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FTTP work completed - Availability Timeline

Hi everyone,

I hate starting a new thread, especially since it's just another impatient guy who wants something yesterday!

but..

We live in Rural East Renfrewshire (G78 3AE) and have been on an EO line. We'd been "in plans" for FTTP for some time and, a few weeks ago, work was finally carried out to run fibre past my own and neighbours property. Engineer also had to run cable directly to my property and installed a new box of some description. He said at the time this was for FTTP.

At about the time of this work, BT Openreach changed from "In Plans" to show our property as available, but for FTTC, not FTTP. Also, this FTTC was for a cabinet that was around 2 miles away. I was told by one of the engineers installing FTTP that they were running the FTTP cables to this cabinet. He also suggested that I upgrade to FTTC so my line can be moved from EO to that cabinet in prep for FTTP.

I did as he suggested and am now on FTTC (at a very slow speed - 7.5mbps but still double what I was getting on ADSL).

Cutting a long story short, it's now been around 5 weeks since the FTTP installation work was completed but it's still not available on the BtOpenreach broadband checker. Does anyone have any experience of how long the process takes post the engineering work? Being a typical Arian and also the fact that I've promised the kids an end to their gaming woes, I'm impatient to get my first properly fast internet connection.

Interested to know if it's a few weeks or a year!

Thanks in advance
Ian
 
Don't expect to get FTTH any time soon. BT/OR have their own speed and priorities, I would not hold my breath.

p.s. Think long term.
 
If you buy a new 5 year diary, hopefully it wont quite have run out before BT go live with the service in your area.
 
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There doesn't seem to be any way to get a sensible response from Openreach. Bearing in mind my original post (i.e. I'm now on a relatively slow fttc service waiting for fttp at some point), I contacted them by e-mail to find out how the fttp availability was progressing. I had two responses, one from Vishakha Sahu and one from Pushpender Rana, both of which contained absolute nonsense. They clearly hadn't even read my original e-mail and tried to claim I didn't even have fttc, let alone be expecting fttp. They stated that my area wasn't in plans for fttp due to it being unfeasible when it's already been installed.

How are you supposed to get a worthwhile response from Openreach? I don't think they have a telephone number you can call and they clearly offshore their e-mail responses to people who don't have access to the correct information and/or haven't a clue what they're talking about.

Given the importance of the services this company provides on people's modern day lives, they should be fully available to the public by phone with accurate, up to date information.
 
Generally speaking Openreach won't deploy both FTTC and FTTP to the same area as they'd deem that to be a waste of money; the two take a very different approach. However some areas do have a crossover of different infrastructure, although I can't recall a time when an Openreach engineer has told somebody to order FTTC so they can get FTTP at a later date. Very odd, unless they meant an expensive FTTP-on-Demand connection.

I did have a look at your postcode and the various coverage databases all seem to be in disagreement about what is / is not available. Some say you can get FTTP, others make no mention of it and it's a similar story for FTTC. I could understand the FTTC confusion though because the local cabinet for that area has only recently gone live (i.e. some databases will be out of date).

My guess is that they've run the core fibre optic cable down your road towards the FTTC cabinet but don't actually plan to offer an FTTP service. As a rule I never trust what the engineers say about future services because they don't know the business plan for the area, they're just there to do a physical job.
 
Hi Mark,

I appreciate your response.

We don't really get FTTC because we live so far from the cabinet. In fact, BT refused to offer it at all as a fibre service because it doesn't meet their speed threshold. We were able to get a fibre service via Plus Net but even on installation day the engineer was surprised that we'd been allowed to get it and there was a lot of to and fro before they could get a strong enough signal to connect.

What the Openreach (or contractor) engineer said does make sense. The nearest fibre enabled cabinet to our house (Barrhead 59) isn't newly fibre enabled. It's been there for at least a year and probably longer. It's too far away to offer a viable fibre service but it was the obvious nearest choice to terminate the fibre they have installed to the houses in my area. The poles in my area were all replaced and fibre warning stickers put on them all. The connection from pole to my house had to be replaced and now has two cables (according to the engineer one is fibre). The roads/pavements were dug up all the way to Cabinet 59 to lay the fibre cables. I think it's safe to say that we have been made fttp ready!

I think you sum it up with words like "disagreement", "confusion" and "guess". The data is all over the place and there doesn't seem to be any method of getting hold of someone sensible who can give a definitive answer. I'm not jumping up and down demanding fttp now but I think it's entirely fair to expect to be able to speak to someone who can explain the process and give an accurate update with expected timelines.
 
Worth pointing out is that the fibre has come to my house using a combination of underground cables and then overhead cables with most of the poles replaced at the same time. Not sure how accurate this was, but I was told by one of the engineers that this was the first time (at least in the area) that overhead cables had been used to provide fttp.
 
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It wouldn't surprise me if they're laying the groundwork for FTTP to be switched on at a later date. At the moment Openreach are consulting on whether or not they can lift their current roll-out from 2 million premises passed to 10 million and so it makes sense to put the right infrastructure down pre-emptively. We've seen that happen in other areas too.
 
It wouldn't surprise me if they're laying the groundwork for

It wouldn't surprise me if they're laying the groundwork for turning Lousy British service down a few notches to let GCHQ spread their net as far and wide as American services. The western world seems intent on preventing Internet access. I used to think it was just people being content with Microsoft's malware and loser thresholds but now I believe the globalist conspiracies are much worse than we imagine.

It is inexplicable in this century, that with android taking over the mobile world, so few have moved into Linux. What alternative theory is there than our lords and masters need us to think like sheep for ever?
 
I think you will have to wait and see, its likely fiber is being put in some areas its whats needed for EO lines.

One thing to remember is the fiber infrastructure is being rolled out but it might not be in place to put out as a product in your area theres a lot of work to do in the exchange for the new network.

It might be a few months till its ready. One thing though asking Openreach as a end user is useless get in contact with a good ISP and they are more likely to find out more info for you.
 
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