Openreach installing nearby

Highlander616

Good morning. I’ve FTTC, but at the end of a copper line so get about 20mbs. I’ve signed up to everyone, openreach, West Yorkshire’s digital infrastructure initiative - brsk are installing in the area now. But, openreach are putting a business line into the factory at the bottom of the road last night and tonight. I spoke to the engineer, very helpful chap, who said if I could discuss with openreach, he could be authorised to put a junction at the entrance to our road where he passes, which would be a lot more efficient for the future. Has anyone got an actual number for an actual person at openreach? The chatbot is pointless, the given phone number ends at every point with a directive to go to the website. 

PS - if the engineer was just saying what I wanted to hear to get rid of me, tell me that as well…

Neil_Jones

Highlander616 said:

Good morning. I’ve FTTC, but at the end of a copper line so get about 20mbs. I’ve signed up to everyone, openreach, West Yorkshire’s digital infrastructure initiative - brsk are installing in the area now. But, openreach are putting a business line into the factory at the bottom of the road last night and tonight. I spoke to the engineer, very helpful chap, who said if I could discuss with openreach, he could be authorised to put a junction at the entrance to our road where he passes, which would be a lot more efficient for the future. Has anyone got an actual number for an actual person at openreach? The chatbot is pointless, the given phone number ends at every point with a directive to go to the website. 

PS - if the engineer was just saying what I wanted to hear to get rid of me, tell me that as well…

Openreach only deal with ISPs, they will not talk to the general public, so even if you did find a phone number for a person they'd just tell you to go away.

Highlander616

Fine. That’s what I suspected. I was quoted about £45k for a community install but my neighbours & I felt that was a bit steep. If we got a junction box at the end of the road, I would expect that cost would drop significantly 

Neil_Jones

£45k price tag may be to cover the whole village/location, not just you and your neighbours.

Even the grants are only up to £3.5k:

https://gigabitvoucher.culture.gov.uk/

https://www.increasebroadbandspeed.co.uk/guide-for-rural-communities-fttp might be of interest too.

matelodave

Have you asked your local council - I live in the outer edges of Cambridgeshire and they had a scheme called Connecting Cambridgeshire which aimed to connect up arears that were either hard to reach or relatively uneconomic. We live in an outlying hamlet, on the wrong side of the A10 and river Great Ouse and around five miles from the nearest exchange  but with a lot of perseverance and lobbying we got FTTP over four years ago. Interestingly the local village where the exchange is situated are just getting FTTP four years after we did, although they did get a half decent FTTC service.

I signed up as a Broadband Champion with Cambridgeshire County Coucil, went to a few meetings and canvassed all the premises where we live (about 120 houses).

Persuading people to get involved or even to request info was an uphill struggle, but as soon as it was up and running there were Openreach vans up and down our road for weeks connecting people up and some who didn't jump in quick missed out because quite a few of the access points became fully utilised.

We now enjoy anything up to 900mbit's instead of the pathetic 1.8mbit's we got previously.

Tigsteroonie

Highlander616 said:

Fine. That’s what I suspected. I was quoted about £45k for a community install but my neighbours & I felt that was a bit steep. If we got a junction box at the end of the road, I would expect that cost would drop significantly 

I would go back to whoever provided you with that quote and give them the latest information regarding the provision of the business line nearby and ask if they could re-quote.

Madmel

As others have said. you can't contact Openreach directly. However, your MP can. In short, in April 2020 Openreach put signs up in my hamlet stating that they were installing FTTP. However, getting a date for when this would go live proved to be impossible. Our MP, for his many failings, was actually quite good at leaning on them and providing limited updates. It came on stream in March 2022 and we were connected in May.

Highlander616

Thanks for the advice everyone. I just assumed the MP was pointless so I’ll give them a shot. I’ll also get back to the community install people.