Full Fibre: "Premises not in a plan" - options?

[schmurnan]

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So, I'm afraid I have no sympathy for you

Don’t be afraid - I’m not here looking for any. I’m looking for advice.

Teams calls don't require a lot of bandwidth, even when two are being simultaneously held.

Whilst usually I would agree, at times both of us have experienced bandwidth and connectivity issues when only one of us is on a Teams video call, let alone both of us. Add bad weather into the mix and it can be quite unusable.

Finally, this is a BT forum and Openreach is a different company.

As a BT customer I figured a BT forum was a good place to start looking for advice from people that may have encountered similar situations.

OR are a subsidiary of BT Group - much like EE and Plusnet - not a separate company. But if your point was that this issue is an OR one and not a BT one: I agree.

[schmurnan]

I cannot post links to them but there are UK websites that provide this information including maps showing which service providers serve which postcodes.

Understood, thank you very much. I’ll have a little look and see what I can find. 

[c64z86]

Don't let the unsympathetic nastiness expressed by that person on here put you off. 

Yes it is an Openreach topic rather than a BT one, but what you talk about here will also be helpful for others down the line who will face this situation in future.

Please let us know how you get on!

[schmurnan]

@c64z86 thank you. I’m not put off at all. I’m more perplexed that they even bothered to respond at all - complete waste of their time to contribute nothing when it would’ve been far easier for everyone if they’d just ignored the post if they had nothing valuable to contribute. 

Thank you for the post, much appreciated. Will be sure to update on progress should there be any. 

[schmurnan]

Not much of an update, but I’ve been reading around the various forums this evening (this one, Sky, TalkTalk) and it seems that blocked/damaged ducts are a really common problem when building out for FTTP. In almost every other post I’ve found, Openreach has repaired the ducts or run new ones to circumvent the issue. 

Why won’t they do that in this situation?

I feel like perhaps I should try to raise another case with Openreach and have it escalated and be a bit more persistent or even try and get the project manager's number, to see if they will come and try to repair it. Otherwise I fear the 5 houses or so in my street that are impacted will never get done.

Probably more coincidence than anything, but my connection has been awful the past two days, it’s dropped down to about 13.2 - 13.5 Mbps down and 3.4 Mbps up. 

I think there's a guy across the road who works for Openreach as well so I could even try and speak to him, see what he can suggest.

[iniltous]

Something that seems odd , you state that from a group of properties currently serviced by the same telegraph pole , some show FTTP availability and some don’t , that’s something that shouldn’t be the case , so if true , there is obviously an error somewhere.

Can you provide the dsl checker survey return for an address that can order service from your serving pole and your address ( that presumably cannot order ) , obviously obscure the addresses when posting ,

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

The survey return will look like this ( yours will differ as it’s overhead service )

Our records show the following FTTP network service information for these premises:-Single Dwelling Unit Residential UG Feed with no anticipated issues.

Openreach provide CBT’s ( the fibre distribution point ) in 4, 8 and 12 port variants, the size dependent on the number of properties it’s designed to ‘feed’ , this is closely based on the existing copper pair distribution, so ( for example ) if a pole had 16 properties served ( 16 existing dropwires , even if some are not in use )  then the appropriate CBTs would be 1x12 port and 1x8 port , because although a 12 and 4 port is sufficient, the policy is to build in at least one ‘spare’ ….has a CBT ( or CBT’s ) appeared on your pole ?,

Can  you indicate ( perhaps provide a diagram ) of the pole position in relation to your property,  and to property that can order FTTP , lastly if there is no serviceable duct to this pole , is there a line of sight to a pole that does have CBT’s on it , in many cases , where you have a series of poles , easier to link them to each other with overhead cables between them , even if the existing copper pair distribution between them is underground, as obviously underground structures can deteriorate, serving overhead between poles is visually less attractive , but you know there are not going to be any ‘blockages’ along the way .

If there is no direct line of sight , often an extra pole is provided, and as that is relatively ‘cheap’ solution , it should not in itself push a scheme from economic to not economic,  extra poles are also used if the distance between poles is to great ( 75m if the cable crosses a road , observing the minimum height requirement ) or you need to get around an obstacle or get around a corner .

[schmurnan]

@iniltous thanks for your response.

I've just been out to the pole and up and down the street, and the situation may be a little different than I thought it was, but I'm not entirely sure. There are certainly more houses impacted than the original five or so that I thought (actually 13 if I counted correctly), and it may be that they are served by different poles and that the cabling I saw is connecting two poles together. I've tried to map it out as best I can on a diagram:

https://imgur.com/CwlOLil

If you look at the map, all the ones with green dots are showing as "Available now" on the Openreach fibre checker; the ones in red are showing as "Build planned between now and Dec-2026" (which OR has told me is an arbitrary date that means absolutely nothing).

The map shows there are three poles - one right in the middle of the street, to which I'm connected; one across the road from me at the bottom of an adjacent road; and one further up the road on another adjacent street (all labelled as blue on my map). All of these poles have equipment on them (photos below). There is also a metal pole further up the street as well which simply seems to be a "connector" pole, i.e. there's no equipment on it but seems to connect poles.

Probably not relevant - but certainly frustrating - all the houses on the right that are green, connected to the pole across the road are all pensioners, and I know for a 100% fact that at least three of those houses don't have any internet connectivity whatsoever today. So surely will have no burning desire for Full Fibre. Whereas I am on my knees begging for it!

The following is a photo of the equipment on the pole in the middle of my street (that I'm connected to), along with a photo of the foot of the pole:

https://imgur.com/0tVhaix

https://imgur.com/J4wW0aZ

https://imgur.com/nR1igG7

This is a photo of the metal "connector" pole:

https://imgur.com/tz8ghjA

This is a photo of the wooden pole across the road from my house:

https://imgur.com/VFag7ci

And this is a view from my house to the two poles, firstly the one to the left (that I'm connected to):

https://imgur.com/OGOeQ1D

And the one to the right, across the road:

https://imgur.com/e7biQS3

I visited the site you linked and below are the results of two different houses - mine, which is red, and one that is green:

My house: https://imgur.com/EqHwBR7

A house that is 'green': https://imgur.com/uPXANGL

So I'm at a loss as to what I can do now.

Surely a coincidence, but since last night when I spoke to OR my internet will not stay on for longer than 10 minutes at a time. I have to keep rebooting my router to get connectivity back, and then 10 minutes later it disconnects again. Bad whilst trying to work from home.

[atee49]

I have a similar issue to Schurnan. Openreach serves me on an estate with a mix of directly buried cable and duct. I'm a BT broadband customer. Openreach says there are no plans to provide FTTP service even though my neighbours got a positive response on FTTP availability. Today You Fibre dug up the road outside my house to extend the duct from a nearby Openreach footway box. They are using the Openreach ducted network to provide FTTP so why can't Openreach.? Their reluctance will drive BT customers to look elsewhere.

[schmurnan]

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I’m not sure how helpful it will be @atee49, but I’ve now been on Full Fibre since around April time after persevering with Openreach.

I did say I’d come back here and post my progress but admittedly I forgot.

I escalated my issue back into Openreach and the 2nd-line support guy I was dealing with was incredibly helpful. He kept the pressure on from his side and, eventually, we achieved two things:

Firstly, we were able to get the project manager to come out to my property and double-check the other pole that was apparently “at capacity”: it was not. It was empty. Not a single Full Fibre connection despite all the kit being there. So he arranged for OR to come out and move my property to that pole, and that ultimately solved my issue. Since then I’ve been enjoying 920 Mbps down (820 Mbps over WiFi) and 109 Mbps up and it’s made a massive difference to the amount of bandwidth we have; no more connection issues when my wife and I are on video calls; video game downloads happen in minutes rather than hours; streaming services load instantly. A really good service.

Secondly - and perhaps more importantly - my escalation went to “senior” levels within OR and essentially resulted in OR coming back out and expediting the build on my original pole. So all of those other neighbours who were in the same position as me all now have the option of Full Fibre broadband - and in fact, I know of at least three that have taken it up and, again, are enjoying much improved speeds. 

I guess the key is to keep persevering with them @atee49 and hopefully you speak to someone as helpful as I did who can eventually help you overcome the issues.

Best of luck and let us know how you get on!