Openreach Name 98 New UK Areas for Copper Phone to Fibre Switch – Tranche 7
Openreach (BT) has released the Tranche 7 batch of 98 UK exchange areas where they plan to move away from copper-based analogue phone (PSTN / WLR etc.) services and on to a new all-IP network, which will occur once over 75% of premises in an area can get their “ultrafast broadband” network (FTTP and G.fast at 300Mbps+).
Just for context, there are two different, albeit closely related, stages to moving away from the old copper line infrastructure. The first starts with the gradual migration of traditional voice (PSTN) services to all-IP technologies, which is due to complete by December 2025 and is occurring on copper line (e.g. SOGEA) products (i.e. copper and full fibre ISPs are both introducing VoIP style voice solutions for customers).
The second stage involves the ongoing rollout of faster Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband infrastructure – using light signals via optical fibre, instead of slower electrical signals via copper. Only after this second stage has largely completed in an exchange area can you really start to switch-off copper in favour of fibre, which is a longer process (i.e. it takes time to build FTTP, and then you have to allow time for user migration).
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As above, the process for moving from copper to “fibre” begins once 75% of premises in an exchange are able to receive ultrafast connectivity. Hybrid fibre G.fast coverage also counts for this, but its impact will be small and is only relevant where speeds of 300Mbps+ are achievable.
The target for the above is often c.24 months after the fibre deployment starts, while the copper switch-off might then occur c.3 years after that (consumer migration is an inherently slow process). The pace of this may vary from place to place, as some areas will have better network coverage than others.
The migration process itself usually starts with a “no move back” policy for premises connected with FTTP (i.e. no going back to copper), followed by a “stop-sell” of copper services to new customers (12-months’ notice is given before this starts) and ultimately full withdrawal.
The Next 98 Exchange Locations (Tranche 7)
The 98 exchanges announced today – covering 954,000 premises – take the total number of exchange upgrades that have already been notified as part of the aforementioned process (including trial exchanges) to over 550 – covering around 5 million premises. All of today’s new additions will introduce their “stop sell” from 8th February 2023.
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We should add that Openreach has a semi-related “Call Waiting List” campaign running (here), which aims to raise awareness among UK businesses of their plans to withdraw old copper-based analogue phone (PSTN / WLR etc.) services by December 2025 and replace them with digital (IP / VoIP) alternatives. The operator has also added a Stop Sells Page to their website, which makes it a bit easier to see all of these changes.
As well as the stopping the selling of legacy analogue services, Openreach today confirmed that they’re now preparing to shutdown and withdraw older analogue products in their two original trial areas – Salisbury and Mildenhall – and they’ve just begun to notifying Communications Providers (ISPs) that these products will be withdrawn in Spring 2023.
The Mildenhall trial is testing the processes for withdrawing Wholesale Line Rental (WLR), and migrating customers from legacy copper services to replacement copper services which will support the delivery of telephone services over broadband connections. By comparison, the Salisbury trial will test the processes for migrating customers to fibre services and, ultimately, withdrawing legacy copper services.
Openreach has provided 15-months’ notice for the above change. This notice period will begin on 19th January 2022, with product withdrawal on 19 April 2023
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James Lilley, Openreach Director for Managed Customer Migrations, said:
“Twelve months ago, we informed our Communication Provider customers that we would stop selling copper products in exchanges that reach 75% full fibre coverage. This is now a reality for 181 fibre exchanges covering around 2m premises across the UK in what is a major stepping-stone in our 10-15 year journey to move from a copper network to full fibre.
Just over two years from now, Openreach will stop selling products that rely on the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). And over the next four years, we’ll upgrade some 13 million analogue lines – including the now ageing traditional landline telephone service – to digital All-Internet Protocol (All-IP).
As part of this huge transformation programme, we’ve been preparing to withdraw older analogue products in two trial areas – Salisbury and Mildenhall – and we’re now notifying Communications Providers that these products will be withdrawn in Spring 2023.
We’re working closely with broadband providers and the wider industry to make sure customers can be upgraded smoothly and these trials are helping us to identify and address any issues that might prevent that.”
Remember, the following list is tentative, so changes and delays do sometimes occur.
98 New Stop Sell Exchanges (Tranche 7)
| Exchange Name | Location | Exchange Code |
| Aberdeen Balgownie | Aberdeen | NSBLG |
| Aldridge | Aldridge | CMALD |
| Alfreton | Alfreton | EMALFRE |
| Allesley | Coventry | CMALL |
| Ardrossan | Saltcoats | WSARD |
| Aviemore | Aviemore | NSAVI |
| Balham | Greater London – Wandsworth | LSBAL |
| Bamber Bridge | Bamber Bridge | LCBAB |
| Barrhead | Barrhead | WSBAR |
| Beith | Beith | WSBEI |
| Biggin Hill | Greater London – Bromley | NDBHI |
| Boston Spa | Boston Spa | MYBOS |
| Brighouse | Brighouse | MYBRG |
| Broadwell | Oldbury (Sandwell) | CMBRO |
| Burnley | Burnley | LCBUR |
| Burton Joyce | Burton Joyce | EMBURTJ |
| Bury | Greater Manchester – Bury | MRBUR |
| Chellaston | Derby | EMCHELL |
| Childrey | Childrey | SMCDU |
| Cleckheaton | Cleckheaton | MYCLE |
| Creaton | Creaton | EMCRTON |
| Dalkeith | Dalkeith | ESDAL |
| Dawlish | Dawlish | WWDAWL |
| DUNLOY | Ballymena | NIDL |
| Duston | Northampton (Northamptonshire) | EMDUSTO |
| Earby | Earby | LCEAR |
| Easingwold | Easingwold | MYEAO |
| Exhall | Coventry | CMEXH |
| FEENY | Londonderry | NIFY |
| Foleshill | Coventry | CMFOL |
| Gowerton | Gowerton | SWGC |
| Grove Park | Greater London – Lewisham | LSGRO |
| Guiseley | Guiseley | MYGUI |
| Harrold | Bedford | SMHA |
| Hayes Common | Greater London – Bromley | LSHAY |
| Hemsworth | Hemsworth | MYHMW |
| Herongate | West Horndon | EAHER |
| Heysham | Heysham | LCHEY |
| Highworth | Highworth | SSHGH |
| Horwich | Greater Manchester – Bolton | LCHOR |
| Hoylake | Hoylake | LVHOY |
| Huyton | Liverpool | LVHUY |
| Hyde | Greater Manchester – Tameside | MRHYD |
| Intake | Sheffield | SLIN |
| Irby | Heswall | LVIRB |
| IRVINESTOWN | Enniskillen | NIIT |
| Ivybridge | Ivybridge | WWIVYB |
| Kilbirnie | Kilbirnie | WSKIE |
| KILLEAVY | Newry | NIKVY |
| KIRCUBBIN | Newtownards | NIKN |
| Kislingbury | Bugbrooke | EMKISLI |
| Laindon | Basildon | EALAI |
| Langford | Langford (Central Bedfordshire) | SMLA |
| Langley Mill | Heanor | EMLANGL |
| Leigh | Greater Manchester – Wigan | LCLEI |
| LEVEN, FIFE | Leven | ESLEV |
| Leyland | Leyland | LCLEY |
| Llandaff | Cardiff | SWLJZ |
| Lowdham | Lowdham | EMLOWDH |
| Magor | Undy | SWMGR |
| MAYOBRIDGE | Newry | NIMO |
| MAZE | Lisburn | NIMZ |
| Milnsbridge | Huddersfield | MYMIL |
| Morecambe | Morecambe | LCMOR |
| MOY | Dungannon | NIMOY |
| Mulbarton | Mulbarton | EAMUL |
| Ormskirk | Ormskirk | LVORM |
| Otley | Otley | MYOTL |
| Park Street | How Wood | LNPKS |
| Plympton | Plymouth | WWPTON |
| PORTGLENONE | Ballymena | NIPE |
| Rainham | Gillingham (Kent) | NDRAI |
| Rawdon | Yeadon | MYRWD |
| Redbourn | Redbourn | SMRDB |
| Rhiwderin | Newport (Newport) | SWRWI |
| Rhoose | Rhoose | SWRHR |
| Richmond, North Yorkshire | Richmond | NERN |
| Ripley | Ripley | EMRPLEY |
| Roade | Roade | EMRDDEE |
| Rushden | Rushden | EMRUSHD |
| SANDWICH | Sandwich | NDSAN |
| Shipley | Shipley | MYSHI |
| SION MILLS | Strabane | NISM |
| Sketty | Swansea | SWSKJ |
| Sleaford | Sleaford | EMSLFRD |
| Somersham | Somersham (Huntingdonshire) | EMSOSHM |
| Stanford Le Hope | Stanford-le-Hope | EASTF |
| STONEYBURN | Bents | ESSYB |
| Takeley | Takeley | EATKL |
| Theydon Bois | Theydon Bois | LNTHB |
| Tipton | Tipton | CMTIP |
| Troon | Troon | WSTRO |
| Turvey | Turvey | SMTU |
| WaterHayes Farm | Newcastle-under-Lyme | WMWHS |
| Wheathampstead | Wheathampstead | SMWTD |
| Whitchurch | Bristol | SSWHI |
| Wootton Bassett | Wootton Bassett | SSWOB |
| Wraysbury | Wraysbury | LWWRA |
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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been on digital voice for a few months now on fftc ,have seen openreach/contractors working in village but not in my street (that i have seen ) laying fibre tubing . my local exchange covers a large rural area about 10 villages and everywhere in between so i don’t expect to moved to fttp anytime soon
You will be lucky if you see it.
We have FFTP FITTED ON POLES BACK IN 2018.
BUT NOTHING.
we cannot have anything at all on the old copper line and the fiber was cancelled in our area.
Is there a full lists with dates available? So I can check my local exchange.
https://www.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/content/dam/cpportal/public/images-and-documents/home/products/product-withdrawal/stop-sell/FTTPPriorityExchangesStopSell.xlsx lists the exchanges announced to date
Given the goal to move to digital only by 2025, am I correct in assuming that this would mean that every property in the network is going to require a minimum network speed / network quality?
For example, if you’re stuck on ADSL1 at the end of a long line, and barely get a net connection BT will need to fix that before they can switch you… thus, all old classic ADSL should be retired by 2025?
Apparently the bandwidth requirement for VoIP is around 0.1 Mbps so even the slowest ADSL lines should cope.
You only need ~100 kbps for a VOIP service, so what you already have is likely sufficient.
I’m on ADSL2 on an EO line, ~5.8 km from the exchange, recently descoped by Gigaclear-off. I get a flaky 2.4 Mbps down max (flakier than previously, I reckon, cos my max down speed has in the last 4 weeks been increased by about 0.5 Mbps). If it were not for other things going on around this descoping I would already by now have contacted BT regarding the USO of min 10 Mbps down. Perhaps you, as an individual or a community grouping, should badger BT about this USO.
You only need ~100 kbps for a VoIP service, so you are probably OK in this regard, regarding the voice aspect of such a service anyway.
I have ADSL2 on an EO line and am about 5.8 km from the exchange. I get a flaky 2.4 Mbps max down … flakier than previously, I reckon, cos things have obviously very recently been tweaked somewhere along the line as this is ~0.5 Mbps more than I usually get, but the frequency of ping excursions of up to ~0.5 s also seems to have increased, as has the number of dropped connections.
If it were not for things going on in the background following my property being descoped by Gigaclear-off I would by now have contacted BT about the USO (min 10 Mbps down). Perhaps, given your “service”, you as an individual or a community should contact BT about the USO.
Oops! Sorry about the reposting. The first one didn’t appear and so I thought I’d cocked up the posting.
I would challenge anyone from Openreach or Matt warman who was the digital minister at the time to come to my property and explain why Openreach will not allow us to have any broadband even after fttp fibre optic cables were fitted back in 2018 the polls.
No one gives a damn for anybody living in a rural area,
Because it’s all about money tree fell down last October onto the phone lines I’ve taken photographs sent them through to Openreach and it’s still there to this afternoon exactly the same dangling on the phone lines which are now approximately 2 feet from the floor the network is in such a disarray of posts listing ready to fall over sagging cables and no one gives a absolute damn.
The article says this is triggered by 75% ultrafast availability, but I don’t think this is true.
Picking one example, I note that Burnley (LCBUR) has almost zero coverage of Openreach FTTP according to Thinkbroadband maps, and zero G.Fast. It also shows no plans in the Openreach where-when-building-ultrafast-full-fibre-broadband page.
If this is in Tranche 7 then it only be stop-sell of analogue voice (i.e. migration to SOGEA), unrelated to fibre or ultrafast availability.
Openreach have more or less all of Burnley down to upgrade over the next year(ish)
NE555 A company called BRSK is installing FTTP in Burnley and is due to be completed towards the end of the year.
https://www.brsk.co.uk/locations/burnley
Burnley (LCBUR) has almost zero FTTP and zero G.Fast, and is not shown in Openreach’s where-and-when site for FTTP. So this can’t be triggered by “75% ultrafast” availability.
There is a link to a spreadsheet towards the bottom of https://www.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/products/product-withdrawal/stop-sells-updates
@NE555, the tranche 7 exchanges are given with around 12 months notice, so will need to be 75% FTTP coverage by 8th February 2023.
This is a bit confusing. I am on the Somersham exchange and currently OR is suggesting I will not get Ultra Fast FTTP until at least 2025.
Guessing my area will be in tranche 97.
For some reason I can’t even order an FTTC service at the moment.
Am I alone in thinking that there really isn’t much point in BT making these announcements when “Stop Sell” for the whole country happens in September 2023?
Or are these announcements indicative that PSTN withdrawal is seriously behind schedule?
From the article, they’ve announced “Step Sell” for over 550 exchanges over the last ~18 months – only another ~5000 to go in the next 21 months – they’ll need to increase the rate of announcements somewhat if they plan to announce the rest in the same manner as they have been doing.
This notice is for FTTP Priority stop sell. This means that with 75%+ ultrafast coverage, only FTTP can be ordered if it’s available. National stop sell won’t be the same and will be that WLR will be unavailable, but not the dependency to order FTTP. No delays as far as I’m aware to the already announced plans.
Just as long as there’s still nothing round my way. It’s not like I live out in the middle of nowhere, either. There are literally hundreds of houses and flats round here that are missing out.
Waiting in vain here for over a decade ffs. Of course, crappy Virgin also make sure not to offer their services round my way either and nor do any of the new startup fibre operators, so I remain stuck with ADSL. This prevents me from doing advanced things with my connection such as running a web server off it, cloud backups and compromises my ability to work from home.
I’m so pissed off about it.
Then why don’t you order a FTTPoD (though might take a year to be installed!) and treat it as your business expenses? A good way to reduce your income taxes and after a while it will become a native FTTP. The only drawback is of course that it is not symmetric fibre, but still better than DSL.
You can’t (yet) order FTTPoD unless your address can get an FTTC service, and from the description of “hundreds of homes” without any sort of FTTx service it would be an incredibly expensive FTTPoD build cost.
@Jonny: Good point, forgot about that. In that case a physical office move might be the only option, or renting an office space in a nearby area which has decent internet connectivity. Painful, yes, but can be all treated as business expenses.
@GNewton thanks for the advice, but this is my home address. 🙂
Jonny, alas you’re right that attempting to order any kind of fibre broadband wouldn’t work, sigh.
You didn’t actually need to be able to receive any FTTC service.
Being connected to a PCP with a fibre twin was enough, even if it was too far away to receive a service.
FTTPoD coverage was recently expanded and there is now no longer the requirement to be connected to a PCP with a fibre twin.
Multiple Dwelling Units remain excluded.
@RaptorX: I thought yours was about an enquiry for a suitable internet connection for your home office. Many IT professionals nowadays work from their home office, especially due to the COVID pandemics. That means, you can treat a portion of your monthly utility bills, including internet, as business expenses. Hence the suggestion to look into the possibility of a Fibre-on-Demand product, which is not the same as a native FTTP.
Burnley is part of the six Burnley group of exchange’s (01282). However, only Barnoldwick looks like it has sufficient FTTP to have its copper retired. Newly added Burnley and Earby Exchange areas have hardly any FTTP at all. Moreover, Earby exchange is not ever on the Fibre rollout plan. It seems hard to believe that Openreach should make poor plans public. It just undermines confidence in their organisational abilities.
Earby is in the plan – ‘To be built between April 2021 and December 2026’, Same as Barnoldswick. In the plan before they switched to this 2026 general date Crosshills and Barnoldswick were meant to be the first done in that area, would think the team doing Barnoldswick would move on to Earby afterwards.
Im still wondering when my victoriana Street is gonna get the update, bt, sky all advertise I can soon get up to 500gig but then when I ask how, not gonna be available to me on my street, get me off the copper line already I want more then 4.5mbs download
Every time one of these news stories is published we get lots of people coming out of the woodwork to complain about not having FTTP.
Just for info, the link for the “Call Waiting List” takes you to a page that says: “Sorry! This survey is closed. Please contact the survey owner for more information”.
I check on here every week or so in the vein hope my village is listed. It was today! Also falls in line with another article I’d seen and my wishful thinking for the planning permission at the top of the road for a new BTOR pole about 5M away from an existing one. My optimist says it’s a pole for fibre. Fingers crossed.
Interesting to see Beith (WSBEI) on the list, I recently noticed a couple of new phone poles in the streets surrounding me and one at the top of my street that had a notice on it but it blew away before I got the chance to read it!
I saw Morrison telecoms doing some digging close by not long after that, they were clearing the ducts however that was literally months ago and haven’t saw or heard of anything else happening around the town since then, almost like its came to a complete stop.
I don’t get served by the pole at the top of the street, there is one placed in the back door of a neighbours that serves most/possibly all of the houses in our little square so I’ll be interested to see if they replace it or reuse it.
Virgin cabled the town going on 3-4 years ago so we aren’t exactly lacking ultrafast speeds but more competition is always nice.
I guess it’s a stupid question akin to asking how long a piece of string is but is there a rough timeline of how long it should, in theory take them to do the town? Virgin were pretty fast doing the entire town in around 3 or 4 months if I remember right possibly a bit faster, it felt like they were completing multiple streets per day at points.
It’s also nice to see Ardrossan (WSARD) on the list as well, the internet there despite being a reasonably large town can be really hit and miss – knew someone who was stuck without FTTC until 2018, Interestingly I’m pretty sure NTL or possibly telewest cabled the town back in the mid to late 90s, I remember entire streets being dug up and when it was done there was little manhole covers etc. with NTL (possibly telewest) on them but they never started selling service in the town despite seemingly having the cabling there?
Openreach ran fibre to the pole serving my house in Saltcoats last April and I believe we could order FTTP in October. I got my service activated in November.
Nobody in the three towns should be complaining about slow internet anymore.
@Paul
Where abouts in saltcoats if you don’t mind answering?
It’s the first I’ve heard of saltcoats already having FTTP active, I asked friends/family earlier if they had access to FTTP, it’s the kind of thing they would have mentioned if they had and checked a few addresses of family members and none are showing as having FTTP available yet. Seems it’s still not rolled out everywhere in the town.
@Paul
Ahh, that area (montgomery road etc. up to cali school and the area around there) and the town centre itself are the two areas I never actually checked, sods law!
I guess they’ve started working down that end of the town before moving further and further up the top end of saltcoats. Never knew Stevenson had FTTP available either by the sounds of it, must still be limited like saltcoats!
Hopefully the roll out in Beith is a similar speed or faster as you experienced, will be nice to have the extra choice even though VM has been nothing but flawless for me.
I’m glad to hear there’ve finally started the roll out down in the three towns! Far far too many people being stuck with really subpar connections until now
Completely unrelated to this but does that one house on ardrossan road still get absolutely blanketed in christmas lights every year? I don’t think I’ve managed to see it again since I moved away about 10 years ago
@ Stephen
Ardrossan Road. The engineer that did my install had others to do that day in Stevenston, not sure if he mentioned Ardrossan but he had been working in the area since October.
I was stuck on an EO line for years when everyone else could order FTTC so I guess it’s only right they started the FTTP rollout in my street.
Ardrossan might not have FTTP yet but I did notice 5G is now radiating from the EE mast at the harbour, so they’ve beaten Saltcoats in that regard.
And yes the house on the corner of Ardrossan Road was all lit up at Christmas.
@Paul Small update – They moved fast! It looks like my street is enabled now from the quick checks I done yesterday…well the entirety of one side and surrounding streets!
I do know (part/all of?) my side of the street and the next street is fed by a different pole placed in one of the back gardens but they’ve now moved on further up one of the adjoining streets and seem to have forgotten my side of the street and one side of the next street that gets fed by the same pole.
Luckily we have VM available or I’d be annoyed at the situation.
surely you could switch off an exchange when every home is on FTTC (or better) and nobody left on ADSL. FTTP not actually necessary
There’s a lot more in smaller exchanges than just ADSL.
Lots of leased lines terminate in smaller exchanges.
Lots of other providers have requirement in these exchanges.
I’m also not aware of any exchanges with full GEA (FTTC/P) coverage.
Don’t expect any exchange closures anytime soon.
*equipment, not requirement. (Still need that edit button Mark).
Closing smaller exchanges is the eventual plan though yes.
There’s just a lot more than ADSL preventing that at present.
@John
I think you’re misreading or over complicating posts again!
The PSTN can be switched off within an exchange building without the exchange building and everything else in it being closed so don’t try to confuse the two.
Read the post I replied to.
I wasn’t commenting on PSTN being switched off but about exchanges being closed.
PSTN can still be switched off with ADSL running. That’s what SOTAP is for.
I’m not over complicating anything.
I very much doubt that smaller exchanges have much more than some WLR kit in from other operators. BT/Openreach hasn’t been using non-handover exchanges to provide leased lines for quite a long time (and even if they were, a couple of days’ (well, nights probably) fibre splicing in a hole outside the exchange would soon fix that).
Any of the other kit owned by third parties is likely to be in space provided on commercial (not regulated) terms so I expect that Openreach can simply give contractual notice (or suggest that the operator who wants to stay talks to the building owner about leasing it).
“I very much doubt that smaller exchanges have much more than some WLR kit in from other operators.”
That’s an incorrect assumption many make.
The local copper exchange has always been where leased lines terminate.
The only exclusion being the smallest/most rural exchanges.
It’s only in the last 12 months that Openreach have started sharing the GEA network with leased lines and have been routing them in the direction of Head-Ends.
Of course they can be moved, but it’s more than a few splices to do so.
John, you’re confusing the telephone exchange building with the actual telephone exchange it contains. The latter can close without the former closing.
Leased lines have always used existing T-Nodes to take them to the local copper exchange right up until the start of 2021. Until then there was never a crossover with the GEA network being kept entirely separate.
Since then any leased line we’ve installed has gone to the local Aggregation Node to go to the nearest Handover exchange.
As for the comment about non handover exchanges having not much more than some WLR kit, well you have clearly never been inside an exchange 🙂
That might be true for a small exchanges on the side of Welsh mountains serving 200-300 homes but the average copper exchange houses kit from dozens of different companies.
I’ve worked in my local exchange going on 23 years and there’s active equipment there that I still don’t know who it belongs to or what it does.
“John, you’re confusing the telephone exchange building with the actual telephone exchange it contains. The latter can close without the former closing.”
If the initial post I replied to was discussing that then they are incorrect.
It doesn’t need everyone (or anyone) to be off ADSL / have FTTC or better to achieve that.
PSTN can still be retiredwhile ADSL is being used.
I took the mention of nobody left on ADSL to turn off an exchange, to mean the whole building.
Unless you can read minds I’m not sure how you know what Dave was meaning with his comment.
I have no doubt that a lot of operators have a lot of stuff in exchanges.
The more important question is whether Openreach have any obligation (other than commercial) to continue to accommodate it.
Or, to put it another way, do Openreach have a problem because lots of operators have kit in an exchange they want to close? or do lots of operators have a problem because they have kit in an exchange Openreach want to close?
I wasn’t aware that leased lines were still being taken back to non-handover exchanges as recently as 2021, my very limited experience in getting a redundant leased line provisioned a couple of years ago resulted in connections to two handover exchanges but perhaps that was an artefact of geography rather than policy. If that is the case then the question becomes “What is the re-provision rate on leased lines – i.e. how often are they modified?” as presumably now modifications will prompt a move to a handover exchange?
There is at least 5 years to go before any significant exchange closures so there is plenty of time for “natural” migration.
MJ Quinn’s have started work pulling fibre cables through in Hyde Greater Manchester today
I do not think l would get full fiber to the home openreach say l would not get full fiber where l live it get me feedup with them
Everyone will get FTTP eventually, be patient.
How on earth do you get Openreach to add your property to have copper replacement broadband? We are next to lots of houses that have FTTP but Openreach simply do not respond to any requests. Not even when our local MP contacts them! It’s unbelievably frustrating!
You can’t get Openreach to add FTTP to your property (unless you are willing to pay many thousands of pounds for it).
They will simply do your property when they decide to do it.
There are many thousands of examples of towns, housing developments, even individual streets that are half complete. They will return at a later date to complete any unfinished areas.
You can check if your specific address is in any current plans by entering your postcode and door number in to the checker on openreach.com
They are covering millions of properties a year but there are so many properties in the UK that it will take many years to reach everyone.
They have very ambitious targets by 2026 and most people will be covered by then.
If it was as simple as asking to be added to the rollout don’t you think everyone would ask.
So this is tranche 7, we are on an exchange in tranche 3, plenty of cabinets on this exchange have long been FTTC, apparently some allegedly have FTTP, with some cityfibre infrastructure build, but openreach long ago declared that the fibre build is ‘complete’ but hundreds of premises still have nothing but ADSL and no access to cityfibre as they have ignored us as well.
With the ‘stop sell’ happening this month we also now appear to be unable to change isp ‘online’
That will only to properties with Openreach FTTP available to order. If you don’t have that option you won’t be part of the stop sell and will still be able to change services on your copper line.
Sky for instance no longer recognise addresses where the only available means of provision is ADSL when checking online and you have to call them, which automatically excludes those premises from any cashback offers.
But where fibre is available, either FTTC or FTTP and where the existing connection is ADSL, they are accepted and the order process can proceed online.
I’m not sure that second stage description in the article is correct. Openreach only need to migrate customers away from ADSL once PTSN is switched off to close exchanges. FTTP isn’t required.
FTTC (including G.Fast) won’t be affected as they only need copper from the customer to the cabinet.
yes, this is the point i was trying to make. FTTP is not necessary for the switch off
FTTC is not necessary for the switch off either.
Looking forwards to tranche 26 sometime around 2040!
You are all talking about ultra fast speeds and yet there are a lot of people that are not getting any where near that i would class mine as ultra slow I have been waiting for 15yrs for a decent speed and probably will have to wait another 15yrs my speed is between 3/4mps I can’t even use a fire stick
I’ve recently had a 25% step increase in headline download speed to the flaky, heady heights of 2.4 Mbps and I can use my Amazon Fire Stick. Even before this recent increase I was regularly able to use the Fire Stick at 1.9 Mbps max download speed (over WiFi no less, from a powerline adapter in the same room).
Sure, it became/becomes almost unusable when the lad/lass were/are also YouTubing or whatever, and when the headline max download speed dropped to ~1.4-1.6 Mbps for extended periods it was unusable. Speed excursions from that max did lead to increased digital artefacts and the dreaded blue circle from time to time, but it was usable (if frustrating at times) and often recovered. My first watch a year ago was 1917. I saw Radacanu get to the US Open final live (though watched the final on C4). And I’m currently halfway through Season 1 of Goliath. So it can be done.
I have the 4K version by the way… as I wanted to be relatively futureproof when Gigaclear were to lay fttp to my house this year… before they Gigacleared off and descoped me.
We have had FTTP CABLES ON poles from July 2018 but NOTHING.
Have been told we are not going to get it at all.
We had 1.4 Mbps on copper lines up and till Openreach did work for two days then nothing.
Openreach broadband team said that they wouldn’t support it at all.
Then told that the FTTP CABLES WAS CANCELLED FOR US.
What a joke we live in an area where mobile phone network coverage is 100%
If the weather is bad we can losses that.
Left in the dark ages.
Broadband providers will not touch us.
The road where the fiber optic cables come from have it.
One more thing is last October after a stormy weather a tree came down onto the phone lines, guess what it’s still like it after reporting it even sending photos of it.
About time Openreach was bined.
Question for any knowledgeable person here… An elderly relative has a basic analogue phone line; no internet. When it is switched to IP service does the provider HAVE to supply a mains-powered gizmo to enable receipt of phone calls? And what if the subscription is subsequently moved to another phone provider; will they have to provide their own gizmo?