BT Infinity & FTTx Discussion

[russ9898]

Im fortunate enough to live in an area where openreach have installed underground ducts for FTTP and its definately preferable to overhead poles even with the associated groundworks. Whilst I understand the reasons for the installation of poles, they do seem like a backward step in many respects

 

[Caged]

As long as people insist on "free" installation and sub-£30 internet bills then the economics don't work to spend £1000 per property to connect them to a FTTP network. If you offered the people protesting against poles the option for everybody to contribute £200 to the additional costs of ducting they wouldn't do it.

 

[RSR]

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2024/03/zen-internet-prep-uk-launch-of-1-2gbps-and-1-8gbps-broadband.html

Just in time for my renewal

 

[dannywaugh1]

Great, my VM contract is up next month so unlikely then!

Seen a link from PlusNet so I've emailed Openreach to hear the bad news of 2026 I guess! https://www.openreach.com/forms/fibre-broadband-availability---customer-form

Thank you, been looking for a way to contact Openreach to find out when my side of the street will get FTTP. They have recently installed the FTTP poles to the other side street but unfortunately my side has everything going underground .

Red side of the street all new FTTP. Green triangle all underground and apparently they wont install poles.

 

[Steveocee]

I'm shortly changing work so will have to pick a new provider. Currently paying £25 for BTOR Gb with my employer but I will have to migrate as I leave. Who do I go for? Zen who I am currently backboned by? Aquiss? BTW?

I don't "need" a static IP any more although a nice to have and preference is not having to faff around as I currently use a homebrew PFSense box?

 

[Goodie]

Annoyed with myself, gigabit with bt is up in July, paying something around 60/month with two annual rises in since I signed up (since when did that become a thing). Looked on the bt site to see if there were any early upgrade options and I could have got gigabit with EE and gamepads which I would use for £40/month. I didn't do it there and then as I wanted to look into what the deal was with EE, went back to do it today and its up to £60.

Do BT usually do much in the way of retention deals closer to contract expiring?

 

[Dangerous]

Thank you, been looking for a way to contact Openreach to find out when my side of the street will get FTTP. They have recently installed the FTTP poles to the other side street but unfortunately my side has everything going underground .

Red side of the street all new FTTP. Green triangle all underground and apparently they wont install poles.

I haven't had a reply from them, even though the email said within 24 hours.

 

[RJC]

Need to phone BT today and see if they give a deal for my current contract.

In the last 30days - Paying £51 going up £4 soon for 300mb service.

If not I might look at Virgin Media - 1gig service for £39 plus Quidco were doing £132 cash back.

 

[ChrisD.]

Why are you paying £51 for 300 Mbps? That's daylight robbery.

 

[RJC]

Why are you paying £51 for 300 Mbps? That's daylight robbery.

Tell me about it! This was due to the usual price increase and also BT / Openreach dropping prices.

I was in 2 year deal and tried to change but would put back into anther 2 year contract, Sucked it up, Now I can leave.

 

[RJC]

Offered 32.99 for the same speed.

Still temped with Virgin 1.1 @ £39.00 with £126 cashback through Quidco hmm.

 

[ChrisD.]

If you do go with VM, just hope you are in a decent area as otherwise you'll be wishing for VDSL 40 Meg again.

 

[SaBBz]

Offered 32.99 for the same speed.

Still temped with Virgin 1.1 @ £39.00 with £126 cashback through Quidco hmm.

My £69pm gigabit with BT is up in a couple of months, so you’ve given me some hope of getting a decent deal. I’m using 4 of their wifi disks too, which I’ve cabled up, so would prefer to stay with them if I can rather than buying my own mesh system.

 

[cliffy]

Moved from BT (mid Contract) to EE. All together i got
3 SIM Unlimited everything with a 110Mbps speed cap £10 each
1 SIM Unlimited Everything no speed cap (3 perks, i got TNT sport, Xbox Game Pass and Office 365) £13
1.6Gbps broadband £54

I think the free perks are worth nearly £40 so quite pleased with that

OPen Reach installed the new ONT today, Didn't even need to turn off my existing third party router, everything just worked. SO far seen 1.4Gbps over WiFi 6e which i did not know was possible and on average 1.7Gbps on my wired connection although have seen it hit 2Gbps.

All in all quite a pleasant experience

 

[dannywaugh1]

I haven't had a reply from them, even though the email said within 24 hours.

Well I got a reply saying:

Hello Danny,

Thanks for your recent enquiry via the Openreach website about getting faster broadband.

We don't have any plans to upgrade your area right now, but we can keep you up to date when things change. To receive any future updates please go to our fibre checker, input your postcode, chose your address from the drop down, then scroll past the availability information and complete the Gigabit Fibre form and we’ll update you once plans change. www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband.

If you want to bring fibre to your property sooner is an option you could look into.

Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) on Demand, FTTP on demand is a product which a few select service providers offer, which will give you a full-fibre FTTP broadband, as a bespoke installation direct to your premises. It is available across the UK – even in areas that cannot reliably get FTTC.

Fibre on Demand differs from standard FTTP in a number of important ways. As the fibre is delivered to your premises as a custom build, a substantial installation. If you would like to look into this option you’ll need to contact a service provider to place an order.

I did also check the Better Internet Dashboard and according to that CityFibre is planned but I cant find further information on the planned works.

Find it a little crazy as I talked to a Openreach engineer when they installed the fibre poles in the street and he said they could easily run a cable from 1 one the poles to my house which is only 30m away. But he also said as its underground for my side of the street they have to go underground.

 

[Dangerous]

Well I got a reply saying:

Hello Danny,

Thanks for your recent enquiry via the Openreach website about getting faster broadband.

We don't have any plans to upgrade your area right now, but we can keep you up to date when things change. To receive any future updates please go to our fibre checker, input your postcode, chose your address from the drop down, then scroll past the availability information and complete the Gigabit Fibre form and we’ll update you once plans change. www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband.

If you want to bring fibre to your property sooner is an option you could look into.

Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) on Demand, FTTP on demand is a product which a few select service providers offer, which will give you a full-fibre FTTP broadband, as a bespoke installation direct to your premises. It is available across the UK – even in areas that cannot reliably get FTTC.

Fibre on Demand differs from standard FTTP in a number of important ways. As the fibre is delivered to your premises as a custom build, a substantial installation. If you would like to look into this option you’ll need to contact a service provider to place an order.

I did also check the Better Internet Dashboard and according to that CityFibre is planned but I cant find further information on the planned works.

Find it a little crazy as I talked to a Openreach engineer when they installed the fibre poles in the street and he said they could easily run a cable from 1 one the poles to my house which is only 30m away. But he also said as its underground for my side of the street they have to go underground.

Hmmm I got no reply so maybe there is work behind the scenes, streets up/down/behind all have FTTP. So they must have plan for these DIG cables.

 

[dannywaugh1]

Hmmm I got no reply so maybe there is work behind the scenes, streets up/down/behind all have FTTP. So they must have plan for these DIG cables.

It makes sense to install poles or add the fibre cables to the streets with poles already but it is beyond me they cant just install in the area to finish off the rollout. I get it cost more to install underground.

Another update I called BT and they said FTTP will be installed in the summer.......

 

[VincentHanna]

So how best to get hold of the right people?

[email protected]

Be polite, explain the situation, perhaps some Google maps assisted screenshots/drawings, photos etc. Sometimes Clive will reply, but most of the time their exec team will assign a chief engineer to look into it.

It took them a while to get to us. Apparently we had a lot of underground cable, put in in the 70's when they used aluminium. An engineer told me they didn't want to touch it until the time was right as it had a habit of falling apart and then would need to be replaced. Seems they bypassed a lot of the ducted cable and just put it across some new poles instead, probably cheaper and easier. Not that that helps you but I think they are just going after all the easy low hanging fruit first.

1 Year later - on the bank holiday I finally did what @chrisd suggested and today received a call and subsequent email follow up:

Thanks again for taking the time to speak to me today. It’s been great to speak with you.

As promised I just wanted to drop you a final email, to summarise what we discussed.

As it stands currently, there are no immediate plans with Openreach to bring FTTP to the area. We are always exploring plans to deliver fibre to as many areas as we can and you may be interested to know that we are accelerating the roll out of ultrafast fibre broadband through our ‘Fibre First’ initiative. This plan aims to deliver full fibre service across the UK and we aim to get FTTP service to (if the conditions are right) reach 25 million homes by the end of 2026 and this will continue to be updated via our website.

Whilst we don’t have any plans in the area just now, there is another alternative you may want to consider.

FTTP on Demand / Leased Line

An option you may want to consider is a leased line, until such time that fibre broadband becomes readily available to the property and area. A leased line is a dedicated data circuit that runs all the way from the exchange directly to the property. They deliver guaranteed speeds and have proved popular with a lot of residents and businesses.

I can’t offer any further insight in to costing etc. as these are managed by the providers who offer the service. The provider will be able to discuss the costs involved and the services they can offer.

Other alternatives to consider

Another alternative you may wish to consider is satellite broadband which is available nationally. However, I am unable to comment on its performance or the costs involved to have the service.


In addition to this, some mobile operators now offer a 4G/5G home broadband solution where they install a 4G/5G receiver at your home which connects to an internal router. Again, I am unable to comment on which companies can offer this, prices or performance.



Anything Else?

I hope this covers everything and again, I’m sorry I didn’t have an immediate solution to help resolve your query but plans can and do often change.



As discussed, I will now close this case.



Please feel free to let me know if there is anything else I can help with in relation to this fibre availability query, of course I’ll be happy to help.



Regards,
IS executive complaints and escalations team

Like @Troezar said, it's all to do with the current copper cables not being ducted, so a lot of cost to bring it to my road. Unfortunately the telephone cable I can see at the back of the house does not have FTTP capability, nor does the road behind my house.

 

[#Chri5#]

I currently have FTTC via Enta and that is billed via the company I used to work for. Our PSTN rental is with BT and out of contract.

The BT OR FTTP checker says FTTP will arrive between now and Dec 2026, though I've noticed BT do have a local road closed for two days soon which might be a sign of them pulling fibre into our village. FTTP is available when I've checked some locations in the exchange town, so the exchange work must be done.

When FTTP arrives, I'll probably move our Internet service but if we want to keep our home phone number, when is the correct / good time to port that to a SIP provider? If I get an ATA for our DECT base station and pick a VOIP provider, can I port it early? In that instance, does our PSTN line get automatically re-numbered? It would be nice to ditch the cost of the BT line rental with a SOGEA service but I expect I'd need to jump into a new contract with somebody and I'd prefer to wait to see if FTTP does arrive in the short-term.

I'd have known all the answers myself at my last job, but these days I draw pretty pictures in Visio and don't really touch xDSL / VOIP and all that

 

[Caged]

Order a new service with whichever ISP you want, on whichever access network is an option for you - in your case this would likely be SOGEA but delivered on a second copper pair. For me it was FTTP with an altnet.

Once your new service is in and working, port your current landline number to a VoIP provider. This will notify your current provider who will give you the "sorry you're leaving" notification and let you know when the service is due to cease. When your number port completes the old phone line will go dead, and billing for line rental and broadband will stop.