BT/Openreach New Connection

[Bitpipe]

24 minutes ago, ProDave said:

I do like the lateral thinking of applying for a new connection to get the allowance, then abandoning the old connection.  I wonder if the new house will need a different name or address to make that work?

 

Worldwibewbs, every new connections is given an allowance of something over £3000 and you will only get charged if your connection costs more than that.
 

 

They do have different addresses as the current connection is 'site office' and is classed as a temporary connection. The fact that it was previously a residential connection is hopefully immaterial 

 

Main reason I did it is to avoid a break in service. When we moved the wire from old house to the container, they treated it as a house move so did a cease on the line and the re-connection followed a week or two later.

[worldwidewebs]

2 hours ago, ProDave said:

I do like the lateral thinking of applying for a new connection to get the allowance, then abandoning the old connection.  I wonder if the new house will need a different name or address to make that work?

 

Worldwibewbs, every new connections is given an allowance of something over £3000 and you will only get charged if your connection costs more than that.
 

This is all the information I've been able to get:

 

Traffic management £1917.70

Civils entailing Core Drill into Network Box duct road crossing to site boundary £3,624.19

Cabling   £875.42

Total   £ 6,417.31 + VAT

Material £ 70.67

Final      £ 6,487.98

 

No mention of any allowance

[Gone West]

I was told by Openreach that because I already have an overhead line to the existing bungalow, which is to be demolished, I would have to pay the full amount for an underground supply to the replacement new house. If I have an overhead line to the new house then I qualify for the £3400 subsidy.

[worldwidewebs]

I queried it with OR and this was their response:

 

This is called a universal service obligation whereby everyone must be able to have access to fixed line telephony. It would apply when you ordered a circuit only. The circuit would be provided overhead, and not underground and a pole would have to be installed to carry the overhead service and because of other utilities in the proximity no doubt this would be in a location within your land. Because the pole would be installed to serve you there would not be any wayleaves required. The £3400 would be allocated for this process. Your initial request was for an underground feed to the property which would not form part of a universal service obligation. Hope this clarifies for you. I will be in touch as soon as I have spoken to the head of region with regards to any reductions we can make to the cost.

 

[ProDave]

4 minutes ago, worldwidewebs said:

I queried it with OR and this was their response:

 

This is called a universal service obligation whereby everyone must be able to have access to fixed line telephony. It would apply when you ordered a circuit only. The circuit would be provided overhead, and not underground and a pole would have to be installed to carry the overhead service and because of other utilities in the proximity no doubt this would be in a location within your land. Because the pole would be installed to serve you there would not be any wayleaves required. The £3400 would be allocated for this process. Your initial request was for an underground feed to the property which would not form part of a universal service obligation. Hope this clarifies for you. I will be in touch as soon as I have spoken to the head of region with regards to any reductions we can make to the cost.

 

Are you REALLY so set against an overhead feed to the tune of over £7K?

 

I would take the free overhead line any day.
 

[worldwidewebs]

Just now, ProDave said:

Are you REALLY so set against an overhead feed to the tune of over £7K?
 

Yes.

 

Also, because of an overhead electric line running across the front of the property, we would have to have a very tall pole 4m inside our plot so that the line could go from the existing pole to the new one (above the electric) and then on to the house. It would look terrible

[Gone West]

13 hours ago, worldwidewebs said:

I queried it with OR and this was their response:

 

This is called a universal service obligation whereby everyone must be able to have access to fixed line telephony. It would apply when you ordered a circuit only. The circuit would be provided overhead, and not underground and a pole would have to be installed to carry the overhead service and because of other utilities in the proximity no doubt this would be in a location within your land. Because the pole would be installed to serve you there would not be any wayleaves required. The £3400 would be allocated for this process. Your initial request was for an underground feed to the property which would not form part of a universal service obligation. Hope this clarifies for you. I will be in touch as soon as I have spoken to the head of region with regards to any reductions we can make to the cost.

 

 

This is the first time I've heard of a response from Openreach which is the same as I have had! I don't want a pole in my garden either and have decided not to have an Openreach supply. I am going to use a Fixed Wireless Broadband connection provided by Vfast. I have had nothing but hassle from Openreach.

 

[worldwidewebs]

I've been looking at wireless broadband too but there's not much that I've found that covers my area at the moment.

 

I know I will be able to get OR's quote down though. I will arrange my own traffic management which will save 1000 -1500 and I think I will be able to get some sort of discount off OR, although nothing definite

 

Edited to add - there is 1 definite wireless broadband available and 1 hopefully in place by the time we move in. Unless I manage to get the OR price down, I'll be going down this route

Edited October 30, 2016 by worldwidewebs

[ProDave]

This is an interesting point.

 

At the moment i consider a landline necessary to get broadband, and because we run 2 businesses from home a landline is pretty essential.

 

We only get a weak 2g phone signal here, but with a booster and outside aerial that is usable ion the house but doesn't solve the broadband.

 

Because we are out in the sticks and the broadband we do get is slow and prone to dropping out, the local community are looking to set up their own broadband network delivered to the home by wifi.  Perhaps in a few years when we retire, and the need for a landline does not seem so important, then a mobile phone for voice and this wifi broadband might suit our needs an we could drop the landline altogether.
 

[Gone West]

Vfast also do VoIP and you can keep your old number.

[Bitpipe]

Openreach engineer came today to install the new circuit and I quickly explained that overhead was not an option and that ducting between basement and boundary had been installed - terminating roughly opposite the existing pole across the lane.

 

He was fine with this, did not try and push the overhead drop wire option but now needs to get a surveyor to site early next week to progress any further.

 

He agrees that it's best to quantify that option before getting my own guy to run duct to the pole - as said before, he'd be more than happy to work with duct already in place but he did tell of a few local builds where he ducting had got blocked or was to spec and it was a nightmare pulling the cable through. Duct also needs to be touching the pole itself.

 

He did warn that they'll likely suggest the option of a pole on my side of the road to the duct but I've already ruled that out as we have further works to do to the boundary and a pole would impede those.

 

Last nugget of info - apparently OR are defaulting to single pair drop wires to minimise the amount of redundant copper in the network - with the widespread adoption of broadband, very few homes need more than one pair.

 

We plan to have at least two lines so he will need to request 5 or 10 pair cable for our job - may well just drop it off and have us pull it to the pole if we go down the DIY option.

 

 

 

[Temp]

2 hours ago, Bitpipe said:

he did tell of a few local builds where he ducting had got blocked or was to spec and it was a nightmare pulling the cable through.

 

As I suggested earlier, you could put your own cable and backup draw rope in the duct. You can do that before putting the duct in the ground.

[Bitpipe]

2 hours ago, Temp said:

 

As I suggested earlier, you could put your own cable and backup draw rope in the duct. You can do that before putting the duct in the ground.

 

I've already got the site duct in (draw rope only) but may do this for the road crossing.

[worldwidewebs]

21 hours ago, Bitpipe said:

Last nugget of info - apparently OR are defaulting to single pair drop wires to minimise the amount of redundant copper in the network - with the widespread adoption of broadband, very few homes need more than one pair.

 

Might be a regional thing. My OR guy said they were putting 5 pair in in case it was needed in the future

[ProDave]

There are definitely regional variations.  Up here they still give you SWA phone cable and tell you to direct bury it in the ground. Other places use soft cable and put it in ducts. (the only place I used a duct was under the road crossing)
 

[Bitpipe]

I had the local OR surveyor come round today, nice chap. He got out his wheel and did some sums. These are the key facts - 

 

Per Webby's previous feedback from OR, the £3400 allocation is for pole/overhead only if that's what everyone else is using. As we're requesting duct when overhead would suffice from a network perspective, the allowance does not apply so we pay for all the extra work.

• Road crossings are £100/m
• Soft digging is £50/m 
• 5 pair duct cable is £5/m (including pulling through).
• Survey fee, should we proceed is £250

All meterage are rounded up and VAT added to the above.

 

So, from where the ground-worker terminated the BT duct on our site, its about 7M to the kerb (bit of a dog leg as the duct end is not in line with the pole) and another meter in the verge to the pole. If I were to get the GW to straighten the dog leg on our side it would be 5m of road crossing. 45m of cable needed plus an extra 5 for the pole = 50m.

 

So that makes it £700 + £50 + £250 + VAT = £1200, plus the cable (£300 inc.VAT).

 

My man wanted £900 for the same job - would need to source my own cable but TLC do it at £0.45 / m (CW 1128 standard) so that's a princely £27!

 

OR man warned that the contractors are great at finding extra chargeable work to do so to make sure that all of my duct is well exposed in advance - his recommendation was to get my man to do it all (inc. pulling the cable) and just get the OR engineer to hook up either side - I just need to wait for his formal quote, reject it and cancel the order. Then wait 30 days for it to go off the system and order a new connection again.

 

I also got the surveyor to pop across road and talk to neighbour on the status of the verge that the pole sits on. Said neighbour has never really spoken to us since we moved in 5 years ago so I was never that keen doing it myself. Anyway, it's LA owned so while they maintain the hedge on it, they can't block what we want to do.

 

So, aside from the vanity paying £900 odd quid to avoid an overhead cable, we appear to have a clear way forward.

 

Will continue to update as we proceed.

 

 

[Bitpipe]

On 29/10/2016 at 09:42, ProDave said:

This is an interesting point.

 

At the moment i consider a landline necessary to get broadband, and because we run 2 businesses from home a landline is pretty essential.

 

We only get a weak 2g phone signal here, but with a booster and outside aerial that is usable ion the house but doesn't solve the broadband.

 

Because we are out in the sticks and the broadband we do get is slow and prone to dropping out, the local community are looking to set up their own broadband network delivered to the home by wifi.  Perhaps in a few years when we retire, and the need for a landline does not seem so important, then a mobile phone for voice and this wifi broadband might suit our needs an we could drop the landline altogether.
 

Have you looked at the satellite options? You get d/l from the dish and use the phone network for u/l.

 

As most domestic internet traffic is d/l biased, it can work quite well - an old boss of mine who lived in the sticks used this.

 

A quick google suggested this, sure there are others.

 

http://avonlinebroadband.com/choose-your-package?infinity=ict2~net~gaw~ar~157527628784~kw~satellite broadband~mt~e~cmp~UK_Generic~ag~satellite broadband&gclid=CO7717q9ntACFUcQ0wodeQsLag

[Bitpipe]

On 10/11/2016 at 15:12, Bitpipe said:

I had the local OR surveyor come round today, nice chap. He got out his wheel and did some sums. These are the key facts - 

 

Per Webby's previous feedback from OR, the £3400 allocation is for pole/overhead only if that's what everyone else is using. As we're requesting duct when overhead would suffice from a network perspective, the allowance does not apply so we pay for all the extra work.

• Road crossings are £100/m
• Soft digging is £50/m 
• 5 pair duct cable is £5/m (including pulling through).
• Survey fee, should we proceed is £250

All meterage are rounded up and VAT added to the above.

 

So, from where the ground-worker terminated the BT duct on our site, its about 7M to the kerb (bit of a dog leg as the duct end is not in line with the pole) and another meter in the verge to the pole. If I were to get the GW to straighten the dog leg on our side it would be 5m of road crossing. 45m of cable needed plus an extra 5 for the pole = 50m.

 

So that makes it £700 + £50 + £250 + VAT = £1200, plus the cable (£300 inc.VAT).

 

My man wanted £900 for the same job - would need to source my own cable but TLC do it at £0.45 / m (CW 1128 standard) so that's a princely £27!

 

OR man warned that the contractors are great at finding extra chargeable work to do so to make sure that all of my duct is well exposed in advance - his recommendation was to get my man to do it all (inc. pulling the cable) and just get the OR engineer to hook up either side - I just need to wait for his formal quote, reject it and cancel the order. Then wait 30 days for it to go off the system and order a new connection again.

 

I also got the surveyor to pop across road and talk to neighbour on the status of the verge that the pole sits on. Said neighbour has never really spoken to us since we moved in 5 years ago so I was never that keen doing it myself. Anyway, it's LA owned so while they maintain the hedge on it, they can't block what we want to do.

 

So, aside from the vanity paying £900 odd quid to avoid an overhead cable, we appear to have a clear way forward.

 

Will continue to update as we proceed.

 

 

 

Inching closer - ground-worker finally arrived this week to dig across road and lay duct to the pole. All going smoothly until neighbour starts fussing and calls council. Groundworker had apparently not got the necessary permissions (only told me that we didn't need road closing permit as it's a dead end and we're second last). Man with clipboard subsequently arrives and confirms what's going on - he was quite shirty with the labour but very polite to me. Looks like groundworker needs to fill a form and pay a fee - essentially to warranty the work for 2 years. Better not try and stick that onto me as we'd already agreed a fee for the works.

 

Anyway, cable pulled through and BT scheduled for Thursday to provide new connection, we'll disconnect the drop wire to the container at the same time.

 

Can't wait as the power to the container (where the current BT hub and powerline are) keeps tripping out in the kiost RCD - no idea why but that's another problem to fix...

 

[ProDave]

I know my neighbour used a non approved contractor to make his road crossing, but nobody complained and he got away with it. It was left for a week just filled in with hardcore before they came back and tarmaced it.
 

[Bitpipe]

Just now, ProDave said:

I know my neighbour used a non approved contractor to make his road crossing, but nobody complained and he got away with it. It was left for a week just filled in with hardcore before they came back and tarmaced it.
 

 

Our guy backfilled the fairly shallow trench with crush, compacted and then concreted to within a few inches of the top. Has currently finished with Bitmac and will come back in new year to properly finish with hot rolled tarmac. Some of the virgin media work further up the road is shocking by comparison, has already dropped creating a rut.

[Bitpipe]

Well we're finally live. Went smoothly, Openreach guy was happy to move the voice only second line to the house while installing the new voice & broadband lines and remove the drop wire from the container / site office.

 

As we'd done all of the internal phone wiring, he was only a few minutes connecting the relevant pairs in the incoming cable to the electricians internal wiring. He then connected two master sockets. These have a new slimline design, gone is the large box. However they are quite difficult to work with as a result, especially when connecting extension wiring.

 

Then came the wait for the hoist - the OR guys have a very strict policy on climbing poles  - they can be fired if they break it. Therefore most older poles can only be accessed by hoist and they only have one or two of these per area so there was a good few hours wait for the hoist to arrive and run my cable up the pole to make the connection and remove the drop wire.

 

Really pleased I went the extra distance to get a neater solution  - just need the broadband speed to ramp up over the next few days and to get the data rack comissioned so the TV, Xbox etc can get hard wired in.

 

[Bitpipe]

And just in time for xmas we got the data rack cabled and I picked up a 24 port switch for about £70 so the TV, XBOX and our office PCs are off the WiFi. Speed is ok at the 20Mb mark, not amazing but good enough for what we need. Will initiate a regrade again in a few weeks, the last one upped the speed from 12 to 20Mb.

 

Neighbour still has a bee in his bonnet over the trench, called me today and had a good moan over why we didn't mole across the road and even why we couldn't live with a drop wire. Followed it up with an email with the same content..

 

[PeterW]

On 15 December 2016 at 22:09, Bitpipe said:

As we'd done all of the internal phone wiring, he was only a few minutes connecting the relevant pairs in the incoming cable to the electricians internal wiring. He then connected two master sockets.

 

@Bitpipe Quick question - what did you use for the internal wiring ..? Openreach are saying a drop wire is fine but where the wires will enter is not where I would want a master box. Did you run  your wires externally for OR to connect to..? 

[Bitpipe]

Just now, PeterW said:

 

@Bitpipe Quick question - what did you use for the internal wiring ..? Openreach are saying a drop wire is fine but where the wires will enter is not where I would want a master box. Did you run  your wires externally for OR to connect to..? 

 

Sparky ran standard 4 pair telephone cable from where the BT wire entered the basement and ran it up to the loft (passing through another BT box) where we originally planned to have the master socket and where all the cat6 cables terminate. This was also our plan B location should we need a drop wire vs the ducted option. Another 4 pair cable ran back down to the study. We have two lines, voice only for house and a voice DSL that I use for work (and expense so need it billed separately).

 

We had BT install the broadband master in the loft and the voice only master in that second basement BT box. When we hooked up the Smarthub, the wifi signal wasn't good enough so sparky moved the broadband BT master socket back to the basement, right next to the incoming BT line, a bit of rejigging with the interior cable allowed this line to exit in the study which is where the Smart Hub now lives, ditto for the voice only line - we have a nifty MK euro module with two BT sockets side by side. This also took a bit of length out of the internal phone wiring circuits which wont hurt performance.

 

It's also good practice to have the BT master as soon as their line enters the house as this is used for testing performance if there are ever issues and this way they can't blame your internal wiring.

 

So I'd plan to have the Master where the drop wire will enter and then run multi pair (for redundancy, future proofing) from this to your desired location. The BT masters have internal connections for extension wiring which they will happily connect. if you're not planning to hang anything off the master, don't get a face plate with a built in filter otherwise you can't locate your smart hub further down stream. Just ask for a standard one (or even be cheeky and ask for one of each) and then use the micro filter that ships with the hub at its final location 

[Bitpipe]

Had my electrician round yesterday and he was telling me that on one of his jobs, a garden new build in central Henley, BT wanted £4.5k for service provision, even though the house that the new build is beside has a drop wire from pole!

 

Also saw this today, will be interesting if it makes any difference...

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39228115

 

BT strikes deal to legally separate Openreach division

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