[Closed] Fibre being installed down our lane - what to expect?

You'll be leafletted when it's some bit like. You're probably looking at 3-6 months before it's live.

I think the BT Wholesale checker may give you an idea of the date when it may be available.

Could be as large fibre build taking months.
Could be a quick add on if other local areas have FTTP already.
Could be a business order (which includes senior bosses etc that have managed to get a business fibre line to their house) or a resident paying for a one off installation which would mean you will not be connected at this time.

I posted up here about fibre going in our street 2-3 weeks ago. Spoke with engineers today who said they were testing it before it being accepted by (I think they said) Openreach. They reckoned another week or two and it should be live.

Could be a business order (which includes senior bosses etc that have managed to get a business fibre line to their house) or a resident paying for a one off installation which would mean you will not be connected at this time.

I was going to suggest this possibility, fiber isn't copper, you can't just crimp another connection onto it in a little box on the pole. So a fiber going past your house doesn't necessarily mean it's any easier for you if some business at the end has paid out to have it laid to them. They'd still need to come back and lay fiber from the cabinet, wherever that is, to your house.

you can’t just crimp another connection onto it in a little box on the pole

Unless it's GPON in which case you can...

You should expect at least 6 months of messing around fighting BT to get it to your house if you can get it. Thats what happened at mine. I got it installed then my neighbours spent 6 months trying to get it even though the engineer installed an eight way box on the pole specifically so the other 5 houses would have access to it.

Need to stick with Razzle for now.

If it's the NBN... Expect nothing. (Aussies will understand)

It won't be a single fibre in the cable. For all the cost if installing it, it will have loads of fibres inside which can be terminated at a later date to add more connections.

Unless it’s GPON in which case you can…

I stand corrected.

Although it would still need to be in the cabinet or at the end of the fiber? You still can't reliably/easily/practically terminate fiber in the field?

What to expect?
Your pavement will look like this..

The presence of the splitter boxes on the poles is the give away. If you are being bypassed there won't be any, if your address is in scope there will.

Our poles were upgraded in May/June, and it was ready to use from about September. We got flyers round from ISPs from October ish. I went with Sky, and Openreach came and replaced the copper from the house to the pole with fibre. No pavements were harmed. Faster and cheaper than Virgin, and now both are connected to the house I can switch between them at contract end to keep the price down.

You still can’t reliably/easily/practically terminate fiber in the field?

Yep, splicing a fibre is bread and butter stuff for field engineers - up a pole, in a ditch etc. Everytime a fibre gets cut someone is sent out to splice a fix. A JCB digs through a BT duct and you can have 50 fibres cut in one go!

You use a portable machine which aligns the two ends for you.

https://www.fibrefox.co.uk/fusion-splicers/98152-fusion-splicers-termination-kits.html

Yep, splicing a fibre is bread and butter stuff for field engineers – up a pole, in a ditch etc. Everytime a fibre gets cut someone is sent out to splice a fix. A JCB digs through a BT duct and you can have 50 fibres cut in one go!

But the splice would be quite bulky, a bundle of 50 would be huge. Wouldn't they just drag a new cable down the duct and rejoin at the existing terminals?

But the splice would be quite bulky, a bundle of 50 would be huge. Wouldn’t they just drag a new cable down the duct and rejoin at the existing terminals?

Depends on how much that would cost etc. If the fibre is running on poles it will be tied to each pole, so you'd have to get a cherry picker to visit every pole. Quicker to just splice the broken bit.

Also, if you go to a fault and it's a cut fibre, you will have a splicer kit in the van but not necessarily the right length fibre, so splicing is just quicker.

Wouldn’t they just drag a new cable down the duct and rejoin at the existing terminals?

It could be dozens of different fibres going to different places, so you'd have to visits dozens of sites and pull lots of fibres all over the place.

Look for the oversized egg box looking doodah at the top of the poles, each egg is a fibre termination point that can then be connected to a fibre run along side your existing phone line cable.

All physical fibre (mostly) is owned and operated Openreach who then resell to the major carriers, as such open reach will normally do a postcode of random size and then release to the carriers when they fancy.

The carriers will have their own equipment in exchanges to interface with Openrech.

This is how I understand it to work, please correct as necessary.

Unless it’s GPON in which case you can…
Business fibre in the UK is dedicated bandwidth per customer. FTTP is Passive and just needs splicing through.

But the splice would be quite bulky, a bundle of 50 would be huge.
Splice protectors are about 2mm in diameter, so easily smaller than a coke can. But they would be laid out into a joint before splicing, smallest is about the size of a kitchen kettle. Repair would be dependent on all sorts, it might be very easy to blow in 1000m of new cable through a repaired subduct, you might repair Insitu with a short length of cable and build new chambers for the joints. Speed is the priority for repair.

it will have loads of fibres inside which can be terminated at a later date to add more connections.
The fibre laid needs to go back to the right cabinets and exchanges to be used for FTTP. Business fibre is almost always provided from the local exchange, but FTTP is provided from a parent exchange and bypasses a lot of the smaller ones. The intention is to now combine both networks but it's not always the case.

All physical fibre (mostly) is owned and operated Openreach who then resell to the major carriers,
There has been an explosion of private firms renting duct and pole space from Openreach (PIA), so there are lots of providers fighting over the most lucrative areas to fibre up with their own network. If it's a PIA (I've heard them collectively called Altnets which is a good term...Alternative Networks) you will probably get letters and targeted Ads to ensure you know about it. Openreach network on the other hand is sold through about 21 Communication Providers.

There has been an explosion of private firms renting duct and pole space from Openreach (PIA),

Yep, we have CityFibre's fibre hung on our local BT poles, but no BT/Openreach Fibre yet.

Could be as large fibre build taking months.
Could be a quick add on if other local areas have FTTP already.

According to the Openreach web site I am in an area where the Ultrafast Full Fibre rollout has been completed:
'Build Programme currently complete' refers to the exchanges where build has been largely completed as part of the FTTP Fibre First Towns, Cities and Boroughs Build Programme or Market town and Villages programme, but does not mean that services will be available from this date, nor that services will be available to every premise. Further deployment may take place in future, and build may also continue as part of our new sites activity and to deliver smaller in-fill programmes.

A mate who lives two miles away on a similarly small country lane got FTTP earlier this year in similar circumstances (openreach just appeared and started putting fibre on the poles) - he said it took a while before they contacted him though.

So I'm thinking that maybe we're part of a "smaller in-fill programme" as there's no real business here - there's only about 20 houses!

So what's this?
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