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

[schmurnan]

Hi all,

I'm looking for advice if possible. And apologies, this has turned into a loooooong post. But bear with me.

I've been following the Full Fibre rollout constantly since about 2019, hoping and praying my property would be enabled. I'm a BT customer and I live on the outskirts of my town and currently have FTTC. Best speed I ever get is 42 Mbps down, 7 Mbps up, and these days it's barely enough.

Finally in October last year, the Openreach fibre checker updated to say "Build planned between now and Dec 2023". After four years of waiting, FINALLY Full Fibre. MJ Quinn have been around the estate digging up the streets, dropping cables, all was looking good. We rolled into Christmas, and my father-in-law who lives around the corner on the same estate informed me he was now showing as "green" ("Available now"). So I knew I wasn't far away. I checked again in early January and the fibre checker said "Build planned between now and Mar 2024". The date pushed out. So I raised an enquiry into Openreach. They got back to me and informed me that there was extra equipment required to complete the build, but I was definitely in plan for the end of the financial year, albeit slightly later than planned.

So I kept an eye on it throughout this month, and then a couple of weeks ago I checked again and it suddenly said "Build planned between now and Dec 2026". So I got back in touch with Openreach and they said they didn't know what the problem was, so they'd try and contact the project manager and find out why the date had changed. In the meantime I used the fibre checker to check the other houses in my street. Turns out, there are around five houses or so that have this Dec 2026 date... all the others are "Available now". It's basically me, my two immediate neighbours either side and a couple of other houses - all of us are connected overhead to the same pole. And there are other properties connected to that same pole that are showing as "Available now".

This afternoon the Openreach customer support advisor came back to me. He'd spoken to the project manager, and the upshot was that plans to enable our few houses have been "abandoned". The reason given was that the additional equipment needed required pulling new fibre cabling through an underground duct that was found to be blocked or damaged. So they abandoned it. Supplying me from another piece of equipment was considered but that was "already at capacity". So as things stand at the moment I am classified as "premises not in a plan".

The advisor said I could opt for FTTP On Demand, but having looked at a few suppliers, I'm looking at £250 for a survey then approx. £4,800 for installation. Obviously I'm not going to pay that. 

It sounds stupid and I'm well aware it's a First World problem, but I'm gutted, and frustrated beyond belief. I've been waiting four years already for Full Fibre, and now have to wait indefinitely.

In terms of usage... I have two kids, both of whom are active on their tablets streaming and playing games; my wife and I both work from home and are often on video calls at the same time; I do a lot of gaming and even when not playing online, some of the games I download or their updates are up to 100 GB sometimes, and I currently have to leave my console on overnight to finish the download. We exclusively stream our TV content via Netflix, Disney+, Amazon, etc. I am literally crying out for faster broadband so to be told "Nah mate, can't have it" is a massive blow for us.

So I'd like to ask this community for their advice, please, because I refuse to believe that I'm out of options. There must be more that can be done to resolve this.

I should probably also note that Virgin Media are non-existent in this area - not even for regular broadband or telephone. Nothing at all. So I can't even switch. And of course if Openreach aren't providing the underlying infrastructure, then I can't even opt for Sky or someone else.

All my neighbours are pensioners in their 80s and 95% of them don't have internet at all. The irony is that they can have 900 Mbps Full Fibre if they want it; whereas me, consuming a lot of bandwidth and needing faster speeds will have to make do with average speeds of 30 Mbps (13.5 Mbps was my reading tonight... living the dream).

Do I raise a formal complaint? Do I reopen the case and ask that it be escalated? Do I ask to be moved to a different pole?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[licquorice]

You are entirely at the mercy of Openreach, you can't force them to provide fibre unless you are willing to pay.

It has nothing to do with this BT retail forum in any case.

[pippincp]

As frustrating as it is I'm sure you are aware BTRetail have no more power over Openreach than any other ISP so nothing can be done via this forum to assist you.

The only suggestion I would make is contact your MP, Councillor or local newspaper and see if pressure could be put on Openreach via one or all of them.

Good luck.

[schmurnan]

@licquorice that’s disappointing to hear. 

Yes I know there’s nothing anybody in this forum can do particularly; I was after advice more than anything else. Figured I can’t be the first person to be in this situation and I was sure others would have come here previously seeking advice that someone on this forum could provide. 

[schmurnan]

@pippincp thanks. Yes aware of Equivalence of Input and the fact BT have no more influence over Openreach than anybody else. But as BT customer I figured it made more sense to post here than a Sky forum, for example. 

Whilst I like the idea of trying to put pressure on Openreach to finish the full build and provide me with Full Fibre, I genuinely don’t think it will be worth the time. But perhaps it’s worth a try. 

Maybe my best bet is to sit idly and wait to see if their plans change. 

[Colin_London]

Sorry to hear you are another of the 'left behinds' - you have fallen into the yawning gap between Openreach and the service providers. Openreach only provide consumers with the enquiry service you have already used, and BT cannot do anything until Openreach have made fibre available at your house.

I experienced this but was in a slightly better position because they had already managed to do the expensive bit (unblocking the duct and installing to the bottom of the pole). They failed on the last bit of checking pole access, and when it turned out the pole was unclimbable, didn't have a wayleave and the people who owned the land wanted it gone anyway they really had to push on and install a new pole (for the copper acccess as well as the fibre). Still needed escalation and took a year. There were also 13 properties on the pole which oiled the decision though.

You only have 5 houses by the sounds of it, and the hard bit (blocked duct) still to do. It's a bit of an easier decision for the OR PM to justify.

I still think there needs to be better transparency about how these stop decisions are made - after all ultrafast broadband was a major government policy. However I am sure commercial confidentiality will be a factor as OR wouldn't want to let the competition know what its criteria are.

Your options?

1) Escalate within Openreach - although if there are no mitigating factors a decision that has been made against set financial criteria will likely get nowhere.

2) Make your MP / County Councillor aware and see if they are prepared to support an appeal to OR or a complaint to OFCOM. You really need the support of your neighbours though to help with this, and it doesn't sound like you will get it.

3) Pay up for FTTP OD - again if any of your neighbours are interested you could share the cost.

4) Check if there are any Altnets in your area who might be willing to install where OR weren't.

The 'different pole' option would probably fall under FTTP OD as its a special, although if possible would probably be relatively cheap if there is line of sight for the cable.

Other than that, you are down to using a 5G mobile router, or Satellite Internet for only slightly higher speed (and more latency).

Good luck!

[Edinburgh-wg]

I think you'll just have accept that it is what it is. I'm afraid gaming, kids playing etc etc isn't really a good enough reason to file a formal complaint, especially that the priority for fibre upgrade would be those areas which still have ADSL. So, I'm afraid I have no sympathy for you - 40Mbps isn't too bad, and it's not like you download your games every minute or so. Teams calls don't require a lot of bandwidth, even when two are being simultaneously held. Finally, this is a BT forum and Openreach is a different company.

[Colin_London]

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

I would agree, but only if you have a stable connection. Any sort of dodgyness / constant resynching due to poor quality copper connection causes call dropouts which is untenable when it happens 2-3 times a day / every time the sun came out which is what was happening with me.

The fault 'couldn't be found' for over 10 years. Then they replaced the pole and miraculously it was fixed immediately.

[schmurnan]

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Thanks @Colin_London this is a really helpful response, and exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. 

Of the neighbours I know that are impacted, two are pensioners (one of whom doesn’t have internet), one of the houses is currently empty having recently been bought (but is a young couple with children; don’t seem to be moving in any time soon, though), and the others are slightly older than us, regularly use internet, etc. so perhaps sharing FTTP OD with them would be an option. 

My house is actually equidistant (more or less) between two poles - the one I’m connected to now (to which other houses with Full Fibre availability are also connected), and another that has full connectivity. I can only assume this second pole is where OR previously looked but there was “no capacity”; otherwise I have no idea. 

I’m not aware of Altnets at all - how would I look into that?

I can’t justify £5k for FTTP OD, although it is cheaper than moving house!

[Colin_London]

I’m not aware of Altnets at all - how would I look into that?

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