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Anywhere left to go?

ntruby

Casual Member
Our CFP covering about 45 addresses received an estimate for FTTP of about £73k, so £1,600 per address, from Openreach in March 2021. We could have lived with that.

Openreach has now completed its survey (taking 8 months, not 8 weeks, to do so, and missing endless unambitious, self-imposed target dates along the way!) and issued a formal quotation. It's come out at about £183k for 77 homes, so a huge increase (£2,500 per address, and to add to the difficulty, 12 of the 77 addresses will not now be eligible for Broadband Vouchers anyway, as they are having FTTP implemented under a new regional government scheme, by Airband).

We can't see any way to turn. The Openreach lady sees no prospect of the quote being materially less even with the 12 addresses being removed, and simply washed her hands of of us and suggested that we ask Airband.

Is there any appeal against Openreach's quotation, or any other way forward likely to be affected? Our local councillors seem powerless, and our local MP couldn't care less.

Thanks
N
 
Regardless of what progress could be made with OR if any, I would be contacting Airband to see what they can do with 65 Broadband vouchers to add to the 12 already in scope.
 
Talk about moving the goalposts. Like everything else this government gets its sticky mitts into, it goes pear shaped doesn't it.
 
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Regardless of what progress could be made with OR if any, I would be contacting Airband to see what they can do with 65 Broadband vouchers to add to the 12 already in scope.
Hi Kommando

Yes indeed, we have done so, and the regional authority (made up entirely of local government officers, so maybe not the most commercially switched -on) assure me that Airband are motivated to get as many customers as possible and are not just going to pocket the TWENTY-SEVEN MILLION!!!! they have been awarded and give up.

Those not in the Airband scheme though will have a tricky choice even if offered service by Airband under vouchers. These houses should already be getting at least 30Mbps from Openreach, otherwise they'd have been in the scope of the Airband award. (I am in scope as it happens, and I get 6).

So their choice will be: do they take the very fast broadband from Airband, but on the downside lose their landline, and be forced to use Airband as their ISP (unlike Openreach Airband doesn't carry BT/TalkTalk/Sky etc, or in fact any other ISPs but only their own)?

Thanks
N
 
When I dropped my wet string ADSL and went 4G, I cancelled the ADSL and landline by porting the number to Sipgate for a basic VOIP service. This is not linked to any broadband service I use now or anytime in the future, you just need a data link. Airband only offering one ISP is not helpful but then neither is staying with 6mbs.
 
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Can we do a Christmas sweepstake taking bets on how long Airband last before the company goes insolvent totally out of the blue?
 
Can I just give my experiences as an Airband customer.

We only had 2Mbps ADSL and in Aug 2019 Airband got the contract to supply the area with FTTP. It was going to be a Hybrid solution with the backhaul using a microwave link, but we ended up as a all fibre install. Initially we were promised a connection date of Christmas 2019, but this soon slipped and we were eventually connected a few days before Christmas 2020. I know some of the delay was CV19, but certainly not all of it.

When we went live for the first few weeks the service was unusable with massive packet loss. I refused to sign off the DCMS voucher and it did get fixed. For the next few months speed tests and latency looked good, but iPlayer was frequently going into buffering mode.
However for the last 8 months service as been very good, with constantly high speed tests and BQM looks good and no iPlayer, Netflix problems. The downsides are terrible communications, and customer service, having to put up with CGNAT or an extra £5 per month and stuck with them without choice of ISP.

They have quoted a renewal price of £27.99 for 150/50Mbps on a 24 month contract. So at the moment I am relatively happy with Airband's service.

I feel the whole of the AltNet situation with 100 or more of them is completely unsustainable and I only hope that when Airband ceases to exist, someone will take over their infrastructure.

Tim.
 
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Openreach are becoming very unreliable with CFP projects recently I have had so many issues with communication with them on mine.

I have then found out this week that a colleague at work has been doing one as well his is demand led for 80 houses using the DCMS vouchers that residents claimed and pledged to Openreach.

OR came round pulled blue rope through to all the houses then installed the splitters into ground boxes then a month ago completed putting the CBTs in and he was told the spine cabling had been completed, However then this week he got an email from his CFP contact to say the project has been cancelled with no reasoning which he is trying to find out more. They have also updated their website to say no plans for FTTP in the area from the previous We have started installing in your area

It does surprise me that Openreach have dedicated engineering resources and the cost of splitters, CBTs to then cancel it when it’s so close to completion especially when new build areas over the road have been active FTTP for over a year now
 
Can I just give my experiences as an Airband customer.

We only had 2Mbps ADSL and in Aug 2019 Airband got the contract to supply the area with FTTP. It was going to be a Hybrid solution with the backhaul using a microwave link, but we ended up as a all fibre install. Initially we were promised a connection date of Christmas 2019, but this soon slipped and we were eventually connected a few days before Christmas 2020. I know some of the delay was CV19, but certainly not all of it.

When we went live for the first few weeks the service was unusable with massive packet loss. I refused to sign off the DCMS voucher and it did get fixed. For the next few months speed tests and latency looked good, but iPlayer was frequently going into buffering mode.
However for the last 8 months service as been very good, with constantly high speed tests and BQM looks good and no iPlayer, Netflix problems. The downsides are terrible communications, and customer service, having to put up with CGNAT or an extra £5 per month and stuck with them without choice of ISP.

They have quoted a renewal price of £27.99 for 150/50Mbps on a 24 month contract. So at the moment I am relatively happy with Airband's service.

I feel the whole of the AltNet situation with 100 or more of them is completely unsustainable and I only hope that when Airband ceases to exist, someone will take over their infrastructure.

Tim.
Thanks Tim, very interesting.

Aberdeen (or Abrdn as we must learn to call them through gritted teeth!) Investments purchased a majority stake in Airband in late 2020. Whilst the arrival of private equity into any company is always a cause for worry, they do have very deep pockets, much more so than the previous owners, so there must be some hope that they at least have the funds to get things going properly.

Their liaison person with our region's parishes (people, one left after six months!) seem very good and responsive, unlike their Openreach equivalent who replies to about one email in 20.

N

PS What is GGNAT please?
 
PS What is GGNAT please?
Instead of you being issued with one external IP address for your WAN router connection you have one that's shared with several other connections. So if you have CCTV and want to access it remotely you cannot just use the issued external IP address to your router as several other routers will have the same IP address, so you have to sort out another way to access the CCTV. Very common on Mobile networks but not on fixed line, it will be more common as the IPV4 addresses are running out and IPV6 with a huge excess of addresses has not been rolled out by ISP's enough.
 
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