Petition Openreach to upgrade to Fibre to the Premises (FTTP)

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Complaint made to CEO at openreach

2024-02-12 18:22:13

Still no help insight for our Broadband needs... fundamentally our village is too small and openreach are looking to bring fibre to areas that will make them more money. Seems cynical I know, but this is what I have come to believe after speaking to the local MP, Openreach engineers and Openreach CEO complaints department. The network infrastructure is not fit for purpose and they will not improve or spend any money on it as its now end of life technology yet we are not in the plans to upgrade our network to fibre. Doesn't seem right that us as consumers have an inferior product that isn't fit for purpose and we have no other options available. 

This email was received today 12/02/2024

Hi Grant,

 

Thank you for taking my call.

 

Once again, I’d just like to apologise for the fact you felt as though you had to write in to Clive to gain a response to your query. I appreciate I haven’t been able to provide you with an immediate solution but hopefully my answers today have helped deliver a little clarity on the raised concerns.

 

How things stand right now

As you are aware, we are currently in the process of installing FTTP all over the UK, with an aim to provide 25 million homes with full fibre by 2026. Having checked our immediate plans for 12 The Cairns, sadly, we cannot confirm an immediate timescale as to when the technology will reach your address. We are making excellent progress with our roll outs and whilst we wish we could do everywhere at once, unfortunately, it just isn’t possible.

 

That being said, we are planning to build in the Limekilns exchange in the future so we may be able to give you further details later in the year.

 

To confirm, there are no upcoming plans, commercial or government funded, to provide your home with FTTP. That being said, our plans can and do change quite often so my advice would be to stay close to the Openreach website as if there are any changes to the situation, this will be updated to reflect our progress. You can do this by visiting Where and when we're building Ultrafast Full Fibre broadband | Openreach. You can also sign up to receive a notification for when the service is readily available by filling in the online form here: Fibre broadband | Openreach. I would also advise getting back in touch with me further down the line and I will check if our situation has changed.

 

Satellite Broadband

An alternative you may wish to consider is satellite broadband which is available nationally. However, I am unable to comment on its performance or the costs involved to have the service.

 

In addition to this, some mobile operators now offer a 4G home broadband solution where they install a 4G receiver at your home which connects to an internal router. Again, I am unable to comment on which companies can offer this, prices or performance.

 

FTTP On Demand / Leased Line

Another alternative you may want to consider is a leased line, until such time that fibre broadband becomes readily available to the property and area. A leased line is a dedicated data circuit that runs all the way from the exchange directly to the property. They deliver guaranteed speeds and have proved popular with a lot of homes and businesses. I can’t offer any further insight in to costing etc. as these are managed by the providers who offer the service.

 

They will be able to discuss the costs involved and the services they can offer. A list of these providers can be found here at the bottom of the page under “Get FTTP on demand”.

 

Once again, I’m so sorry I haven’t been able to provide you with an immediate solution but I trust this answers your query. Please feel free to let me know if there is anything else I can help with; of course I’ll be happy to help.

 

Given the information above, I will now look to close your case.

 

All the best and take care,

 

Leah Barratt

 

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IS executive complaints and escalations team

Direct Telephone: 0207 391 4576

Web:   openreach.co.uk

We’re the people that make the net work - as the nation’s largest wholesale broadband network, we’re rolling out Ultrafast Full Fibre broadband across the UK. It’s our fastest and most reliable broadband yet, and we’re well on our way to making it available to 25m homes and businesses– building the UK’s fibre future.

Check to see when Ultrafast Full Fibre may be available at your address

 


Grant Thomson

update from MP

2022-05-20 15:39:28

Correspondence with Our local MP...

Dear Grant,

Further to your recent email asking for an update, please be advised that Douglas has contacted Openreach again about your request for a survey.

Following the response from them, Douglas has asked for some further information in order that he can make a considered decision on what the next steps might be.

We will back in contact with you once Douglas receives this further information, and has had the opportunity to consider the issue further.

Douglas has asked that we thank you, and the other constituents of Charlestown and Limekilns, for your continued patience on this matter.

Regards,

Gail,
Caseworker and Parliamentary Assistant,

On behalf of
 

Douglas Chapman MP
Dunfermline & West Fife

Grant Thomson

Openreach - (FFTP-FTTC UPDATE)

2022-04-14 17:03:28

91 Signatures 

Hi everyone,

Thank you for all the signatures, so far I have not been successful with Openreach Help centre and support structure. I have escalated this to our local member of parliament Douglas Chapman, they have also been given the run around, but I have asked him to go back to Openreach and request Openreach to complete a survey of the network infrastructure. 

This was the response Openreach gave Douglas Chapman. I certainly read this response from Openreach as an admission of the network being (not fit for purpose) 

I will update you with any further developments as I receive them.

Openreach:

“Thanks for contacting us on behalf of the residents of Limekilns & Charlestown. I’m sorry to hear of the problems they’ve been having with their broadband service.
 
This exchange area has previously been upgraded to deliver fibre broadband addressing as many premises as possible using mainly our Fibre to the Cabinet [FTTC] service. Cabinets serving Limekilns & Charlestown have been upgraded but the FTTC service that’s been deployed has distance limitations of up to 1.5km from the fibre cabinet to the premises. Those homes & businesses closest to the fibre cabinets will achieve faster speeds as the broadband signal gets weaker with distance.
 
You’ve mentioned aluminium cable in the routes in this area. Our network was designed historically to provide phone services which used a mixture of copper and aluminium cables, although we have not used the latter for more than 30 years. In some areas,  there’re still small lengths of aluminium cable present in our network. However, they have a very marginal impact on broadband performance. I appreciate that  residents may want the aluminium cable replaced, but this would be hugely expensive and wouldn’t have enough effect on the broadband speeds . Also, there’s little point in replacing sections of cable that are good. We only replace those sections of cable that have an abnormally high fault rate or are beyond economical repair.
 
If  anyone isn’t  getting the expected broadband speeds for their line then they need to report this to their Service Provider (SP) and ask them to carry out diagnostic checks. They can make sure they are achieving the best possible speeds and can also look at equipment inside the home (for example Wi-Fi hubs and extenders) - which are managed by the SP’s and can have a significant impact on the customer experience.   All SP’s have dedicated contact points within Openreach if they need to request an engineering visit and this is the correct industry process.
 
Openreach  have pledged to deliver full fibre to 25 million premises by the close of 2026 as part of our full fibre build installing the latest full fibre technology, supporting speeds up to 1GB to all properties. We’ve made good progress and so far have put full fibre within reach of 6 million homes and businesses, with another being added every 13 seconds. The delivery is based on exchange areas. When an exchange is scheduled, we’ll deliver to the vast majority of properties within the exchange boundary. Limekilns exchange is due to be upgraded by the close of 2026. By that point we hope to have most homes and businesses within reach of a fibre service so that we can begin to move away from the copper network onto futureproof, full fibre.
 
Full planning and surveys are yet to begin and so it’s too early for any details at premises level at  the moment. We also don’t have a full schedule other than we expect to finish the whole build by the close of 2026. However, as we progress more information will be available by our website below:
https://www.openreach.com/
  
We’ve now upgraded more than 2050 communities across the UK through our Fibre Community Partnerships (FCPs) and in the last few months we’ve seen requests soar. As you know, due to current levels of demand, we’ve taken a decision to temporarily pause new registrations  while we work through existing requests. We’re continuing to connect those communities already in progress and will seek to align any new schemes with our wider build programme to make sure we reach the most people possible. It’s difficult to say at this stage when we will resume new registrations but we hope this will be later in the year, on a regional basis. As our own rural Full Fibre build advances, the need for FCP intervention will reduce throughout the UK. When we resume registrations, we’ll be looking to work with communities that still need our help, targeting those in areas that are the most difficult to reach and who are not in future build plans. When registrations resume this will show on our website below.
 
Fibre Community Partnership | Openreach https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/fibre-community-partnership
 
I’m  sorry that I don’t have an immediate solution for your constituents here  however I hope my comments have helped and residents will be pleased that there is a long term plan for Limekilns exchange area.”

 


Grant Thomson



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