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Openreach teasing FTTP

FOPS

Regular Member
Back in early October Circet placed signs all around my estate stating they were about to start installing fibre on behalf of Openreach. A check of One.Network confirmed what they were planning so much excitement ensued.

However the dates came and went and eventually the signs were removed and nothing has happened which is a bit of a disappointment to say the least.

The Openreach tracker states that work is ongoing in our local exchange and we can expect everything to be complete by December 2026 which is a bit of a disappointment so I was wondering if anyone has experienced the same and how long it took for the work to be rescheduled?
 
In terms of you're seeing that nothing has happened, could you elaborate a bit?

Is your area pole fed or underground? If pole, no evidence of CBTs at the top of poles, or (usually blue) drawropes at the base of poles. If your area is underground, the evidence might be harder to see unless you lift a Openreach chamber or two in pavements.

The other pragmatic thing to do is to ask an Openreach engineer if they know what the local FTTP deployment status is.

December 2026 is a default catch all date and if there have been signs of some work being undertaken locally it's likely to be sooner, but how much sooner needs a little more local intel.
 
It's pole fed and there do appear to be CBTs at the top. Is it likely that is what they were here to do? Maybe I've been a little wrong-footed then as I was fully expecting them to dig the street up.
 
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Ok, so if there are CBTs at the top of your poles, FTTP is almost certainly on the way. The CBTs appearance is evidence if what CircNet were employed by Openreach to do, the physical install of the infrastructure from the exchange through the existing ducts and provide a CBT with the right number of ports on each pole. They will only dig up the street where it's necessary, eg. due to a blocked duct. But generally they will avoid doing that wherever possible cos it costs money.

There's many tasks that need to be done to enliven a new infrastructure before it's accepted as being ready for service, and there could be still some tasks to do or some faults to address, hence why you can't place an order yet.

There is no set timescale for how long this takes, it's usually a few weeks to months after CBTs appear, but it can be longer. But if you have CBTs on poles it's unlikely to be 2026 and much more likely 2023!

Keep an eye on the Openreach DSL checker, and perhaps also monitor a couple of other random postcodes a few streets away where CBTs are also present, just so you can maintain awareness of if other parts of your locality have gone live but there's a very local gotcha for your street/pole.

It will be worth the wait....
 
If only BT did something well for a change. I signed up a million times to the box wherr you tell BT you want FTTP and if they can email you. Hard hard is it to collect the addresses and email people as they are activated? I didn't even get a flier on the mail when Openreach activated my pole. Yet I had 3 separate young BT street sellers ring my door to tell me I could get FTTP when I knew I couldn't. Oh well, manual check is only thing that really works these days...
 
I also have had no publicity regarding FTTP going live from Openreach or any ISP. I suspect that there's a degree of pragmatism here - if they market it they will no doubt be getting a lot of orders in a short period of time that they will struggle to resource against a backdrop of continuing FTTP rollout, whereas if consumers discover that the service is available by attrition when it's time to renew their contract that will smooth the uptake.

Perhaps they push things a little more where the rollout is up against an altnet deployment?
 
I had the email yesterday that it's gone live and a quick check on a postcode checker confirms it so to round out this thread, 5 months from planning notice to live.

Interesting that others haven't received confirmation even after asking for it. My estate is fully covered by Virgin so maybe they've happy that there won't be a rush to the service as everyone who would want it will likely be in contract with Virgin?
 
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We've never had any signs, just the checker saying 'we're working on your exchange', and not much evidence of BT activity. A couple of weeks ago most of the town suddenly went live for FTTP.. except for 1.5 streets that I happen to be in the middle of (there are a couple of other areas like that - including one person who apparently has a fibre connection ouside his house!). BT of course won't be drawn on what the issue is, just sending a 'we have no plans to enable FTTP in your area' response whenever questioned.

So I decided to reenable FTTC.. and am told they don't sell copper lines any more!! So I'm doubly hosed. it's VM or no phone or internet..

BT still stands for 'bloody terrible'..
 
We've never had any signs, just the checker saying 'we're working on your exchange', and not much evidence of BT activity. A couple of weeks ago most of the town suddenly went live for FTTP.. except for 1.5 streets that I happen to be in the middle of (there are a couple of other areas like that - including one person who apparently has a fibre connection ouside his house!). BT of course won't be drawn on what the issue is, just sending a 'we have no plans to enable FTTP in your area' response whenever questioned.

So I decided to reenable FTTC.. and am told they don't sell copper lines any more!! So I'm doubly hosed. it's VM or no phone or internet..

BT still stands for 'bloody terrible'..
Speak with the executive complaints team at openreach and they should be able to get this sorted for you: clive.selley@openreach.co.uk
 
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