Estate Knocks £90k Off Openreach Broadband Quote by Digging Own Fibre

Some 77 homes in the rural Wiltshire UK hamlet of Axford look set to gain access to Openreach’s (BT) “fibre broadband” network (FTTC/P) after Stefan Persson, founder of H&M and owner of the 10,000 acre Ramsbury Estate, got his staff to help dig and lay the new fibre optic cable (saving £90,000).

Apparently both the Estate and Axford have long been suffering from slow broadband connectivity and indeed a quick check suggests that many locals may struggle to receive much more than 1-2Mbps (Megabits per second). Sadly most of the area only appears to be served by older ADSL2+ style connections.

In response, representatives from Axford joined forces with the Ramsbury Estate to find a solution but they were understandable disappointed to be quoted around £170,000 by Openreach (BT) for doing the work. Sadly there’s no mention in The Telegraph‘s summary of whether or not the parties involved also sought quotes from any other operators, such as Virgin Media or Gigaclear, which might have been a wise thing to do.

Alistair Ewing, Estate Manager, said:

“We decided that was not acceptable, so we thought OK, we will do all the digging and trenching and laying directly.

We have some social responsibility as a large estate, so that is what we have done. The villagers in both Ramsbury and Axford have got this get up and go attitude – it is no good standing with you hand out because no one will give you anything.”

The team then spent two weeks digging a 3km long trench across the estate, which managed to knock a whopping £90,000 off the total bill and meant that Openreach could now extend their exist fibre optic cable into the village from nearby Aldbourne. However, there is some confusion over the costing for this, with one local suggesting that it equates to a cost of “about” £600 for each of the 77 houses (we make that £46.2k, so there’s something missing).

At this point it’s also unclear whether or not the village will receive a slower hybrid-fibre FTTC (VDSL2) service or an ultrafast FTTP connection, although one local did say that the fibre “will go straight into the homes” and that implies a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) connection.

A Spokesperson for Openreach said:

“As part of this partnership the estate management team has self dug around 3km of duct and installed the relevant footway boxes in readiness for the Open Reach engineering to commence.

We are currently working with all parties in this partnership to successfully bring superfast broadband to these communities as quickly as possible.”

The new service is expected to go live sometime in the Spring of 2018. The locals had hoped to be connected by Christmas 2017 but apparently Openreach was too busy. Unfortunately not everybody lives alongside an estate owned by a local billionaire, especially one who would be willing or able to conduct such a development.

NOTE: The attached picture is taken from a different Openreach project.