Fibre to the premises

Cowabunga · Apr 24, 2022

Had contractors turn up out of the blue about eight weeks ago to dig a fibre-optic cable down from the village to my farmyard. I never asked anyone for this but I’m very pleased that they’ve done so. It’s about three quarters of a kilometre and because they could not source wire armoured cable, they lay overhead cable in a 4” plastic pipe conduit with manholes for access every 200m or so.
Anyhow, they’ve done the job and connected to terminals at either end, one in my yard and one near the top of my lane where there is active fibre.

Thing is, OpenReach still have my place listed on their web site as having no plans to connect to fibre. BT nor any other provider will connect us until OpenReach has listed my place as being ready. It’s been ten days since the contractors finished and did their quality audit yet still the OpenReach website says there are ‘no plans’.
What’s the point? Since I already have 4G wi-fi, which is mostly fast enough but disappointingly unreliable, I could just ignore the FTTP and stay as I am. This would waste what probably cost the taxpayer about £10k to provide even though it is unsolicited. I’m in two minds whether to bother to connect of not or wait until I have to in a few year’s time when the copper system is switched off nationally and all calls become VOIP.

Lincs Lass · Apr 24, 2022

We have had Kcom (Hull based company) digging up everything for months ,,they came down my little road and the site boss took one look at my garden wall and wouldn't come any closer .
The wall is crumbling and he didn't want to risk the vibration of the digger knocking it apart ,,I now have a connection box 100ft away from the house so no hope of it getting connected ,,not that I'm bothered ,,didn't want it anyway after reading all the bad press Kcom get .
One of those companies that once you sign up to them ,they lock you in at ridicules rates and insane exit fees .
No thanks ,EE works well enough for my needs

Cowabunga · Apr 24, 2022

Lincs Lass said:
We have had Kcom (Hull based company) digging up everything for months ,,they came down my little road and the site boss took one look at my garden wall and wouldn't come any closer .
The wall is crumbling and he didn't want to risk the vibration of the digger knocking it apart ,,I now have a connection box 100ft away from the house so no hope of it getting connected ,,not that I'm bothered ,,didn't want it anyway after reading all the bad press Kcom get .
One of those companies that once you sign up to them ,they lock you in at ridicules rates and insane exit fees .
No thanks ,EE works well enough for my needs

If the 4G could have a more consistent speed and service I would not even look at the fibre system they planted at great expense. I would go totally mobile signal and dump the land line completely.

Nearly · Apr 24, 2022

5G (if and when) will make copper wires obsolete, probably fibre too.

Cowabunga · Apr 24, 2022

Nearly said:
5G (if and when) will make copper wires obsolete, probably fibre too.

It’s quite short range though, isn’t it?

Phil P · Apr 24, 2022

I’ve had fibre at the manhole at the top of my drive probably 6m from my house for at least 18 months - 2 years. Still not listed by openreach as ready for connection so I wouldn’t get your hopes up!

Nearly · Apr 24, 2022

Cowabunga said:
It’s quite short range though, isn’t it?

Mobile mast only 200m away.

Y Fan Wen · Apr 24, 2022

Overhead FTTP

@Northdowns Martin Put your postcode into " check availability " & see what comes up https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/fibre-for-home

thefarmingforum.co.uk

Just a reminder of my experience. Post 74 onwards details my discussion with OR which achieved a successful conclusion.

Jerry · Apr 24, 2022

Ive gone the Starlink route, a touch more expensive but getting 250meg down and 30meg up is a revelation.

upnortheast · Apr 24, 2022

Cowabunga said:
Had contractors turn up out of the blue about eight weeks ago to dig a fibre-optic cable down from the village to my farmyard. I never asked anyone for this but I’m very pleased that they’ve done so. It’s about three quarters of a kilometre and because they could not source wire armoured cable, they lay overhead cable in a 4” plastic pipe conduit with manholes for access every 200m or so.
Anyhow, they’ve done the job and connected to terminals at either end, one in my yard and one near the top of my lane where there is active fibre.

Thing is, OpenReach still have my place listed on their web site as having no plans to connect to fibre. BT nor any other provider will connect us until OpenReach has listed my place as being ready. It’s been ten days since the contractors finished and did their quality audit yet still the OpenReach website says there are ‘no plans’.
What’s the point? Since I already have 4G wi-fi, which is mostly fast enough but disappointingly unreliable, I could just ignore the FTTP and stay as I am. This would waste what probably cost the taxpayer about £10k to provide even though it is unsolicited. I’m in two minds whether to bother to connect of not or wait until I have to in a few year’s time when the copper system is switched off nationally and all calls become VOIP.

Think it took about 3 months from the cables being installed to the scheme going live down our road All the box ticking far more complex than doing the work

Cowabunga · Apr 24, 2022

Phil P said:
I’ve had fibre at the manhole at the top of my drive probably 6m from my house for at least 18 months - 2 years. Still not listed by openreach as ready for connection so I wouldn’t get your hopes up!

I’ll just tell ‘em where to stick it if its more than another few weeks, or a month at most. I know they don’t care, but neither do I except for the absolute waste of taxpayer’s money. Nobody asked me if I wanted it, yet they must have spent about £10k on contractors with diggers and materials laying it specifically to my premises. It’s a totally disorganised disjointed shambles.
I shall make it very well known to my MP whichever way it goes.

Steevo · Apr 24, 2022

I have FTTP at my house and at the farm. Very pleased with both.

One is a dedicated fibre system installed by Gigaclear nothing to do with phone cabinets/Openreach network.

The other is integrated into the BT/Openreach system (so comes up the same duct as the phone line) but retailed by a third party.

Both capable of gigabit speeds, and potentially even more thought I can’t really see why anyone needs more than 100mbps if I’m honest.

Cowabunga · Apr 24, 2022

Steevo said:
I have FTTP at my house and at the farm. Very pleased with both.

One is a dedicated fibre system installed by Gigaclear nothing to do with phone cabinets/Openreach network.

The other is integrated into the BT/Openreach system (so comes up the same duct as the phone line) but retailed by a third party.

Both capable of gigabit speeds, and potentially even more thought I can’t really see why anyone needs more than 100mbps if I’m honest.

70mbps is enough to stream 4k video and I’m happy with 30mbps when I can get it on the 4G signal. However I often get throttled by the mast when a lot of tourists are around and sometimes randomly.

I guess that 300mbps will be the maximum tariff offered in this are for quite a while, not gigabit speed, but that’s OK compared to the 2mbps I get on copper. The only reason I can think of as yet to justify over 100mbps would be to download 4K video or big computer updates rapidly, like in fractions of a minute rather than in the background for maybe 20 minutes or so. In future, who knows what massive files or concurrent tasks will be performed over the internet, so 300+ may be needed and wanted one day fairly soon. Once the infrastructure is universally available, no doubt uses will be found to exploit the potential that we haven’t dreamed of yet.

upnortheast · Apr 25, 2022

Reason we went for 300 mbs service was we replaced 2 ADSL & 1 4G service with one 1 fttp to serve 2 houses Inc 5 kids & 2 offices & throughout the farm. Unreal how many devices are showing when you check the router log. So always plenty capacity and speed for everyone. Bonus is we have gone from being on 1st name terms with the openreach lads to never having a fault in the 30 months it's been in

neilo · Apr 29, 2022

Open reach are apparently facing fines from Welsh govt unless they ‘enable’ more properties. They have been here 3 times to update plans for FTTP, which can only connect to 4 properties at most, who already get 13Mb/s on the phone line.
The address that has come up on their system that ‘must’ be enabled is a cottage by the yard who has chosen never to have a landline connected and is quite happy using 4G.

Yesterday, I had a fella turn up looking for sites for a phone mast for Vodafone & O2, to boost coverage in the local village/town, as they are apparently getting a big govt grant to do so.
We already have a small EE mast above the town, which gives me 60Mb 4G signal in the farmhouse if I should want it.

Surely there must be areas of Wales that should be a far higher priority?

7610 super q · Apr 29, 2022

Some outfit called Broadway Broadband are supposed to be doing fibre to all properties in the region. Now 3 years behind due to Covid, and errrrm.....errrrrr...... silt in the Manholes / ducts.
Kept getting stern emails to apply for the Government voucher. On reading the small print, it seems I'm liable to pay the VAT on the installation cost, but seeing as I don't know what the cost is likely.......

Y Fan Wen · Apr 29, 2022

neilo said:
Open reach are apparently facing fines from Welsh govt unless they ‘enable’ more properties. They have been here 3 times to update plans for FTTP, which can only connect to 4 properties at most, who already get 13Mb/s on the phone line.

That must be the reason that more coils of fibre are appearing in the cwm recently. As I posted at the time, our cwm went live in August and has been fine except whe a dead ash fell and fractured the line in February. I reckon there must be at least half a dozen small coils of cable tyed to poles near properties which presumably didn't sign up originally. There is quite a big coil where I think they need to thread about 900M to get to a property. One puzzle is they didn't cable up one branch that serves 4 different farms and still no sign of any work on it yet.
Every time I'm running about the locality I am seeing more and more fibre being strung up alongside the existing copper.

Andy26 · Apr 30, 2022

Nearly said:
5G (if and when) will make copper wires obsolete, probably fibre too.

Definitely make copper obsolete, but a long, long way behind fibre.

Fibre theoretical and real world speeds are many times faster than 5Gs.

upnortheast · Apr 30, 2022

Problem with 5G, especially in rural areas is the signal does not travel long distances. So more lots more masts, & repeaters needed.
So medium term it`s the urban areas that benifit.

Derrick Hughes · May 2, 2022

They put fibre cable to most premises in Ceredigion including ours a few years ago, with no intention of connection, a lot of the cable has fallen down now or been damaged , was all to do with claiming a grant

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