are ‘outraged’ if Openreach are ‘ignoring’ them or their area , why not lobby those other  national infrastructure providers  that are  apparently also ‘ignoring’ your area ?

Your speed of 23Mb is only 1Mb short of what can be considered ‘Superfast’ speeds anyway ( Superfast classed as either 24Mb or better by some measures , although some use 30Mb or better )
If you are a BT customer, you could post your router stats , or the wholesale checker returns for your phone number from

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

Its possible your speed can be improved , if the official body for your area states potentially you should already have 30Mb available, but if your speed is as good as it gets ,  TBH, all you can do for now, (assuming FTTPod isn’t economically viable ) is be patient , it’s not just OR that build FTTP networks, and there will be some that would be delighted to have 23Mb available as it would represent a big improvement on what they currently get, the USO ( the minimum the Government say you have a right to expect ) is 10Mb and you obviously exceed that.

On checking your other posts , in July you were in the process of ordering FTTP ( your questions were regarding what constitutes a stage 1 install ) have you moved ?

[richarde90]

My organisation pays for my main broadband connection, not my 4G unlimited sim and wouldn't bother paying for a fibre installation lol. They'd just tell me to drive to the office. 🙂

[richarde90]

@Starwire as stated in my main post, I have a 4G connection which isn't great as I'm in the middle of all the masts in my area not close to one particular one. No operators which allow banding are in good reception range so I'm on vodafone using a single frequency, when it's good it's much better than my BT line but it obviously changes depending on contention. 

[richarde90]

@iniltous As stated in my original post, I lived in one of the properties which was upgraded. It was upgraded as part of  the better broadband for Nottinghamshire scheme. It had the same speed as my current address due to being the same distance from cabinet however the data they used for this program says my new property should achieve 30Mbps so it was not included in the plans. It was literally due to incorrect data which they aren't willing to challenge.