Overhead cables and new poles are going up around here. It's causing some fuss on local Facebook. I'll be keeping my head down as I think it's a good idea
^Same for me. The looped fibre rolls are hanging from a pole and painfully only 25m from my house but no idea when I can actually request it to be installed.
I waited about 3 months for the fibre on the poles to be connected to the exchange (at which point it becomes available and you can place an order)
Had a call from EE yesterday, apparently there's no cabinet yet, but it's being installed and I'll get an update on friday.
been to the shops and there's a team of workies with a load of purple loom, out digging up the street...
still don't know how they'll get it to the house though....
Update..
just got a call from openreach.
they've sent me a doc showing the proposed route for the new cabling duct. though they did get it wrong and put it along the back gardens, but I did correct that and got an update.
However, the land to the front or all of the row of cottages, making up the driveways, and that we have in our deeds as being private and communal, according to the land registry drawings, is council owned.
garden boundaries are a bit off too...but that's an aside.
which is true then? have we got a poorly maintained private driveway, or a poorly maintained council adopted driveway?
He did mention that we may be better off having a pole and running the cables above ground....
I would have thought that Land Registry trumps the deeds which may be old versions but ....
I'm sure they would rather have a pole - easier, quicker, cheaper.
deeds which may be old versions
well, that's what i thought. However, the deeds were drafted when the cottages were sold on by the original estate owner, which would make the deeds about 15 years old. However, I don't know how the deeds were checked etc, or the process for drafting deeds, so who knows.
Update no 2.
openreach around again yesterday, this tie they'd managed to locate the old cable distribution box, its in the garden of the neighbour to the rear, as his house is built on the cottages former rear gardens. he's not keen on having anything in his property, and I don't blame him really.
The possibility of a 6m pole in one of our other neighbours in the row's garden was another possibility. they were OK, but there would still need to be a box in the rear neighbours land.
possibility of trenching along the front of the cottages, along the driveway was suggested, but No 1, of our 6 said no.
They were back again today, with the land registry maps and are taking those as legitimate, meaning the driveway is council owned, and nothing to do with the residents, other than making sure there is access.
No1 reluctantly agreed, so it all looks like it's going ahead!
I will contact the council to see what they say. If it is owned by them then they can sort our drive out! (I suspect it's not, but I'll wait until the fibre is in).
I was watching Wimbledon in UHD yesterday which was very impressive.
I noted that it was using about 25-30mbps..... That's 3 X what we used to get on a good day!
In addition a fire stick was simultaneously streaming HD and one daughter was also watching something else on her laptop.
Fttp is just fab!
😁
Still not got it installed. Had a letter through last week stating connection date in November. :-/
EE however have rolled that forward to next month.
They are supposed to provide me with a 4g modem I can connect my mesh setup to, but nothing yet, so still on the mini MiFi dongle from smarty. Which is less than great when my wife wants to upload RAW files...:-/
update (not that anyone is really that interested)
EE provided me with a mobile wifi dongle and sim FOC while we wait....and wait... and EE reception is a bit ropy round here, so it's not been great, but not been that bad...
roll on today and a team of workies are outside the cottages with a mini digger, digging a trench and laying cable.
so, if that's done today, I may actually have it all connected up next week.
original order placed 6th May, with a proposed completion date of the 20th May..
crikey.
Are they digging the trench to lay fibre in the street - because you could still have a wait 😬
The street is done, it's our driveway. they're trenching, laying and backfilling as they go.
the workies reckon they'll have the fibre up to the boxes on each of the cottages by Thursday.
bonus is, they've pulled up a load of buried sandstone blocks and cobbles which they're happy to pile up for us to use in our gardens as it saves them needing to get rid.
we were looking for large rocks for the garden too...
Ive got another thread open about Airband who are the local company in our area who are laying fibre.
It is now in our area and we are being offered 2 packages
150Mbps for £20
300Mbps for £35
They are offering a minimum guarantee of 50Mbps download for either package.
Is it worth going for the 300Mbps?
Mainly used for WFH, Youtube 4k, Netflix 4k, Fortnite. 3 of us in the house
They are saying its also a Linksys Velop MX4000 router that they say they use, is that any good?
Ta
Sod it took the dive and went for 300Mbps for £25
Had my FTTP installed Monday - they've been rolling it out around the town and I had a note through the letterbox from Openreach a couple of months ago to say we were good to go. Finally got in touch with PLusnet a couple of weeks ago and could have had it done within a week! Went with Plusnet as they're our current provider and never had an issue, plus they were great on the phone and answered all my questions, and cheaper than most with more speed options.
We've got a duct from pavement to property, so that bit was easy. However it comes up by the garage (the old copper was routed through the garage, then through the loft of our bungalow). Plus no power anywhere adjacent the front door. And current router was in the study.
All no problem, the OR engineer took the cable up the corner of the garage, along the back of the gutter and down to the little grey box outside the study, quick hole through the wall and white box inside connected (cool tool for connecting the fibre - watch him do this bit!) next to power socket. The inside box needs a power source (this is seperate from your router).
I was a bit worried abou the cable being exposed, but he said its the same as overhead cable which can withstand snagging on a double decker bus (taken with a touch of scepticism - although he did say theyve had to devise clamps which will cut the cable in this situation or it would unping from all the poles on the street!).
Gone for 300mbps as that was next cheapest to old landline/broadband. See my seperate thread, but getting 290 on my phone.
So now just need to buy a new 4k TV to replace our rather aging one! But at leats when kids/granddaughter are staying I can still do Teams calls while they are all streaming god knows what - tested to a degree today. First impressions all good!
We went from fttc at 11mbps to FTTP at 300. It is ace. 😁
But... those swines at Zen keep offering me 500 or 900 and I keep wishing for more... even though we rarely push the limits of 300.
