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Barratt Homes - Fibre Broadband Mandatory

Brumski

ULTIMATE Member
House Builder Barratt Makes UK Full Fibre Broadband Mandatory UPDATE - ISPreview UK

Maybe a question, or even suggestion, for Mark.

While it's encouraging to see a UK housebuilder boasting that all of their new homes will come with "full-fibre” broadband services as standard" maybe you could ask them about existing Barratt Home buyers who were mislead about broadband infrastructure in their respective developments.

Rather than bore everyone on here (unless they're gluttons for punishment) I'd be more than happy to discuss this news piece from the opposite perspective with you. I.E An actual Barratt Homes buyer who's heard this before and how the reality was very different once the development was finished and BH disappeared.
 
We've covered a fair few stories over the past few years where different property developers have effectively misled home buyers, with respect to broadband expectations. So in that sense it's sadly not a particularly new problem, although I've seen fewer gripes about this since FTTP became much more common on new builds in the past year.

In terms of writting future news about such things, the preference is usually to do this when the problem is still "hot" (recent) or there's a live residents campaign involved, rather than some time after the fact. I'm unsure how current your experience is, but I'm sure others on this forum would be happy to read about it if you want to share on here.
 
Thanks for the response, Mark. I'll share as suggested.

While some may see it as very much a 'first world problem' others may have some sympathy for the situation I faced and still face to this day.

In early 2017 we were looking to relocate to a new rural setting as 40 years of urban living had taken its toll. We settled on a Market Town in a rural county and explored several newbuild options before settling on a Barratt Homes (hereafter BH) development on the edge of town.

One of the first prerequisites and/or clarifications I asked about was broadband provision. I was assured that Openreach was installing native FTTP as the number of dwellings, 200+, meant it was the "default approach since 2016". When viewing other developments such as Redrow and Countryside they all echoed the same sentiments.

We placed a deposit, had several inspections and during a 'first-fix' visit we were shown where the PSTN and Fibre entered the property and I could see a BT66 was in place along with the trunking on the exterior with nylon ropes to pull cables/fibre through.

There was no visible ONT but this was still early in the build and we made some changes in the location of sockets as I knew I'd want additional power sockets in the office room for the ONT and my networking gear and all of this was discussed with BH and signed off.

Naturally keen I tried to order/confirm the presence of FFTP before we moved, however, as with any new development, it took some time for plot numbers to translate into addresses and for databases to recognise new postcodes. As one of the first houses to be finished we moved onto the development with construction still expected to take another year before the development was finished.

Over the next 12 months, the assurances and promises previously given started to fade. While the other developments we looked at did indeed get native FTTP (friends live on them) ours never materialised and we were left with no alternative but to order FTTC with the PCP/DSLAM over a mile away. While apathy reigned over most residents, there was a number, like myself, who pressed the issue with senior BH management. More assurances were given such as a new PCP/DSLAM being installed at the entrance to the development but this never materialised either and wasn't the answer we were looking for in the first place.

Four years later Openreach are rolling out FTTP in the area and some preliminary work has taken place on the ductwork but COVID has meant this rollout has all but halted locally since June last year.

As you may imagine when I read the article and saw Mr Boyes boasting about FTTP at all their new developments there was a moment of "haha yeah right! Where have I heard that before?!?"

Ultimately we love where we live and I wouldn't change that however while some residents see sub 30Mbps as perfectly adequate I'm still aggrieved that I was misled so badly. The fact that all concerned; the sales agent, the site manager, customer service management and so on all gave assurances, and in some cases discussed where the ONT would be located, suggests at best they were all incapable of doing their job or at worst a deliberate and orchestrated intent to mislead buyers.

Anyway, that's my story.
 
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House Builder Barratt Makes UK Full Fibre Broadband Mandatory UPDATE - ISPreview UK

Maybe a question, or even suggestion, for Mark.

While it's encouraging to see a UK housebuilder boasting that all of their new homes will come with "full-fibre” broadband services as standard" maybe you could ask them about existing Barratt Home buyers who were mislead about broadband infrastructure in their respective developments.

Rather than bore everyone on here (unless they're gluttons for punishment) I'd be more than happy to discuss this news piece from the opposite perspective with you. I.E An actual Barratt Homes buyer who's heard this before and how the reality was very different once the development was finished and BH disappeared.
Curious, is this in Derbyshire?
 
BTOR are a major problem all by themselves and they have the attitude

"We don't care, we don't have to, we're the PHONE company"

The more people who signup for starlink (they're taking 100% refundable prebookings now) the better as actually having provable competition that they can't shut down(*) makes telcos start worrying

If you can afford the £85 to signin it should be money well spent (if you don't go ahead, think of it as an interest free loan to SpaceX which scared BT into sorting their s*** out)

(*) BT spent a lot of time in the lats 2000s/early 2010s deliberately nobbling EU notspot broadband funding for WISPs by announcing DSL rollouts anywhere EU funding initiatives had been announced the week before deployments were due to officially start (thereby freezing funding) and then taking their own sweet time to actually provide that DSL - 6 years in the case of Crainleigh in Surrey - bankrupting the WISPs in the process
 
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