New Build Homes on Poundbury Estate in Dorset Left with Slow Broadband

The plight of poor broadband connectivity on existing new build home developments, which are often shunned by developers and the national Broadband Delivery UK programme, has once again reared its ugly head. This time the issue centres on Poundbury in Dorset.

The Poundbury estate is an urban extension to the Dorset (England) town of Dorchester, which has been built on Duchy of Cornwall land according to architectural principles advocated by The Prince of Wales. Construction on the first phase began in October 1993 and the entire project is now well over halfway to completion, which is expected to be achieved around 2025 when it will support 2,200 homes or approximately 4,500 people.

The good news is that “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) capable connections via ‘up to’ 80Mbps capable FTTC (VDSL2) technology can already reach most of the new development, but sadly that’s not true for everyone. Roughly 100 homes in a section of the South West Quadrant (cabinet 103) have been left without access to “fibre“, with neither the developer, council, Superfast Dorset nor BT (Openreach) seemingly able to make a solid commitment to resolve the problem.

On top of that some of those in areas where superfast broadband should be available have found that they cannot order it because the local street cabinets have allegedly become full to capacity (a familiar problem – here and here). Furthermore it’s also worth pointing out that the South West Quadrant was nearly complete by the end of 2013, which largely appears to pre-date the first Superfast Dorset contract.

Today most new developments are expected to include a provision for superfast broadband (here) and network providers have done a lot to support that (e.g. here and here), but this is not the case for older / existing schemes.

In other words, Openreach (BT) is not strictly required to install a superfast broadband service in such areas (Ofcom’s USO rule only mandates a very basic service) and thus most of the responsibility for finding a solution would fall upon the developer. Meanwhile the local Superfast Dorset project is pushing for a solution, but so far they’re more words than action.

Statement from Superfast Dorset (ViewNews)

“We would expect the large development of Poundbury to have superfast broadband planned between the developer and the infrastructure supplier (eg Openreach) from the outset. This appears to be the case with the vast majority of premises in Poundbury.

Properties at Poundbury without the ability to have a superfast connection are a matter between the developer and Openreach because there should be a clear commercial case to build without the need for public subsidy.

We organised a meeting between the Duchy and BT to try to resolve the problem. Openreach has agreed to provide an initial assessment of the work needed to resolve the issue and associated costs. Also, the meeting confirmed that other cabinets are at capacity so very few people can take up a superfast service in Poundbury at the moment.”

Openreach (BT) are alleged to have told a number of local meetings that it would not be commercially viable for them to upgrade cabinet 103, which seems to leave some sort of co-funded deal with local residents (BT Fibre Partnerships) or the developer as the most likely solution. However Openreach often won’t engage directly with residents on such an arrangement until all options with the developer have first been exhausted.

A closer look at cab 103 suggests that it may have already been upgraded to support FTTC in July 2016 and there’s FTTP around too, although our ability to check was hindered by the new build nature of the area (some databases still don’t recognise the addresses) and the claimed issues with cabinet capacity. As such we’re not sure if the 100 homes are being affected by issues of copper line distance, cabinet capacity or some other problem.

Unfortunately we still see a fair number of new builds that have fallen between the cracks of modern digital connectivity and new requirements, which can leave residents in a bit of a pickle. As always if fast broadband is important to you then it’s wise to secure a written commitment from the developer (for the specific property you intend to buy) before completing, which can be useful ammunition if the service then fails to materialise.

We have attempted to contact the organisations involved in order to get some additional comment and will update again if or when those responses arrive. Hopefully the developer will also consider other suppliers than just BT.