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Openreach vs Cityfibre FTTP rollout strategies

Jasonm

ULTIMATE Member
Hi all,
As both Openreach and Cityfibre are currently building their FTTP networks in my area and my current FTTC contract is running out in 2 months, I was wondering who might be first to offer me FTTP? Both laid their fibres in the existing ducts (CF did it on 21 Feb and OR did it this morning).
I kinda have a feeling that CF activates their networks by entire areas (e.g., the entire south of a city), while OR takes more of a "by-street" approach. Is that right? For example, I've seen streets a few miles from my place that got connected to CF in January and still can't order Full Fibre via CF...
Cheers and thanks for your help and opinions :)
 
All providers will want to turn their investments into revenue as soon as possible but there will be other work other than what you can physically see.

I can only comment regarding where I have observed CityFibre in Crawley.
  • Ifield has only just gone live but was cabled over 14 months ago.
  • Manor Royal business park was cabled about a year ago and appears to have gone live for some clients within months.
  • Langley Green and Gossops Green were cabled last year but still have not gone live with Ifield
  • CityFibre's subcontractor is currently gung-ho making a mess in Pound Hill
So it appears to be based on a discrete area fed rather than streets or overall launch. FW are poaching OR poles in the CityFibre areas in the meantime. (VM Covered)

Openreach in East Grinstead once started went quickly (although slower in surrounding areas) and streets appear to have come live by Post Code with 2/3 months.

Providers are aware of each other. Interestingly OR have announced OR plans that show the East of the London to Brighton railway line with exception of Three Bridges and Pound Hill which be covered by City Fibre, FW and already by VM HFC.
 
Thanks for the info! Yeah... I think your experience matches my observations as well. I have a feeling OR might be ready to order before CF in my street (even though they started building 3 months later). Either way - I'm happy that better broadband is coming. I am getting decent 70+Mbit/s via FTTC at the moment - but Virgin left out our street for some reason :)
 
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CityFibre did their build here (Reading, central area) in mid March and went live here at the beginning of May, so they can be fairly quick. We also have VM and reasonable but not quite full speed FTTC.

And just after CF went live, the Openreach engineers have turned up adding CBTs to the poles. Although we don't have any indication of when they plan to go live the engineer I talked to thought it would be pretty quick. Some of the poles are getting pretty crowded (see picture - this one appears to have 3 copper connection boxes, a CityFibre ASN and two Openreach CBTs now).
 

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Nice one! Spoiled for choice there, soon! :) Do you know if your street was one of the last ones that CF connected in your area?
 
OK yeah... Looks like the FTTP checker of Openreach now shows I have FTTP after them building it here for the past 2-3 weeks...
While Cityfibre who have been to my street in Feb still do not provide it... Guess I'll go to OR FTTP then (despite the upload)
 
OK yeah... Looks like the FTTP checker of Openreach now shows I have FTTP after them building it here for the past 2-3 weeks...
While Cityfibre who have been to my street in Feb still do not provide it... Guess I'll go to OR FTTP then (despite the upload)
If you want to hedge your bets, look into an Openreach-based provider that does 1 month terms for FTTP. There are a few about.
 
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A quick update on our area...

CityFibre went live pretty quickly, after which Openreach soon turned up and started installing CBTs on poles. The OR engineer I talked to told me it would be in two phases about 6 weeks apart as there were blocked ducts to fix and that 90% of the area would be connected up (although he didn't have plans to hand). They did indeed come back a few weeks later to finish the work but unfortunately our street is the other 10% - no idea why but my guess is that they decided the amount of digging required to get the necessary ducting to it from their existing fibre networks was uneconomic.

As for Openreach going live, it seems that from the CBTs appearing to live FTTP availability was a matter of a few days. Although of course for us the only choice will be CityFibre (as long as it works as advertised that isn't really a problem for us).
 
For the OP I expect OR to easily be first.

The data I have from some different people.

2 years 4 months following works completion for the worst.
1 year 11 months for the second worst.
1 year 9 months
1 year 9 months (yes two of these)
1 year 4 months
1 year 2 months
10 months
8 months
7 months
7 months
7 months
5 months

12 different people in different areas. They seem to be incredibly slow in various areas for unknown reasons (other than they turn on bigger areas at once instead of street by street).

Grain on the other hand, turn up, do their works and within 2-3 months area can order, activating few streets at a time.

Openreach times I have seen reported are typically much faster as well, usually within 3 months.

It would seem Cityfibre have a inefficient process or have equipment shortages.

In my own city they have not activated a new area for about a year. When previously the areas they activated were in blocks of about 20-50 streets at once about 3-9 months after works completed. No new activations since late 2021, but still ongoing works.
 
Yeah - definitely seems to be the strategy in my city for CF... They are building for ages and will activate a massive area at some point... In the meantime, OR showed that sooner than expected and finished everything within a month
 
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