Broadband switch and "fibre". What are BT playing at? 27 September 2021 at 12:53PM in Broadband & internet access 29 replies 785 views

Snowclock

Hi,

Ok, to explain my situation. I have pretty terrible, unreliable broadband. This is mainly down, believe it or not, my phone line running through a farmer's field. Every six months it tends to go wrong and needs repaired again.

So I had a cunning plan, I'll switch back to BT and order fibre. This will force BT/Openreach to solve this ridiculous situation and I'd get a fibre optic cable fitted to and into my house. Strangely, when I went to BT's site, it said my house was capable of fibre, so I figured, "ok, BT must be prepared to fit it, then. Great!" and I dreamed the seemingly impossible dream of fast, reliable broadband and a reliable, crackle and line drop-free phone line. To be honest, what I think really needs to happen, is two extra telegraph polls need to be put up on my land at key points (which I'd give permission for), and the cable then go from these to the telegraph poll already on my land, just outside the house. This, I think, would be the only sensible way of bypassing the farmer's field. I know this wouldn't be cheap to do, and so, that's why I decided to switch back to BT, as I believe they own Openreach, and therefore would be more inclined to foot the bill and get it done quickly.

So I order "essential fibre"...4 hours later, I get an email titled "Your broadband start date" (note, no mention of fibre) "We don't need to visit to get your broadband working, so there's no need to be at home on the day." WAIT, WHAT!? What about the optical router? What about the fibre cable to and into my home!?

And with only a few days ago to my switchover date, I've heard nothing more. I mean, I'm having trouble imagining my own (shop bought) router will even work at switchover, won't the login and password to access BT's servers be totally different? Will I even have any working regular broadband after switchover?

What's galling, is BT seem about to charge me a premium for fibre when they're not even nothing to fit any fibre to my home. I'm wondering if BT's data on my home is wrong, and maybe they think I already have it wired in?

I confess I didn't print the small print, but I thought if I'm being promised fibre in the large print, I'm paying for fibre, then I should be getting fibre. Was that too much of an unreasonable assumption?

One thing I do have, is the "guarantee" of speed of 27mb/s for this connection from BT. By current broadband, according to speedtest dot net, is just over 4mb/s, obviously a lot less.

Can I hold BT to this guarantee to fit the fibre connection that's required?

I'm beginning to think I've made a terrible mistake, particularly as it's a 24 month contract. Maybe even ordering from BT was the worst choice if I wanted the fibre fitted. Should I cancel? I believe I have up to the day before to do so, but all I have is BT's phone number.

Thoughts on what I should do? Thanks for any replies.

Carrot007

You ordered FTTC you wanted FTTP. Where FTTC is available you would pay lots for fitting of FTTP.

At least it is better than what you have now.

Snowclock

Carrot007 said:

You ordered FTTC you wanted FTTP. Where FTTC is available you would pay lots for fitting of FTTP.

At least it is better than what you have now.

Damn. Unfortunately my knowledge of fibre isn't that great, as you can probably figure. So, doing a quick google. It seems I'll be getting fibre up to the last mile of my connection, then I'm stuck with the rubbish, unreliable copper wire through the farmer's field?

I thought ordering fibre meant I'd be getting an optical cable into my house. (An unreasonable assumption?)

So, do you think I'll at least be getting the 27mb/s speed boost?

Thanks.

mjm3346

If you don't you can cancel penalty free - That's all the "guarantee" is worth


(I believe they own Openreach -  all providers have to be treated equally)

Snowclock

mjm3346 said:

If you don't you can cancel penalty free - That's all the "guarantee" is worth


(I believe they own Openreach -  all providers have to be treated equally)

Thanks. Giving very serious consideration to cancelling before. Looks like this "fibre" they're offering is a bit of a con, if you're still stuck with the same cr*ppy, unreliable copper wire bottleneck to your home. I suspect nothing's going to be much better for the extra money per month.

Perhaps I should have done my homework more, but when it says "fibre" on the tin, sorry, but I'm expecting a fibre optic cable running into my house, call me a naive fool.

JJ_Egan

Yes fibre was called fibre well before fibre optical from Open Reach started its roll out .

matelodave

Unfortunately everyone was allowed to call their offering "fibre" even though it is really only fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) with the last bit being carried over conventionall copper (or even aluminium wires).

A proper fibre connection would bring the fibre connection right into your premises (FTTP) and terminate it into an Optical Network Terminal. Openreach and others are slowly working on upgrading the infrastructure but its a slow and costly process and many areas will never actually acheive an FTTP connection, the last bit may always end up being carried over copper.

Snowclock

matelodave said:

and many areas will never actually acheive an FTTP connection, the last bit may always end up being carried over copper.

Unfortunately, I suspect that might end up being the case at my house.

iniltous

What does this wholesale checker site return for your address ( as you are not yet and may not ever be a BT customer , use your address rather than phone number  ) 
https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL
This checker uses VDSL as the indicator of FTTC ( fibre to the cabinet ) so if you had used this before making any order you would see what ‘products’ are available , all mainstream providers use the term ‘fibre’ when it’s fibre to the cab, ( including Virgin Media with their hybrid fibre/copper network ) ISP tend to use terms like ‘full fibre’ , or Hyperfast, for FTTP ( fibre to the premises ) , as you admit , you should have probably have asked , or done some research, especially as you know there were going to be issues, no one takes an order for FTTP before the infrastructure is close to the curtilage of the property.
FWIW, BT has no more or less influence on Openreach than anyone else, and using inaccurate terms like BT/OR simply add to the confusion over who does what, they are functionally separate company’s,   it’s OR that provide the network, copper or fibre, not BT.
You don’t say what sort of broadband you have ( presumably exchange based ADSL ) so an upgrade to FTTC may be worthwhile, from a speed point of view, but obviously will still be using the copper cable to your home that you suspect is a fault liability 

Richard_T_

I'm all for calling a spade a spade and so on, and Internet comp[anies shold never have been allowed to call their copper products "fibre" when the were/are copper .

 using the same logic you could call dial up "fibre" as it probably involves a fibre optic cable somewhere in the chain .

 

As linked to above, the broadband checker wholesale site is a good place to go, as is what you can see locally.

 If you are in an areas with phone poles and overhead wires you need to look out for a little yellow square stating "caution Fibre overhead" as well as some domed plastic  things on some of the poles about a third of the way up, as well as some little blocks at the top with connectors coming off them

iniltous

The regulator and advertising authorities had no problem with VM ( or their predecessors) calling their hybrid fibre /copper network ‘Fibre broadband’ so when OR provided a hybrid fibre/copper network and also used the term ‘Fibre’ they could hardly object and be remain to be seen even handed.
FWIW, given that anyone purchasing a FTTC product gets an estimate of the speed they should get and if that speed is delivered then does it matter if it’s copper or fibre, or a mixture  , it’s also (IMHO) ludicrous to suggest that if someone ( like me ) who got 3Mb ADSL and now gets 80Mb from FTTC would not upgrade because it’s not ‘full fibre’…the ASA could have initially objected to the term ‘fibre’ being used on anything other than FTTP , but they didn’t, there is no point complaining now.