OpenReach Engineer told me I'm unable to move to Fibre Optic

[aidan1234566]

A few weeks ago an openreach engineer came to my house as I had upgraded to Fibre Optic with Sky. When he arrived he had a look where the phone line / broad band line currently is (in the mainhall of the house) and when he removed the covering he said we were unable to get Fibre Optic due to the nature of the wiring that was there, something along the lines of the cable is buried underground or the likes.

He proposed two things - Pay Openreach £4/5k to dig everything up and get the cable into the house. Secondly use an overhead line to connect to the gable end (we decided against this as the line would cross over a small busy road from post to gable end)

Openreach website also states it is available - but it is available at huge cost and large upheaval of driveways and fences and walls. Because broadband providers sky included are referencing this data they continually say it is available.

So I have a few questions about this - Our house is built in 2004 - relatively modern, it's in a good location with lots of other self built houses around in the countryside. Will there ever be a way to get fibre optic without the overhead cable? What will all my neighbours do - will there be 50 overhead lines on my road?

I know there is a lot here in this one post but interested to know if anybody has had similar experiences.

[TimmyBGood]

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@aidan1234566 wrote:

Will there ever be a way to get fibre optic without the overhead cable? What will all my neighbours do - will there be 50 overhead lines on my road?

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The national infrastructure rollout is in the hands of Openreach, and it's down to them to decide how they are going to meet the target set by government of 85% gigabit availability by 2026.  Realistically they can choose to move your location much further down their waiting list, to modify the local deployment method or to declare that it's in the 'difficult' 15% which is outside the current scope for commercial deployment.

[TimmyBGood]

@aidan1234566 

What they aren't obliged to do is deploy optical infrastructure in an aesthetically pleasing way where the cost of this exceeds their acceptable price per property (typically £2,800). Above that it's quite usual to quote residents for Excess Construction Charges (ECCs).

[jamesn123]

@aidan1234566 

If you refuse the option Openreach give you that would fall within their install cost cap then yes you are liable for any extra work required to dig, make trenches etc. 

If the customers in your area opt for the overhead line option then yes there will be a single fibre cable running from the pole to each house that goes ahead with the install.