Ducting from road to house for FTTP

[MrCheese]

FTTP isn’t yet available at my exchange. At the moment I have FTTC which maxes out at about 60mbps.

I live in a cul-de-sac where the driveways span out from the road and all the driveways are very long with some weird bends before reaching the house. The existing phone lines are buried in the ground and I have no idea where this cable actually enters the house, we’ve never really been able to find the master socket.

I’m having some external work done to the house and i was wondering whether it is worth laying some ducting so that when FTTP becomes available it would be easy to install. Does anyone know if this is sensible, what type of ducting would need to be used (it’s at least 200m along the path). Are there any depth requirements for it?

Maybe I should just wait for FTTP to be rolled out in the area but I have a suspicion that BT might say it isn’t possible to charge a fortune due the the non standard installation.

Does anyone have any thoughts/experience with this type of thing?

[Sheepshanks]

I don't understand too much about this stuff, but our village was recently cabled up for FTTP. We're looking at another house within the village that has its phone line overhead but strung over 3 poles and I Googled the max distance for FTTP and there's reference to 150 metres being the max from the connector at the top of the first pole. It would be touch and go for the house we looked at.

IF that's correct, you may be in some difficulty at 200 metres. Or perhaps there's another solution?

[theboss]

Openreach publishes standards for site developers so it shouldn't be too hard to find some info online starting here:

https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/fibre-fo...

I spoke to one of their guys during a recent leased line survey thinking I might be able to bridge a 800m across fields with the co-operation of the landowner but that would obviously be a much more complicated affair.

200m shouldn't be a problem for any fibre based product as long as you don't introduce sharp bends and place an access box somewhere in the middle, but I'm just assuming this, I'm no expert.

[Mr Pointy]

Having looked at that Openreach site & read the fibre network specifications I don't think a bit of buried twinwall is going to be acceptable to BT, although you might get away with it for Virgin.

https://www.mjabbottdirect.co.uk/Products/DUCT,-PI...
https://www.drainagesuperstore.co.uk/browse/underg...

[camel_landy]

How old is your house?

IIRC circa 20yrs or so ago, building regs changed to include a requirement for ducting for future services like this... So if your house is recent(ish), you might find you've already got something.

If not, then probably worth doing a bit of homework first and working what you've already got.

M

[normalbloke]

Starlink.

[megaphone]

200m will be a very long duct, you will have to put in an access point half way or even a few, say every 50m. Best stuff to use is usually green corrugated duct. You could use blue plastic water pipe however that may well confuse anyone that comes across it when digging. Depth wise it needs to go a couple of spade depths at least so you don't dig it up by mistake.

eg https://store.jdpipes.co.uk/cable-fibre-optics-duc...

Edited by megaphone on Monday 22 March 11:53

Important thing is not to dig up one of the other utilities whilst laying your duct.

Edited by megaphone on Monday 22 March 11:55

[Mr Pointy]

Bt won't put a fibre up a non-compliant duct & a bit of green twinwall doesn't cut it.

[megaphone]

OP have BT actually confirmed they will roll out FTTP? It may never happen and 60mbps down is pretty decent. They may just leave it copper, majority of domestic broadband will be wireless in the next 10 years.

[Sheepshanks]

megaphone said:

OP have BT actually confirmed they will roll out FTTP? It may never happen and 60mbps down is pretty decent. They may just leave it copper, majority of domestic broadband will be wireless in the next 10 years.

They're supposed to have a plan to phase out copper.

[megaphone]

Sheepshanks said:

megaphone said:

OP have BT actually confirmed they will roll out FTTP? It may never happen and 60mbps down is pretty decent. They may just leave it copper, majority of domestic broadband will be wireless in the next 10 years.

They're supposed to have a plan to phase out copper.

I think they have plan as they know wireless is the future, no point in spending £M's laying fibre that will become obsolete.

[Sheepshanks]

megaphone said:

I think they have plan as they know wireless is the future, no point in spending £M's laying fibre that will become obsolete.

Are you thinking of 5G - I thought it was limited range so needs a ton of base-stations?

I didn't pay much attention but there were some regulatory changes annouced a few days ago which were said to boost fibre roll-out. Having said that, I'm amazed FTTP infrastructure was put into our biggish village last year - seemed a lot of effort when we've had pretty good FTTC for some years.

[MrCheese]

megaphone said:

OP have BT actually confirmed they will roll out FTTP? It may never happen and 60mbps down is pretty decent. They may just leave it copper, majority of domestic broadband will be wireless in the next 10 years.

They haven’t confirmed a rollout date. I kind of assume that it will be rolled out at some point.

The house is 1960’s. All services to the house are underground, it’s in an odd location on a hillside so all the houses have underground utilities but no gas.

[Alucidnation]

Mr Pointy said:

Bt won't put a fibre up a non-compliant duct & a bit of green twinwall doesn't cut it.

Absolute bks.


All the properties we have done, we have put in 50mm ducting from the pavement edge to the relevant point by the house, and the same for the one we are in now.

Fttp installed a couple of years ago with absolutely no question on what type of duct it is.

[megaphone]

Sheepshanks said:

megaphone said:

I think they have plan as they know wireless is the future, no point in spending £M's laying fibre that will become obsolete.

Are you thinking of 5G - I thought it was limited range so needs a ton of base-stations?

I didn't pay much attention but there were some regulatory changes annouced a few days ago which were said to boost fibre roll-out. Having said that, I'm amazed FTTP infrastructure was put into our biggish village last year - seemed a lot of effort when we've had pretty good FTTC for some years.

5G is coming, may need an outdoor antenna, 4G is already widely used for internet access, mainly portable devices but many use it for their main internet access. Satellite is here and will roll out over the next few years.

Yes fibre will continue to be rolled out, but the competition may make it uneconomic to install.

[williaa68]

I had a duct from the street to my house, which is built behind another which fronts the street. My drive is approx 50m long. Fttp became available in our street last year but not for me. Zen were great - followed up with Openreach who inspected our current duct and decided it was ok. Fibre was finally installed last week. Overall the process took about six months from Zen’s initial contact but if you have a duct I suspect you will be able to get fibre.

[eliot]

In our area it’s gigafast - i.e. nothing to do with openleach.
I already had a 50mm corrugated duct to the edge of my boundary that I laid ‘just in case’ eight years ago.
The challenge when they came round digging the roads up was to ensure they put the little junction box (called a toby) exactly where I wanted it - which they got wrong, but it was sorted eventually.
When the team turned up to run the fibre from the boundary to the house and seeing 30m of block paving that needed to come up they thought they had a long day ahead until I revealed the ducting at each end and the job was done in 10 minutes.

[bimsb6]

Sheepshanks said:

I don't understand too much about this stuff, but our village was recently cabled up for FTTP. We're looking at another house within the village that has its phone line overhead but strung over 3 poles and I Googled the max distance for FTTP and there's reference to 150 metres being the max from the connector at the top of the first pole. It would be touch and go for the house we looked at.

IF that's correct, you may be in some difficulty at 200 metres. Or perhaps there's another solution?

They can do longer than that ,i think 350m is the max .

[jurbie]

Mr Pointy said:

Having looked at that Openreach site & read the fibre network specifications I don't think a bit of buried twinwall is going to be acceptable to BT, although you might get away with it for Virgin.

https://www.mjabbottdirect.co.uk/Products/DUCT,-PI...
https://www.drainagesuperstore.co.uk/browse/underg...

Don't kid yourself although if it means they can massively over charge a private homeowner then it's maybe worth the effort. Commercially Openreach are notorious for really not caring how their fibre gets delivered. I've seen brand new Emergency Services Network sites with Openreach's fibre strung across the compound like a washing line.

The pics below are several hundred metres of quality install along a lane in Wales. There are telegraph poles available but it was clearly easier to just lob it into the trees.

[Sheepshanks]

bimsb6 said:

Sheepshanks said:

I don't understand too much about this stuff, but our village was recently cabled up for FTTP. We're looking at another house within the village that has its phone line overhead but strung over 3 poles and I Googled the max distance for FTTP and there's reference to 150 metres being the max from the connector at the top of the first pole. It would be touch and go for the house we looked at.

IF that's correct, you may be in some difficulty at 200 metres. Or perhaps there's another solution?

They can do longer than that ,i think 350m is the max .

This might be overhead line specific, but it's 350 metres from (I guess) the optical splitter to the connector at the top of the pole, then 150 metres from the connector to the house. Maybe there's some flexibility within that 500 metre total, and it could be different if all underground (I don't know if the same kind of connector is used).