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Openreach clearing ducts in our village - chances of FTTP?

sbaggs

Pro Member
We live in a smallish village (pop ~1,300) and internet is via FTTC, with varying performance depending on where your nearest cabinet is (ours is over the road, so we get 75Mb/s :-)). Truespeed have been promising FTTP "soon" for about three years, and some nearby villages have the service now, but there has been no progress here at all. I'm a bit wary of Truespeed anyway because of their poilcy of locking down the router with no bridge mode allowed; but I assumed that since we're on their list of places to be done, Openreach wouldn't be investing in our village.

Today a couple of Openreach chaps were pumping out ducting outside our house, so naturally I went to have a chat. I was delighted to hear that their task was to make sure the ducts weren't blocked and to remove any redundant cable, to make way for fibre. They were clear that this was for service in the village - they pointed out where the fibre would be run up the poles, and explained that houses would then be served by a combined fibre/copper line so that the old and new technology would both work during the transition to fibre. As far as I am concerned this is excellent news.

I realise there is still a long way to go before we might see OR-based FTTP appearing, but how confident should I be that it will actually happen? If Truespeed finally turn up now, I'd happily decline their service and wait for OR fibre to be installed, but how likely is it that OR would drop out if Truespeed finally turn up in the village? Is it likely OR would be going to the trouble of clearing the ducts if they weren't certain they were going to give us fibre? Any ideas appreciated - my fingers are crossed!
 
OR may be clearing the duct for Truespeed use (PIA).
Aargh! Hadn't thought of that. I really hope that's not it, but I can see the logic.

If their ducts are full of Truespeed fibre, what will OR do when copper is retired, I wonder?
 
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Case by case basis. If everyone signs up to Truespeed then OR may leave you out. The likelyhood is OR will retain market share and will eventually rollout just enough capacity for that.

The real issue will be outlying homes which are too expensive, are left out by Truespeed, the cost of OR per premise would then rise sharply and there is insufficient public subsidy to provide them with FTTP.
 
Case by case basis. If everyone signs up to Truespeed then OR may leave you out. The likelyhood is OR will retain market share and will eventually rollout just enough capacity for that.

The real issue will be outlying homes which are too expensive, are left out by Truespeed, the cost of OR per premise would then rise sharply and there is insufficient public subsidy to provide them with FTTP.
I know there are parts of the parish which can't get FTTC at all, and even struggle with ADSL, so we should count our blessings. We're about a 30 second walk from the telephone exchange and connected to the cabinet outside, so our FTTC is pretty good.

If it's Truespeed or nothing, an option would be just to stick with FTTC - the extra speed would be nice but has to be balanced agaist Truespeed's restrictions, and speedwise we manage perfectly OK on what we have. I guess FTTC won't be around for ever, though.

Anyway, we'll have to wait and see what happens. I'll stop getting excited now, though.
 
We live in a smallish village (pop ~1,300) and internet is via FTTC, with varying performance depending on where your nearest cabinet is (ours is over the road, so we get 75Mb/s :-)). Truespeed have been promising FTTP "soon" for about three years, and some nearby villages have the service now, but there has been no progress here at all. I'm a bit wary of Truespeed anyway because of their poilcy of locking down the router with no bridge mode allowed; but I assumed that since we're on their list of places to be done, Openreach wouldn't be investing in our village.

Today a couple of Openreach chaps were pumping out ducting outside our house, so naturally I went to have a chat. I was delighted to hear that their task was to make sure the ducts weren't blocked and to remove any redundant cable, to make way for fibre. They were clear that this was for service in the village - they pointed out where the fibre would be run up the poles, and explained that houses would then be served by a combined fibre/copper line so that the old and new technology would both work during the transition to fibre. As far as I am concerned this is excellent news.

I realise there is still a long way to go before we might see OR-based FTTP appearing, but how confident should I be that it will actually happen? If Truespeed finally turn up now, I'd happily decline their service and wait for OR fibre to be installed, but how likely is it that OR would drop out if Truespeed finally turn up in the village? Is it likely OR would be going to the trouble of clearing the ducts if they weren't certain they were going to give us fibre? Any ideas appreciated - my fingers are crossed!
We're they jetting water through the ducts? I have always wondered if they do that to try and clear out all the mud and gunk from the duct then pump out the chambers.
 
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How long after this did you get Openreach FTTP?
We got Openreach FTTP in April this year. Truespeed were being funded by BDUK, but didn't deliver and were dropped. In about June last year Openreach put our exchange in the Gigabit Voucher Scheme, I delivered leaflets around the village and we hit the target in three weeks flat. The build began in January this year and took around six months to complete. Because it was government funded, even the most rural parts of the exchange area were covered.
 
We're they jetting water through the ducts? I have always wondered if they do that to try and clear out all the mud and gunk from the duct then pump out the chambers.
I have seen plenty of ducts being pumped out, but I haven't seen them jetting the ducts and I wonder if there might be a risk of compromising copper cables which are already in there. I'm not sure whether they might try rodding. I have seen plenty of ducts being dug up to clear them.
 
They rod before they gully suck. If the rods get through they just use them to pull the cables, no need to go to the time and expense of anything else. 😊
 
Compressed air is another option I have seen used assuming there are no significant breaches or other places where air is lost on the duct. Air is better than getting the ducts all wet although it doesn't have the same weight, but with one team with their air compressor forcing air down the duct pushing from one side, and a rodding team hitting the blockage from the other something can often be persuaded to give.

Compressed air is frequently used with a balloon like bag attached to a rope with the bag being caught by the flow of air through the duct to pull a rope through the duct, existing cables or not. It's an alternative to needing to rod the duct.
 
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