Is FTTP compulsory

iniltous

Openreach fibre doesn’t ‘run’ to the property until an order is raised, that is unless it’s a new build property that’s never had a copper pair service in the past  , it’s not clear what the Openreach tech meant , ‘no fibre cable running to your property’ , that’s precisely what you would expect , the techs job is to get the fibre that is provided to an underground jointing chamber (jointbox) in the footpath, it has extended from there to the house wall , in fully ducted areas this is normally straight forward, in DIG ares  ( direct in ground armoured cables) or if the existing duct is blocked in fully ducted area ,  then obviously those issues need to be addressed.

Altior

Way back in January 2023 I booked with Vodafone to switch to fibre. I am in a new build area and the 'new' road was a couple of years previous to that dug up to lay all the cables up to the front of every property. We subsequently got flyers persistently about switching to fibre now that it had been installed. 

However after making the booking, city fibre sent me all the info about my 'fibre' installation. I was under the assumption it had been installed when they dug up the road and ruined a relatively newly laid road! Turns out that only does half the job.

Huge issue though after reading all the documents and viewing the videos at the time about the installation. I live in a maisonette, downstairs there is nothing apart from the porch, entrance, and stairs leading to my landing and living areas. There's no 3 pin power supply at all on the ground floor. Apparently a box had to be installed that needed to be plugged into power, near where the fibre enters the property. I could not see how this was going to be plausible without huge disruption and an unsightly installation. So I decided to can it, within the cooling off period.

The Voda rep told me then fibre would be mandatory anyway, so I may as well go ahead They also stated a date it would be completed by. At the time I had not read anything about fibre being made mandatory and couldn't find any info. But because the infrastructure system had now switched my property to being 'fibre' I could not get a new regular broadband contract anywhere, all searches were coming up fibre only. I contacted my original broadband provider and luckily I was able to be manually 'switched back to them' (ie not switched at all), via the assistance of a really helpful agent. 

This is however seemingly always going to be a looming problem, I will put it off as long as I can.