Fibre internet

stevee1963

Hi, hope someone can help us. We originally owned a large property with an adjoining annexe. We have now sold the large property and have retained the annexe and it has been registered as a separate property for 6 years or so and shows up on any searches etc including the BT site (shows slow speeds to our property of between 6-7mb however 1Gb to next door). We want to install fibre broadband but have been told by Openreach that we cannot have it as there is only copper cable installed to the property. There is fibre installed onto a telegraph pole some 10Mtres from our house and in our garden. This fibre feeds our existing large adjoining house. After four weeks of investigation work, Openreach have informed us today that we cannot have fibre as it is not available anywhere near to our property. Will someone please help ! many thanks

stevee1963

Some pictures of the telegraph pole outside of our house, one of the lines is fibre and the other one is copper ???? unsure why they cannot connect us, anyone any ideas ? thanks

iniltous

When an area is ‘dimensioned’ , it’s on the basis of one ‘connection’ per dwelling, so although the image shows a 4 port CBT , ( with 1 port in use ) , it’s possible that if that CBT were only ever designed for 1 address /dwelling, only 1 fibre is connected through the multi fibre  cable tail that enters the CBT .

If the splitter that the CBT is served from has spares , it’s normally possible to put another fibre through , so making the 2nd port ‘live’ , but splitters have a maximum capacity of 32 outgoing fibres ( but only 30 are ever used ) so if there are already 30 fibres allocated to the various CBT that the splitter services , then it could be that the splitter is full ( full in respect that all the fibres are allocated rather than already in use ) meaning that a 2nd service cannot be supplied from that CBT.

4 port is the smallest CBT that OR use , I suspect they thought it would only ever have a demand of 1 dwelling.
A further possible complication, it’s not clear from the image , but if the cable to the property that cannot order FTTP is currently served via a chimney bracket , the FTTP tail cannot connect in the same way ( even existing chimney brackets are no longer used although existing cables can be left in situ ) , however that shouldn’t in itself stop an order being raised.

stevee1963

thanks for your comments, as an Electrical Engineer it makes sense what you have written although no-one from openreach has confirmed or denied the availability of allocated fibres. As there are three properties in this location, one would have thought that they would allow for them in their installation planning with some additional availability from roadside cabinet. We will have to go 4G route if they cannot help and means they lose the order and very frustrating, thanks again

iniltous

FTTP doesn’t come from a roadside cabinet ,  if there are 3 properties that are  served with copper from the same point ( probably a block at the top of a pole ) then normally the FTTP CBT would copy this , so a 4 port CBT with a demand of 3 ( so 3 fibres connected from the splitter ) .
If the property in question was overlooked at the survey stage then it won’t show as having availability , but on examination by OR as the result of an enquiry, that should be easily ‘addressed’ , but obviously if there are no available fibres at the splitter, that’s a unfortunately a much harder issue to solve, but OR don’t seem to have really explained the issue , as FTTP is obviously very close by.

HaroldWhistler

stevee1963 said:

Some pictures of the telegraph pole outside of our house, one of the lines is fibre and the other one is copper ???? unsure why they cannot connect us, anyone any ideas ? thanks

That definitely looks like a CBT meaning there is Full Fibre to the telephone pole. So it's "almost there", when it comes to availability. I totally agree it's frustrating. However, I heard of a similar situation where they had 0.5-1Mbps broadband (via the copper from the pole). The house in question was using 4G broadband to get good internet. The CBT appeared. And similarly, FTTP was only showing as "FTTP on Demand"/FTTP not available on the Openreach checker for the various houses adjacent to the pole. 

If this CBT was very recently installed, then it's possible Full Fibre is going to be available sooner than later. I think it's a database thing where the overall database takes time to get updated with the various bureaucracy. It's certainly better than having no CBT on the nearby telephone pole. The time it takes varies. Might be a few months down the line and suddenly the availability checker will show up as FTTP is available. In the example from earlier, after 3 months, the Checker changed and all the ISP websites were showing FTTP products. So they got to go from 1Mbps up to 900Mbps on a brand new proper Fibre service which as you can imagine was a game changer. From what I've seen on other sites, people have also mentioned it took a little longer though and I think on this forum, some people have mentioned somewhere that there was some method to get the Database corrected where a property has somehow slipped through the crack in the FTTP address list. I'm not personally sure how to do that though, but I think there was a post about it.

I'm not sure what's going on given that Openreach have supposedly looked into it. I wouldn't give up hope yet though. It could be a case that it's just taking long in the bureaucracy to get things updated. I'd say go for 4G SIM for mobile broadband on a short contract, or rolling since you can at least always keep that as a backup (or take it with you around the country) even if FTTP turns up as a welcome surprise soon. And it's probably going to be better value than going for any new copper based contracts.