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Cityfibre build times?

ian27

Member
I've read in multiple places that CityFibre will take a couple of days to a couple of weeks to roll out in a street, but they have been going for MONTHS in our area (North Tyneside).

They rock up for a few days/a week and do a bit. Disappear for a bit, come back and do a bit more. Disappear, then loads of spray paint appears over every imperfection in the roads/paths (to be fair they are appalling in places), these then eventually get fixed and look top notch. Then it rinses and repeats.

From what I can figure out, they must have different teams for (1) traditional trenches, (2) narrow trenches, (3) sticking the spool of wires into the cabs/installing the cabs and (4) pulling cables through Openreach ducts. It all seems VERY inefficient.

Is this others experience?

I'm not complaining, just everything I have read said a few weeks and I was expecting a swift rollout.
 
CityFibre typically spends quite a few months to ensure a reasonable level of initial coverage before they actually put all of that live. So while the physical build in a specific location may complete in a couple of weeks or so, albeit sometimes longer - depending upon various factors (or complications), you'll still be waiting a while for the network itself to become 'Ready for Service' (RFS).

On top of that, the network itself sometimes becomes RFS before an ISP has agreed to serve the area, which can create a delay. There's currently a bit of a debate about whether an area can even be considered RFS if no ISP has agreed to supply a service to customers there.
 
Hi Mark,

I was referring to an actual single street. They are doing the "main" road in stages looking at the civils plan on the local authority planning portal, but they keep coming back to our streets (some with <20 houses). And im talking about proper roadworks each time, mini diggers, colourful language and all :LOL:
 
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In Crawley the same is occurring. Whilst you might expect co-ordinated works there appear to be different phases probably impacted by resource, equipment, road closures/restrictions and stores. I have seen all these elements as separate activities sometimes weeks apart in no particular order for civils:
  • Local Distribution cabinets and Footway boxes
  • Road crossings
  • Main duct lines with coils of micro duct partially laid over and coils buried in grass verge
  • Micro duct to OR poles
  • Micro duct coils dug up, micro duct laid out to premises (less than 2 inches) Toby boxes installed and pavement reinstated.
  • Grass verges restored to various states
  • ASN bracket on pole
  • ASN installed on pole
  • Galvanised protection on pole
  • Fibre cabling completed to pole

Civils work really started in January 2021. Not aware of any live customers yet. So Cityfibre do not appear to be releasing whole or part of an estate.
 
There's currently a bit of a debate about whether an area can even be considered RFS if no ISP has agreed to supply a service to customers there.

In theory the last mile distribution network could have ‘the lights on, but nobody home’ for weeks or many months...

Surely that’s not RFS until a customer can actually order a service over that network.
 
I'd tend to agree, but from the investors' perspective, the operator only needs to report what parts of their network have been completed and are live for partner ISPs to sell over.
 
I’ve been following the city fibre build across my city (Wolverhampton). It began back during summer 2020 if memory serves. They seem to have started on the West of the city and work back towards the east.
They installed the fibre my area over about 2 weeks in July but the service is still not available and probably won’t be for a long time yet.
 
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I think its a very good idea not to get too fixated on timescales when it comes to FTTP rollouts. In my street for example, Cityfibre installed their FTTP cabinet, fed the ducts with fibre and then disappeared for nearly a year before it showed up as RFS for my property. Luckily I already have Openreach FTTP (On Demand) installed from 2017 so wasn't too fussed, though I was curious as a cat to know how long it would take Cityfibre to finish their install. Cityfibre have even opened a stall in our local Morrisons to encourage takeup (through resellers of course) and are offering a prize draw to win £1000 worth of shopping if you fill out their form at the stall.
 
I've read in multiple places that CityFibre will take a couple of days to a couple of weeks to roll out in a street, but they have been going for MONTHS in our area (North Tyneside).

They rock up for a few days/a week and do a bit. Disappear for a bit, come back and do a bit more. Disappear, then loads of spray paint appears over every imperfection in the roads/paths (to be fair they are appalling in places), these then eventually get fixed and look top notch. Then it rinses and repeats.

From what I can figure out, they must have different teams for (1) traditional trenches, (2) narrow trenches, (3) sticking the spool of wires into the cabs/installing the cabs and (4) pulling cables through Openreach ducts. It all seems VERY inefficient.

Is this others experience?

I'm not complaining, just everything I have read said a few weeks and I was expecting a swift rollout.
Ian, you can always email them. Unlike the big ISPs who essentially don't take questions about WHEN something will happen and fob you off with the standard nonsense I've had some success in getting rough timelines for things.

They are overrunning in my area and absolutely need to pull their finger out. A small portion of where I live has been done. The crews have buggered off elsewhere and now I'm still waiting!
 
as soon as it arrives by me I’m going for it. FTTC for me, does get a little tiresome at sub 50mbit especially when big downloads for work and personal use are due.
That said I’d rather suffer an ok latency slow connection than go back with Virgin Media even if they offer 500-1gb here now simply for the cost and massive over utilisation issues
 
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They certainly seem slower than Openreach.

In my city their pace originally seemed ok, but they have been doing road works in parts of the city now for 8 months (one street has stayed dug up for over 5 months) and still stuck in those areas. One part of the city took 14 months from last roadworks to been able to order. Cityfibre themselves seem very resistant to giving out any info other than its planned or not planned. They must have a lot of problems with schedules if they refusing to give out target dates even in areas where its clearly late in the process.
 
Disagree, CityFibre complete the work very quickly, it usually takes awhile for an area to actually become active, as they usually add blocks of postcodes all at once, once a certain amount of area is completely finished.
 
Reading is awash with City Fibre roadworks at the moment. Been a bit of a nightmare traffic wise.

What I dont understand, and hoping somone with more knowledge than me can advise, is why on my street they have done one end with their own ducting (dug up the pavements and road etc) but in the middle (where I am) they have pulled their fibre via BT ducting and not dug up anything... then at the other end of the road they have gone back to digging up and laying their own ducting & firbre...

Why would they do that and how would I get FTTp to my home if they are going to use BT ducts and poles?

For ref, my street can only get 28meg broadband from BT and other CP's.

thanks
 
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Why would they do that and how would I get FTTp to my home if they are going to use BT ducts and poles?
Economics and availability.

In some places it makes sense to use existing BT ducts and poles - although they do have to pay to rent them, it's usually much cheaper than doing a complete installation from scratch.

In other places, where existing infrastructure may not be suitable: e.g. houses which have no lead-in ducts, the existing copper is buried Direct In Ground. In that case they need to dig their own.
 
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Economics and availability.

In some places it makes sense to use existing BT ducts and poles - although they do have to pay to rent them, it's usually much cheaper than doing a complete installation from scratch.

In other places, where existing infrastructure may not be suitable: e.g. houses which have no lead-in ducts, the existing copper is buried Direct In Ground. In that case they need to dig their own.
Thanks Candlerb. Understand cost is a key factor for them, just odd how 300 metres of my road was pulled via OR and the rest trenched up to the house boundaries...

So how would they plan to get me fibre to my house if they have not dug anything up?
Would they use the current overhead copper wire cable to my house and if so would that really be FTTP if the very last part is not fibre?

Sorry for more questions!
 
So how would they plan to get me fibre to my house if they have not dug anything up?
Could be using existing BT lead-in duct - if you have one.

Could be overhead fibre feed, using BT poles. (They won't use the copper wire, but will install a new drop fibre).

It could also be that you're completely excluded from their plans, but there would likely be some reason for that outside of their control - wayleave issue with a private/unadopted road for example.
 
In our part of Reading (central area) CityFibre put a leaflet through our door last November but nothing happened for months. We're in an area of Victorian housing served mainly by poles. CityFibre finally turned up and connected up all the poles in mid March in the space of a few days and we've been able to place orders since early May so the installation to RFS time was only about 6 weeks. CF used a lot of overhead cables between poles and didn't do much digging.

It hasn't taken long for Openreach to catch on, and they're now busy installing CBTs on the poles, apparently running their cables in the same way.

[Edit] Talked to an Openreach engineer yesterday. Part of our area has now been completed and will go live in a couple of weeks, our end will be delayed because of blocked ducts and they will probably need to dig these up. They expect to come back in about a month to cable up this area. At least this offers one explanation of their apparently haphazard work.
 
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Disagree, CityFibre complete the work very quickly, it usually takes awhile for an area to actually become active, as they usually add blocks of postcodes all at once, once a certain amount of area is completely finished.
So do you agree or not, lots of areas in the city now with works completed, one area for 11 months, not activated, and yes some streets have stalled part done as well.

They seem a complete mess tbh, and trying to get dates out of them is impossible. Openreach give estimated dates.

Now openreach have started work in the small part of the city they plan to cover, they started 2 years after cityfibre, curious how much quicker they will get things live.
 
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