Barn Conversion Seems no internet available

Pat38493

I just viewed a barn conversion (I think it was done in 2017) where the Estate Agent claims that the property has full fibre availability.

However, none of the main providers recognize this - running the address through broadband availability checkers, including the Openreach one, shows no availability of FTTP.  Quite a few of them say that they don't offer any service at the address e.g. Sky.

The weird thing is, there is what appears to be a BT Openreach fibre incoming box on the outside wall, and there is a Fibre box in one of the rooms in the house with a fibre optic cable coming out of it.

The box has writing on it in black pen - it looks to me like maybe they had a business grade line installed at some point?  Could this be why domestic BB checkers are showing no availability (other than FTTC with 2MBPS).  However even the BT business broadband checker is just showing FTTC at a useless speed.

If it's a business connection I guess that means it would cost a fortune to use and I would be better to get Starlink if considering such a property?

littleboo

It could be a leased line, which yes, would be expensive for domestic purposes. 

matelodave

Can't you get the estate agent or your solicitor to confirm with the vendor what sort of connection there is or was.

Random guesses from the combined expertise of the forum are of very little use without a bit more information.

Possibly a photo or two would help clarify what you've got but I doubt than anyone would know the viability of what is there or what services it could provide without know who the supplier is or was or even if its still active.

iniltous

If the box on the wall had a ‘Y’ code , Y**** type of thing it is from a fibre leased line  installation, not unheard of them to be put into residential settings , these have never been cheaper but probably still around £200 for a symmetric 1Gb service from a dealer .
TBH , it doesn’t matter if it’s still active ( it almost certainly won’t be ) but once the address has a Y code that’s it , it’s a served address , even if it need attention to get it back up and running, they also don’t use regular domestic type routers so businesses grade kit ( think server rack , 19 inch shelf type stuff may be needed ) 

Pat38493

iniltous said:

If the box on the wall had a ‘Y’ code , Y**** type of thing it is from a fibre leased line  installation, not unheard of them to be put into residential settings , these have never been cheaper but probably still around £200 for a symmetric 1Gb service from a dealer .
TBH , it doesn’t matter if it’s still active ( it almost certainly won’t be ) but once the address has a Y code that’s it , it’s a served address , even if it need attention to get it back up and running, they also don’t use regular domestic type routers so businesses grade kit ( think server rack , 19 inch shelf type stuff may be needed ) 

I took a photo of the box on the wall when I was there.

It says FI ONCA (the C might be an E as it's faded).  Then an 8 digit number starting with 7.

Then below that YIGRA/08

Outside the house there is a black cable running from that box, to a white square box at the bottom of the wall on the corner of the property labelled "BT Openreach".  The bit I should have checked and didn't is whether this square box then has a connection to the incoming phone line from the nearest telegraph pole, or whether it goes somewhere underground.

You mean £200 per month?  Ouch.  You can get Starlink for £75 per month from what I can see.

It's a white box which is the size I typically see at my company for leased lines and larger than the ones I normally see for a house fibre install at the inside of the house.

Bottom left of the box is the cable that goes outside.  Bottom right is what appears to be a short yellow fibre cable which is not connected to anything.

matelodave said:

Can't you get the estate agent or your solicitor to confirm with the vendor what sort of connection there is or was.

Random guesses from the combined expertise of the forum are of very little use without a bit more information.

Possibly a photo or two would help clarify what you've got but I doubt than anyone would know the viability of what is there or what services it could provide without know who the supplier is or was or even if its still active.

Yes I have asked the EA to confirm and find out more details.  I am not clear how any fibre would be even provided at the property unless some kind of special cables was laid, as the local exchange is listed as not capable of FTTP.

iniltous

F1 (fibre 1 ) not FI  , normally it would say from node ********* (whatever the serving node is ) ,

what you saw as  ONCA is probably the circuit ID , ONEA ****** .
As stated in my earlier post , the block  has a  Y code .

YIGRA/0B ( not 08 ) is the second fibre cable in the building , YIGRA/0A will exist somewhere, and is where 0B is cabled from ( you mentioned seeing another block that was probably YIGRA/0A  ) , but it’s pretty conclusive proof that the address had an Openreach fibre leased line at some point , it was an Ethernet leased line ONEA ******  (Openreach Ethernet Access ) 

The short yellow ‘pigtail’ will have a blue SC connector that would plug into the SFP (optical transceiver) in NTE (network termination equipment ) normally housed in the ‘server rack’ in the business comms room  these services are normally fitted in , but can also be wall mounted if it’s not in a business ‘server room’  but in a domestic premises , TBH , these circuits normally run call centres , banks , building societies, law courts, town halls , places that need high speed , reliable always on , no congestion type services , in a residential address either the occupant was wealthy enough that the costs were irrelevant or more likely was sufficiently important that their employer paid for them to have that type of connection at home .

TBH , the estate agent is being a little misleading, most would  think saying FTTP is available is what you can  buy from Sky or BT for £30 but  that’s not available, a leased line is .

iniltous

You may say ouch at £200 , but that’s for a symmetric service , uncontended ( so no one sharing it, it’s exclusive to the user ) with a 5 hour  repair should it go wrong or huge penalty payments are made by Openreach , this type of service shouldn’t be confused with domestic broadband, and as far as £75 for Starlink as a competitor, I’ve no personal experience of it , but I don’t see any businesses  that have  fibre leased lines dropping them in favour of that system.

Pat38493

iniltous said:

F1 (fibre 1 ) not FI  , normally it would say from node ********* (whatever the serving node is ) ,

what you saw as  ONCA is probably the circuit ID , ONEA ****** .
As stated in my earlier post , the block  has a  Y code .

YIGRA/0B ( not 08 ) is the second fibre cable in the building , YIGRA/0A will exist somewhere, and is where 0B is cabled from ( you mentioned seeing another block that was probably YIGRA/0A  ) , but it’s pretty conclusive proof that the address had an Openreach fibre leased line at some point , it was an Ethernet leased line ONEA ******  (Openreach Ethernet Access ) 

The short yellow ‘pigtail’ will have a blue SC connector that would plug into the SFP (optical transceiver) in NTE (network termination equipment ) normally housed in the ‘server rack’ in the business comms room  these services are normally fitted in , but can also be wall mounted if it’s not in a business ‘server room’  but in a domestic premises , TBH , these circuits normally run call centres , banks , building societies, law courts, town halls , places that need high speed , reliable always on , no congestion type services , in a residential address either the occupant was wealthy enough that the costs were irrelevant or more likely was sufficiently important that their employer paid for them to have that type of connection at home .

TBH , the estate agent is being a little misleading, most would  think saying FTTP is available is what you can  buy from Sky or BT for £30 but  that’s not available, a leased line is .

It’s on what you might call a kind of small gated community in the countryside with about 10 addresses.  I am sure they all have the same issue so maybe the other fibre line is in the Nextdoor part of the barn conversion.

I suppose it’s possible that the whole development is supplied that way - but that wouldn’t make sense really?

iniltous

Y codes are building specific, so the other buildings if they ever got their own leased lines would have different Y code ,OR can use the Y code as an address finder , similarly if someone ordered a leased line , OR could say ‘that building already has service’ if the Y code were quoted by the customer or the address finder indicated it , unlike the public address matching for ordinary FTTP , this is a business only database .

With any Y code the suffix  0A , 0B , 1A, 1B etc  , signifies the floor ( 0 ground floor , 1 first floor  ) the letter the order the cables went in , A the first cable , B the second cable , so if labelled correctly YIGRA /0B ( ground floor B cable ) should be the second cable therefore YIGRA/0A  is ground floor A cable and should have exist somewhere in the same building on the ground floor , but it’s something only OR would be interested in , if an engineer was told to use Fibre 2 in the 0B cable (for example) they obviously need to differentiate that from fibre 2 in the 0A cable , the label on the splice box tells them what cable is  inside the box .

Anyway , it’s almost certainly not the case that the development was provided with leased lines instead of FTTP , the fact that copper pair service is available indicates the leased line was added later , it just means someone thought the cost of getting it installed and then the ongoing monthly fee was worth it , wether that was the individual or the company that employed them.

FWIW , I know of 2 or  3 addresses like this , ONEA’s in residential addresses, all were for very senior staff  in their respective businesses .

Pat38493

iniltous said:

Y codes are building specific, so the other buildings if they ever got their own leased lines would have different Y code ,OR can use the Y code as an address finder , similarly if someone ordered a leased line , OR could say ‘that building already has service’ if the Y code were quoted by the customer or the address finder indicated it , unlike the public address matching for ordinary FTTP , this is a business only database .

With any Y code the suffix  0A , 0B , 1A, 1B etc  , signifies the floor ( 0 ground floor , 1 first floor  ) the letter the order the cables went in , A the first cable , B the second cable , so if labelled correctly YIGRA /0B ( ground floor B cable ) should be the second cable therefore YIGRA/0A  is ground floor A cable and should have exist somewhere in the same building on the ground floor , but it’s something only OR would be interested in , if an engineer was told to use Fibre 2 in the 0B cable (for example) they obviously need to differentiate that from fibre 2 in the 0A cable , the label on the splice box tells them what cable is  inside the box .

Anyway , it’s almost certainly not the case that the development was provided with leased lines instead of FTTP , the fact that copper pair service is available indicates the leased line was added later , it just means someone thought the cost of getting it installed and then the ongoing monthly fee was worth it , wether that was the individual or the company that employed them.

FWIW , I know of 2 or  3 addresses like this , ONEA’s in residential addresses, all were for very senior staff  in their respective businesses .

OK thanks you have been very helpful - obviously you are an expert in this area  

So hypothetically, let's say I was thinking of buying such a property - who do I actually contact in order to figure out how much it would cost to reactivate and use that line?  Is it someone at BT?

iniltous

Search fibre leased lines , it’s a complicated business, there can be two or three companies involved, say you contacted a broker, ABC Telecommunications (made up company) saying the address had Ethernet previously, they may offer you service using Vodafone backhaul , so it’s Openreach Ethernet to a handover point where VF take over supply ,  but your contract is with ABC , but they need to pay both Openreach and VF for your access, dealers like ABC can tailor what speed you want , wether you want ‘wires only’ or a managed service , depending on what someone took they may need to buy equipment and configure it themselves, or ABC do all that at an additional cost .
BT Consumer don’t offer this , in fact it’s primarily a business product, so slthough Sky and Talk Talk can offer leased lines it’s via their business divisions or via dealers/brokers , BT do have a business sales channel for leased lines , many dealers will in effect use BT as well as Openreach (they resell other suppliers products) but you would only ever deal with the leased line broker/dealer , bit like buying a car , you buy it from the dealer not the manufacturer, even if the dealer has the manufacturer name on the dealership