Getting fibre to our home with a 30 metre shared drive

[elsiegee40]

We’re being targeted by salesmen for fibre (most recently Youfibre) to the door claiming that they can now pull fibre up from the road without having to dig up our neighbours gardens. Has anyone had experience of this?

 

Much as we would love to have fibre, our house is set back from the road and we have no front garden of our own. All our services run up the shared drive and under our neighbours’ land (a distance of roughly 30 metres)

 

Their claims seem too good to be true. Is there a possibility that it can be done. How we would we check it out?

Edited May 3, 2024 by elsiegee40

[LeMarchand]

No personal experience, but Toob were recently in our area laying fibre. I saw one crew pulling fibre through from who know how far away - it looked like a tug of war against an invisible team.

[ZeroHour]

Out of interest what does the openreach (https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL) say.

It may say under the table it may have the text "Our records show the following FTTP network service information for these premises:" which can indicate if you are DIG (which means armoured cable) or ducted if FTTP from OR is available.

 

If your drive is ducted to the street then they could potentially pull a fibre up to your address without issue.

When was the house built?

[XiJ]

We share a drive with our neighbours - but it’s a fairly recent build so everything is ducted.

[DalekSec]

I work for an Alt-net now that does this, Depends on a lot of factors but we do have a directional drill which can go roughly 100m underground and pop up next to a marked spot.

 

Said drills: https://www.ditchwitch.com/directional-drills/

[pete]

Overhead (from telegraph pole) or directional drilling and a direct bury cable?

 

Round here (Lincolnshire) nearly every telegraph pole has sprouted a fibre termination box at the top of the pole so other than a ladder to get up the roofline to attach the cable, I don't see a need for digging up the garden.

[bknaggs]

We’ve got options here - Greater Manchester - of Openreach or Brsk. Both come from the telegraph pole following the same path our copper line currently takes.

 

A friend in Oxfordshire has fibre to his house via the pole too.

 

Check the pole that serves your house and if you see multiple boxes at the top then it’s likely this will be your route.

[dmj]

The Government forced BT to allow other companies to use their telegraph poles.

When we got fibre they ran a fibre cable from the closest pole to the house.

The poles are starting to look a bit messy with 3 different companies equipment on them, but can't complain having 900Mb/s for £30/month.

[elsiegee40]

Out of interest what does the openreach (https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL) say.

It may say under the table it may have the text "Our records show the following FTTP network service information for these premises:" which can indicate if you are DIG (which means armoured cable) or ducted if FTTP from OR is available.

 

If your drive is ducted to the street then they could potentially pull a fibre up to your address without issue.

When was the house built?

 

House was built 1992, so hopefully all ducted… BUT they cut a lot of corners when building it, so we and the previous owners have both had to spend correcting things. The worst was the complete absence of air bricks! Fortunately that was fixed by the previous owner.

 

We will have to cross our fingers and hope there is a proper duct.

[Ditto]

Probably a discussion worthy of a different thread, but having been a FTTP for over 2 years, I have some hands-on advice with regards my 2 main options for me of BT and Sky as providers. I probably wouldn't be where I am now with the benefit of hindsight, but still enjoying the fantastic speed!

[slugshead]

Mines overhead off the same telegraph pole as the old phone line - With BT.

[FN-GM]

We have fibre installed at my old job (not the UK). They managed to get around 500 meters without trenching they had a machine that essential pushed a rod through the soil the push it away and pulled through conduit behind it. They did need a small hole at either end of the run though.

[Oaktech]

We've had Toob put in fairly recently and they went overhead from a pole. My mate who lives in the new development round the corner where everything is underground they did it with an automated mole that went in in a inspection chamber and popped up about 50m later by the front wall of his property.

[old_n07]

How does the current phone line enter the building? If it's underground it will be ducted, as far as I'm aware BT didn't do direct bury cables.

[ZeroHour]

as far as I'm aware BT didn't do direct bury cables.

 

BT did do DIG (armoured dug in ground) cables as many on my street were but they stopped around the early 90's I *think*

[Rob_D]

We're an early 90's build with a 20m(ish) driveway and managed to get fiber pulled in. It was apparently a bit of an awkward install. The ducting wasn't good enough for them to blow the fiber through, so they used the old phone cable to pull a pull cord through and pull the fiber and a replacement copper (if we ever needed it.

 

Apparently there can be problems with the BT ducts collapsing if they've been built over. One of my friends had a much simpler looking install than us. But because they'd had a garage extension over the BT duct, ended up having to have the garden dug up to run fiber. At least that's what they were told.