Openreach Network Upgrade in my area

[LLowe_0304]

Hi everyone 

I was just wondering if there's any way to gain some insight regarding when Openreach may be upgrading the network in my postcode .I appreciate that BT have no control over when Openreach do the work but thought I'd ask in case anyone can offer advice - apologies in advance for the long post but I just wanted to throw all the details out there

At the moment, we're with BT and are having to connect to the internet via an ADSL/Copper connection which gives download speeds of 3mb-5mb only.  This is incredibly frustrating, particularly since we both spend a lot of time working remotely and are continually facing issues caused by these slow speeds

I've checked Openreach's current build plans and there's no definitive update as to when they may be upgrading us. It just says that there are currently no specific build plans in place at the moment but that may be subject to change. I've registered interest to try and get updates but these have been non-existent so I'm completely in the dark. In the past, we've been advised that we should be upgraded by 2026 but that's pretty much it

In terms of other options we might have, Virgin Media do offer Fibre in our post code but when we tried to get that setup back in 2020, it resulted in almost 4 months of us being messed around by VM before they confirmed they wouldn't connect us without explanation. I've subsequently been in touch with Lit Fibre who have been telling us for 2 years that they're building a fibre network in our area only for them now to say we've been removed from their build plans. Their reason is that a survey showed it'd require an extensive amount of building work (i.e. digging up the road, laying cables, etc.) so they're now putting everything on hold. I suspect this is why VM refused the install as well and our concern now is will this stop Openreach from upgrading here . The 4G signal here is hit and miss so a 4G router isn't really an option. We've considered other options, like Satellite Broadband, but in short, these alternatives will all cost us significant amounts on money. 

All of this has left us frustrated at the lack of options we have. For clarification purposes, we're not in a rural, remote location. We live in a large in a large town and, judging from Openreach's build plans, we're just being continually ignored while the postcodes around us are being upgraded (even though some of them already have significantly better networks than us already)

Can any members, or BT employees, offer us any guidance  on this please? 

Kind regards

Laura

[naylor2006]

Unfortunately I doubt there will be any concrete insight here, we are all customers apart from a few employees, but they dont work for Openreach and wont be able to help.

Okay, but I can give some general insight into my experience, I spotted Openreach working in our road on the fibre infra, we have telegraph poles so it was obvious something was going on. I was that annoying guy who went out and asked them, I had already signed up to every possible fibre update email going....The guys were quite nice about it actually, they said the build here will be complete by September 2023, I was pestering them in August. I can tell you now, there is no way to get the same information via contacting Openreach, they just dont talk to the end user, there used to be a way of getting to their support desk and I had spoke to them, but only when you landed with the right agent who was happy to actually say something, and even then, they dont have concrete build plans or dates given complications that can arise.

For me, indeed FTTP went live in September, Ill leave out the story that actually there was a fault on it that wasnt fixed until Feb the next year....but it was during that time that I somehow managed to get through to their support desk who were able to give me a little info about that.

I was with Virgin Cable so I could bide my time keeping VM live until my FTTP went live as I could have both services together.

Virgin Media have been installing their own Fibre Network, they have been doing it near my parents house, all the ground work is complete to the curb and each property has a little Virgin Media black box located on the pavement outside their property. Im surprised you were able to make an order with VM if that part wasnt even done yet?

There are so many complications and challenges to laying new fibre networks, Truespeed for example have completed my entire town apart from 6 houses in my road due to the underground passive pathways being blocked.....rather than dig up or work with Openreach they just gave up pushing back the completion date years until it seems they wont bother. Openreach however came down and ran fibre between poles in the air and didnt use their own underground pathway between the poles, so luckily for me I could go with them. Point is, an altnet such as Lit Fibre isnt going to be able to tell you much about when you might get some build work completed, and even if they do have a plan it might be too costly to complete for some reason in some places and they just wont.

If there is Virgin fibre around, I will be just pushing down that route still, you can just keep your existing copper service going and keep trying with Virgin, but the point is, is VM Fibre just in the post code or literally are your property ready to be hooked up?

Sadly though, I know what it feels like but its just a game of waiting, luckily for me Openreach did make an install in the end and Virgin Cable is here as a backup.

[LLowe_0304]

Thanks for this. 

The VM situation at my house is a bit of a strange one. We have an existing VM connection which a previous owner had put in, which is why they said they could connect us. When the engineer came out, he couldn't complete the install because the cable was inaccessible. A previous owner had the driveway extended so the cable was now running underneath it. As VM didn't want to dig up our driveway, they said they would apply for planning permission to move the connection approx 8-10ft so that it'd run under the edge of our front garden instead. This led to 4 long months of engineer/install team visits being arranged and repeatedly cancelled and us having to make numerous calls which would regularly last 2- 3hours where we would have to try and sort everything out before they eventually decided not to continue. It was honestly the worst customer service I've ever experienced and we regularly found ourselves being passed around departments, often ending up back where we started, with no-one taking accountability for helping us  - it's the main reason why we've never attempted to push it further and get them to complete the install as it was incredibly stressful dealing with them

I'm still hopeful that Openreach will eventually upgrade us but it's just annoying that's no way to get an idea of when that might be. We suspect that if they put the infrastructure in place, it might trigger companies like Lit to reconsider us (as they won't have to bear the cost of the work) .I suppose, however, that it depends upon how Openreach choose to do the upgrade because as you've said, they might not end up connecting us via an underground pathway

[naylor2006]

I assume that the previous owner discontinued their VM connection prior to building the driveway, I mean the VM stuff they needed to access would be in your house still? And thats fibre not cable yeah?

Its understandable, sometimes its better for the mental health to stop chasing companies and accept the loss saving yourself the daily frustration.

Lit wont necessarily do any work because of Openreach, in fact there is likely no correlation what so ever. Lit will have to do their own work, alt nets lay their own stuff, they just often use infrastructure such as passive ways that are already there which belong to Openreach and fish their fibre down it. In other scenarios they have to do much more work such as digging up pavements and laying entirely their own path.

You might find Openreach install their fibre then Lit come down two years later. Having an alt net around is great, if you have two fibre providers being able to flick between them always being a new customer is great, which is why im gutted Truespeed didnt complete their work for my house so I will be always on Openreach, I wont go back to Virgin Cable because the latency is 20ms worse than my Openreach Fibre provided connection. Also indeed, their CS is so bad only beaten by Vodafone.

With all that said, I think I would try Virgin Fibre again, its painful for sure but its the only route to fast broadband as it stands, maybe take more of a back seat this time and try and take the pressure off yourself to pressure them. Virgin I expect did not have the budget to hook you up, from memory they used to have a limit for each install and if it exceeds this then its a no go. But still, isnt the hookup still there in side?

[iniltous]

With housing build in the 1960’s through to the late 1980’s/very early 1990’s , the method to provide telephone service was with cables buried directly in the ground , no ducts , this means that to upgrade an area like this , telegraph poles ( which no one wants and generates huge levels of complaints ) or for Openreach to build a new duct network, much like the cable industry did 30 odd years ago …the difference is Virgin don’t have to offer access to their ducts ( so they don’t ) , any duct Openreach provide , their competitors like ‘Lit’ can use that infrastructure immediately, even to the point that they get customers on using that  duct before Openreach do  , this is petty obviously a disincentive for OR doing these areas , basically spend potentially many 10’s of thousands of £££ for the benefit of competitor companies who move in immediately the ducts exist , they deliberately hold off doing an area themselves until OR provides duct they can use .

OR are focusing on areas that are relatively inexpensive to provide , already ducted and overhead service areas , some areas with DIG ( direct in ground ) buried cables can  benefit from a different build method , basically instead of providing a toby box outside every dwelling ( which sounds  like you Virgin service, but their toby box is now inaccessible so they can’t use it themselves ) , OR only build to a customer once that customer actually orders service ….so all is not lost they may upgrade like this  ( assuming your area is 1960-1990 housing ) using that method of only supplying a duct , if an order is received, but even then these are relatively low priority areas, if OR had exclusive access rights for a period of time it may be different, but they don’t have even a short period of exclusivity.

As stated , this forum has no insight into OR plans , you can ask them , but often a generic answer is given about timescales, probably the way you will know anything is happening is by noticing Openreach or their contractors working in your area , not ideal but they you have it .

[naylor2006]

@iniltous I hope you dont mind following up on some of those points you make for my own knowledge....

I live in a 1930's house and us and our neighbours and neighbouring roads are all served by wooden telegraph poles, we also have above ground power, not the prettiest setup. I live in North Somerset and Truespeed are 'The Alt Net' around here. Virgin Media Cable has been here long before any fibre and anyone who wants more than 8Mbps has to go with Virgin, I dont think there is even an FTTC service.

The setup in my road and neighbouring is both passive ducting and telegraph poles, Truespeed installed their fibre by fishing it between the manhole covers labelled BT that tended to relate to a given telegraph pole. Then they would place a CBT at the top of the pole etc etc. Truespeed came before Openreach and covered nearly the entire town before Openreach started anything, so is it because a 1930's houses came with the underground pathways between poles?

Openreach when they arrived just went above ground, so before where two telegraph poles had no visible connection between them, we now have fibre running between them directly into CBT's rather than under ground and then up the pole. I assume this was just far quicker and easier? Every now and then there is a pole with a sorta node looking thing with some numbers on it not much higher than head height, personally I'd rather it was higher so it doesnt get vandalised taking out goodness knows how many connections. The whole thing looks kinda untidy but whatever, its nice to move off Virgin Cable.

Virgin Cable of course using old cable networks that probably existed for and older cable service before then retrofitting a broadband setup. You can see where this is done because the pavement is discoloured slightly where it was obviously dug up at some point.

The other thing about my town is there are some new housing estates, well 90's ish.....in there areas there is no Openreach Fibre probably because of what you said, but indeed Truespeed however have dug these entire areas up to lay their own, installing their own manhole covers labelled Truespeed, this is my frustrating really, they did all that but because the passive ducting was blocked in my road they didnt connect up to my telegraph pole, stating they would need to dig up the area to fix, but Openreach just connected above ground to work around this issue, sure Truespeed could have just done the same if they didnt have budget or clearance to dig the road up?

Your insights are always valuable so thought i'd ask whilst we were discussing a similar topic.

[iniltous]

As with most things there are variations on a theme,

if an area has telegraph poles , each  pole was designed to serve certain properties , the next pole along designed to serve different but neighbouring property , generally there was no need for ‘in line of route’ wires between poles , it was relatively unimportant if there was a duct to the foot of the pole from a jointbox or an armoured cable, areas may well have a mixture of both , duct more likely on ‘streets’ that are larger in size , as they may have more than just cables  to poles inside them  , larger cables between cabinets , cables from the exchange to cabinets, cables between exchanges , are all ducted  and not overhead or buried , if a duct route coincides with more local distribution to poles  it makes sense to put those ‘pole’ cables in the duct than bury them directly in the ground , but it’s a mix , some poles on tiny residential streets may have duct to them , some on a ‘major’ road may be buried armoured cables …

If an Alt Net placed their CBT’s  on Openreach poles by utilising the existing Openreach duct , but Openreach ran cables between poles to place their own CBT’s , it may be by design , obviously no chance that a blocked ducts will hold up the build program ( so guaranteed success ) or perhaps the Alt Net used up all the available space in the Openreach duct , giving OR no alternative but to build totally overhead , (  another alternative is  new duct because the Alt Net has exhausted the previously available duct space, but that’s a very  expensive option )

Design is upto the planner and / or the build people, the ‘builder’ could  potentially decide to do what’s easiest , and change the planners design, there is no real disadvantage to going overhead , apart from the number of cables ‘in line of route’ has restrictions based on the pole type ( light , medium, stout ) and if the route has ‘stays’ , metal cables attached to counter act the ‘pull’ from cables ,  it’s a complicated subject , OR have strict rules on what’s allowed , it’s  possible that Alt Nets ( who  have to follow these rules ) are unsure how to interpret them , and fearful of being audited and told to remove their non compliant wires , go underground so as to not infringe the rules, basically they play it safe .

With OR , CBT’s  connect to intermediate joints or splitter nodes, they  look the same , small and medium sizes of these can be pole mounted , many Alt Nets use a very similar network design, there is a minimum height that have to be above ground , but they cannot be mounted in a way that interferes with the steps on the pole or ladder access to get to the pole steps , this leaves a relatively small ‘envelope’ that can mean they look susceptible to vandalism etc .

The Alt Net  in your area obviously use their own criteria, so building infrastructure in a DIG housing estate, but not doing small builds to individual poles , missed out from their overhead build because no Openreach duct was available , is their choice , the rationale used is theirs , it’s not necessarily the same criteria as OR .

[naylor2006]

Thanks @iniltous 

The duct between the main road and my side road is literally blocked, its still spray painted on the pavement at the base of each pole, one pole is there on the corner where the main road turns into my side road and the other is at the base of the sideroad serving the houses at the bottom. In an annoying twist of fate, the pole on the corner has Truespeed and even serves my neighbour at number 2, but number 4 (me) is served by the pole where Truespeed could not run the fibre underground because the path was blocked. I dont think its blocked from over capacity, engineers came out and said to me is that it was potentially jammed with something and required digging up to solve, Truespeed gave up but Openreach just went between the poles above ground. Truespeed said in some cases Openreach had actually resolved blockages but they never did in my road, probably given its only like 6-8 houses that suffer as a result of the blockage, well suffer from the point that Truespeed cant be provisioned there.

From what I gather, Truespeed of course had their design for our area where the older houses are, IE using ducts and poles, then where the newer houses where they planned and did indeed dig up miles of pavement. It would be complicated in the older areas due to their being Virgin Media Cable underground pretty much along side the Openreach ducts, also as you said I think, it just wasnt in their plans to dig up my pavement so it would have been an additional cost for a sake of a few houses.

Thank goodness Openreach put fibre in the way they did, being with Virgin Cable as the only fast provider was a tough gig every year.

[IanAE]

MI5 would be proud  of Openreach,  the web page tells me they are working in our area , but appears they have no idea what the plan is for a timetable. Unbelievable!

[iniltous]

Hopefully you would agree , that if the Openreach gave you hard date the   ‘build’ would be complete and then events contrived to make that date unviable, there would be more ‘anger’ at this published date failure, than giving a vague ‘ coming soon’ , OR once did give tighter timescales, I dare say experience told them that it made them   a hostage to fortune