New fibre optic cable supplier

[realspeed]

We have been with BT since we got maried over 50 years ago now, but we are changing suppliers. the reason is BT can't even suggest when they can supply fibre optic cable to our house or even in the local exchange. EXCEPT one private company that has it installed in the exchange already and working.
I received an email from a company "BOX" 2 days ago offering a far better deal than BT who are going to put up their prices next month. the offer was

Quote" Offer applies to Box’s 100 Mbps, 300 Mbps & 1,000 Mbps Fibre Broadband packages for new customers joining on a 24-month contract, only, by 23:59 GMT on 28.03.23. The 100 Mbps offer is £19.95/month for months 1-24, £24.95/month thereafter. The 300 Mbps offer is £24.95/month for months 1-24, and £34.95/month thereafter. The 1,000 Mbps is £34.95/month for months 1-24, and £44.95/month thereafter. Phone package costs an extra £10 per month with a £14.95 installation fee (free for 300 Mbps and 1 Gbps packages)." unquote.

Now BT can only provide 35mbps download and hopefully 5mbps upload, so compairing the difference is staggering. Not only that because we are going to terminate the BT contract early we will have to pay a fair bit of money about £150 . When we informed this private company they said we can have broadband free for a year which more than covers the BT loss. not only that we can included for a small fee free landine and to mobile connection, BT don't even offer mobile connection.

So we signed up yesteday and sorted out direct debit payment this morning. This is the only privete company that can do this at the moment. Talk about being keen to get new customers. Midday today 2 men from" Box" turned up to survey but decided to pull the fibre cable to the footbox in our road ( fibre cable already there)and fit the gear needed inside and outside our house. Changeover due on the 11 April.

BT are lagging so far behind they must be loosing domestic customers by the thousands every day, we are the second in our road to change to this company as no other private company has got the infrastructure in place to supply us at the moment, although I have seen 3 or 4 others at foot boxes on pavements locally.

I have to wonder if BT actually are interested in private dwellings or just concentrating or business for revenue.

 

[4wd]

Openreach do most of the cabling but their typically pattern seems to be weeks if not months delay between elements of any work.
We only got fibre to cabinet two years ago but the fibre was laid by a local farm contractor in a day then it was nearly six months before they actually got it connected both ends.
The actual cabinet was there taunting us for over a year but not connected.
Mine was eventually up and running through SSE but house next door was told by BT that it still wasn't available for another month.
It seems to be a feature of other telecoms work, we still don't have any mobile coverage at all but a new mast is going up finally.
They started it last November and every stage seems to have taken 3 times longer than originally suggested.
The mast is physically in place for over a month now but not connected to anything.
When they do come things happen but it is often 2 or 3 weeks see nobody at all.
It could all have been done in a month if they had any sensible management.
Several times two or three vans have arrived having driven 100 miles or so only to find they couldn't do what was planned because something else hadn't been done beforehand- last one being poke cables through wall into cabin ... But no duct had been put in the wall ready by someone else, so they went home again whole day wasted

 

[Jungli]

Our broadband is poor too 13mb is the max we can get... furthest point from a FTTC.

But when the contract ends with plusnet, I'm going over to 4g.

There is a line of sight 150m away from the house 78 to 100mb consistently.

Sim only data on a router and I'm better off with £18 to 24/month. Unlimited downloads.

Be handy if anyone else is using 4g as a broadband solution.

 

[Box Brownie]

We have been with BT since we got maried over 50 years ago now, but we are changing suppliers. the reason is BT can't even suggest when they can supply fibre optic cable to our house or even in the local exchange. EXCEPT one private company that has it installed in the exchange already and working.
I received an email from a company "BOX" 2 days ago offering a far better deal than BT who are going to put up their prices next month. the offer was

Quote" Offer applies to Box’s 100 Mbps, 300 Mbps & 1,000 Mbps Fibre Broadband packages for new customers joining on a 24-month contract, only, by 23:59 GMT on 28.03.23. The 100 Mbps offer is £19.95/month for months 1-24, £24.95/month thereafter. The 300 Mbps offer is £24.95/month for months 1-24, and £34.95/month thereafter. The 1,000 Mbps is £34.95/month for months 1-24, and £44.95/month thereafter. Phone package costs an extra £10 per month with a £14.95 installation fee (free for 300 Mbps and 1 Gbps packages)." unquote.

Now BT can only provide 35mbps download and hopefully 5mbps upload, so compairing the difference is staggering. Not only that because we are going to terminate the BT contract early we will have to pay a fair bit of money about £150 . When we informed this private company they said we can have broadband free for a year which more than covers the BT loss. not only that we can included for a small fee free landine and to mobile connection, BT don't even offer mobile connection.

So we signed up yesteday and sorted out direct debit payment this morning. This is the only privete company that can do this at the moment. Talk about being keen to get new customers. Midday today 2 men from" Box" turned up to survey but decided to pull the fibre cable to the footbox in our road ( fibre cable already there)and fit the gear needed inside and outside our house. Changeover due on the 11 April.

BT are lagging so far behind they must be loosing domestic customers by the thousands every day, we are the second in our road to change to this company as no other private company has got the infrastructure in place to supply us at the moment, although I have seen 3 or 4 others at foot boxes on pavements locally.

I have to wonder if BT actually are interested in private dwellings or just concentrating or business for revenue.

Interesting in that they are primarily Sussex but there are some 'outlier' locations in parts of Surrey.

One to watch, perhaps

I do wonder who is backing/underwriting their business model?

 

[realspeed]

Interesting in that they are primarily Sussex but there are some 'outlier' locations in parts of Surrey.

One to watch, perhaps

I do wonder who is backing/underwriting their business model?

At the moment this company is the only one to provide fibre cable to our cal de sac direct to our house from the exchange. Like most things I do I research as much as possible first obviously

 

[ShinySideUp]

I tried to get fibre broadband through a local company called Wildanet and while the people who lay the cable and bring it to your house did a swift job, they are not the people who install it, it is Wildanet that do that...and they are bloody useless. Long story made very short, four emails to three different people in 14 days and still no installation date. I gave up as if they can't get the installation right I hate to think what their after-sales service is like in the even of a fault. I'm with Sky but they want to put the price up to over thirty quid a month so I'm moving to NOW (which is also Sky under another name) and that's for £22 a month. I get about 55Mb per second and it's enough for daily use. It's only when downloading 15GB from Steam that I have to wait overnight.

I expect that in the next year or so, the big companies will buy time on the fibre cable and may be more useful in getting things sorted. I'll wait for another year for fibre I suppose.

I left BT for Sky when BT put their prices up to (to me) £37 pm and reduced their guaranteed speed.

 

[realspeed]

Martin sorry about you experience with Wildanet in your area. Ours gave an installation date and at the moment appear to be an ok company, time will tell.

As a bye he bye, my parents left me a house in Perranporth on the north Cornish coast. I had to sell it as I could not afford to own 2 houses and work commitments. Letting not an option as hundreds of miles away so could not keep an eye on it. Love Cornwall spent most of holidays there as a child. it was the original head coast guards house, but that is another story

 

[JonathanRyan]

Openreach do most of the cabling but their typically pattern seems to be weeks if not months delay between elements of any work.
We only got fibre to cabinet two years ago but the fibre was laid by a local farm contractor in a day then it was nearly six months before they actually got it connected both ends.

Yes. When I was trying to encourage my neighbours to pay £25K to lay fibre, OpenReach made it clear that legally they had a year to even start considering to do the job we would be paying them for.....

Good to see some competition in the market. Unfortunately you tend to get new firms in places served by established ones. So it's great to hear you can get a better option than OR - but it would be even better if they supplied places OR didn't. In my home town there are houses OR and Virgin fight over, and houses that neither supply. It's an odd sort of business.

 

[Musicman]

Interesting in that they are primarily Sussex but there are some 'outlier' locations in parts of Surrey.

One to watch, perhaps

I do wonder who is backing/underwriting their business model?

Box Broadband were bought in August 2021 by London-based Community Fibre (who it happens have been my ISP since October).

Community Fibre announces acquisition of Box Broadband

Community Fibre, London’s fastest 100% full fibre broadband provider, announces today that it has acquired a majority stake in Box Broadband

communityfibre.co.uk

They continue to operate Box as a separate brand and business unit.

There are quite a number of new companies in the market that are installing fibre infrastructure.CityFibre is another that springs to mind, who are more nationally oriented, but there are many more locally oriented companies like Pine Media installing fibre in Sheffield.

BT Openreach were everywhere because they benefitted the legacy of a century of copper installations under the Post Office and BT. Even with FTTC this literally put them into the last mile for most properties in the UK.

With 'full' fibre FTTP/FTTH, it's a new world and replacing all that copper is a lot of work. Openreach are still a big player, targeting access for 25m premises by the end of 2026, but the task of covering the entire country is beyond them alone. A lot of this work is being assisted by government grants and Ofcom are providing a more favourable regulatory regime to help mitigate the risks for investors and promote growth of FTTP.