Fibre Installation

[mda99das]

I used to be an ex Sky customer and had 2 traditional copper landlines.

I have switched to VM, and going to be coming out of my introductory offer. Getting 3 boxes, 1 gig broadband with Wifi 6 router, unlimited landline calls, Netflix, Sky sports, BT sports, was an absolute bargain. The broadband beats skys hands down. With sky I was on VDSL and max I was getting was 65 megs.

I now have community fibre, and they did some work to my telegraph pole, and I now have fibre activated, which I can install when I go through community Fibre's website, but when I go to BT's website, they say its not available.

Right now I am researching all my options, and seeing what is out there. Having been with sky for 22 years (big mistake) loyalty counts for zero. I have yet to approach VM to ask what deals they have.

What is the difference between openreach fibre and community fibre. I am guessing these alt net providers have their own network. My worry is that their backbone network is not as robust as BT / OpenReach, or does BT give them access to their backbone.

How easy would it be to port the landline number from VM to these alt. fibre providers.

Lastly if BT have not got fibre yet, what type of VDSL deal with Landline, BB, and set top box could they do, I would need sky sports and BT sports.

Lastly once you have gone to a fibre connection, how easy is it to go back to a copper line? When VM did their installation, I had to remove the master wire from the socket and park it to one side, in case I ever needed it again, and wire in the cable that connects to the router, so all my phones work in my house. If I ever go back to VDSL I will have to reverse it.

Many thanks.

[Keith_Beddoe]

@mda99das 

Welcome to this user forum for BT Retail phone and broadband customers.

For BT deals see https://www.bt.com/products/broadband/deals

[pippincp · Accepted solution]

Community Fibre have no connection to BT Retail (the ISP) nor to Openreach other than allowing access to the ducts and poles via a lease agreement (PIA). I would have no worry about the backbone as many AltNets lease fibre backbone fron OpenReach which is totally exclusive.

As regards VM and regarding your master socket. Your BT Master socket should not have been touched by them. It is the property of OpenReach. They should have suppiled their own master socket and connected any extensions to it. The master socket is not used for BB connection for the router as that is supplied via a coax cable so had no relation to any BT wiring.

[iniltous]

As already stated the only relationship between City Fibre and Openreach is that CF are allowed to use space on Openreach poles , and in OR ducts and jointboxes , their networks is totally separate from Openreach , it is possible that at some point they use other providers for backhaul etc, but essentially CF are a a network operator, in the same way as Openreach are , they offer access to ISP’s who then sell onto consumers.

BT and OR are not CF partners, some ISPs  offer service over both CF and OR ( even in areas where both have FTTP on offer ) some ISPs are exclusive to OR , and it could be some are exclusive to CF.

As far as reliability, service level agreements ( how long to fix faults etc ) and compensation should the service go down for a while,  are all questions to ask the ISP you are considering that uses CF, if you are considering CF FTTP .

[Col8]

One big difference I can see is that CF is a symmetric service and BT is not. They seem alot cheaper too.

I found this speed test comparison

https://youtu.be/HOz2BN2oK_w?si=YmGFUvSa8V6mpO1b