Fibre broadband in Honor Oak - Cabinet 31 Upgrade

Hi everyone,

I’ve been investigating fibre broadband to the houses served by Cabinet 31. That’s some of the houses in Ebsworth Street, Bovill Road, Herschell Road, Garthorne Road Whatman Road and Brockley Rise.

Cabinet 31 needs to be upgraded for us to be able to get fibre broadband. Openreach, the company responsible for this, does not believe it is commercially viable to do so. In such cases, they offer a scheme called a Community Funded Partnership (CFP). This enables communities to club together to pay for their cabinet to be upgraded, so that they can all access fibre broadband. This would be £4,684. The more households who join the partnership, the lower each contribution becomes. There are 450 households connected to Cabinet 31, so if we all contributed, it would cost around £10 each to upgrade it to fibre.

I’m about to post a letter through the door of each affected household, to ask if this is something you’d be interested in supporting. If this is something you would be interested in, or you have questions, please drop me a line at robkiddlondon@gmail.com. This doesn’t commit you to anything – it just helps me to see if there’s enough interest among our neighbours and that the issue is worth pursuing.

Thanks!

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Thanks Chris - perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised BT Openreach’s left hand doesn’t know what it’s right hand is doing! Do you mind me asking what number Ebsworth Street you are? We’re 25, though it shouldn’t make any difference as the whole street is served by the same cabinet.

Will PM you (note that when you reply to an email notification your reply is posted on the forum)

Does fttp even need a cabinet?

Good point! I have no idea, although it would make sense to have a single “trunk line” to a cabinet, as opposed to lines running from further afield to each individual house.

Remarkably, by following a different series of links, I’ve just been able to place an order for FTTP broadband to be installed on May 8. Many thanks to @anon5422159 for getting back to me so quickly! I’ll believe it when I see it but it does seem like Openreach’s left hand doesn’t know what it’s right hand is doing.

I was looking into this earlier this year. It seemed that every other house on the south side of Ebsworth Street can get fibre FTTP and the “a” properties in general couldn’t
Something to do with available fibre lines between the telephone pole and the properties.
Went for standard internet with Zen and feeling annoyed by Openreach!

Hi Simon, I followed this link:

https://www.homeandbusiness.openreach.co.uk/fibre-broadband/ultrafast-broadband/ultrafast-fibre-buy-it-now

Then clicked on the BT icon. Crucially, this lets you access fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) rather than fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) which apparently are completely different from a setup point of view. I’m still waiting to hear back from Openreach on how they missed this.

Agreed. I doubt the engineer blows the fibre in all the way from the exchange!

I think that a cabinet, in OpenReach parlance, is where the copper cables meet.

In my experience with OpenReach, you could be waiting a very long time! And always assume that the left hand does not know what the right is doing.

In similar fashion, it is a false assumption that BT are best at dealing with OpenReach. No one is! But at least this means you can shop around.

So cabinet 31 (that’s mine too) has FTTP enabled on it??

This would be amazing but I’m struggling to persuade Zen who provide my broadband that that’s the case.

Any suggestions?

Dan

Hi Dan, see the link in my post above. My address is (apparently) able to get Zen FTTP with up to 300mbps so I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to. Give it a go! I can’t wait to find out what the morons at BT Openreach say about it.

Chris - do you mind telling me who your internet service provider is? I’m also served by the same cabinet and receive an appalling connection from TalkTalk. I’ll be able to change providers soon so want so want to switch to a really good one…

I’m with BT (Infinity 2)

Alas as good as Zen are most of the time they do still have the attitude of ‘sorry, openreach’ and then they give up.

But, I’ve done some digging by trial and error. 89 Bovill Road is good, but 91 is not, neither is 93, but 95 is, 97 is not, 99 is not but 101 is. All from cabinet 31! I had first thought maybe only those delivered by poles are enabled but 89 is underground fed. Leads me to question whether maybe there’s an error in the openreach database and for some addresses its been corrected, for others not?

Anyway, I’m on the phone to the openreach infrastructure team now (the team you’d call if you were building a new housing estate) and we’ll see what we can find out!

Dan

Just a thought: OpenReach may have a policy as regards fibre to houses that have been split into flats. It would be so easy to share a connection after all.

Thanks Dan, please keep us updated on how you get on.

Can i ask a (potentially) dumb question please… I live in Honor Oak and am currently on BT Infinity 2, generally happy with download speeds but paying a hefty £55 ish a month - a lot of which is attributable to line rental for a completely unused phone line but for which I thought I needed to have in order to receive BT Infinity (fibre?) wifi, is this actually the case?

Me too. I’m on Infinity 2 and pay £56.49 a month for fibre to the property and a completely unused landline.

I read that perversely, BT is under a “Universal Service Obligation,” being a quasi-public organisation, which stipulates it must maintain a landline service. Last I heard they were challenging this with OFCOM.

Thanks Chris. So technically it is perhaps not required, but due to the odd nature of BT’s structure we currently still have to pay for something neither of us use… Madness. Lets hope that OFCOM see some sense in changing this!

This changes when you get (if you can) FTTP. This is fibre all the way to the house. We have ditched our landline. With Zen at £42/m.

Thanks Brett. Confirmed with BT that I do indeed have FTTP so I can look into options such as Zen. Sounds like you are generally happy with download speeds?

To be honest, provided Netflix works well I am generally happy!

Very happy. I don’t think we are stretching it honestly yet have 2 kids who watch Netflix simultaneously at times.

In the conversion to FTTP, there is an exterior and interior install. There is a rather arcane system where if you want to be present for the exterior appointment then you have no choice over the time and date (and you will get billed if you miss it). It also takes a while but this is all due to OpenReach.

Spoken to openreach and a ticket is now logged to do an investigation into the accuracy of the database for Bovill Road (SE23 1EL) on cabinet 31.

Let’s see what comes of that…

Thanks Dan!

@Dan_Cherowbrier - did you ever get anywhere with openreach and the accuracy of their database?

Following the links at the beginning of this post I did a bit of research for Grierson road (SE23 1NT) and discovered that there are similar anomalies for properties connected to the same cabinet. My house doesn’t have FTTP but the next door neighbour does, even though we are on the same telegraph pole!

If you were successful with openreach it would be good to know how to repeat the process for Grierson as our standard broadband is driving me up the wall (<4Mb at peak time and huge latacy issues) and there are no other fibre option available.

Hello Chris, we just had FTTP installed earlier this week - now getting a solid 51mpbs down / 10mbps up (exactly as promised) with BT.

This link should hopefully let you access the seven providers who offer FTTP in our area:

https://www.homeandbusiness.openreach.co.uk/fibre-broadband/ultrafast-broadband/ultrafast-fibre-buy-it-now

From what I can gather, you can only get FTTP, not FTTC. This means you get a better/faster connection, but with fewer service providers to choose from. We stuck with BT as we’d signed a 12-month contract already; they charged us £50 extra to install fibre.

Good luck!

Backwards and forwards but no answers yet…

Dan

On the 1NT part of Grierson Road (117 - 157) the link above gives the following:

Number 117 - 125: Your area is connected to Ultrafast Fibre but demand is high right now, so you may not be able to order a service today.
Numbers 127 - 133: We’re working with government and industry to explore ways to bring Superfast fibre to as many people as possible but don’t have a plan for your area yet.
Numbers 135 - 157: Great news, you can order a Fibre to the Premises service today.

Unfortunately I’m in the middle group, so cannot order FTTP through any provider as I guess they must use the openreach database to determine who they can sell services to. Hence I think the only way to get access to FTTP is to look into the accuracy of the openreach database.

I’m not holding out much hope!

I’ve just checked whether we will have fibre in a flat I’m moving to on Bovill rd and it says I don’t, but the downstairs flat does! Then one of the neighboring houses has it, but the other doesn’t.

Surely the site must be incorrect, rather than the availablity varying between the ground and first floor flats of a Victorian conversion…

Sadly there is an underlying factor at work here.

BT Openreach does not appear to have a working solution to install fibre in multi-flatted buildings.

So in the circumstance you described Openreach will say the service is available in the area - but may then decline to install as there are at least two flats in the building.

This paradox/failing goes without explanation by BT or Openreach.

Just as a heads up (and I realise this is not SE23 related but goes to how BT/Openreach work). We have had issues in our little rural area of Norfolk.Took BT as it was sold as 50meg. Found out that was never ever going to happen, max 6-10 meg. Long story short, we now have a steady 80 meg down and 20 meg up. BT have no idea how it has happened, nor do Openreach. Both are very very incompetent and have no idea what each other are doing.

So we spent 15 months looking at other houses near us clearly with Superfast Fibre, but the postcode checker said no, BT said no, presumably at full capacity issue due to flats etc. We had 16Mb broadband, and as someone who has worked in IT for 20 years and considers himself a bit of an expert, this was, in technical terms “pants”.

Tonight. Deliverance. Ultrafast FTTP, 200Mb. Cabinet 22. Availability was only switched on about 2 weeks ago and we are first on the road with it.

Have to pay a few extra quid but couldn’t be happier right now, will make a world of difference to working from home and video calling family.

I suppose the point of this message is that if you have had issues with availability, get in now with FTTP!

Saner at 76a Bovill road is trying to form a list of people so he can send a letter to openreach.

I’d suggest anyone on cabinet 31 should add to the pressure.

Dan

I’m an A on Ebsworth and we’ve had fibre broadband for 4 years!

Ok, it seems pretty random who can and can’t get fibre. I’ll check again in 12 months when my contract is due for renewal. Thanks for the info, cheers

Hi All, just to say Openreach came back to me today and at least for me they’ve now resolved the issue so I can place an order.

Others may want to check to see if they can too.

Dan

Does anyone have FTTP with anyone other than BT? I’m now month to month with BT and the price has gone back to the non-promotional rate. There’s Zen Internet but they aren’t that much cheaper - probably not worth the hassle of changing.

We’re with Zen and they’re brilliant, although not cheap.

Plusnet, though they are owned by BT these days. I also got FTTP through a trial, so not sure if they routinely roll it out these days or not.