No access to fibre and Gleeson homes don't care

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Marijus
Marijus Posts: 3 Newbie
in Broadband & internet access
I created this thread on behalf of our community in new Gleeson Homes development to see, if anybody can help with our problem. When our development started in 2014, people buying homes were told that fibre broadband not available in the new homes and only old fashion copper is getting installed. After 1st phase completion, we found out that Glesson Homes started 2nd phase in 2017 with fibre broadband to be installed as standard. After inquiring with Gleeson Homes we were told, that unfortunately, 1st phase is completed and developer is not responsible for any additional installations. We contacted Openreach with hope to get some help from them, but so far no luck. Please, see communication between one of our community members and Openreach below:
Good Afternoon,
Thank you for confirming the developer name.
I have checked our systems and have located the Newsites registration the developer submitted in 2014 for the 1st phase of the site. As the time of this development we were contacting the developers to offer them a Fibre service for the houses on their new build. However not all the developers decided to have the Fibre connection, and in the case of your development they decided to have a copper connection.
The 2nd stage of this development was registered with us in 2017, at this time the developer made a decision to have the fibre connection for this phase of the site.
I have contacted our Delivery Manager to see if we have any projects via the work we do with BDUK, the Government and through Openreach commercial projects to provide the fibre service. And I’m afraid there’s no fibre planned at the minute, however, we’re still working with the Government and industry to try and bring fibre to you and your community in the future.
I’m really sorry, as I do appreciate that this is not what you and no doubt other residents would wish to hear at this time
Kind Regards
Paula Hutchins

Currently, we contacted local council and our MP as well to see, if anyone can help us. Our local councilor even promised to contact local papers with this story.

Openreach offers community funded option and we are in process of doing that, but I fail to see, why we have to pay for something, which is now standard and houses built few meters away are getting connected, but we can't!

Any ideas will be much appreciated. Thank you.
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  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 5,186 Forumite
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    I presume you're talking about FTTP (fibre to the premises) rather than FTTC (fibre to the cabinet)? Surely you've got a cabinet on the estate for FTTC? What about Virgin cable?

    You've got no comeback against the developer whatsoever as you weren't sold the house with a guarantee of fibre.
  • AndyPK
    AndyPK Posts: 4,241 Forumite
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    People who have FTTP moan its very expensive (as there are only 3 or so suppliers)


    Count yourself lucky!


    What typical speeds do you get ?
  • onomatopoeia99
    onomatopoeia99 Posts: 6,964 Forumite
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    You are entitled to nothing, and the "old fashioned" copper you are complaining about is still in use in something like 95% or more of the properties in the UK with no hope of it being replaced in the next decade, so it is very difficult to see you getting a great deal of sympathy. I get an entirely acceptable 80 Mbps down and 20Mbps up on mine.

    Can you explain why you feel the need for the greater throughput that FTTP theoretically allows?


    There is also the point that as AndyPK correctly makes, all the poundshop ISPs like TalkTalk, Sky etc do not offer FTTP so your choices would be BT Internet or proper ISPs (that are more expensive).
    Proud member of the wokerati, though I don't eat tofu.Home is where my books are.Solar PV 5.2kWp system, SE facing, >1% shading, installed March 2019.Mortgage free July 2023
  • teddysmum
    teddysmum Posts: 9,471 Forumite
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    We are in an urban 1970s estate and have only just been able to receive FTTC for the last few months, though all areas surrounding the estate and including estate houses looking outwards have been enabled for years.


    We don't hold our builders responsible and if desperate for fast broadband could have used Virgin.


    We don't actually need fibre when our ADSL is running properly (had an undiagnosed problem since July) as it is sufficient to run two computers or one and an Amazon stick.
  • pmduk
    pmduk Posts: 10,655 Forumite
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    Gleesons appear to have been up front with you from the start
  • Marijus
    Marijus Posts: 3 Newbie
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    First of all, thank you for replies. When you buy a new built house in 2016, you would expect that some sort of fibre would be available, especially when new estate is built next to estate with fibre network already in place. Over last few years, government encouraged developers to install fibre where possible. In our case, it didn't happen, because developer decided to save some money on 1st phase, but once sales started to slow down, they decided to tempt new customers with additional perks. Would you buy a new car with cassette player fitted as standard now? I doubt it.
    Our current average speed is 10 MB, so it's not bad for copper. But when family of 3 are using it at the same time, then it struggles. Also, forget about using 4k tv programs from Netflix, Amazon, etc. You need minimum 30 MB speed for that. FTTC is enabled in town center, but not in cabinet on our estate. Myself and many more people on our estate would pay considerably more to get FTTP, even, if it's only provided by small number of suppliers.
  • littleboo
    littleboo Posts: 1,499 Forumite
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    Marijus wrote: »
    First of all, thank you for replies. When you buy a new built house in 2016, you would expect that some sort of fibre would be available, especially when new estate is built next to estate with fibre network already in place. Over last few years, government encouraged developers to install fibre where possible. In our case, it didn't happen, because developer decided to save some money on 1st phase, but once sales started to slow down, they decided to tempt new customers with additional perks. Would you buy a new car with cassette player fitted as standard now? I doubt it.
    Our current average speed is 10 MB, so it's not bad for copper. But when family of 3 are using it at the same time, then it struggles. Also, forget about using 4k tv programs from Netflix, Amazon, etc. You need minimum 30 MB speed for that. FTTC is enabled in town center, but not in cabinet on our estate. Myself and many more people on our estate would pay considerably more to get FTTP, even, if it's only provided by small number of suppliers.

    To use your car analogy, if I chose to purchase a new car with a cassette player fitted, I wouldn’t expect the manufacture to retrofit a CD player in my car when they started fitting CD players as standard in cars sold later. I would however have an issue if they told me I was getting a CD player but got given a cassette player.
    Did the builder make any commitments about broadband technology or speeds?
  • SnowTiger
    SnowTiger Posts: 4,461 Forumite
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    Marijus wrote: »
    Currently, we contacted local council and our MP as well to see, if anyone can help us. Our local councilor even promised to contact local papers with this story.

    Openreach offers community funded option and we are in process of doing that, but I fail to see, why we have to pay for something, which is now standard and houses built few meters away are getting connected, but we can't!

    Any ideas will be much appreciated. Thank you.

    Lots of people have slower broadband. My previous home had a speed of 2Mbits on a good day. Many of my neighbours had a slower speed than that.

    According the the government, 10Mbits is enough:
    Ofcom now has up to 2 years to implement the scheme, meaning that by 2020, everyone in the UK will have a legal right to an affordable connection of at least 10 Mbps, from a designated provider, no matter where they live or work, up to a reasonable cost threshold.

    [...]

    Ofcom’s Connected Nations 2017 report shows that the number of premises without 10Mbps broadband download and 1Mbps upload speeds is 1.1 million, or 4% of premises, compared with 1.6 million or 6% of premises in 2016

    I think most effort will be put to getting faster broadband to those who fall below 10Mbits. Not many homes, but they are probably difficult and expensive to get a faster connection to.

    Your demand for FTTP probably won't get very far.
  • suki1964
    suki1964 Posts: 14,313 Forumite
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    Some of us can only dream of 10mbps
  • pmduk
    pmduk Posts: 10,655 Forumite
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    Marijus wrote: »
    When you buy a new built house in 2016, you would expect that some sort of fibre would be available,

    When you buy a house, in any year, and the developer tells you that fibre isn't going to be installed, why complain because there's no fibre? You were aware before buying.
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