BT open reach email (won't install fiber)

4Qman

4Qman

4Qman

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Does anyone know how accurate it would be to receive an email from open reach saying they can't install ultrafast in my post code area.

I applied to be updated for any upgrade plans in my area. Registered my email which asked for my post code. The email is generic, it says due to multiple potential issues they can't install ultrafast fiber. They never listed the reason.

We already have fiber, the area around us has slowly had ultrafast installed so it's moving closer to my address.

Is there anywhere this can be checked, verified?
 
There aren't any concerns about the legitimacy of the email. I was hoping more than anything it was a generic email that someone here may have experience receiving.
 
What BT mean is they dont want to install because its not easy, they have done the same thing where I live intalled fibre on the easy roads with poles and left the rest now city fiber are doing the rest of the village but for some reason are ignoring the 3 roads just outside the main village mine included ? my road has a fttc cabinet at top of the road but all of our phone lines are under ground. every time there is a line fault the fix it and drop my speed, I started at 76 now on about 65. but still paying the same money.
 
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KIA said:
Can you share the email?
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Sure

Hi Bob,

We’re getting in touch to update you on our Ultrafast Full Fibre build. We’ve reviewed our build plans, and currently we can’t deliver Full Fibre to ....

There are lots of reasons for why our plans change - from engineering hazards to access permits. We review our build plans regularly as circumstances change. We hope this is just a temporary setback and that we can bring ....... back into our Full Fibre build plans in the future.

We'll keep you updated and let you know immediately if anything changes.


Thanks,

Sam
Openreach Broadband Advisor
 
Silicon Si said:
What BT mean is they dont want to install because its not easy, they have done the same thing where I live intalled fibre on the easy roads with poles and left the rest now city fiber are doing the rest of the village but for some reason are ignoring the 3 roads just outside the main village mine included ? my road has a fttc cabinet at top of the road but all of our phone lines are under ground. every time there is a line fault the fix it and drop my speed, I started at 76 now on about 65. but still paying the same money.
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This is my concern.

I have 34mbs fiber at the moment. The previous ownses had two phone lines as it's that poor here.

I have a 5g setup with 3 antennas on the roof. I get ok speed with that but nothing like full fiber.
 
4Qman said:
Sure

Hi Bob,

We’re getting in touch to update you on our Ultrafast Full Fibre build. We’ve reviewed our build plans, and currently we can’t deliver Full Fibre to ....

There are lots of reasons for why our plans change - from engineering hazards to access permits. We review our build plans regularly as circumstances change. We hope this is just a temporary setback and that we can bring ....... back into our Full Fibre build plans in the future.

We'll keep you updated and let you know immediately if anything changes.


Thanks,

Sam
Openreach Broadband Advisor
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had the same - though related to one of our work sites rather than me personally. just bt/openreach kicking the can down the road a bit longer.
 
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I wouldn't worry, probably just moving between different scopes or build phases. If you're not super rural and not direct-in-ground then you'll get FTTP within the next few years.
 
I hope so, I really do.

The misses wouldn't take too kindly if I told her we are moving.. Lol

Thanks for everyone replies and input.
 
Thanks

I've discovered that city fiber has just been given funding to install in my area.

Maybe BT didn't get the funding and city fiber did..
 
4Qman said:
Sure

Hi Bob,

We’re getting in touch to update you on our Ultrafast Full Fibre build. We’ve reviewed our build plans, and currently we can’t deliver Full Fibre to ....

There are lots of reasons for why our plans change - from engineering hazards to access permits. We review our build plans regularly as circumstances change. We hope this is just a temporary setback and that we can bring ....... back into our Full Fibre build plans in the future.

We'll keep you updated and let you know immediately if anything changes.


Thanks,

Sam
Openreach Broadband Advisor
Click to expand...
"Access permits" I wonder if thats the reason theres no Virgin to these buildings despite there being a cabinet out in the street

Silicon Si said:
What BT mean is they dont want to install because its not easy, they have done the same thing where I live intalled fibre on the easy roads with poles and left the rest now city fiber are doing the rest of the village but for some reason are ignoring the 3 roads just outside the main village mine included ? my road has a fttc cabinet at top of the road but all of our phone lines are under ground. every time there is a line fault the fix it and drop my speed, I started at 76 now on about 65. but still paying the same money.
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You're lucky all I've available is FTTC and 36 and no plans for anything else
 
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Blackjack Davy said:
"Access permits" I wonder if thats the reason theres no Virgin to these buildings despite there being a cabinet out in the street


You're lucky all I've available is FTTC and 36 and no plans for anything else
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I used to deal with this daily, generally the issue is it’s an unadopted road, the property doesn’t appear on the Royal Mail database (problem for COSAR/emergency services use) and/or lacks wayleave - not likely to change without a developer or lane owner giving it ir it being adopted by the council. VM’s licence (or at least the ones I read for each franchise area) also requires them to supply via the front of the property and at ground level, no pole work or rear access, this means while it’s sometimes possible to do houses at the entrance to a street, actually doing anything further down is not possible. I remember one example where by a lady moved into a bungalow while in contract, we needed permission from multiple organisations and parties to install and everyone said yes except Cadbury who owned a foot or so of land, we only wanted to go down 6” and roughly 3” wide, they flat out refused (they had every legal right).
 
I've just had this email and unfortunately there's a high chance it's legit.

We live in a fully pedestrianised estate with no vehicular access. As well, everything is in ducts (very, very, very old GPO-branded ducts). There are bollards surrounding our estate which only emergency vehicles are allowed to unlock/remove.

Looks like we're not on any plan up to and including 2026, now. Given the access problems, we might not get anything this decade.

I knew this was going to happen. Just knew it.

e: having re-read @Caged reply above, I think we're "direct in ground". The existing cable from the pavement to our property is just buried (very shallowly) in the garden, no ducting between the pavement and the property.

I think we're fubar'd.

e2: Confirmed by OpenReach they will not provide service to our street. Not economically viable. No future plans. Will not happen. Advised we can have a whip round and pay to have the street dug up ourselves, or go fixed wireless. Otherwise, we can go swivel. And we're in the middle of a large ish town. In fact, if we were rural, we could apply for funding.

But being an "bad street" in a town is actually worse than being at the arse end of nowhere. There is no money if BT decides it doesn't want you.

We are "direct in ground" and there is no ducting, so they would have to dig up the whole place and install all new ducting, everywhere. They just won't do it. In fact, nobody will.
 
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So after having some chats with OR, and others, we are totally boned. Also got a reply from an email to DCMS (though they ignored my reply after that).

Firstly, DCMS says that we do not qualify for Project Gigabit intervention, as "commercial providers have expressed plans for your area."

Which seems sensible, until you contact the commercial providers and ask them what the "plan" is. And it turns out the "plan" is to "reassess the viability of your area no sooner than 2027". Yup, the "plan" isn't to build here, at all. The plan is to "wait and watch".

I said, "If we're not viable now because of costs, why would we be viable in 2027?" The answer was a hand-waving one: "New technology may bring costs down in future."

And that's that. Project Gigabit won't touch us because OR have a "plan", and the "plan" is to wish upon a star that costs come down.

It would be hilarious if it wasn't so tragic.
 
Vaguely along the same lines BT isn't bringing FTTP to us any time soon (not on any plans, no review before 2027), one company has a monopoly in the area for providing bespoke high speed connections at extremely steep prices and sat on providing FTTP until another company showed some interest in the area at which point they started making a big noise about providing FTTP and sooner than the other company but it appears they have no interest in actually doing so just trying to be disruptive to protect their insanely overpriced products.

Overall it is frustratingly obtuse as to what any companies plans are and slow moving - looks like Gigaclear and Wessex Internet are maybe connecting up the area with Jurassic very tentative. (We have a wayleave agreement with Gigaclear as they need access to our land to bring a connection through here so guessing they will do eventually).
 
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Rroff said:
Vaguely along the same lines BT isn't bringing FTTP to us any time soon (not on any plans, no review before 2027), one company has a monopoly in the area for providing bespoke high speed connections at extremely steep prices and sat on providing FTTP until another company showed some interest in the area at which point they started making a big noise about providing FTTP and sooner than the other company but it appears they have no interest in actually doing so just trying to be disruptive to protect their insanely overpriced products.

Overall it is frustratingly obtuse as to what any companies plans are and slow moving - looks like Gigaclear and Wessex Internet are maybe connecting up the area with Jurassic very tentative. (We have a wayleave agreement with Gigaclear as they need access to our land to bring a connection through here so guessing they will do eventually).
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From what I'm reading, a lot of altnets are laying off staff and/or close to bankruptcy. Investment is drying up.

Who'd have thought they couldn't compete with a former state monopoly company that had all its assets given to it at a fraction of cost?

And who could imagine that core infrastructure int he hands of private companies would not roll out where there was not enough profit in it for them? I certainly couldn't have predicted that, and it seems nor could the government, then or now.

Also OR's roll out is starting to slow down (and they're nowhere near on course for 25 mil houses by 2027; maybe 2030 is possible).

It's all looking a bit Pete Tong. Those that get it soon, before the money dries up completely, can probably consider themselves lucky. Goodness knows what the govt will do in future, or how committed they really are to gigabit broadband for all.
 
FoxEye said:
From what I'm reading, a lot of altnets are laying off staff and/or close to bankruptcy. Investment is drying up.
Click to expand...

A lot of them are ultimately owned by investment companies and the likes - they don't want to spend more than they have to, just want a cut and dried fire and forget package with bare minimum white label customer service, etc. the real world doesn't work like that, things go wrong, things can require significantly more money sometimes to keep running, etc. etc. also people don't want to pay the kind of prices they've projected they need to be charging - many of them are selling products well below what they want to be charging - with 6 months half-price, etc. offers and prices getting jacked up in the longer run.
 
Rroff said:
A lot of them are ultimately owned by investment companies and the likes - they don't want to spend more than they have to, just want a cut and dried fire and forget package with bare minimum white label customer service, etc. the real world doesn't work like that, things go wrong, things can require significantly more money sometimes to keep running, etc. etc. also people don't want to pay the kind of prices they've projected they need to be charging - many of them are selling products well below what they want to be charging - with 6 months half-price, etc. offers and prices getting jacked up in the longer run.
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I can't help but shake the feeling that the private sector is not even close to being as efficient as if we still owned BT.

The overbuild, for one. In places where you've got three or four distinct fibre networks competing with each other for customers, and then other places where there are none.

And BT being most interested in building where altnets are targeting.

The whole thing is a shambles, frankly. If these altnets start going under and nobody wants to buy their networks on account of the stupid levels of overbuild... well, it's a farce. Which surprises no-one, I guess. The UK does farce like nobody else.
 
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