Any luck getting Openreach copper line removed?

Chickereeeee

Most/all of the houses in this area have now had fiber installed. The service provided via overhead lines from telephone poles, which means every fibre line is duplicated by a much thicker, obsolete copper line.

This is making the area look a mess, an means there are two messy fixings to each houses' facia, brickwork or wherever.

Has anybody had any luck in getting Openreach to remove their copper lines, or an individual or community basis?

molerat

Usual UK half arsed way of doing things, too much effort / time / cost as the 2 rarely go to the same point on the house so needing another hole drilled for the ladder restraint.  I would have thought there would be a fair value in all that copper left hanging around.

ordnancesurvey84

Yes, I've successfully had redundant copper cables removed from my property free of charge.
Just needed to complete the "Network Relocation Request" form here:
https://www.openreach.com/help-and-support/object-to-move-or-remove-openreach-equipment
They do a quick check that the cabling is redundant, if they deem it redundant they'll remove it free of charge.
Communication is a bit of a pain, as they call you, but if you miss their call, you need to email them back, but the work was done and without any cost to me, so I was happy.

flaneurs_lobster

Removing the redundant Cu is extra work for no gain (the scrap worth of the bit of cable from house to pole is negligible). Openreach (or their contractors) are paid for the FTTP install, not the removal of the old cable.

Couple of folk round my way have cut the old copper off at the house end (no idea how easy/dangerous access was) then coiled it up and attached it to the pole at head height. Probably dodgy.

powerful_Rogue

ordnancesurvey84 said:

Yes, I've successfully had redundant copper cables removed from my property free of charge.
Just needed to complete the "Network Relocation Request" form here:
https://www.openreach.com/help-and-support/object-to-move-or-remove-openreach-equipment
They do a quick check that the cabling is redundant, if they deem it redundant they'll remove it free of charge.
Communication is a bit of a pain, as they call you, but if you miss their call, you need to email them back, but the work was done and without any cost to me, so I was happy.

Thank you! Just filled out the form and will see if they will come out to remove my wire to the house. Not been used in the 5 years since we've lived here.

subjecttocontract

What's to stop you cutting the cable and winding it around their telegraph pole ? It's your house and if you don't want their cable to remain attached and they won't remove it....... do the job for them. I suspect they might come out a bit quicker to collect the loose cable once cut, but who knows.

born_again

Chickereeeee said:

Most/all of the houses in this area have now had fiber installed. The service provided via overhead lines from telephone poles, which means every fibre line is duplicated by a much thicker, obsolete copper line.

This is making the area look a mess, an means there are two messy fixings to each houses' facia, brickwork or wherever.

Has anybody had any luck in getting Openreach to remove their copper lines, or an individual or community basis?

Interesting as round here despite copper cables strung from poles, all fibre installations have been underground. Requiring paths & drives/gardens to be dug up for cables.

TadleyBaggie

subjecttocontract said:

What's to stop you cutting the cable and winding it around their telegraph pole ?

Messing with the Openreach cable could have legal repercussions if it caused a wider network issue.

subjecttocontract

Obviously but, a single cable connection to each property suggests not.

flaneurs_lobster

born_again said:

Chickereeeee said:

Most/all of the houses in this area have now had fiber installed. The service provided via overhead lines from telephone poles, which means every fibre line is duplicated by a much thicker, obsolete copper line.

This is making the area look a mess, an means there are two messy fixings to each houses' facia, brickwork or wherever.

Has anybody had any luck in getting Openreach to remove their copper lines, or an individual or community basis?

Interesting as round here despite copper cables strung from poles, all fibre installations have been underground. Requiring paths & drives/gardens to be dug up for cables.

Commercial decision - the likely return from take-up of FTTP not attractive after cost of upgrade - are the poles visibly aged - they might need replacing for new kit to be viable? Short street? 

Openreach generally must make available their infrastructure to other networks under an arrangement called Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) but there are reasons why they might not be able (or want) to.

The poles and associated ducts may be at capacity (either in terms of physical space or weight on the pole - another reason why removing old Cu might be a good idea) or the pole might be flagged for replacement. The wider area connectivity for the new network may not be a convenient fit with the existing Openreach infrastructure.

There are also fees to be paid for the use of the OR infrastructure.

iniltous

The OP doesn’t make it clear if the FTTP cable is an Alt Net , so the customer either switched from Openreach to a totally separate network ( leeching onto the Openreach pole ) or the copper cable was redundant before FTTP was fitted , either way , initially Alt Nets were not supposed to touch Openreach property , and if Openreach FTTP were not available, that copper cable conceivably may be used again , say the Alt Net went bust or put up prices in the future or a new occupant didn’t want to use the Alt Net .

Expecting OR to visit an area where they have few working customers as they were either never OR customers , possibly with the cable company, or have joined the Alt Net competition from OR , and have a previously used copper wire in place , it takes time , effort and money to take down redundant wires ‘en-masse’   basically just for the aesthetic, so expecting that is naive , individual requests may be done .