FTTP price - too good to be true?

[Andehh]

We knocked down an old bungalow and are rebuilding it.

 

I raised a new build connection with BT Openreach a few months ago, who quoted £567 for FTTP. The village we are in is ''lobbying'' for Gov funded support to bring FTTP to the village, with me ''committing'' £1000 along with lots of other houses to show we would be serious if the application was progressed (when we would pay the £1000) ....so I assumed this £567 would be to lay ducting and connect our property, via fibre, to the BT Pole that is about 5ft from our boundary. With this i mind I declined, as builder will lay ducting for free and I dont want to spend £560 when the village is prob years & years away from getting anywhere with fibre to the village.

 

However....Openreach rang to chase up the quote and told me very clearly that the £567 would be full FTTP to the property, and they would manage the rest of the fibre connection off site....which sounds to good to be true???

 

I am now worried about losing out on this good deal, but we are 5 weeks from moving in. Openreach said I sign the contract within 30 days engineers would plan it all out, give me timing (which they couldn't tell me how long i would be....) and then FTTP would be installed. We have no mobile signal in the property & both WFH so really need internet ASAP when we move in.

 

The alternative/what I was going with is standard Sky Broadband, and they have Bt Openreach planned to pull a new copper cable through, and get us all connected with copper by 2nd June.

 

Any thoughts on how best to proceed? I am tempted to pay the £567 and try and get an engineer to confirm timings and details and ALSO get Sky to get openreach to run Copper...and hope they don't realise I am 'double dipping'. Or if they do, Sky have a 48 hour before installation cooling off period, so I can pull out there worse case scenario.

 

Any thoughts on this situation?

 

Thanks

 

[Kelvin]

Somewhat confusing situation. You know the village doesn’t have fibre but Openreach have confirmed you can get FTTP? I’d go ahead and see what happens. You’ll get a refund if they’ve made a mistake. 
 

We can’t get any cable based internet connection where we are so have gone with Starlink. It’s dear but really fast. 

Edited April 29, 2023 by Kelvin

[PeterW]

56 minutes ago, Andehh said:

[…]BT Openreach a few months ago, who quoted £567 for FTTP […]
 

[…]so I assumed this £567 would be to lay ducting and connect our property, via fibre, to the BT Pole that is about 5ft from our boundary […]

[…] Openreach rang to chase up the quote and told me very clearly that the £567 would be full FTTP to the property, and they would manage the rest of the fibre connection off site....[…]

 

 

There something wrong with those statements… full fibre on FTTP is an underground product not a pole based product, so what they are probably offering is FTTC at your nearest cabinet which could be over 2 miles away. Ask OR for the line capacity they are installing - I would expect that it is max 85Mbps which is overhead copper rate limiting. I would also go with one of the providers who offer a speed guarantee.

 

For reference we paid £82 connection fee for a property for a new catenary from the pole to a property, so I think you have had a quote for FTTP but will be getting FTTC. 

 

[RichardL]

FWIW
There are alternative install models - I've FFTP over poles / rural area. 
Its deff. FTTP - the fibre termination/modem etc inside the house running at nominal 900Meg.

[dpmiller]

Ummm, all fibre round here is overhead.

[Andehh]

Thanks all, the ducting is within our property. Original bungalow was connected to a pole in the verge just outside our boundary, so I assumed they would connect this pole underground back to the cabinet for FTTP.

 

On the call I did stipulate FTTC is in place, and if all I was paying for was for them to run fibre from my house to the pole, then connect it to copper until village gets FTTP then I was not interested... she totally assured me full FTTP.

 

Still sounds to good to be true, but I think I will spend the money and then if they don't provide the service of full FTTP demand money back. Ill keep progressing with Sky in the back ground as our fall back.

[saveasteading]

In our village BT reps have offered all sorts of services and speeds, anything for a contract, and then not been able to fulfill most of them.

 

[ProDave]

I would just go for a new broadband connection, which should be free.  I think you actually do that just by signing up with BT and paying a nominal connection fee of about £60 and they take care of dealing with OR.

 

Then when / if FTTP becomes available then upgrade.  At least you will have some form of connection.

 

Open Reach are notoriously hard to deal with, and their database is WRONG.  It says FTTP BB is available here where all we had was a very long bit of wet string connecting us to the exchange and very slow broadband.  We now have fast wireless (not mobile phone) delivered broadband by an independant supplier.

[Temp]

5 hours ago, Andehh said:

Thanks all, the ducting is within our property. Original bungalow was connected to a pole in the verge just outside our boundary, so I assumed they would connect this pole underground back to the cabinet for FTTP.

 

If its really close to your boundary I would get your builder to run a duct with a 3/8" or 9mm poly draw rope in it and a BT cable which I think is CW1326. Leave excess cable coiled at the bottom of the pole (long enough to reach the top and a few extra meters).

 

And pay the £500 for FTTP. 

 

When the engineer turn up the can either pull fiber through using the draw rope or hook you up for regular broadband if they have made a mistake.