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Community Fibre Partnership: FTTP is coming

Just wanna share our excitement that BT Openreach is starting to install FTTP at our street. They expect to finalise it by Christmas 2017.

Background:
For one or two years, the county Hertsfordshire have a program that were in process of upgrading cabinets to FTTC (http://www.connectedcounties.org). Our cabinet went live around Jan 2016. We only had to find out that we were not eligible for FTTC due to the distance, at the time we had no idea that (our long) distance was a factor. We live around 1.5 miles away, and our ADSL is sub 2 Mpbs. After researching many options, it seems that the Community Fibre Partnership (CFP) was the only viable way. Our street is has around 22 houses, and it was rather ‘easy’ to get them together and discuss and agree to commit as a community.

I am just sharing here a little time line, perhaps useful for others that are planning to undertake CFP.


So:

2016
June
- signed up at https://communityfibre.openreach.co.uk, received email with providing details of how many are interested
- dropped letter with our neighbours, and within 10 days most of them replied
- Send the form back to CFP. They will now do some kind of desk study and estimate the cost. In our situation we discussed either FTTC or FTTP. Due to the small number of houses (20 were interested), it was more cost-effective to opt for FTTP

September
- received a estimate of £43k.

October
- convened the community. Those who commit, will need to take part of paying a final cost estimate of £2.500. But to do that, we needed to setup a community interest company, CIC. 20 out of 22 committed financially. Also appointed 3 neighbours to be directors of the CIC.

November/December
- CIC ‘finally’ established. This takes paper work and time!!!! Not the same as what they said on the website
- Opened a bank account for CIC
- Asked for invoice to pay £2.500. Then there was an issue. Previously agreed that there will be NO VAT on this, but now we had to. So this needed to be sorted out.

2017

Jan
- Finally agreed to get a surveyor to actually survey our premises and street for the final costing

February
- Surveyor spend almost a week to uncover all the BT boxes form the cabinet to our street. Often under overgrown grass/vegetation.

March
- Final cost £34K. This was rather a pleasant surprise. We had to create scenarios if cost go up how to inform the other communities.
- Then things went fast. We are obliged to pay 50% up front and sign contract.
- found out that the £350 subsidy that is now available for CFP projects, will expire around Feb 2018.
- BT Openreach will not commit to a deadline (on paper). But have the intention to finish within 9 - 12 months.

Now, it is just waiting.

September
- BT Openreach surveyors appeared in our street. Apparently we had to tell them all over again where things needed to be installed etc. But these were the guys that are responsible for installation. Apparently the CFP projects were pushed to be finished before Christmas.
- Within a week, more surveyors were spotted. Part of the fibre cable has been wired up on our poles. The remaining bits required them to find contractors. Let’ see.
 
Excellent news :), £34k is probably a bit too steep for most streets with c.20 houses involved but I'd agree it's a worthwhile investment for the future.
 
The good news was that there is a large site (like a school) that covered 1/3 of the cost. Then we all have £350 subsidy. Then the cost suddenly became much more easier to bear. For the large site it was the best investment, because having a leased line (or anything else) would have been very costly anyway. Now the entire street could benefit from an upgrade. So it turned out to be better for all of us.
 
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Ok, more news:

November 27 - 30
- finalizing cables at the street level infrastructure. New poles are up or replaced, and fibre has reached the entire street. All the fibre cables are hung on the poles. This team was just putting the fibre cables.

Next week:
Commissioning process – They connect the fibre cables up (currently there is not connectors yet on the fibre cables). Then they test the signal strength, degradation and quality between the exchange and distribution point to ensure it is within the standard limits they are set

Week + 2
Publication – This is where they make known the fact that we can know get FTTP services to the service providers.


Apparently:
When we order with any FTTP provider, they then places an order with the Openreach Service Delivery Team who will book an appointment with you to come and install, normally where your copper wire comes in, the last metres of the connection. This includes the Optical Network Termination box (that you plug your equipment e.g. router into) and the battery back-up unit. Both these require power points. Unfortunately we cannot pre-book the service delivery team it can only be done at time of order.

So, the end is near... and very exciting to finally get a minor speed bump from our 2.4 Mbps (on a non-rainy/windy day).
 
yes indeed. you can imagine our entire lane (only 20 houses) are very excited and i think by 2018 no one will be using copper anymore!
 
Ok, more news:

November 27 - 30
- finalizing cables at the street level infrastructure. New poles are up or replaced, and fibre has reached the entire street. All the fibre cables are hung on the poles. This team was just putting the fibre cables.

Next week:
Commissioning process – They connect the fibre cables up (currently there is not connectors yet on the fibre cables). Then they test the signal strength, degradation and quality between the exchange and distribution point to ensure it is within the standard limits they are set

Week + 2
Publication – This is where they make known the fact that we can know get FTTP services to the service providers.


Apparently:
When we order with any FTTP provider, they then places an order with the Openreach Service Delivery Team who will book an appointment with you to come and install, normally where your copper wire comes in, the last metres of the connection. This includes the Optical Network Termination box (that you plug your equipment e.g. router into) and the battery back-up unit. Both these require power points. Unfortunately we cannot pre-book the service delivery team it can only be done at time of order.

So, the end is near... and very exciting to finally get a minor speed bump from our 2.4 Mbps (on a non-rainy/windy day).

OK, update: we still don’t have FTTP yet!

So Openreach project engineer did not tell us everything. The commissioning couldn’t start in December because they THEN told us that 800 metres of underground ducting was silted. So this is not ‘planned’ and to get the de-silting team, it would need to wait after X-mas/NewYear. Well, once that was done sometime end of January, they had to re-apply for traffic control to allow them to lay those cables in the now de-silted ducting. In the meanwhile the commisioning was taking place partly. This all was ‘finally’ finished 16 February. So we should now be in the publishing phase, which ‘should’ take 2 weeks.

So.... if all is ok, by the end of this week or next week we can order FTTP. Then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is something in mid-March. Those Openreach people are quite an optimist bunch, so they actually make themselves look like they are always late.....:shrug:

Keep you posted once we can order 300/50!
 
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Ordered yet?

Haha... it is SATURDAY. Zen Internet (Business) is not open! But you can imagine I called immediately, somehow hoping I could order. The fun part is actually that it seems that our entire street is calling around to get things ordered! Since most of them stay with BT and are ‘household’ customers, so they can order it! I guess patience is they key to happiness, let’s try that!
 
My hamlet of six houses with terrible internet signed a contract last year, deadline for completion is June, would be interested to hear your experience.

I was told the default speed will be 330/30 but I could order 1000/100 for my business which I'm tempted to do as they have to put a different card in the cabinet and the sooner it's done the less chance the cabinet is filled and I'm unable to do it in the future.

Also it'll be fun to test my internet speed and see it 1000 times faster :D
 
I hope they do not bag all of the available connections on the cabinet!

Well, they had to provision for that, since we did this ‘special’ arrangement with Openreach, it means all the 20+ houses should be able to get connected for enough capacity. They did had to increase the capacity by pulling another fibre cable to the fibre exchange. And I believe all of use are currently applying, although most of my neigbhours are happy wiht 80/20 (currently for some 1.5/0.3)
 
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My hamlet of six houses with terrible internet signed a contract last year, deadline for completion is June, would be interested to hear your experience.

I was told the default speed will be 330/30 but I could order 1000/100 for my business which I'm tempted to do as they have to put a different card in the cabinet and the sooner it's done the less chance the cabinet is filled and I'm unable to do it in the future.

Also it'll be fun to test my internet speed and see it 1000 times faster :D

Yes, I agree. Since we are a site with multiple buildings, I decided to go for the maximum of 330/50, just to be sure of having enough capacity. It sounds like a dodgy situation when you can’t upgrade because the capacity is maxed out. That might take a long time before they add capacity (especially if you are already in this situation that no-one have actively invested in your location!).
 
Ordered yet?

So many of us ordered the FTTP and it is unbelievable confusing!

A) some ordered on Saturday using BT account and clicked upgrade to 76/19 (the 80/20 product) and was given 18 months £35.99. With an install date 7 working days later! Then on the Monday this was all cancelled, and here it becomes confusing, they said they need to do a survey first. Once finished, they will rebook an appointment.
B) some went throug the same, but no survey, install date 8 days later.
C) some called and was told that they can’t order yet, because the signal strenght is not good enough and need to check (p.s. Probably this neigbhour wasn’t explicit saying FTTP, and BT didn’t check properly and checked only FTTC)
D) some called and said you have to explicitly say it is FTTP, because you will be put to a different sales team all together. Got it ordered and install date in two weeks.
E) we ordered with Zen as a new customer. Once we ordered the FTTP product, got the logins to their customer portal, and receive some mails about activation of our service and need to wait 48 hours before an engineer appointment can be made. Because it requires a survey, then we can book an installation date.

So this survey thing it seems that some properties are ear-marked in the Openreach system to be ‘surveyed’ first, before the install engineer can be booked. It seems to have to with that some installs ‘might’ require extra equipment or longer cables, so they need to survey this first!

Very confusing if you read the report of different neighbours! Ha... kinda funny as well. I still am impatiently waiting for this 48 hours to pass and hear a possible install date!
 
Ordering with Zen
1) monday placed order, same day got all kinds of emails about signing up their portal + installation date next week Tuesday

2) Tuesday, FTTP engineer comes and ask where you want it! He drills holes in your house and make sure the cable does not bend to much on each turn. We didn’t need copper, so he stripped off the copper from the hybrid cable.
But the ONT had a flashing PON light, so didn’t connect ;-( There was something wrong with wiring on the street (wrong SASA). So he made called, and next morning he will sort it out with the ID engineers

3) Wednesday morning until around 11am they found out the issue, re-spliced our connection and we were up:
7148897253.png


So, it is amazing to go from 2.5’ish Mbps to amazing speeds. Although those speeds are ‘often’ not maxed, you do feel the headroom. We are a site with 20+ users concurrently (no P2P allowed, gaming, nor ‘streaming’), so it is not maxed at all. But everyone mostly have mobiles/tablets/wifi so their speed ranges from 50 - 100 Mbps, which is maxing their Wifi speeds.

Pretty happy with the result.

All neighbours are one by one getting installed!
 
Somewhat jealous of that connection, particularly the upload speed :) . How long did it take the Openreach engineer to physically install?
 
He called at 8 am, arrived 9 am, and left around 1pm, becuase of the issue that didn’t work. But it took 2-2.5 hours to actually pull the cable, drill hole and install it.

This was my old connection ;-)

7170458999.png
 
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We continue to wait for our internet to be installed, though they have hung the fibre on the polls and they've got till June so I'n not stressing, as I mentioned before Openreach updated their offerings in February to include 1000/220 but no one seems to be offering it yet which is kind of annoying.
 
@Webbs1978

I tried to message you back, but was limited in the number of characters to sent, so here you go, the letter we sent to the neighbours (I changed the street names to SOMESTREET, and places to SOMEPLACE:

Dear neighbour,

The community at XXXX has been exploring how we can access faster broadband speeds here. This is because according to the fibre project for Hertfordshire, SOMEPLACE will not be supported in the foreseeable future. (See www.connectedcounties.org). Fibre is available for all on SOMESTREET, but from SOMESTREET south through SOMESTREET there are no plans for an upgrade. (Local telephone lines are connected to the box on SOMESTREET). SOMESTREET, SOMEPLACE and SOMEPLACE are all included in the fibre project plans.

We have checked different options for faster broadband, for instance mobile 3/4G or satellite. Both of them are rather expensive and not able to grow with demand over the long term.

In response we have contacted BT Openreach directly to ask for some kind of solution. Before they go ahead and offer us an individual solution they inquired whether our neighbours on SOMESTREET were also interested in faster broadband; the solutions they provide vary depending on whether they are for 1 property or for several premises along SOMESTREET.

We are therefore writing to you to ascertain whether you also have interest in a faster broadband at your SOMESTREET home or local business. For Openreach to do a survey requires 5 properties to provide their phone numbers and property number/name. If there is not enough interest then Openreach will only survey our own site. If you would like to be included in this survey, or have comments, please send us an email to xxxxxxx@gmail.com
which is an email address the monastery has set up. There is absolutely no cost or commitment at this stage as this is just information for a survey. Apart from sharing it with Openreach and amongst the participating neighbours any information you provide will be kept confidential.

Please note: since Openreach deals with the telephone infrastructure, any solutions they suggest might take at least 6 months to 2 years to implement.
 
@Webbs1978

I tried to message you back, but was limited in the number of characters to sent, so here you go, the letter we sent to the neighbours (I changed the street names to SOMESTREET, and places to SOMEPLACE:

Dear neighbour,

The community at XXXX has been exploring how we can access faster broadband speeds here. This is because according to the fibre project for Hertfordshire, SOMEPLACE will not be supported in the foreseeable future. (See www.connectedcounties.org). Fibre is available for all on SOMESTREET, but from SOMESTREET south through SOMESTREET there are no plans for an upgrade. (Local telephone lines are connected to the box on SOMESTREET). SOMESTREET, SOMEPLACE and SOMEPLACE are all included in the fibre project plans.

We have checked different options for faster broadband, for instance mobile 3/4G or satellite. Both of them are rather expensive and not able to grow with demand over the long term.

In response we have contacted BT Openreach directly to ask for some kind of solution. Before they go ahead and offer us an individual solution they inquired whether our neighbours on SOMESTREET were also interested in faster broadband; the solutions they provide vary depending on whether they are for 1 property or for several premises along SOMESTREET.

We are therefore writing to you to ascertain whether you also have interest in a faster broadband at your SOMESTREET home or local business. For Openreach to do a survey requires 5 properties to provide their phone numbers and property number/name. If there is not enough interest then Openreach will only survey our own site. If you would like to be included in this survey, or have comments, please send us an email to xxxxxxx@gmail.com
which is an email address the monastery has set up. There is absolutely no cost or commitment at this stage as this is just information for a survey. Apart from sharing it with Openreach and amongst the participating neighbours any information you provide will be kept confidential.

Please note: since Openreach deals with the telephone infrastructure, any solutions they suggest might take at least 6 months to 2 years to implement.

Thank you, much appreciated 👍🏻😊
 
@FTTPJUNKY

Just curious, after you first submitted the spreadsheet to OR containing interested parties' details did OR do just a desk survey or did they send a surveyor to take a proper assessment of your local infrastructure etc?
 
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