When we first moved here in 2018, the FTTC availability was confirmed by BT and others.
The reality was there was not room in the green street cabinet for another line and download speeds over normal broadband were <1mbs, so I was stuck using a portable MIFI device then a proper router with a sim slot and I got 7-8mbs using unlimited data sims.
I checked availability daily and when availability popped up I grabbed it and the max speed is 29mbs. (on the 60mbs tariff).
The local fibre outfit are digging up the two adopted roads that join our un-adopted bit of road and leafletting houses.
I called them to ask about our stretch and they can't answer as to when we will be done, if ever.
What are the problems with digging up un-adopted roads, the water and electricity cos have done it but phone lines use telegraph poles?
(The road was owned by a wealthy mansion house / estate in early Victorian times -solicitors could not find the current owners.)
Last edited by: zippy on Thu 25 May 23 at 17:04
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Is that City Fibre doing the digging up? They've been around our town for months, and I've seen them elsewhere.
Can't answer your question though!
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>>City Fibre
No, some outfit called Lightning Fibre, they make out that they are local, but the ownership path is a nest of companies based in the Shard.
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> -solicitors could not find the current owners.)
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>>
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Because of the above, probably in the too difficult pile.
Last edited by: sooty123 on Thu 25 May 23 at 17:28
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There must be some process by which a wayleave could be obtained over land in unknown ownership. If money is owed then can it be paid into court as is the case where land in unknown ownership is subject to compulsory purchase?
Obviously, people on the customer service front line won't have the answer; you need to get them to refer it "upstairs"
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Thu 25 May 23 at 18:03
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We now have three fibre companies digging up our small town. Some streets already have two parallel trenches and presumably we will end up with three when the latest one gets fully going. None of these companies are the big telco names and I doubt any of them will be in the business in a few years.
I believe in competition but wouldn’t it be better to have a process that avoids duplication and gets the overall job done once and more quickly.
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Is the lack of fibre due to the road not being adopted or something else.
I wonder whether it is economic to hardwire new properties. Existing properties built more than 10 years ago would have a telephone network installed as a default - a lot of infrastructure would already exist making fibre upgrade easier.
With larger new properties the cost of cabling is higher (trenches, cable, junction boxes etc) and the price of data comms gets ever lower using mobile networks.
We recently moved and when looking at new village properties found in some developments broadband connectivity was 4/5G and gas supply was by way of large tanks on site with bulk deliveries. Welcome to the 21st century.
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>> With larger new properties the cost of cabling is higher (trenches, cable, junction boxes etc)
>> and the price of data comms gets ever lower using mobile networks.
I would have thought that with a new build, bearing in mind electricity and both fresh and foul water have to be trenched then a conduit for fibre optic cable would be automatic at next to no cost. That's more or less what was done here as a new build 25 years ago albeit the telecoms conduit only carried copper wire.
In the last 12 months Gigaclear have been round and added provision for fibre to the premises. The main estate was built in the sixties/seventies and there they've dug trenches along the pavement laying conduit/fibre as they go. Pretty much evey address in the village of around 4,000 people now has FTP available.
Although Gigaclear have a retail offer and have leafletted ad nauseam in practice the infrastructure is available to all the usual providers. I can access it through my provider, PLusnet, for a reasonable monthly payment. We've yet to take it up but a couple of houses have.
>> We recently moved and when looking at new village properties found in some developments broadband
>> connectivity was 4/5G and gas supply was by way of large tanks on site with
>> bulk deliveries. Welcome to the 21st century.
I've quite a few friends who have dropped all wired connections for phone and internet relying on 4/5G instead. Initially they were in urban areas but it's becoming viable in other places as well. There was an experiment locally to replace the phone landline with an radio service 20 or so years ago. This would have been long before universal digital broadband and I don't know what technology was used. It came to naught in the end and the company packed up. There's still the off house with the antenna on the wall; like the 'squarial' a memorial to a technological cul de sac.
Tanked gas as you describe is the new off grid solution; the niche once filled by oil fired heating. Colleague I worked with in London who retired to his native Scotland has it. I don't know if it's always LPG but his is. There is, as you say, a bulk tank which is connected to individual homes via a smart meter.
He said it frighteningly expensive and that's before the current shenanigans.
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>> There was an experiment locally to replace the phone landline with an radio service 20 or so >>years ago. This would have been long before universal digital broadband and I don't know >>what technology was used. It came to naught in the end and the company packed up. >>There's still the off house with the antenna on the wall; like the 'squarial' a memorial to a >>technological cul de sac.
You can still see the octagonal microwave aerials around here, about the size of a dinner plate. I looked into it, but thought it could be affected by weather. The company (I can't recall the name) were in Cambridge.
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"octagonal" - not the old BSB squarial then rxtvinfo.com/2021/return-of-the-squarial/
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>> There must be some process by which a wayleave could be obtained over land in
>> unknown ownership.
And there is the problem. You need a unified body to deal with, one that is responsible, for the upkeep of the road. You probably have one I would guess for street maintenance. They need to approach the utility company, because the utility company don't know, or CBA to find out who they are.
It will be the same body who dealt with BT over your telephone poles.
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I've overhead fibre over a neighbour's roof. Open Reach said at the time it exceeded the maximum span, but did it anyway. The neighbour's, fortunately hard of hearing and poorly sighted!
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The word wayleave has reminded me of a recent but irrelevant tale. My daughter's mate bought a fairly new house (maybe 5 years old) then moved abroad, so have let it out.
It has some sort of electricity pylon in front of it, it could be actually on their land, I don't know.
Some no-win no-fee outfit contacted them and asked if they'd ever had any money for it. They hadn't, and approved the company to pursue it for them.
They just got a cheque for something like £13k.
I'm surprised that on a recently built estate all that kind of stuff wasn't dealt with at erection time.
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We moved about 4 months ago. We previously had a broadband contract with an anytime landline calls add-on at a cost of ~£16 per month.
When we moved it took a couple of weeks to get properly re-connected. We both realised we had no need of a landline package as smartphones were fine. So I cancelled the add-on and saved ~£200pa. No issues since!
With the building work going on we were frequently without power. Linking laptop to smartphone for internet access occasionally was easy.
Potentially landline is completely surplus to requirements - only kept for broadband and emergency calls as the price is not dissimilar to a high data allowance SIM and it provides back-up.
There may be technical or capacity issues which prevent 4/5G for providing a full national service - but I do wonder if the traditional hard wired network will be dead in a decade.
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>> Potentially landline is completely surplus to requirements - only kept for broadband and emergency calls
>> as the price is not dissimilar to a high data allowance SIM and it provides
>> back-up.
Both my adult kids have a landline number but neither uses it or even has a suitable phone.
Said kids are now pretty much the only people, other than various species of timewasters/putative fraudsters, who call us on our landline. We only hang on to it because it's nothing extra, except the answering service, and very occasionally old friends call on it.
HAving had the same number since we moved here 33 years ago is probably a factor too.
When said kids were small we only had the landline and for a while after we got mobiles calls to them could be expensive. We made sure that as soon as they were able to understand the phone's purpose they could tell anyone what their parent's phone number was.
I can still remember several of significance from my childhood. Home was Horsforth 2429 and Granny Garforth 2424. Other Granny was in Dorset and pretty much until she came up to Leeds in 1971 had to be called via the operator.
When she first moved there the phone didn't even have a dial - either picking up the phone called the operator or you pressed a button.
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>> Both my adult kids have a landline number but neither uses it or even has
>> a suitable phone.
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>> Said kids are now pretty much the only people, other than various species of timewasters/putative
>> fraudsters, who call us on our landline. We only hang on to it because it's
>> nothing extra, except the answering service, and very occasionally old friends call on it.
Exactly the same here.
I'm not sure my landline would even cover Terry's emergency use now, as it was moved to VOIP by Virgin about a month ago, so no internet and/or no power = no landline.
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>> I'm not sure my landline would even cover Terry's emergency use now, as it was
>> moved to VOIP by Virgin about a month ago, so no internet and/or no power
>> = no landline.
If it's not happened already somebody, probably elderly and vulnerable, will die because of that.
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You are a Mail journo in training and I claim my £10 :-)
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, so no internet and/or no
>> power
>> >> = no landline.
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>> If it's not happened already somebody, probably elderly and vulnerable, will die because of that.
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This is a known issue and Telcos recommend keeping a charged mobile phone on hand.
Where there is insufficient mobile cover, telecos have been providing a battery back up solution, but of course, it's not well advertised and call centre staff that know about it are like hens teeth!
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I live in central London. Within the congestion zone. Fifteen minutes' walk from St Paul's cathedral, and on a main road.
I want fibre broadband as my broadband is insufficient for a zoom call after 3pm when schools kick out.
FINALLY the cable was laid down the street and providers acknowledged its existence so I ordered it early this year from Sky. A bloke turned up from Openreach, said "look there's a box in the pavement 3' from your house. I'll be back next week." He came the next week and went away. I was told I'd get an update in a month's time. That update said I'd get another update in six months' time.
This is like the 1980s but worse. Bloke who came to fit my smart meter said he'd been doing fibre broadband until recently and a six months wait was perfectly normal, there are no staff to do it. (It took six months to get the smart meter fitted and running.)
And, to be fair to Openreach, it must cost £1000 to dig up the pavement and run a cable to my house. And they'll get - what - £5 per month for it.
All bonkers.
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...can't get fibre (to the premises) here, though the house that backs on to me could have it within (theoretically) a week. That's because it has recently been installed for many of the properties by "Connect Fibre" using the existing poles (augmented in a few places). My road is equipped entirely with subterranean copper, so, no poles, no fibre.
However, Virgin Media are as I write installing with, surprise, surprise, the subterranean areas as the prime target. They don't mind digging up the road (or more correctly, the pavement). They've been up one side, and it's mine next. Absolute chaos, and luckily we're away next week. They also managed to dig up the power connection to the house opposite (National Grid on site PDQ) with a four hour plus outage. ("That cable should have been much deeper").
As my ISP contract has literally just expired, it's 12 more months of FTTC for me, unless someone (Virgin?) wants to buy me out. (I'll be interested to see how long it takes before they actually offer a service).
The village as a whole is on the Openreach schedule for FTTP provision, with a near but undetermined date. I'd prefer to go with an Openreach-provided connection, since it will be "wholesaled" to multiple potential ISPs, which gives the opportunity to play them off at renewal time. (Virgin only connect to their own equipment).
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City Fibre have had most of the streets up around here this year to put in fibre. Both sides of every street. it took about 2 days outside our house.
They are not ISP themselves but there are currently 13 ISPs offering a service on the new fibre. I could already get it now if I wanted and the digging up was during April (I think). At the moment I pay Virgin £44 for a 250Mbps connection with their basic TV 100+ channel package*. One of the new providers offers 150Mbps for £25 but I'd have to take the plunge and move to getting my TV through the Firestick or Freesat or something, which is a lot less convenient that the TiVo. The time will come though...
* To be fair, Virgin wanted £68 last year and I managed to swing a deal for 18 months @£44. I'm expecting to renew somewhere around the same price point in July when the 18 months is up.
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Utilities - Fibre to the Property -Un-adopted Road - smokie
