Prepping for FTTP

[85amp]

Hi, I live in a semi-rural village and we have recently had confirmation from Open Reach that they will be installing FTTP in the coming year thanks to a community funded project started by one of the residents.  Currently the copper phone lines are run overhead so my first question is will this also be the case when the fibre cables are installed?  Certainly seems the cheapest and easiest option.

Ideally I wanted my connection run underground to tidy up the appearance of the house and as I'm mid renovation it's no issue to run a trench and some ducting now rather than having a nice new driveway dug up later.  However, my house is a semi-detached and the nearest telegraph pole is at one corner at the front of my garden with the existing copper phone line draped diagonally across the garden and fixed to the midpoint of me and my neighbour's house.  So it seems a bit pointless to run ducting for my own house if the neighbour's connection still cuts across my garden.  Unless... could I run the ducting across the same diagonal route and ask OR to run both our cables through it?

[stevebrass]

Obviously you could do with more details from OR as to their plans.

If they do use and overhead connection, then there would still be the need to get from the foot of the pole to your boundary, where your duct might be. 

I think if OR go for overhead connection you will have the same situation as a diagonal feed across your property.

If they go for ug cabling, you would have to have some idea as to where they are going to place your little pavement access box.

Seems to me to be too many imponderables, but you could always lay a duct (roped) under your new drive just in case.

[imjolly]

If your existing phone line is from pole to house then that would be the normal route for openreach to supply the homes in your area.  No point in all the expense of digging channels in pavement and then into each garden when the solution is already obvious and cheaper. 

The fibre will just follow the existing copper but you will get some say on how and where the fibre enters your home

[85amp]

Thank you both for your replies.  The pole is literally just the other side of my boundary (within 6 inches anyway).  There is no pavement between the properties and the road so I guess its even less likely that OR will go underground with the fibre cables.

Due to the pole being so close it's not really an issue to get the ducting close enough to it and I'd like to think that OR wouldn't mind running the cable down the pole?  SSE did the same (it was actuslly their suggestion) when I had 3 phase installed.  I'll ask my neighbour if he has a preference and perhaps we can accommodate his house too.  Not the end of the world if it stays overhead but have a perfect opportunity to hide it underground at the moment! 

[iniltous]

There a a couple of things to consider …if your neighbour doesn’t take FTTP at the same time as you , then their existing copper dropwire wouldn’t be re-routed as part of your FTTP provision …unless you ran a conduit right to the base of the pole then it’s unlikely that the FTTP wire would be ran down the pole if part of the cable remained exposed where it exited near the base of the pole and before it entered the duct that you have provided…strictly speaking you don’t have the authority to excavate in the public road/footpath to get right to the base of the pole, although it has been done before.
TBH it’s pretty much something you could provide and then hope the installer will use , rather than having any ‘right’ to insist on it….you could however request OR provide you with an underground service , but you would pay a lot extra for this ( and it’s such a rare request that getting an ISP to order it may take some doing ) …as you mention SSE , presumably the pole in question isn’t joint user pole , if it is , OR’s licence to co exist on the DNO pole wouldn’t allow them to run down the pole , it would have to be overhead as that’s what the DNO licence allows OR to do.