OpenReach

[saniman]

Can any BT customer in the UK equal this unbelievable inefficiency and crass delays of BT / OpenReach connecting us to FTTP?

In April 2025 we get a first cheery email from BT to say Openreach will connect us up to FTTP on 2/7/25 as part of the upgrade from copper. We are a mile from the  City Centre. All BT etc. online searches show that FTTP is readily available for our post code and house Number. We have FTTC!

Despite the deadline for eliminating all copper connections by January 2027 OpenReach have so far effectively done nothing! Yes, many visits by OR, many reports back to OR of the problems, many pictures taken by OR guys and their surveyors visiting. BT escalating my complaints to their Executive Complaints guys, now FOURTEEN MONTHS later we are still have a copper span to our house and no fibre node on our nearest pole. Yes, I have it with my MP. She has written to both BT & OR! I think I must raise it with Ofcom. The hours I have wasted for half days for OR to attend and be unable to do anything or not knowing of the complications and issues.  I have demonstrated the issues to many OR guys. In short OR will not invoke Para 20 procedure under the Telcommunications Code and get a Para 26 order to force a neighbour to allow a further fibre cable to be run along his wall where there are already about 4 or 5 OR / BT cables. OR have long term established use for running their existing acbles. OR can readily enforce their rights thru' the Scottish Lands Tribunal and get a court order for access  but for about 12 months they have failed to do so. The latest OR  'plan' is to dig up 60 meters of our street and pavement at a cost of £17,000 to enable us alone to have FTTP when at most, for say a thousand pounds, the OR legal team could get a court order and we could have FTTP in half a day. The refusing neighbour has no valid legal grounds for refusing. The exisitng wires and  cables have been on his wall for 20+ years!

Edinburgh BT customer - here for 40+ years.

We are not even 'in contract' with BT but because of this OR 'order' we cannot reduce our 'package'. Switching from BT will just put us at the end of the queue for OR! 

btw we do not want 'City Fibre' or Virgin Media etc. from the pavement but wish the OpenReach network for our broadband  and that via the pole at the back of our house from which we get our copper span. 

[licquorice]

There is no deadline for removing copper connections, it is the analogue PSTN that is closing in Jan 2027

[gg30340]

Just so that you are aware copper is not being eliminated for broadband. It will be years before full fibre is the only way to get broadband. FTTC will be used until that is done.

The only copper being "turned off" is for the copper telephone system.  For BT landline telephone customer where possible will be changed to Digital Voice which can work with FTTC and FTTP broadband. There is also a system being used for the BT customers who do not have a BT broadband service.

As regards how Openreach operate, that has nothing to do with BT Retail or this BT customer to customer forum so other than being a place for you to vent and moan about Openreach there is nothing that can be done about it on this forum

[chrisjp]

The unfortunate fact is that OFCOM's insistence that Openreach work entirely independently of BT (and other ISPs) means that BT has no means of influencing OR to properly serve their customers.
OR thus operates with no real ethic of service to the ISP's customers and has probably concluded that the complications it has encountered in routing full fibre to your house means that it's not worth pursuing while there are easier and cheaper installations to spend its budget on.
OFCOM's policy was intended to promote competition between ISPs, and it has done that. But the unfortunate side effect is that the ISPs have no control over the infrastructure that they rely on.