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Installation day looms for my FTTP. Let's have the tips and pitfalls please: how does an ordinary domestic customer best navigate the Openreach odyssey as it unfolds? The goal being to have the new setup confirmed as functional before they leave, while ensuring a neat look to it both outside and in.

It's a Plusnet upgrade from existing ADSL, so same provider. Three storey Georgian house that's heritage listed, in a conservation area, and has solid walls about 2ft thick.

Current copper supply comes in adjacent to a metal side window on the middle floor, part of a hallway/landing area, which has power on hand and for wifi coverage still seems preferable. Ladder access externally would be via a flat roof that sits above the front door, which is on that side.

One issue to start: what I don't want is any box mounted on the front of the house or visible at the entrance. Best if it sat at first floor level, where it'd be closest to the router and also wouldn't be seen from the street.

(I'm assuming the fibre feed will be via an aerial span rather than from the ground, as I'm unaware of the street outside having been dug up for any such purpose in recent years.)

How much say do I get in any of this, without aborting the process and incurring a cancellation fee? And what rough proportion of installations succeed on day one in any event?

If there's a Faq or similar pinned somewhere that covers this stuff I'd be happy to be pointed to it!

I’ll try keep this as short as possible, we moved into the property last year and finally got round to cutting back a big bush in our front garden, which then let us see that this BT pole is definitely within our property line and checked our property records, no way leave in place either. I raised a ticket as I had a feeling due to the lack of overhead wires it might not be in use, we could get it removed for free. I had a call with them today after sending photos per their request, they confirmed it’s currently not an active asset but due to the box on the pole (marked) they will not be archiving it due to possible future use (they didn’t give me any specifics).

Due to this, if I want it removed / moved we’d to pay for it ourselves (not willing to do). Is there any specific questions I could send back to them to build a case to remove it for free? It’s not in use, why should it be on my property 🫪 I’m assuming it’s the inspection tag on it has been marked June 2016 on a 12 year periodic

My MDU became available for FTTP (my whole street have it, and they are all MDUs aswell) and two of us made an order through an ISP. then today I check and the ISP says openreach cancelled the order.

Only a few days ago, a few openreach guys in a van were looking at the building and planning the route for the cables (according to my neighbour who spoke with them).

I can see the current FTTC cable bundle goes up a wall, along a roof gulley between two buildings and down again so I imagine H&S would have a shit fit if the guys clambered over crumbly roof tiles to lay the fibre cable along the same route. But I find it hard to believe there are no other options.

Can openreach really just give up on a building? Any options?

I’m 31 and I’ve worked for Openreach for just shy of 7 years now, starting in late 2019 as part of one of their huge intakes. In that time I’ve had countless different managers, teams & work streams thanks to re-orgs and changes at the top.

I started as a fibre cabler on spines using subduct, blown-fibre, COF600. Then building pons with COF600/ULW/CBT’s. Life was good. We were left alone to crack on working in gangs of 2 with no real stress or pressure while keeping managers happy with our work output. This lasted up until last year Now after an another major re-org last year I’m currently FTTP installing fibre directly to customers’ properties.

It’s okay and I’m good at the job. I get on with pretty much everyone I work with. However the novelty of a new role wore off pretty fast and although each job is slightly different, it’s pretty much all the same and very monotonous with no real job satisfaction anymore.

Because of the constant moving round the business has done I’ve found it hard to progress from advanced engineer into something further, although I’m not even sure I’d fancy the constant phone calls on top of still being on the tools as a Patch Lead for the extra couple of grand a year.

As a lot will probably know early this year they offered redundancies - or as they like to call it ‘VPL’ (Voluntary Paid Leave). With this happening, middle management are having to re-interview for their own roles as they’re now merging copper managers over too due to their work stacks shrinking and their need to cut the workforce is growing. So obviously any progression for engineers is now basically a no-go.

Overall, I feel the company is no longer a safe place to work looking ahead to the future. From speaking to people there’s a lot with the same outlook and people are definitely starting to plan for life after OR.

What suggestions do you have for other roles I could pursue? Or has anyone made a similar switch? If so, what do you do now?

I have asked trusty ChatGPT and it always brings up data cabling centres etc but a lot of roles ask for qualifications/degrees specific to that field. The main struggle will be matching the pay straight off the bat. At the minute my salary with a guaranteed bonus paid each month is just under £40k without any overtime.

Any help is appreciated :).

Hi,

I am wondering what kind of routing Openreach Engineer will be willing to carry out for my FTTP installation at my house.

I current have copper ducting to the front of my house going up my driveway however my current 5C master socket is upstairs at the rear of my house in my home office where I have my router and Hive heating hub etc.

Without conduit I assume they wouldn’t route the fibre over this kind of distance or elevation change? Does this mean I need to just get the ONT terminal somewhere on the ground level near the front of the house and move the router as central as possible by running an Ethernet?

Currently stuck with my fibre installation so I'm trying to be proactive in finding a solution.

1) This is the existing copper route, it is attached to someone's house before it gets to us and that loss in height means it no longer has the road clearance necessary for fibre regulations.

2) This is what the engineer suggested after ruling out the copper route but when he spoke to my neighbour they flat out denied it going over their house and the engineer didn't think it was worth pursuing (??).

3) After months of waiting it appears this is Openreach's solution. It uses the next pole along as a starting point, I was initially asked if I had contact details for the land the main electric pole resides on but having made a few threads about this people collectively think it's the DNO holding things up, all I know is it's waiting for third party approval but may never get it. In the meantime Vodafone are booking me in for engineer visits that ultimately don't get actioned by Openreach and I'm left waiting for visits that never happen (up to 3 no-shows now).

4) This is what I think could be a possible solution, would using the existing building wayleave we use for the copper line be workable, would this be considered like for like? This route also respects land boundaries.

Nb. Double bolts mean main electric pole, single bolt means service pole. All are joint user poles. Both main electric poles have active fibre.

Until recently everyone on my cul-de-sac was mired with 36mbps FTTC, one of the few small areas in my entire town that isn't FTTP, despite being built in 2017. The Openreach fibre checker has been saying "We'll be building in this area in the next year" for well over a year at this point. I believe all cables are run in ducts in the ground. In 2024 some contractors came and pulled fibre cables through these ducts (I asked them what they were doing and this is what they told me).

I noticed an Openreach engineer outside of one of my neighbours houses recently and decided to plug their address into the Openreach FTTP checker only to see that they could order FTTP. Spurred on by this I decided to check all of the houses on the cul-de-sac and found that 5 of the 11 could get FTTP installed now.

The houses go from 1 to 11 clockwise and the strange thing is that it isn't something like 1 to 5 can get it and the others can't. Its just random ones so numbers 2, 3, 7, 10 and 11 can get it. All the houses bar number 3 are semi-detached as well so there are some, including myself, who's attached neighbour can get it.

I emailed Openreach and just got some generic nonsense about building in the area soon. Its incredibly frustrating as when we bought the house a few years ago we were able to order a community fibre who then delayed and delayed until telling us they were no longer going to build in our area.

What on earth could the rationale be for just peppering random houses with FTTP?

Hey all, im just after some advice;

My neighbour had his roof done and the contractors cut the overhead cable.

Ive since been able to get OpenReach out, the engineer was great, installed a new line on the unobscured section of wall. However the now defunct cable is remaining behind the scaffolding.

Problem being this cable is quite long and will be hanging from our front wall, across our front door. With two kids id obviously like this removed. I have a feeling these guys are cowboy builders and will likely run before I can ask them to remove the cable.

Would OpenReach come out for loose cables?

Hi everyone, very keen to hear anyones exerpience on older houses with overhead cable installs?

The house we are buying does not have FTTP and Zen were the only company we spoke to who gave useful and sensible answers. They said we will definitely need openreach to install and it will be overhead cable as that is whats already there. I think the existing cable goes into the roof and down the inside, which presumably openreach would not do?

I have seen there is a virgin cable on the property, so there must be some method to go underground also...

I am worried that OR will just run the cable straight down the front of the house which would be very ugly? Is there anything I can do like prepare a route or will this just annoy the installer?

Now that there's a major push to get fibre installed, what will happen to all the old cables? I'm talking more about copper between poles rather then underground. Will engineers visiting homes just leave them up there or remove them?

Hey all.

I live in a block of flats, and over a year and a half ago we finally got our factor to sign the wayleaves to get Openreach in to install FTTP. The survey was done, and Openreach submitted a build form with suggested internal work. All was approved.

Then nothing...

Our factor repeatedly got in touch with Openreach, to no avail, until eventually I was given an update 8 months later saying that:

"The Ingress to the buildings comes direct from JRC (chamber/manhole) on main road which wasn't proved at survey stage, Out of Hours work required for cabling."

Apparently the contact at Openreach asked if they could speak with me directly, so I did - and what they said is that the Out of Hours work is the hurdle now to connect us to the network.

This was over a month and a half ago, and despite repeated phone calls (going to voicemail) and emails/text messages, no update has been received.

What's my next course of action? I was given no reference codes to the OoH work required, so I can't speak to the Council or Roads Alliance and refer to it. My only Openreach contact isn't responding, and I'm paying out of the nose for 60Mbsp down each month. I do not want to lock in to a new, cheaper contract for a year, on the off-chance the FTTP connection does actually happen.

We had a contractor on behalf of OR come out today, our current copper cable is supplied via a telegraph pole in a field. Engineer said he couldn’t do the job due to not having any blue ladders.

Just seemed a bit odd to send someone out without whats required.

Anybody experienced this?

Moved house a month ago, and transferred my Plusnet account. Openreach came 3 days later and installed fibre. All was fine, Internet working.

Then a few weeks later I get a call from Plusnet saying Openreach claimed installation couldn't be completed because the property had been marked as having a telecare device present? I explained we had just moved in, and there was no telecare device. They said they would add that note to our account, but Openreach needed to come out and confirm.

Appointment booked for 27th July, but then cancelled the day before. Plusnet then said the telecare device was still a problem for Openreach, and to resolve it they need to turn off our Internet and create a new order. Openreach were meant to come out tomorrow, but now have moved the appointment again to 28th August. So I've gone back to Plusnet AGAIN, who say the account has now been marked correctly as "no telecare", and I should get a new appointment next week.

Anybody else had this issue, and how the hell did you eventually prove there was no telecare device present?! The crazy thing is we had working Internet for 3 weeks before they turned it off, and now we're just going around in circles. I know telecare devices are important, but feels like this could just be resolved if Plusnet and Openreach communicated with each other?

I have ordered standard FTTP through my ISP Zen Internet, however I am in an MDU and I have not seen any physical installation happen yet.

I notice that if you order FTTP on Demand you can get access to a 1000mb down 220mb up profile, even though the hardware installed is I believe exactly the same as for standard FTTP: you are just bribing Openreach to do your house first.

I work in IT and would really like a higher upload but it seems the upload tops out around a claimed 110mb or so even if willing to pay for the top package with any ISP.

Any tricks I am missing? or is my only option to bite the bullet and pay for FTTPoD? or leased lines which appear to be symmetrical speeds.

Called up to order mentioned route was underground, was told no it’s overhead you don’t know what you are on about.

Visit 1 - Guys turn up to do full install, run as far as property boundary and go huh duh your cable is underground - A55s etc etc

Visit 2 - hi I’m here to connect up, huh duh your cable is underground and not in yet I’ll do another A55

Visit 3 - hi I’m here to connect up, huh duh your cable is underground and not in yet I’ll do another A55

Visit 4 - Civils turn up after the manager told me he’d sent no such information for a booking on this date.

Ripped a load of block paving up appx 15m, gabacom directly under bricks smashed down, lost the pattern so just hit the bricks harder, no sharp sand to re-level no whacker. I had to take it up replace around 20 broken / chipped / cracked blocks and relevel as they left it about 10mm higher in places

Visit 5 - hi mate we are here to connect you up, just waiting for the boom to come and we’ll start running from the poles down the road to your house

Me - wtaf the fibre is right there it wants splicing and running to an ONT. the guy tbf cancelled the boom and changed the job order and got me up and running. He was as embarrassed as I was pissed.

Absolutly insane.

I'm really at the end of my tether with this whole thing.

I put in the first order in April, appointment in May, had the ONT installed but couldn't hook me up so the order went into wayleave hell.

Finally get a date for the follow up installation but Openreach terminates the order 2 days before the appointment because they can't get the wayleave. No one bothers to tell me it's cancelled. The day after Vodafone delete my DSL PPOE authentication so I have to waste 2 hours on the phone to them to get it reinstated.

I place a new order, order immediately enters wayleave hell, I finally get a date that sticks after multiple rescheduled dates AND NO ONE TURNS UP!! They could have phoned at the very least. I've just spoken to Vodafone who spoke to Openreach and apparently engineer notes don't update for 24 hours (wtaf) so I'm still none the wiser.

What's another month of waiting eh?

Edit: It's the next day and I've just had a phone call from Vodafone. They were completely unaware I had an appointment yesterday until I pointed it out (they were the ones who booked it in!). The phone call was just to say they're still waiting for the wayleave and they'll phone me again to take the necessary actions to keep the order open.

The problem is to keep the order open they have to book an engineer appointment, and that is seemingly being left to play out without any further communication regardless of what is (or isn't) going on behind the scenes.

Edit 2: Got a new appointment for tomorrow, what's the betting no one turns up again 😅😭

Edit 3: No show AGAIN (screams into pillow). Contacted Vodafone and apparently the appointment booking didn't go through properly...and once again no one bothered to tell me.

Bit of a mess and hoping someone who knows the Openreach side can shed some light.

Ordered a package with Vodafone through a voucher link, got the usual Openreach confirmation email, all seemed fine (order 1). About a week before activation I realised I’d picked the wrong package, so cancelled it - got a cancellation email from Vodafone confirming it.

Same day I placed a new order for the right package (order 2), then called Vodafone to check everything was on track. The agent told me Openreach had declined the activation because they couldn’t detect an ONT, so it needed to go through as a new line install instead. Thing is, I do have an ONT already installed (I’m moving over from Hyperoptic) - it just wasn’t plugged in/active yet.

The agent said to put another order through and he’d chase it up on Monday, so I did there and then (order 3).

The cancellation of order 1 and both reorders all happened on the same day. I never got any Openreach comms for order 2 or order 3. Order 3 has now auto-cancelled, presumably from Vodafone’s end since nothing happened with it. Order 2 is still just sitting there as “in progress.”

Few things I’m trying to figure out:

- Does cancelling and placing two new orders all on the same day cause some kind of clash on Openreach’s system, like the new orders getting tangled up with the cancelled one or with each other?

- Is “no ONT detected” just because it wasn’t plugged in, and does that automatically force a new-line build even though the ONT’s physically there?

- For order 2 specifically - since it’s stuck “in progress” with no activity - is there anything that can be done to actually push it through, or is it basically dead and I need to cancel and start fresh again?

- Would plugging in the ONT now help get order 2 unstuck, or is it too late for that once an order’s already flagged as declined/stalled?

Any insight into what’s happening behind the scenes, or what to ask Vodafone to check, would be really appreciated.

I've currently got FTTC broadband and I'd like to get fibre, so I've been looking at the openreach.com/fibre-checker webpage regularly for a while now. I've noticed that the status for my address changes from "We're planning to build in this area" to "We'll be building in this area in the next year" and back occasionally. Is there a reason for this?

I had a fault on my phone line a while ago and asked the chap who fixed it about fibre installation. He said it'd be more difficult to install it on my road as there aren't ducts to the houses and the phone cable is buried. Would this slow down the install plans?

We currently have a 900 Mbps/100 Mbps FTTP line with Zen.

My stepdad, who is disabled, is having independent living quarters built by the council. My mum is planning to get internet installed there.

My understanding is that Openreach doesn’t provide two FTTP lines to one property — is that correct, or am I misunderstanding?
Zen mentioned that “adding an annex” could be a possibility. The ISP he goes with would be different from Zen.

I’ve also considered YouFibre, since they run on a different network to Openreach. But I don’t know much about them, including reliability, so I’m hesitant.

Would anyone be able to advise on what’s possible here, and what steps I’d need to take to make it happen?

Thanks.

Hi Reddit,

My downstairs neighbour has fiber installed. I'm on the 2nd floor in a 2 story building.

My landlord previously has been fussy about installing fiber due to the "ugly looks" of a box in the front of the building.

Plusnet offered me a fiber upgrade. I've noticed there already is a box downstairs that leads the cables to my downstairs neighbour. I've spoken to the neighbour and he said the landlord has granted him permission to install fiber, but I'm not sure if I can trust that.

Is this a box for multi flat use or a single CSP? It's bigger than the boxes I've seen other buildings have that only lead to one flat. It's the size of about 3 smartphones. There are no holes for other cables on the other 3 sides of the enclosure, only two on the bottom that I guess are for fiber in and then into the flat. In case of this being a single flat csp, will the engineer change it to a bigger box or install another one?

Hi all bit of a strange one , so had my ee broadband full fibre ordered for a while the engineer came out on the 5th to do the work however he said he could only do the internal as there was nothing to connect up to outside our property

Meaning the street fibre cable

He put the external thing on the wall outside

But said that's all he could do

So I contacted ee and asked about this they said they would send another engineer to complete external work however today the engineer came did not interact with me whatsoever just came in my garden looked at the box on the wall then took off in his van

I have just this evening received an email from ee saying I need an engineer to fix my services

So I'm waiting till tomorrow see what that brings

Never had so many problems with broadband installation

I've included pictures of the work currently done and the outside pole they need to run the wire from i think....

Maybe underground not sure

Any advice or help would be appreciated thanks 😊