Open Reach connect my community pledge trigger to begin full fibre install

jimbo23

About 6 weeks ago the houses in my postcode were contacted by Open Reach to ask us to pledge our vouchers in the governments Gigabit broadband voucher scheme to their “Connect my community” website. They further stated that on doing so if sufficient pledges are given by households in the postcode then Open Reach will proceed to install full fibre broadband in the area.

Looking at the Open Reach web page today for my postcode it states that 82% of households have currently pledged their vouchers however it also states that to proceed to the next phase they require a pledge from 100% of the households. 

It seems unlikely to me that 100% of pledges would be  achieved in most if not all areas so does anyone have any previous experience of this being the case in their area and, if so, did Open reach still carry out an installation of full fibre without receiving pledges from 100% of the households in the post code.

voluted

Sounds a bit like the scheme they had in the early 2000's where by people had to "express their interest" in getting ADSL by signing up with a provider. Once it hit a certain trigger point they'd add the exchange to their build list.

I was massively abused by people creating fake signups to hit the trigger for their local exchange, ans there was no requirement to actually sign up once the exchange went live and few providers took any sort of payment information. This was even after people pointed out this was exactly what would happen. They eventually shelved the idea and continued with a rollout based on what they thought the demand would be, which worked out reasonably well.

Asking people to pledge vouchers to them is equally idiotic. People will just say yes and they're under no obligation to actually follow through. It's even more idiotic if the requirement is for everyone to pledge.

iniltous

Looking at the details on the Openreach site about  community projects, the  pledge includes being on the hook for the voucher amount if they don’t ultimately claim the voucher from the DCMS ( or whoever operates it ) , however if the address qualifies for the voucher , the owner shows  interest and registers ( pledges  ) with the scheme coordinator , and the build is done why would anyone not follow through with claiming the voucher.
TBH , it’s not always 100% of qualifying properties needed to participate in a scheme , the level of voucher take up is dependent on the build costs , presumably if 100% is required, even with the Openreach contribution the build costs presumably are such that without 100% participation the figures don’t add up .

jimbo23

Details of this government funded full fibre install scheme which Open Reach are hoping to deploy  are here.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gigabit-broadband-voucher-scheme-information

If it goes ahead having pledged my voucher then I would have 2 months to get a full fibre broadband package from any provider from the moment Open Reach informed me I was officially connected with full fibre otherwise Open Reach would be entitled to claim for expense of plumbing me in. I don’t see that as particularly onerous.