Moving BT cable underground

[Field_of_Dreams]

Hoping someone can offer some advice regarding BT cable (fibre and copper) going underground.

 

I am about to get some electricity poles removed from my garden and we are going to run the cables underground. I have been onto UK power networks and they have been very helpful and we have agreed a solution and what section I will dig and what section they will dig to keep it FOC as they have no wayleave.

 

Some of the poles carry a BT copper line that I also want removed and we are soon to get a fibre line installed as part of a village scheme. I have spoken to open reach asking them for details about what depth trench and the type of conduit that needs to be in the trench for a fibre line and all they are willing to do is send out a surveyor at a cost of £350. The surveyor will then tell me how much it will all cost to re route it all. They don’t seem to understand or care that they are about to roll out fibre and I can do all the trench work myself as they just want to keep charging me.

I am hoping someone on here knows the specs for this type of work so I can do it myself and when the new fibre comes along I can ask them to run it in the conduit and hope they are willing to.

Worst case is I will just let them install it and re route it myself when they have left 🙂

 

I will ask an open reach engineer next time I see one but thought some pre advice might be beneficial.

 

Many thanks

[Conor]

Have some good news for you.

 

We had exactly the same scenario and I grabbed an open reach engineer that was installing a new fibre line to our neighbours house (there a pole serving about 6 houses right at the edge of our entrance). I asked him about how we'd move an existing copper cable to our other neighbour (too close to our roof) and getting a new ducted line to our house instead of the original overhead copper cable. 

 

Basically he said, prepare the duct to the base of the pole with a draw rope, go and apply for a new fibre broadband contract with any provider, open reach would then be sent out to install the new cable and would likely be able to use the duct provided. Same for moving the neighbours overhead cable. Says it's the cheapest and fastest way of doing it. 

[ProDave]

Purely heresay, but someone else once said install the duct and drawstring and then accidentally the overhead cable mysteriously snaps.  The pole must be leaning and putting too much strain on the cable. Encourage the replacement to go in the duct provided.

[Temp]

 

2 hours ago, Field_of_Dreams said:

Some of the poles carry a BT copper line that I also want removed and we are soon to get a fibre line installed as part of a village scheme. I have spoken to open reach asking them for details about what depth trench and the type of conduit that needs to be in the trench for a fibre line and all they are willing to do is send out a surveyor at a cost of £350. The surveyor will then tell me how much it will all cost to re route it all. They don’t seem to understand or care that they are about to roll out fibre and I can do all the trench work myself as they just want to keep charging me.

 

It's virtually impossible to get utilities to coordinate projects. You may find the electricity Co will come along and remove their cables but won't remove the poles as they still have BT lines on them. BT will want you to pay for them to remove the cables starting wth the surveyor to come and do a quote.  If the BT line you want to move underground only serves your house then you can try disconnecting it and telling the electric co it's an old one not in use but they might not take your word for it.  

 

As for reconnecting..  you can just lay duct with two draw ropes to the bottom of the nearest BT pole that's staying. One draw rope to be used to pull copper, the other fibre when that happens. 

 

If the BT cables you want to move serve other houses then you will have to either get Openreach to quote to move them or wait until they do the fibre project and remove the copper, although I suspect they won't remove them. 

 

You might want to adopt Aporoved Document R for the duct and entry into your house?..

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/high-speed-electronic-communications-networks-approved-document-r

 

 

[Temp]

3 hours ago, Conor said:

Basically he said, prepare the duct to the base of the pole with a draw rope, go and apply for a new fibre broadband contract with any provider, open reach would then be sent out to install the new cable and would likely be able to use the duct provided. Same for moving the neighbours overhead cable. Says it's the cheapest and fastest way of doing it. 

 

We installed cable from our house to the bottom of the pole and left a coil behind the pole long enough to reach the top. We had loads of problems getting them to schedule an engineer but when he came he was happy to use our cable. 

[Field_of_Dreams]

Thanks for all the info and the link to document R.

This makes me think it will be worth doing the trench and installing the ducting between the two poles that will remain.

Maybe a silly question, but does the ducting usually get exposed at each end or is it left underground and if it does get exposed, is there a specific way you avoid water getting in?

 

Hopefully they will make use of it when the fibre goes in. Failing that it will be a DIY job 🙂

[Temp]

The duct should run to within a few inches of the pole. Typically you end up with a cable and a draw rope coming out of the end of the duct. What I did was wrap about 12" of the cable with electrical  tape and pulled it back into the end of the duct. Then i squirted some expanding foam into the end of the duct creating a plug which I hope is only 6-8" into the duct.  It wouldnt be too hard to remove it if I wanted to pull another cable through.

 

I left the hole open until BT did the connection. They ran the cable up the pole and covered it with a galvanised cover strip from just below ground to several meters up the pole. I coiled up the excess draw rope and buried it in the hole.

[Simplysimon]

openreach have installed fibre at a pole near us and run it underground in front of our house to the next pole. we hadn't banked on going landline as it had a lousy speed and was going to stick with the mobile broadband we currently use as openreach were talking about years to connect fibre. as it's now there are the connection made at the nearest pole or do they connect mid run?

[Field_of_Dreams]

@TempThat makes sense. Thanks for the tip.