Openreach Quietly Reopens UK Fibre Community Partnerships
Good news. Openreach has quietly re-opened their Fibre Community Partnership (FCP) scheme, which works with disadvantaged communities (e.g. rural villages) around England, Wales and Scotland to help co-fund the deployment of new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP networks.
In case anybody has forgotten, the FCP scheme was paused in early 2022 after “soaring demand” put too much strain on Openreach’s ability to deliver (here), which also exacerbated some of the existing problems they’d had with poor communication (a common complaint we’d heard about from various FCP project reps).
However, we should point out that some FCP projects have also suffered delays due to other problems within the Government’s Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS), which has had its own issues with resources and voucher suspensions over the past couple of years (often related to conflicts with Project Gigabit’s procurements).
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This is relevant because projects under the FCP programme, which tend to be co-funded by Openreach and a mix of contributions from the community or gigabit voucher schemes, typically focus on upgrading smaller or more remote rural areas that don’t currently have access to an ultrafast broadband network.
The re-opened scheme has, however, had to make a few changes to help manage the demand.
A Spokesperson for Openreach told ISPreview.co.uk:
“To help us manage demand, we’ve got a new online application process. We take registrations from our fibre checker Expression of Interest form and match them against our eligibility criteria. If it’s a match, we send them an email invitation to register for an FCP scheme. Before, we asked people to fill out a dedicated FCP registration form, whereas now we’ll encourage them to check our build plans first, using our postcode fibre checker. If their home isn’t in our plans, we’ll ask them to register their details through our Expression of Interest form www.openreach.com/fibre-checker/ .
Once that’s done, we’ll check if they’re due to be upgraded under a publicly subsidised scheme (like Project Gigabit or R100) and whether we have the capacity to deliver the project – with those eligible invited to register for an FCP. These criteria may change periodically.”
Openreach informs that they actually re-opened the FCP programme on 6th February 2023, but it appears as if they opted to do so very quietly (not publicised) as at the time they were also in the process of introducing their new community portal (i.e. they probably didn’t want to disappoint anybody while other work was distracting).
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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Mark, I don’t think the fibre community partnership is aimed at “disadvantaged” communities, merely those outside the scope of a commercial build. Openreach certainly doesn’t use this terminology. These rural communities are often well-heeled country hamlets. In my own area, where 50+ houses used the scheme the average house price is probably at least £700,000. Disadvantaged communities in the true sense are often those in towns and cities which already have a full fibre service.
Today’s winner of the Jacob Rees Mogg award steps forward.
Carlconrdadw
these are disadvantaged in terms of connectivity — It will be interesting to see how openreach deal with registrations as there seems to be some Sense checking now built in to the align registrations to other registrations and also current and proposed build plans
My verdict after trying the fibre checker, totally useless. All it offers me is the chance to register interest in what is already available in my Dorset village which is FTTC and at the same time tells me that FTTP is not available when in fact it could be as Openreach connected a business in the village using FTTP two years ago and that cable passes my house.
I will stick with my present service using fixed wireless until Jurassic Fibre build their network here ironically using in part BT duct space and poles which BT themselves could use.
Perhaps in the end it will be better for Jurassic to fibre cable the village as their work in a neighbouring town is very tidy and discrete compared to much of the Openreach rural network using multiple overhead fibre cables which look like so many washing lines tangled up in trees.
What an uncommercial clown show BT have become, they couldn’t see a commercial opportunity such as this village if it hit them in the face.
Agreed. It makes no mention of this process of checking to see if FCP might be an option. I guess it’s just trying to be “consumer friendly” but it ends up being as frustrating as every other check for fibre availability. “Maybe, someday”
As someone who suffered the fallout from the CDS Gigaclear disaster, and remains allegedly in-scope for the Airband build, “maybe, someday” is all I’ve ever had.
Disadvantaged areas also lie in city like london.In Carshalton i moved into a 2016 built 9 property(SM53AY)private road which had open reach FTTC internet.
The street (SM53SU)which is few meters away had virgin internet besides openreach.
we requested them they just say at the moment they do not have build plan in our street and till date virgin media is not interested.
Few months agp community fibre started their work and started providing full fibre internet to the nearby street but left our street.
One of the staff member today phoned me and said it will take another one year.
I do not know if ever we will get fibre internet.
We even do not know what is the reason communitu fibre abandoned our street.I fear our street will remain cold spot from fibre internet point of view.
Is there any way we get official answer as to why they can not provide service to our street.Any opinion,information welcome.
How did you get an ETA, I tried customer service via email and the only thing I could get out of them was the build phase has yet to begin
Apologies, I meant how did you initiate that dialogue to get progress updates?
The reason is undoubtedly that you’re on a private road. To work on those any operator needs legal authority from the owners (a wayleave agreement) and often that requires permission from all of the properties on the road. Getting legally binding agreements in place is not cheap for the company, and if they need to do it with nine separate properties there’s ample scope for delays, or even requests being ignored. If it’s a gated development then things are worse as that complicates access and surveying, and if these are large properties then the cost per property will be higher as the frontage of each (usually a dig distance in tarmac) will be above average, or if there’s complications like specific colours of tarmac, block paved roads etc.
Any FTTP provider has a set budget per property, and if the cost is above that budget they won’t connect it. If you and your neighbours will all jointly agree and approach a provider collectively they may be more amenable, but even then you may have to contribute a sizeable amount to cover the extra costs, and if all nine residents have to approve it and one isn’t interested, then it may never happen. That, unfortunately is the downside of living on a private road.
A quick look on maps shows no problems of wide frontages or gates, in which case it’s possibly that Openreach didn’t even think about it because it’s a private road (even though they’d have wayleaves for any existing copper connection, as well as ducts in place). Contact Openreach’s FCP team, ask what would be needed to allow them to run fibre here, and explain they should already have the wayleaves and ducts?
So far as Virgin Media is concerned, they will not be interested in putting fibre to connect properties on a private road. When they fibred up Saughall in Cheshire some years ago, they avoided every property with a “private” road, telling one farmer that he would have to pay to lay duct along his driveway – some 0.1 miles.
you are asking about Community fibre and why bthey have no done your road — that is not the the same as fibre community partnership from openreach which this thread is about