Welsh Village Left Waiting Months for Openreach to Finish FTTP

Residents in the rural village of Blaenffos (Pembrokeshire, Wales) have been left confused after a mix of admin delays, cost concerns and conflicting feedback from ISPs resulted in the local roll-out of a new ultrafast Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband network entering a lengthy state of limbo.

Last year the area appeared to be a hive of activity as Openreach’s (BT) engineers, seemingly with support from the Welsh Government’s Superfast Cymru project, diligently set about deploying a new FTTP network into the area. By early 2018 this roll-out appeared, at least to the naked eye, to have been all but completed and in February the operator’s availability checker began to report the service as being available to order.

At this point a few lucky people promptly placed an order, but it quickly became apparent that not all the necessary infrastructure appeared to have been fitted (i.e. the aggregation node and splitters seemed to be present, but sadly some manifolds and tubing for the fibre was missing). Some engineering work continued in the area until mid-March and then.. silence.

Just to confuse matters, only around 4 properties in the affected area have a working FTTP service (they joined quickly after it initially became available, before vanishing again) and yet some of their immediate neighbours found that they were unable to order the service, where previously it had been marked as available.

Steve, Blaenffos Resident, told ISPreview.co.uk:

“The village of Blaenffos has patchy mobile coverage and, being a long way from the exchange, most properties have low ADSL speeds. Not surprisingly, some villagers were keen to get Superfast Broadband under the Superfast Cymru project. In early February, many were told FTTP was available to order. Shortly afterwards, most of those same people were told it was not available. This change coincided with the realisation that some of the infrastructure (mainly FTTP manifolds) was missing. The missing infrastructure was soon fitted.

Afterwards, only about 6 out of 120 affected properties could have the FTTP ordered. Neighbouring properties had different availability despite the phone lines being connected the same way. Some were allowed access and others were not allowed access to the same FTTP infrastructure. The few that could have FTTP were essentially those that ordered very soon after it first became available. It had nothing to do with location or connection.

The situation for villagers is frustrating and unclear. With the original Superfast Cymru project more properties were deliberately in scope than were provisioned. The base for the successor project does not appear to include any properties that were in the scope of the original contract, but not provisioned. Consequently, the successor contract for Wales is unlikely to help those properties. Most of the village appears to be in an uncertain situation with no resolution or improvement in sight, excepting the Universal Service Obligation.”

Upon investigating this issue ISPreview.co.uk managed to help Openreach identify an outstanding address matching issue with their database, which once corrected meant that a small number of additional properties are now able to order the “full fibre” service. Unfortunately many of the other affected postcodes remain in a state of limbo.

A spokesperson for Openreach has informed us that the rest of the addresses were due to be served off a different fibre structure, which was part of the state aid supported Broadband Delivery UK Phase 1 build (i.e. Superfast Cymru). “Unfortunately, due to a high build cost and extensive civils required, work did not progress,” said the operator.

The problem now is that the BDUK Phase 1 project has recently ended, although the Welsh Government are working on a new scheme that will aim to tackle the remaining 80,000+ premises in the final 5% (here). This aspires to make “fast reliable broadband” (defined as 30Mbps+) available to “every property” in Wales.

A Spokesperson for the Welsh Government said:

“Superfast Cymru has undoubtedly been a success by bringing superfast broadband access to almost 733,000 premises which would otherwise not have received it, largely in rural areas, meaning every local authority area in Wales now has access.

While the programme has successfully changed the digital landscape in Wales, we know there is more to do in reaching the remaining premises without access and we are now working on how to do this. A tender process is under way for the successor scheme to Superfast Cymru, which will be underpinned by £80 million of public funding, and further details will be provided in the Autumn.

Work on the procurement exercise is complex and we will award contracts as quickly as the process allows. It is absolutely essential and right that time is taken on this so the full benefits from the successor scheme can be achieved. Our Access Broadband Cymru and Ultrafast Connectivity Voucher Schemes are also available for those currently without access to superfast broadband.”

Sadly Blaenffos is by no means the only village stuck with an unfinished build, which is a matter that has cropped up several times before (recent example). Julie James (AM) said: “We’re having a complicated conversation with BT around the connection of the stranded assets. There is a complex commercial negotiation – ‘negotiation’ is the only word I can think of – going on about who should pay for them.”

As it stands Openreach doesn’t seem to have a plan for finishing the local roll-out, which leaves residents with the choice of either waiting to see what happens with the Welsh Government’s next contract (details expected this autumn) or hoping for a reprieve via the forthcoming 10Mbps+ Universal Service Obligation (USO).

Alternatively locals could try hunting for a wireless supplier or mix the aforementioned voucher schemes with Openreach’s own co-funded Community Fibre Partnerships (CFP), which we suspect will be a lot cheaper than normal due to the fact that most of the necessary infrastructure has already been deployed. At the very least it might be worth exploring this option to see how much it would cost.

The reality with all of these options is that the community will probably still have a wait on their hands, although unfinished builds should be high on the list when it comes to a future contract (assuming Openreach is chosen to supply).

At this point BT are always quick to remind that they delivered a significantly larger volume of premises passed than either party anticipated at the outset of the first project. Not that this matters if you happen to be one of those that was missed off the original deployment.