System Error and Costs Stop Openreach FTTP Build in Shifnal

Residents on a relatively new build homes development in the rural Shropshire (England) market town of Shifnal have been left confused after Openreach, which had been deploying a 1Gbps Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network in the area, suddenly abandoned the build due to a “system error” and cost issues.

We’re using the term “new build” quite loosely here because the development of c.200 houses, which was conducted by Barratt Homes / David Wilson, was actually completed around 2017/18. In short, the developers have long since stepped away from any responsibility for the estate.

At the time new homes on the site were being served via Openreach’s Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL2) service from a cabinet about 1 mile away (i.e. not the best performance), which was still fairly normal for 2017 and came just ahead of the Government’s big push for more FTTP and gigabit-capable connectivity.

However, a spot of better news seemed to emerge early last year, which came after Openreach’s (BT) availability checker began to report that FTTP was due to be rolled out across the site and work has since progressed.

James, Local Resident of the Site, told ISPreview.co.uk:

“Over the last 12 months, I and other friends/neighbours have been in periodic contact with the “Fibre Enquiries Team” who have continually confirmed our addresses would get FTTP and numerous dates have been provided for the work to be completed and numerous “Available to order” dates have come and gone.

Things seemed to improve when a number of properties, clustered in the centre of the estate, were able to place an order for FTTP earlier this year. This was confirmed by the Openreach Fibre Checker, the BT Wholesale checker, BT Consumer website (amongst others) and confirmed by residents themselves (I’ve been into two properties in the “cluster” and seen the ONTs on the wall where the Fibre terminates).”

All appeared to be going well until last week, when James said he was informed that “funding had run out and the rest of the estate will not have FTTP installed.” When questioned on why Openreach employees had confirmed, for the best part of a year, that FTTP would be available, and were even given completion dates, they informed him that this was due to a “system error“.

Admittedly, situations can arise where the cost of a deployment may suddenly increase due to unexpected complications like significantly blocked cable ducts (i.e. pushing a build beyond economic viability), although we’ve never heard of such things being blamed on a “system error” before.

The headend exchange is roughly 8 miles away and Openreach appears to have done the costliest part of this build, which has taken the fibre optic cable from there and delivered it into the centre of the estate (some properties have already been able to order it in the centre). Despite this, the operator is now saying that they won’t do the rest of the homes (these are all within a 100-yard radius). Naturally we sought a comment.

James added: “I could understand if they’d surveyed the estate and come to the conclusion it was too remote, too rural or there were too many obstacles to overcome to make it financially viable – that I could respect. However, to go to the lengths to install FTTP to 15 – 20 houses in the middle of the estate AND THEN saying funding has run out strikes me as very strange indeed.”

A Spokesperson for Openreach told ISPreview.co.uk:

“Due to the complex nature of building the Full Fibre network, our plans occasionally change. For a variety of reasons this can cause some areas to be removed from their expected fibre roll out. In Shifnal we have already built Fibre-to-the-Premises, or Full Fibre broadband, to a number of premises in the area, but further planning and survey work revealed that build costs are too high to allow us to deploy our commercial network to more premises in the area.

Unfortunately, a few residents were given written confirmation that they would be able to access Full Fibre – before all our planning and survey work had been completed, and we’d like to apologise for any inconvenience and disappointment that may have caused.

This doesn’t mean further premises will never receive fibre. It’s worth regularly accessing our Fibre Checker, as we’re constantly working towards our ambition of 20 million homes and businesses connected to fibre in the coming years and these may be added to future plans.

On top of that, there’s our highly successful Community Fibre Partnership scheme which is reaching areas not in anyone’s current commercial plans.”

According to Openreach, the local deployment was a retrobuild for an existing estate (i.e. the area was too old to benefit from their latest discounts for new builds). The operator recently completed a new bout of detailed engineering survey and planning work, which revealed that a large amount of new fibre spine cabling would have been needed to reach the remaining properties (the existing ducts were already full).

Simply put, the cost of this extra work pushed the estate out of economic viability. The operator’s reasoning does make sense, but in such a densely packed residential community we suspect that locals will find Openreach’s excuse quite difficult to swallow.

The next concern will be whether those remaining homes can be de-scoped fast enough from their commercial build to ensure that they stand a chance at a state aid supported build under the Government’s new £5bn Project Gigabit programme. Openreach are aware of the need to do this.