I've booked FTTP upgrade (Vodafone) for early Oct.

In the meantime I booked VOIP with Voipfone (an extremely helpful
company too!) so the landline number can be separated from the
Vodafone FTTP (I won't use their router, so won't get a POTS socket).

And this has come up in the BT system under our landline # and
postcode. No idea how old the info is, but it is correct.

The present copper runs to our house from a BT pole, via three trees,
of which one is on our land (and we could truncate it) while the other
two are on others' land.

The trees will eventually rip the copper cable off.

I believe the neighbours can't stop us doing necessary tree surgery
but could be wrong. There is also quite a lot of it.

What are the rules for BT OR doing tree cutting?

And in what situation would BT OR route underground? Here they would
need to cross a minor tarmac road. One of their guys (they are daily
in the village doing stuff) told me they will do it for 10k, with a
smile... Obviously I much prefer the underground option. I already
have a 7cm duct under the drive (with a rope in it), all the way from
inside the garage, to the edge of the road...

The duct was originally intended for 3 phase but won't be used for
that immediately as it doesn't meet the Power Networks spec, so we
would have a meter at the road edge and after that, according to UK
PN, nobody gives a toss how you do the wiring.

Peter wrote:
> I've booked FTTP upgrade (Vodafone) for early Oct.

[snip]

Some experience:

In my village <https://countybroadband.co.uk/> have been pushing their
product since before Covid, and have installed some ducts. They have
also run some fibre in these, in some Openreach ducts, and strung some
fibre from the Openreach poles. But as far as I can tell they haven't
connected anybody up yet.

At the beginning of this year Openreach strung fibres from their poles.

The fibres look the same, about 6mm diamweter, black with a yellow
stripe. The poles have notices on them "Fibre Overhead".

I ordered FTTP from Zen and Openreach connected it on 6 March. One
technician, plugged a ready-made fibre into a socket at the top of the
nearby pole, ran fibre from the ONT, and joined these fibres in a square
gray splice box on the exterior house wall. Took him about an hour.

By contrast, my sister (near Bradford) has been told her FTTP
installation would involve a site survey and a second visit to carry out
the work. I will try to find out whether there are overhead fibres
already installed.

So my question is whether you have fibres cables on the existing poles?

Has anybody nearby had FTTP connected? The evidence would be an
external grey box like this, known as the CSP. See:

<https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/07/openreach-uk-trials-new-approach-to-fttp-broadband-installs.html>

Googling for "fttp csp picture" finds lots of pictures.

If there are overhead fibres, I suspect Openreach will run a fibre from
the nearest pole. Probably it is worth asking the technicians you see.

Others here will tell you about tree cutting.

--
Graham J

>I ordered FTTP from Zen and Openreach connected it on 6 March. One
>technician, plugged a ready-made fibre into a socket at the top of the
>nearby pole, ran fibre from the ONT, and joined these fibres in a square
>gray splice box on the exterior house wall. Took him about an hour.

Relating to previous comments about Zen where people could not
understand why I moved away from them, I have found my posts here from
a few years ago. Basically their customer service was nonexistent,
plus they were implementing a hard 50GB/m limit and with problems
getting the connection reinstated once one paid them extra money.
Maybe they overhauled their CS since those days.

>By contrast, my sister (near Bradford) has been told her FTTP
>installation would involve a site survey and a second visit to carry out
>the work. I will try to find out whether there are overhead fibres
>already installed.
>
>So my question is whether you have fibres cables on the existing poles?

Yes, fibre is around here and on the poles. But no poles are a "line
of sight" of our house, without cutting out a load of foliage.

>Has anybody nearby had FTTP connected? The evidence would be an
>external grey box like this, known as the CSP. See:
>
><https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/07/openreach-uk-trials-new-approach-to-fttp-broadband-installs.html>
>
>Googling for "fttp csp picture" finds lots of pictures.

Yes; it looks like a cow's udder :)

>If there are overhead fibres, I suspect Openreach will run a fibre from
>the nearest pole. Probably it is worth asking the technicians you see.

I am sure they will do that but how? I don't think they will do it via
thick tree foliage.

>Others here will tell you about tree cutting.

Peter wrote:

[snip]

> Relating to previous comments about Zen where people could not
> understand why I moved away from them, I have found my posts here from
> a few years ago. Basically their customer service was nonexistent,
> plus they were implementing a hard 50GB/m limit

That was their entry-level offering before Covid. It was clearly
explained, and it was easy to buy additional download volumes.

> and with problems
> getting the connection reinstated once one paid them extra money.
> Maybe they overhauled their CS since those days.

All I can say is that your experience is highly unusual. The reason
everybody else goes to Zen is because of the high quality of their CS.

[snip]

> I am sure they will do that but how? I don't think they will do it via
> thick tree foliage.

Googling finds this:

<https://community.bt.com/t5/BT-Fibre-broadband/FTTP-What-the-maximum-cable-run-from-the-pole-to-house-and/td-p/2204005>

.... so 68 metres.

But others suggest up to 350 metres.

Somebody else will be along soon with their contribution.

--
Graham J

Peter <occassionally-confused@nospam.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> I ordered FTTP from Zen and Openreach connected it on 6 March. One
>> technician, plugged a ready-made fibre into a socket at the top of the
>> nearby pole, ran fibre from the ONT, and joined these fibres in a square
>> gray splice box on the exterior house wall. Took him about an hour.
>
> Relating to previous comments about Zen where people could not
> understand why I moved away from them, I have found my posts here from
> a few years ago. Basically their customer service was nonexistent,
> plus they were implementing a hard 50GB/m limit and with problems
> getting the connection reinstated once one paid them extra money.
> Maybe they overhauled their CS since those days.
>
>> By contrast, my sister (near Bradford) has been told her FTTP
>> installation would involve a site survey and a second visit to carry out
>> the work. I will try to find out whether there are overhead fibres
>> already installed.
>>
>> So my question is whether you have fibres cables on the existing poles?
>
> Yes, fibre is around here and on the poles. But no poles are a "line
> of sight" of our house, without cutting out a load of foliage.

I got stuck behind an open reach truck installing a new pole beside a farm
track. It only took them 10-15 minutes!

If there are problems getting clean run to your property maybe they can be
prevailed upon to put a new pole in?

It’s ORs job to give you a connection “fit for purpose” so I’d ask them how
they plan to do that.

Tim

--
Please don't feed the trolls

Just a progress report.

BT OR installed the FTTP, running it through a load of trees (mostly
not ours) and when I said "surely they will grow and rip out the
fibre" the man said it's not his problem.

They also made a really bad mess. Funnily enough they then send me a
Trustpilot link to report my great experience, so I did :) :) Within a
day or two I got an email from TP saying I need to provide evidence
because BT are not happy, so I uploaded photos. Then some worried
sounding guy from BT OR emailed to say it will be "fixed".

How, I have no idea. For the house next door, they ran an extra pole,
but our installer was in a rush.

It works fine though.

On 13/10/2023 16:28, Peter wrote:
> Just a progress report.
>
> BT OR installed the FTTP, running it through a load of trees (mostly
> not ours) and when I said "surely they will grow and rip out the
> fibre" the man said it's not his problem.
>
> They also made a really bad mess.

Was it BT OR, or their oft used contractors, Kellys or Quinn ?

--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

It was OR themselves. The van, etc.

Mark Carver <mark.carver@invalid.invalid> wrote

>On 13/10/2023 16:28, Peter wrote:
>> Just a progress report.
>>
>> BT OR installed the FTTP, running it through a load of trees (mostly
>> not ours) and when I said "surely they will grow and rip out the
>> fibre" the man said it's not his problem.
>>
>> They also made a really bad mess.
>
>Was it BT OR, or their oft used contractors, Kellys or Quinn ?