BT Sharing existing duct to house

[liamf91]

Hello,

I'm looking for some guidance on the current situation of BT sharing the existing ducting to houses for other companies, primarily Virgin Media.
The cul-de-sac in which I live upon is connected with what seems to be just BT cables. The cul-de-sac next to the one I live on is a mixture of BT and CATV. The reasoning I believe to why there has never been cable fitted to the one in which I live on is because the road is bricked rather than asphalt and would cost too much for Virgin or whoever to dig up and lay additional ducts.

Over the past day I have been reading online and I am under the impression that Ofcom has pressured BT to share existing ducts to other ISPs. We currently have 10/1Mbps speed at the house due to being half a mile away from the fibre connected cab and being on aluminium cable (according to openreach engineer). Outside the house I can see the grey duct which provides the BT line and see no reason why virgin could not run an additional cable down the existing duct. Openreach even state on their website they allow this https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/ductandpolesharing/ductandpolesharing.do

Has anyone had any previous experiences with a similar situation?

Getting a bit sick of the fact that we're supposed to be on a 38Mb 'fibre' package when in reality we dont get over 10. The only alternative seems to be Virgin as they seem to offer a better service in terms of bandwidth.

Thanks

Liam

 

[drsox]

VM won't be interested.. if it isn't cookie-cutter setup like the rest of their network then it will be too much admin, bother and paperwork (and all the associated costs) to make it worth their while.
They have easier customers to sell to. Or would rather sell you full fibre ethernet access at a sensible markup / cost.

You may find a local provider might have the interest in providing either some sort of wifi alternative or possibly using the PIA / Duct access.

Tom - www.mouselike.org

 

[DTMark]

Virgin would have to pay BT for the duct access in order to supply you. Margins are wafer-thin anyway. So they're not going to pay a competitor for that access. Even if they did, the duct work could have caved in twenty years ago and be unusable. For VM it's more beneficial to lay new (their own) duct work.

It might be the road type that was the barrier, alternatively it might be way-leaves. I remember turning down a nice house once because it had a private but shared drive/communal approach and Virgin said they were unable to get the way-leaves for it in the past as the owner had refused them, so we moved somewhere else.

Your best bet is probably to engage interest from the other residents and keep chipping away at VM until you get to speak to someone who can make it happen for all of you. Your second best bet may be a 4G connection.

 

[Mark.J]

I'd forget about Ofcom’s Dark Fibre proposals for now, it will be a couple of years before those get implemented and that's assuming an agreement on pricing can even be reached. Plus BT might tie everything up in legal challenges for half a decade.

In any case, as DTMark says, getting the community to lend their support is a good way to start, but such battles usually take a bit of time.

 

[liamf91]

I wasn't referring to dark fibre, just existing duct going to premises. Which is 150m from an already in place CATV manhole. As much as id like for my neighbors to get together and potentially get VM to dig their own ducts. I think the large majority do not care what sort of internet connection they have as long as it works and would be against the disruption it would cause. It would also mean that people would be able to move from their existing provider at the same time, without incurring a charge.

Either way on VMs website they state that my postcode is in a area where I can get it so I will see what the engineer says. More than likely it will be a no, but i figured it was worth a try.

As much as I like the LTE idea, that also wouldn't be a huge improvement on what I currently get due to the blackspot it seems to be in.

Maybe my only alternative is to move house.....

Thanks for the replies.