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CityFibre/Virgin area - private road

munkeynuts

Casual Member
Hi all,

Looking for suggestions on what I might be able to do.

I live in an area in a city (very urban) which has both Virgin Media and CityFibre. However, my little road of 5 houses is technically a private road. Annoyingly, I can see the box with the CityFibre logo on ~100m from my house, but in the past they have refused to connect via Vodafone due to cost. Same for Virgin.

I have a ~70mbps line with TalkTalk who have since also become an ISP providing fibre on CityFibre network. I am wondering if TalkTalk could petition CityFibre on my behalf as an existing customer - but they are difficult to contact.

I have written to my MP as both Virgin and CityFibre said they were available before I moved in, and OpenReach do not have any plans to come to my area (and according to them max speeds would be 330mbps), so it seems that my street will never get an upgraded connection anytime soon.

I have posted about this before - but having moved here having had a 1gbps line in my previous flat, I feel like I've gone back in time. Any suggestions on what I could do?

Thanks
 
Who owns the road?

I would think as it's only 5 houses you might have to do some of the legwork here. If you can effectively give the Telco an 'oven ready' means to deploy their fibre then you might get some traction. But you need to consider whether it's just paperwork that sorts out a wayleave and whether that would be enough for the Telco to come back and do your street, or if you need to go any further with you and your neighbours laying the ducts. As this appears to be underground what kind of surface is the road, is there a verge that can be used, if the road surface has to be reinstated is it special in any way?
 
Who owns the road?

I would think as it's only 5 houses you might have to do some of the legwork here. If you can effectively give the Telco an 'oven ready' means to deploy their fibre then you might get some traction. But you need to consider whether it's just paperwork that sorts out a wayleave and whether that would be enough for the Telco to come back and do your street, or if you need to go any further with you and your neighbours laying the ducts. As this appears to be underground what kind of surface is the road, is there a verge that can be used, if the road surface has to be reinstated is it special in any way?
I'm not quite sure on the legalities of the street ownership - I don't think the council have taken it on, but I can only see reference to the old feu hold title in 1906. Might have to investigate further.

When CityFibre came round last they painted the route the cable would take to my house up the street under the paving (the road is paved, no verges or green space) - only on the day phoning to cancel the job due to 'cost' as they said - but don't think there is any special resurfacing needs.

I did defer to their expertise on it - I don't know how much or the difficulties of laying the cable - but seems strange to be one of the only streets in the city that can't get fibre.
 
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Understanding the legal ownership of the road and/or other shared space between the public highway and your front wall is going to be key in helping you understand what the barriers are, and how they can be overcome.

You seem to understand that it's a private road, so you might hope that there is something in the title deeds of the property in which you live. Otherwise paying a few quid to the land registry get the legal owner of the road might be a next step.
 
Economics may be a part of this, 100 metres of trenching for potentially five customers maybe just one, wouldn't be a wise investment for them. Is it a no through road or could the fibre go on to serve elsewhere at the other end of your street to where the box is ?
 
Economics may be a part of this, 100 metres of trenching for potentially five customers maybe just one, wouldn't be a wise investment for them. Is it a no through road or could the fibre go on to serve elsewhere at the other end of your street to where the box is ?

So it’s it’s a cul-de-sac so no other end of the street. I get that there are financial benefits they need to think about (although I don’t think people should be denied upgraded internet due to company profitability - which is why I engaged my MP).

The more annoying thing is that both Virgin and CityFibre said they supplied the address before I moved in and cancelled on the day they were to come and install it, so feel a little stung by that.

Currently the OpenReach line goes up a pole on the street itself, but as I say, no sign of them upgrading that anytime soon.
 
Just had a response from CityFibre:
Our team have confirmed that the property [MY HOUSE] categorised as in HARD LOC. This is due to A Wayleave agreement (permission) will be required from the party who have refused a wayleave agreement.

I have no clue who it is who refused it considering land registry doesn’t show anyone as owning the street itself…
 
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CF won’t want to get themselves into any potential future liability shenanigans unless there is absolute clarity and permission by way of a wayleave from the “property owner”.

So if you really want this service, then some further investigation may be required and perhaps even enlisting the help of a solicitor to get this clarity and explicit permission. Until then CF simply won’t go near it.
 
Is your existing connection underground fed and if so is it "Direct In Ground" ? That could be why Openreach have no plans to upgrade now but did have prior to discovering it to be so. If so - no ducts for PIA, no poles no hope ?
Sounds just like the street I live in. When all the low hanging fruit is gone.........................
 
Is your existing connection underground fed and if so is it "Direct In Ground" ? That could be why Openreach have no plans to upgrade now but did have prior to discovering it to be so. If so - no ducts for PIA, no poles no hope ?
Sounds just like the street I live in. When all the low hanging fruit is gone.........................
I'm not 100% on the Openreach line - the copper wire comes overhead to my house - but not sure where it is before that point.

Either way, the wholesale broadband checker says even if I got FTTP on demand it would only be 330Mbps, and the exchange is not currently on the priority list for upgrade.

I could understand if I lived in the middle of nowhere, but I live in a fairly built up area. Frustrating to say the least.
 
Your sorted as it is overhead, Openreach will get around to it it whenever. The 330Mbps figure is a throwback to ordering fibre on demand, that figure will update when it becomes available as part of a rollout.
 
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Unless you have a small fortune to waste. There is only an obligation for a telephone line and a slow connection to be supplied I believe, an MP can't force anything re full fibre being installed. Has Openreach installed FTTP in neigbouring streets or is there a date for that ? If they have installed locally you could raise a complaint along the lines of "my neighbour etc etc"
 
No date. According to their tracker it is not even planned in this area - so that puts it beyond the current 2026 plan....
 
Allegedly we will be done in 2026, but in the meantime you at least have double my line speed. I think you have the better deal of the cards ?
 
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But you need to consider whether it's just paperwork that sorts out a wayleave and whether that would be enough for the Telco to come back and do your street, or if you need to go any further with you and your neighbours laying the ducts.
A very good point 👍

Now that you know it’s a way leave issue causing the Hard LOC - persist and find out who the network deployment manager is from CF and setup a meeting/call with them to discuss, on the basis that you will have the necessary wayleave in place in the next x weeks / months (don’t underestimate how much faff and work could be involved in getting this paperwork sorted especially if the ownership of the private road is unclear on any deeds etc.) - would they be willing to proceed on that basis?

Unfortunately this applies also to any other telcos - like Virgin and Openreach, though once you have clarity on the wayleave it becomes a more straightforward battle to fight (again).

You may want to have a straight up discussion with all your neighbours on this - they may not all be thrilled about CF only access and may have a preference to have connections to Openreach and/or Virgin. In this case you may need to investigate into running effectively your own Mini-duct network to serve the five houses on the private road and as long as done correctly with enough capacity could grant access to all serving telcos in future.
 
Only relevant topic I could find but cityfibre is on an aggressive rollout in Hartlepool now, dominated by Virgin media across the town.

Great to see, and wonder if 5G rollout will speed up once it all goes live.
 
Hiya,

Get all the houses on private road to fill in an wayleave enquiry at https://cityfibre.com/landlords with same information and your contact number/email.

Someone will contact you and then you can setup a wayleave between all 5 houses and cityfibre. This doesnt mean all houses will need to get cityfibre connection. Its just for laying the network and giving them access to fix any faults once some of you have signed up.

Once wayleave is signed, they will pass it on to their build partner who will then pass back to cityfibre to commission the houses for service in their systems and partners. Depending on where they are in your area currwntly it can take up 3-4 months.

I live on a private road with other 20+ houses and the above is what I followed and we are just about to go live.

Hope this helps.

Sam
 
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