topic Re: City Fibre in Broadband

City Fibre

MartinJ52 — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 15:18:45 GMT

Today was my bb installation day, City fibre came to install the equipment and told me that they would need to dig up my gardenwhich is not going to happen as it has recently been landscaped Capability Brown style. They also wanted to install the box and equipment in the room closest to the route of the cable, which is the main bedroom and not in the least practical. Contract now cancelled and reverted back to my existing provider who uses the Open Reach network.

Anyone else relate to this or similar situations ?

Re: City Fibre

Chrisee — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 15:45:20 GMT

@MartinJ52 for cost reasons Sky will use City Fibre if the address is passed by their cables. Where they cannot use CF they use Openreach. There is no flexibility so if you wont agree to a CF install you cannot buy from Sky.

Neither CF or Openreach do custom fibre installs as these are done to a price. This comes up frequently in this and other isps forums. There is very limited flexibility and while engineers try to meet customers requests where these are out of scope you are stuck .

Re: City Fibre

TimmyBGood — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 16:51:33 GMT

@MartinJ52 wrote:

Contract now cancelled and reverted back to my existing provider who uses the Open Reach network.

On copper or fibre?

If it isn't currently full-fibre, then as @Chrisee indicates that means you'd have to place an order with an Openreach-only ISP, hoping that their FTTP is both in your area and being delivered overhead.

Putting the address into the BT Wholesale Availability Checker should indicate which broadband provisioning type is applicable.

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/AddressHome

It's the table and the two text lines below it which are most useful.

Remove any personal information (such as the address itself) if you post an image.

Re: City Fibre

MartinJ52 — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 21:33:29 GMT

FTTP and they did state that it they would install either by a channel to the property or via pole alongside existing open reach installation. I don't interpret a channel as "b*stardising"my garden which is what they'd effectively be doing.

Re: City Fibre

AngryMuch52 — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 22:37:53 GMT

Yes. They want to dig up everything to lay the cable to feed the fibre through BUT they won't use the existing manhole that Openreach put in as they're not allowed to do more digging of the footpath as planning perm is needed.. Sky also tells me that copper/fibre will be pulled out aswell!! Good luck to them with full resin driveways as they won't dig that up so you'll be left without Internet when copper/fibre ends if it ever does. My fibre however fed around the back of the neighbours fence on my side so it went in, although they had to cut along my 3 year old tarmac at the foot of my drive to get the tube in and fed round.

Re: City Fibre

TimmyBGood — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 06:59:10 GMT

@AngryMuch52 wrote:
Good luck to them with full resin driveways as they won't dig that up so you'll be left without Internet when copper/fibre ends if it ever does.

Properties cannot be arbitrarily disconnected: there's a Universal Service Obligation for broadband and voice. That's why once the commercial phase of the national FTTP deployment ends the remaining transition from part-fibre to something else is going to take years.

Realistically in some cases this may have to be cellular data or a low earth orbit satellite service rather than cabled terrestrial broadband.

Re: City Fibre

AngryMuch52 — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 06:58:45 GMT

The woman at sky told me id be left with no Internet once the copper/fibre was pulled out in 2 years time, so is she scaremongering??? The installers said they can't dig up resin.

Re: City Fibre

MartinJ52 — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 07:33:45 GMT

Tried telling me that most internet providers don't do overhead, which is strange because there's a hell of a lot of providers who share the open reach network.

Re: City Fibre

TimmyBGood — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 08:06:21 GMT

@AngryMuch52 wrote:

The woman at sky told me id be left with no Internet once the copper/fibre was pulled out in 2 years time, so is she scaremongering???

Essentially, yes. There's currently no timescale for switching off digital broadband and voice service over the legacy network.

Re: City Fibre

TimmyBGood — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 08:00:06 GMT

@MartinJ52 wrote:

Tried telling me that most internet providers don't do overhead, which is strange because there's a hell of a lot of providers who share the open reach network.

Most ISPs aren't installing their own cable at all: they buy wholesale bandwidth.

The ones that do either have their own poles/ducts or make commercial access infrastructure sharing arrangements.