Landlord quirks leave thousands of flats stuck in the broadband slow lane Brits living in blocks of flats or apartments risk missing out on high-speed fiber broadband due to quirks in domestic regulations that can hinder access for telco engineers. While network operators continue to roll out fiber-optic infrastructure around the UK as part of the government's Project Gigabit scheme, some customers …
My daughter lives in a rented flat, not even high rise, and her landlord has flatly refused to allow a hole to be drilled in the wall for fibre broadband - even though where she lives is served by a high speed fibre exchange. I believe that this is common in the development where she lives.
Guys, think of the poor landlords FFS!
They've a building there they get hundreds of pounds from each tenant, when all the landlord has to do is wake up in the morning and go about their daily lives.
How dare you expect them to allow a hole to be drilled in the wall of a building they own but you pay for!
The building belongs to the landlord, it's their decision... don't like it, then move out and find a better landlord. I can't speak for the US but over here I think the vast majority of landlords are happy to get this kind of thing done as it makes the property more attractive.
And no, being a landlord does require work and investment, a lot more than I appreciated when I was a renter. For example, when my tenant wanted to have a new broadband supplier there was a need for a new cable and new holes to be drilled etc. I had to go and inspect the work and then chase the company who did it as they'd made such a pigs ear of the job.
Then there's chasing a renter who won't pay, or who damages the property or who tries to sublet in some dodgy way...... most of the time these things aren't a big problem but you can lose a lot of time and money and all the time you've got a mortgage to pay on the place and other costs which fall to you....
Yeah, I had a utility provider slice through the middle of the stone paving slab in front of the door and fill the gap with tarmac. Another one, when installing cable feed, after I very pointed pointed to the corner of the room and very pointedly told them: drill within an inch of the corner to get through the floor: a couple of days later I found they'd drilled about six inches from the wall and run the cable under the carpet. Six months later, after the tenant reported flickering lights, I found they'd DRILLED RIGHT THROUGH THE FUCKING POWER CABLES I'D SPECIFICLALLY TOLD THEM NOT TOP FUCKING FDRILL IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUNCIKC FLOOR TO FUCKING AVOID.
#
And breathe!
I too have experience with contractors not doing what they're told... I had to go round, inspect the work, and then go tell them "this needs removing", "that is obsolete, remote that", etc... They were tempted to reuse old piping for heating and I very swiftly disabused them of the notion, telling them that inaccessible piping is what got us to the situation in the first place and that I'd rather have exposed copper piping that can be boxed in. The end result was ok.
All landlords are bastards and parasites, but not all landlords are stupid bastards and parasites. Your landlady evidently recognises that installing fibre not only doesn't reduce the value of her property, it makes it more desirable when you move out - and you're paying for it.
I was a landlord renting out my mothers house after she died.
From my point of view:
All tenants are bastards and parasites, they will lie, cheat and tell you white is black if they think they can get you to pay for something they broke.
They will show no care for anything they don't own.
Christmas is the time to 'wreak havoc' to the place then in the New Year complain that 'the tap just became loose of its own accord and needs to be replaced as it leaks !!!' etc etc.
I have had double glazed windows broken from the inside and been told that a mystery person outside had broken them while they were at work !!!???.
[The photos showed that All the broken glass was 'outside' and the shatter pattern was from the inside to outside !!!)
Reluctantly they paid for the work when the photos/evidence was explained to them !!!
I sold the house asap, to escape having to deal with any more tenants.
(I had to wait 2 years for the tenant to leave the house as they conned the local council into giving them a brand-new housing association house. I had to go through an eviction process that the tenant 'wanted/demanded' as it gave them extra ammunition when they spoke to the local council.
Effectively I was told that if I did not start the eviction process they would stop paying the rent. They needed the eviction notice to improve their case with the council !!!)
:)
"Effectively I was told that if I did not start the eviction process they would stop paying the rent. They needed the eviction notice to improve their case with the council !!!)"
And this is why it's advisable to avoid neighborhoods made up of council housing. An eviction should be a negative in the eyes of a council and a good reason why proved. Being asked to vacate due to the property being sold is different than being evicted since one is refusing to leave for any reason.
The reason the big corporate property management firms/landlords are such pricks is they want to make it exceptionally clear that they aren't going to put up with any nonsense. I get the impression they go a bit further than necessary. Makes me very happy to own my home. The downside is that I am going to the county to pay my property taxes tomorrow. I could pay online, but they charge an additional 3% for digital payments and I have a bank branch a block from the assessor's office. It's enough to make a stop at the bank a reasonable thing.
"They charge extra for digital payments!?"
But wait, there's more:
You can sign up to automatically pay monthly via an outside service with several fees tacked on if you are really dim. You aren't actually paying monthly, but into an escrow account that will pay the taxes after they've been formulated for the next year and billed. That outside company is making money from interest and the fees.
The way the US government works is weird. The agencies that accept digital payments have you exit to a third party processor after warnings you have to click through acknowledging you are leaving the government web site. Once payment is accepted, you get routed back. I find this bizarre as even an eShop running out of a storage unit has payments as a very seamless thing.
"The way the US government works is weird. The agencies that accept digital payments have you exit to a third party processor after warnings you have to click through acknowledging you are leaving the government web site. Once payment is accepted, you get routed back. I find this bizarre as even an eShop running out of a storage unit has payments as a very seamless thing."
I think that's because most of those shops are doing exactly the same thing but not telling you about it. They embed some third-party payment platform's system in an iframe, collect your details, and direct you to the next page. The governments probably don't want to embed external code because it introduces requirements that are annoying for them to deal with, so they link and, to avoid any complaints that they diverted people without telling them, they announce it lots of times. Governments tend to have particular requirements like stating that they do not endorse something any time they mention it or needing to cite ways for users to request additional information directly on the form rather than on an FAQ page, and that leads to peculiar web design.
Flats... HMO (Home of multiple Occupancy) and student accomodation. Here the landlord may actually instead a line, but that s all. Leaving it to each set of tenants to sort out the subscription. Which when not all providers will take a 9 month~1 year contract, wastes time as tenants locate a supplier - as even the letting agencies don't know what to do and aren't interested.
Of cause having got the line working and hopefullly an ISP router/WiFi AP, the hope is that all in the house can access the WiFi as the landlord/letting agency don't want any changes to support the running of cables and naturally the house wiring is such that Home-Plugs don't work particularly well.
I can see why Huawei developed their FTTR for Home solution, as the flat cable can be installed without drilling and importantly also be removed with minimal damage.
"I can see why Huawei developed their FTTR for Home solution, as the flat cable can be installed without drilling and importantly also be removed with minimal damage."
Properly installed, there shouldn't be a need to remove it and it's there for the next tenant so a selling point for the landlord. Just bodging the lines in is the big issue.
I provide media for estate agents and often see homes with 3+ sat TV dished and wires all over the place. Each time a new occupant takes residence and gets sat TV, they might reuse the holes, but they don't remove the old cable or dishes. They'll just snip the cables, put them out and put theirs through. The painters gleefully paint over everything since they won't mess with that sort of thing and the tenants have no clue what's working and what's leftover.
"Agree, however, letting agencies would disagree because the property hasn't been reverted to the state it was in when the tenant moved in..."
Yes, they often will "procedure" themselves out of useful upgrades. I had a friend that rented a flat that didn't have a refrigerator included so he bought a pretty good one. When he moved out, his new digs had a good one so it was easier for him to just leave the one he bought behind rather than move it somewhere. The letting agency required it to be taken away. You can send people to school, but you can't force them to think. At the very least, the agent could have had the fridge removed and sold it while pocketing the money.
Fridges are a problem.
Nobody wants to buy a secondhand one, so the price for one in good working condition is extremely low.
And waste disposal sites need a lot of documentation to prove that the refrigerant is acceptable, plus special handling to deal with said delicious liquid as they're generally somewhat toxic or worse.
So it generally costs quite a lot to dispose of one.
"Fridges are a problem."
Yep, getting one to the fourth floor is a PIA. In all of the flats I rented, all came with a full suite of white goods. A couple had communal laundry. When I closed up my shop, I put the fridge and microwave on Craigslist for free to get them out of there and it took 15 minutes to get a call so there are people that are perfectly happy to get something second hand. In the example I mentioned, it was a nice fridge only a year or so old in very good condition. My friend is a clean freak so it would have been very tidy. Paying the removals company to bring it down and then take it 1,000 miles away was more than it was worth.
Where I am, there are disposal programs to keep that sort of thing from just being fly-tipped. I'd have to look, but it's either free or only a very nominal cost. There's a second hand appliance shop that will take working appliances in reasonable condition for free. He'll even pick them up as it's not a very big town.
Yes, this is the problem here too, and especially when the contractors then don't lay the cables neatly next to each other (not necessarily *touching* each other, but if there are already two cables running up the house, why lay the third one a completely different way instead of sticking to the consistency of all three cables, all provided by the same cable company, running up next to each other).
Thankfully, when a fitter showed up recently to do something similar, I asked him to remove the obsolete cabling at the same time, which the lad did because he agreed that it looked crap that cables ran willy-nilly up the walls. And yes, an apartment block with 24 units having 24 dishes makes zero sense, especially when the building management could provide one or two dishes (one for free services, one for paid-for satellites which might have a different track across the sky), and then plumb each unit in with appropriate cabling...
But then again, you'd then be beholden to the whims of building management ("oh, you didn't pay the satellite TV fee this month, so we'll turn you off")... who knows.
"But then again, you'd then be beholden to the whims of building management"
Typically, the "box" that the Sat company provides negotiates the subscriber's access. If the landlord has a multiple feed dish installed, it can feed all of the units and the tenants can subscribe to that service on their own. It's a bit of investment for the landlord, but it will save a couple of hundred holes into the sides of the building over time and cables being stapled down all over the place.
"My daughter lives in a rented flat, not even high rise, and her landlord has flatly refused to allow a hole to be drilled in the wall for fibre broadband "
I don't blame them since those hacks drill holes willy nilly and staple cables wherever it suits them to get the job done as quickly as possible.
The landlord could contract for a private firm to do it properly and terminate the lines in an equipment room/cabinet if they are concerned. There will be a loss of good tenants if internet isn't up to scratch and the quality of lodgers will decline over time until the building is a right mess. I see the same sort of thing with EV charging. If there's assigned parking, landlords need to be looking at fitting charging options. It doesn't have to be high-power as plugging in overnight is often more than sufficient to top up an EV. Even if somebody needs more than that, it can help a lot.
If the landlord was planning on getting a fiber connection for the building and running cat5 (or perhaps re-purposing existing cat5 that was installed for landlines when it was built) and offering internet service as part of the rent or an add on charge (like add ons for parking etc.) I wouldn't want tenants to have installers with two days of training drilling random holes and causing potential damage. If there are multiple fiber providers you might have several holes drilled after a while since one provider can't re-use the fiber run by another, so you need to bring some sort of order to the process. So maybe you contract with one to install dark fiber in every room and mandate that as the only option for tenants to avoid such a situation.
But if the landlord is just saying "we remain firmly stuck in the past and too bad for our tenants" then the only fix is to find a different place and leave bad reviews in whatever sort of sites exist to review rental properties making tenants stay away so the landlord feels some eventual financial pain from his lack of action.
"So maybe you contract with one to install dark fiber in every room and mandate that as the only option for tenants to avoid such a situation."
It's a benefit to the new tenant to have the fiber pre-installed and terminating in a central cabinet in the building as well as a room central to the flat. All the company has to do is provide the "modem" and have the tech verify it's working properly. No hanging about while techs faff around with ladders and drills if they show up the day scheduled at all. It also means the person can move in and leave room to connect the box rather than have to shift things around to allow holes to be drilled and cabling run.
Back under the Tories, Chris Elmore (then Labour shadow minister for telecoms) proposed an amendment to the Product Security and Telecommunications Bill to allow telcos access to upgrade copper to fibre, but the Tory government of the day blocked because "the government did not accept this proposal, stating that it would infringe too heavily upon private rights" meaning landlord's rights. Come May 2025, and Baroness Janke (LibDem) proposed an amendment to the Renter's Rights Bill to do the same thing, and this time the Labour government rejected that too, with a waffly rejection about the issue needing more consideration.
FFS, Labour idiots, you've had fourteen years to come up with some policies, and the best you've got is plucking the policy of ID cards out of the prime minister's arse?
"... CityFibre website says that Openreach are not deploying to my block of flats because they don't have permission from the landlord," the reader said, but added that "I'm the landlord, and they haven't asked."
So Open reach could have put a letter in the first postbox with a note, please forward to landlord. Or maybe one in every postbox. Or they could do nothing.
Considering we are talking about Openreach here, I wonder which option they would choose, every single time... hmmmm.....
"So Open reach could have put a letter in the first postbox with a note, please forward to landlord. Or maybe one in every postbox. Or they could do nothing."
Good luck with that. Even if it got to the property manager, it might still need to be signed off by the owner of the building due to regs. If that happens to be a banking group investment arm, good luck with cracking that nut. The property manager might have permission to conduct repairs, but not be allowed to approve "improvements" without specific permission, in triplicate (apply Vogon protocols here).
Building owners need to be much more proactive and reach out to have the building connected up and determine the best way to accomplish that without damaging the building.
Someone in the area I know asked Vodafone to install FTTP, and apparently they closed the ticket because someone (unnamed) across whose front door access they needed to dig up the pavement, refused permission.
So I'm considering putting flyers through the doors of every house/flat/block to say "we in the area can't get fibre because one of you eejits refused permission. Please give permission next time because otherwise you won't get access to fibre either. Let's all play along and ask the contractors to make it easy for everyone to get fibre in future by upgrading the ducts properly".
I'm not holding my breath though because everyone around here seems to only think as far as their nose.
I'm a lessee in a small block - and will soon be taking over as a director of the management company.
Before any fibre went in, I tried to contact OpenRetch (having arranged with the freeholder that I'd organise this) at their multi-dwelling unit (MDU) by filling in the form on their website. All I wanted to do was arrange with them to do the sensible thing, use the duct that's already there, and already carried the copper cabling to a services cupboard. Did I get a response - did I f**k.
Tenant in one of the flats got fibre installed - and it's a right mess on the front of the building, and looks like the so called engineer actually went out of his way to make it ugly. By chance, I was up there when our tenant was getting his fibre installed - you should have seen his face when I pointed out he needed permission to be having holes drilled through the walls ! Reluctantly I allowed the install to go ahead after the engineer discussed options - and to be fair, you can barely see the cable he put in because he took the time to do it neatly. When the 3rd flat got theirs in, the tech added another splice box - but made it so obviously not lined up with anything (especially the 1st one it's next to) that i "really stands out".
In total I tried 4 times to contact the MDU - and each time I either got no response, or got a brush off.
Once I'm an officer of the management company, I'll be getting in touch again, and telling them they have 28 days to come to some arrangement, or I'll just remove the unauthorised apparatus from the front of the building. I'll let the other tenants know in advance, so they can get their ISPs to contact OpenRetch with the bad news as well. What the other lessees allow their tenants to do inside the flats is up to them, but on the outside and in the communal areas - I care about what my property looks like, and covered in random washing lines isn't a good look.
So no, openRetch, you can FRO when you can't even respond when building managers actively try and engage with you.
But, I do support some form of rule change to deal with the deadweights who CBA to respond and support sensible services into the building.
In our village (albeit now officially classed as a town) Openreach have put fibre into new housing developments but, for those of us in the older parts, we're limited to FTTC. GoFibre have installed a separate fibre network in the area but, having seen the shoddy state of the work (cables loosely tied to pole with blue rope, loops - some easily caught when walking past - ducts left open - and that's what is clearly visible) I've declined their offer to supply me. 30Mbps from EE/Openreach is fast enough for all our household needs, and it's been reliable since installed many years ago. A faster upload speed would be nice but not essential (nor worth ditching a reliable service for one I suspect may not be so in the longer term). Of course, YMMV.
"I note, for my address, the price of EE's "entry level" fibre (ie. broadly equivalent to circa 80M FTTC) is now a few pounds a month cheaper than their FTTC, as they aren't changing a connection fee"
The fiber provider where I live is rapidly approach 50% of what the cable mob charge (as their rates keep going up), but want a stack of PII to install service. Ostensibly, it's for a "credit check" although they haven't figured out they can bypass all of that by billing quarterly, semi-annually or annually in advance.
I'd be very happy with paying 1/2 the price in advance. I just took my cell provider up on a 1/2 offer for an additional number which is something I've needed to do for some time. I now have a business number with a local area code and I'm no longer advertising my other number with my businesses. Next year when the rates go back to normal, I'll downgrade the service to simple talk and text which is super cheap. I don't need the added data as I don't use what I already have on my first line by several miles.
I can't even get FTTC because I live literally on the other side of the alley from the exchange, so rusty copper wire drowning in the cracked ducting under the alley is the best I can get. I'm forced to wait until they physically switch off the copper exchange and are forced to run a fibre to me.
"It's possible that some people will be stuck with slower connections for years whilst their neighbours* enjoy gigabit-capable, ultra-reliable broadband – which research suggests will boost productivity and prosperity. There's a real risk of harming the UK's growth potential, which is why we think the government needs to act."
If I don't consume gigabit services what enjoyment would gigabit-capable broadband bring? How would it boost my productivity? How would a higher monthly fee boost my prosperity?
As to ultra-reliable - another power cut over the weekend, internet down without a UPS for the router but POTS just keeps working. I do not look forward to having POTS withdrawn.
Meanwhile a friend stuck on an excessively long line to the same FTTC cabinet while FTTP was made available to those with shorter links has finally ended up having to go 5G to get a connection. Should HMG/Offcom/OpenReach/Whoever really have gone gung-ho on FTTP to more easily reached premises whilst continuing to resist providing a decent FTTC service first? What happened o universal provision requirements?
* A dangerous word to throw about if you're not prepared to back it up by providing a universal service as it risks provoking the same question as did the same word in the Sermon on the Mount: "Who is my neighbour?"
The point is you don't know until you try. People were reluctant to work from home until Covid forced them to, now they can't get enough of it.
Internet shopping was a mere novelty until it wasn't. Even if you only shop online for a few minutes a month, that's still disruptive enough to kill the shopping malls and most high streets.
Paradigm shifts are unexpected like that and the next one will be too. Maybe someone will work out how to make cheap holograms and we all have to have it at the same time.
I do get your point of reliability. Surely a fail safe router could be designed that falls back to POTS when unpowered? Redundancy would be good in both directions. The next Carrington event might burn out copper wires but leave optic fibres intact, in which case digital phones (on UPS) could be literal lifesavers.
My Mum has FTTP and the ONT and router are powered by a small box with a built in battery backup that lasts 5 hours. The modem also drives a traditional analog phone line, so her phone and internet still work in a powercut.
Well, yeah, but I was replying to the comment "Surely a fail safe router could be designed that falls back to POTS when unpowered".
I was just pointing out there is a simple solution to that problem.
Anyway, you sound angry that devices will have to be powered in the house. Why? Sure, it's annoying, but what other solution is there? Do you think all fibre optic cables should also have electrical wiring attached, or are you more generally against the switch to fiber optics?
I'm not being sarcastic or bitchy - I'm just genuinely puzzled as to what alternative there is.
Just though I'd add.... My mum changed landline phone provider, and as she's in a FTTP area, they wouldn't do it without moving her to fibre.
She does have internet for the alexa devices, but she's hardly a power user. The battery backed setup with POTS phone compatibility was all part of the default install, not something I hacked up.
"The point is you don't know until you try."
I'd be hard pushed to use the bandwidth I already have so I deeply resent some marketroidi telling me I'd "enjoy" more when they can't get off their arses to provide an adequate FTTC service. It's not as if they're going to roll out FTTP to those customers who they're already failing. They're just going round and round the easiest customers to supply to make themselves look good.
I'd be hard pushed to use the bandwidth I already have so I deeply resent some marketroidi telling me I'd "enjoy" more when they can't get off their arses to provide an adequate FTTC service.
Blame marketing & finance, not the poor salesdroids who have to follow scripts. BT/EE's cheapest offer seems to be £25 for a 36Mbps service to £37 for 900Mbps, with usual caveats of 'up to' and price increases following introductory offer etc. But that's kind of how services are structured, ie more about maintaining or increasing ARPU. So come renewal time, I get offered bandwidth increases and pay the same. Oh, and of course attempts to flog me BT/EE TV and boost ARPU a bit more.
Then there's the more pragmatic stuff, ie price points would be based on an acceptable margin for a 1yr contract, and costs are pretty much the same regardless of capacity. So cost of say, 2hrs installers time, splices, maybe 100m of fibre, the NID and a router, plus share of the provisioning & sales costs. So that sets a floor price and anything faster is mostly gravy given it's just a profile option shaping the VLAN. I've seen a few providers offering 'social' tariffs at <£25 but those might be subsidised. But for most ISPs, ie Openreach resellers, their cost/price is also going to be the floor price and as those prices are published, can kind of guesstimate reseller's margins.
But it's also a simple case of marketing and defining say, an SML range of tariffs, and the more tariffs offered, the more complicated it gets to provision & manage, especially if all that is automated. So although creating a 10Mbps tariff would be some clicks, it might not be that much cheaper especially when it would probably also be low volume given customer perception is fibre=fast.
But also why CityFibre may have fobbed off this landlord. I don't know what their MDU offer is, but offering would probably require CF to fibre into the building and that wouldn't be economic on maybe a single order. So they may opt for reselling Openreach until they get enough customers in that building to justify connecting it.
"Even if you only shop online for a few minutes a month, that's still disruptive enough to kill the shopping malls and most high streets."
And then government can take over to hammer the final nail into place. Unsurprisingly, the big box stores pay much less tax than shops on the high street on a normalized scale. On top of the city/town/county bending over backwards with tax abatements and providing loads of new infrastructure to bring in those stores.
If I don't consume gigabit services what enjoyment would gigabit-capable broadband bring? How would it boost my productivity? How would a higher monthly fee boost my prosperity?
As I understand it, you don't need that speed unless you are doing things most households don't actually do. You can have the whole extended family watching 4k streaming video with that. A large family.
"You can have the whole extended family watching 4k streaming video with that. A large family."
Except, if it's all being deployed via wifi, the bottleneck moves to the wireless link and everybody is whinging that they keep getting buffering wheels and the acrimony begins.
When I grew up, we had one TV, dad dictated what was on and I was the remote control. There was also no TV during daylight hours except on Saturday morning (after chores) and if chores were done and it was hissing down with rain. Hunting rattlesnakes was seen as a better pastime than watching the gawddamn noisy box. The south facing side of my friends barn had some nice skins tacked up for curing.
Many (or likely most) people don't really really need ultra super (expensive) and fast. They need reliable with low latency. Fast is a chimera, beloved of politicians and vendors with KPIs. Obviously exceptions abound, but from my personal lived experience: 50mbps Talk Talk via copper was ample for watching videos, WFH, playing games (perhaps not CoD but that could be just me), we then upgraded to 120mpbs+ FTTP. Faster? Yes. Did anyone in the household of four notice a difference? Nope. I suggest to my learned friends that while it might be occasionally nice to only wait 1 hour for my specialist video to download, rather than four, it does not make a material difference that justifies the additional cost. TBH once when Talk Talk were in their frequent rubbish periods our connection dropped to 25mbps and even then we didn't notice until the BT Openreach engineer pointed it out and told us that if the supplier router detects an error it automatically drops line speed to keep it active. It was only when the speed dropped to 14mbps that it really hurt, even then we could surf but watching videos was miserable.
Peace
First thing I got when I moved from POTS* to fibre was a UPS** to ensure the router and VOIP phone have power if there's a power cut. They're not exactly cheap, but they do provide some peace of mind. Especially as a landline (or VOIP line) is kind of essential where I am as mobile signal is... not exactly great.
Sure, the issue would then be if the local cabinet lost power, but that would be true even with POTS (and they usually have UPS in the cabinet, too).
* In the UK, POTS is being/has been retired, hence moving to VOIP.
** For reference, I got an APC extension lead type as it takes standard plugs (3 pin). Has been solid so far (3 years and counting) and yes, have had power cuts and still retained network/voip, hence why I'd suggest looking into a small home UPS for key things like your router and VOIP module/phone. Even if you're not going fibre, POTS is being retired so VOIP or mobile are the only options.
You'll need to replace the battery in the not too distant future. If you haven't configured it to do self tests (or it's not possible to do self tests on the model you have, and you aren't occasionally pulling the mains plug manually to test) you'll only find out the battery is knackered when you have a power cut, which might not be the best time to find out. A battery swap should be fairly easy, and can be more economical if you use compatible batteries, saving you the APC brand tax.
" but that would be true even with POTS"
No, POTS has a big UPS at the switch (exchange). The footway cabinet taking a digital feed from the cabinet and adding it to the line may well have a UPS, otherwise there's be no point it the consumer having a UPS for their router. But POTS just keeps working through the outage.
Sure, the DECT base unit dies but the line-powered phone I retained because of that doesn't. Hence I was able to dial 105 on Saturday to be told that, once more, I was one of over 2,000 households who'd just lost power because their non-redundant (they didn't actually mention that bit) overhead line had failed again.
"If I don't consume gigabit services what enjoyment would gigabit-capable broadband bring?"
I suppose that depends what you had before. If you had something that was enough speed for everything you did, you might not even notice the upgrade. I have the choice for gigabit service but I only bought 100 Mbps. I don't really notice the difference. A while ago, I was elsewhere using a 5 Mbps connection. Even though I've used much slower things before, 5 Mbps was quite a bit more noticeable to the extent that things I did frequently, in my case uploading a couple gigabytes of data to a server, changed from easily ignored as it worked seamlessly to something requiring an overnight run (to avoid saturating the connection for other uses) with the laptop kept awake. So depending on what you have and what you do, you have a lot of options for how big a benefit you get from an increase in speed. One reason why it is helpful to connect people when most of the infrastructure is already installed is that they don't have to worry when they do something that would benefit from that speed.
If, that is, they did have an extra payment, which would depend on the business and competition. I would pay less for gigabit service, and pay even less than that for 100 Mbps service on the gigabit-capable line, than I did for slower service at the last place I live because there is more choice here. If you only have the one provider, they install faster service and refuse to let you pay less for slower speeds, then you can try making a complaint to the relevant regulator but if that fails, it has less to do with faster connections and more to do with a monopoly. As for the new wire going to the house, you've already got wires going to your house, and in many cases you couldn't prevent them installing one whether you used it or not, so I consider that unimportant.
"* A dangerous word to throw about if you're not prepared to back it up by providing a universal service as it risks provoking the same question as did the same word in the Sermon on the Mount: "Who is my neighbour?"
That's an example of how things get really lost in translation. "Neighbor" wound up being what somebody chose as the nearest approximation via a chain of such paraphrasing. In cultures that place emphasis on certain things, they will have words to convey a certain meaning that is much more subtle and no such word in the language being translated to has the same "flavour".
I'm not a fan of "universal" diktats. It can wind up as an easy way for entities to say there is no feasible way to provide that thing so nothing will be provided rather than being able to provide the best that might be possible in that place.
I assume your "reader/landlord" hasn't read very much otherwise he'd have found this with minimal effort :
https://www.openreach.com/help-and-support/landlords-multi-dwelling-unit
Its pretty easy - give BT legal permission to install to a MDU and they will if its in scope for the area. Don't and they won't.
Why your "reader/landlord" thinks BT should chase him for permission is quite beyond me. Entitled much?
Some people are unbelievable.....
Its pretty easy - give BT legal permission to install to a MDU and they will if its in scope for the area. Don't and they won't.Why your "reader/landlord" thinks BT should chase him for permission is quite beyond me. Entitled much?
There's also the simple search query "Openreach new build", which returns this-
https://www.openreach.com/building-developers-and-projects/fibre-for-developers
And BT promotes that to developers. But I've also heard & seen some horror stories. Like developers promoting 'luxury' apartments with 'superfast broadband' that turns out to be a shared connection running via a switch in the basement. Then making that part of the service charges and making it difficult for tenants. I'm pretty sure UK building regs make provision of utility services manadatory, but maybe not specific enough to specify fibre provision.
But wayleaves have always been a bit of a PITA, even with commercial properties. I always told my clients to get in touch with their landlords when designing fibre into their buildings because it can mean the 'subject to survey' bit of a job can have fewer delays. Which can get complicated tracking down who can actually grant wayleaves and approve SoWs because sometimes there are FM companies involved, or absentee landlords.who don't respond. Which I guess is also true for MDUs, ie a tenant might rent from a landlord who's bought a unit, but isn't the landlord as far as wayleaves are concerned.
And then there are landlords who think wayleaves are a revenue generating opportunity and want to charge for them. Things like Code Powers & the Party Walls legislation can help get around that, but adds delays and costs, so might make the solution uneconomic, especially when it comes to the dreaded 'ransom strips' that exist purely to profit from wayleaves. One of the big docklands datacentres has/had this problem.. And then councils can sometimes add to the FUN!, if there are stops on new construction in the roads around a building and there's no existing ductwork that can be utilised, or ducts can't be accessed without needing some form of traffic management.
> Entitled much?
Did we read the same article?
The reader/landlord (call him RL) found that the neighbouring blocks already had fibre. He checked with his current ISP, who gave no joy. He contacted Ofcom, who point him at Openreach and CityFibre (so he is actively doing something, not sitting back like someone who is entitled). From CityFibre he learns about *why* his block was skipped - and the response implies that OpenReach sought permission from the landlord, but RL *is* that very same landlord and knows their attempts were - insufficient.
We know RL does have nous to contact Ofcom, BT, CityFibre and OpenReach, as well as telling El Reg about the latter's ability to contact the neighbouring blocks but skipping over his.
We have nothing more beyond that point - but it seems fair to believe he continued his already started chase - and hopefully found something akin to the link you provided.
In the meantime, his story - and El Reg's continuation - can alert other landlords to the fact that maybe they should be pestering OpenReach, even when, like RL, they ask and are told "it is coming in 2026" instead of "we choose to skip you".
> Some people are unbelievable.....
In their ability to declare, loudly, in public, that anyone who finds themselves in RL's position, skipped over, was due entirely to their being "entitled" and "expecting BT to chase him" - ESPECIALLY as, to reiterate, BT told him they had him on a 2026 schedule so they'd not be planning on any "chasing" yet (in case you'd not noticed, 2026 is close, but not here yet).
From CityFibre he learns about *why* his block was skipped - and the response implies that OpenReach sought permission from the landlord, but RL *is* that very same landlord and knows their attempts were - insufficient.We know RL does have nous to contact Ofcom, BT, CityFibre and OpenReach, as well as telling El Reg about the latter's ability to contact the neighbouring blocks but skipping over his.
But perhaps didn't have the nous to contact Openreach's new-build team when the MDU was being developed, or that Ofcom wasn't the right entity to be approached unless they were unhappy with the answers. Also they may have been fobbed off a bit by CityFibre passing the buck to BT when it might have been CityFibre's investment decision that made them decline to fibre to his building. Which can be the Catch-22, ie without orders to cover the costs, the work won't get done. Which is one of those aspects where competition can harm & hinder service provision because investment cases get harder when consumers can switch suppliers after a year.
"Which is one of those aspects where competition can harm & hinder service provision because investment cases get harder when consumers can switch suppliers after a year."
To have multiple providers can be a curse as well. Each might need the road torn up to lay down their infrastructure, their own cabinet in a machinery room of a MDU, etc. If all the delivery is via the same infrastructure, it's only a choice of billing companies which is problematic as well as the company that owns the tangible lines is still a monopoly and chokepoint.
I hate to suggest government involvement in anything, but utilities need to be classed differently than any other business and be more closely monitored since their service is foundational and often a requirement. You could live without an internet connection, but more and more, that's getting to be less of an option. You can't live without electricity since in most places, if it's available, you must have service at your residence for it to be considered habitable. Same with water. If it's not available via a connection to a grid, you can make other arrangements and, again, it might be required that you have something in place to occupy a home. An occasional use cabin in the woods could likely be exempted. The point is that while the companies are private, they aren't free to do as they please. In exchange for being a monopoly in an area, they would have strict profit, investment and salary limitations as well as minimum levels of service or be required to sell out to another completely unrelated entity.
I've posted further up - but I proactively tried contacting the MDU via that form, on behalf of the freeholder. They just p***ed me off - I tried at least 4 times. At some point I intend contacting them again with "you have 28 days to remove the unauthorised apparatus off the front of the building - if you don't then I'll remove it". Perhaps then they'll talk to me about using the facilities provided inside the building. or perhaps it'll only happen when the CSPs complain to them when their customers complain about loss of service.
My ISP here in Switzerland, has gone to court a few times to make the legacy monopoly behave.. It's a shame the same thing doesn't happen in the UK too. The end result of this is that you can get proper fibre (ie not XGS-PON) at up to symmetric 25Gb.
I stayed in a holiday rental property recently. It was a flat in a Scottish town and I was surprised the internet was provided by a mobile broadband device.
While the palm sized unit gave adequate speed, unsurprisingly the wifi signal itself didn't reach all rooms. (though in fairness the device placement - near a window - and the sturdy construction of the building wouldn't have helped)
Err it was Britian that had an emprie and taught the world English - given the isolationist direction of travel of the left pond, it might be well advised to drop US spelling for the international (ie. non-US) audience. Althoug, perhaps in the coming years with more people being exposed to Chinese English...
"We default to US spelling these days for the sake of our international audience”
.... and piss off the parts of the world that don't speak American.
And also implies that El Reg considers that Americans are far too stupid to understand the slight differences in spelling.
I frequent quite a few forums (fora?) which are almost exclusively US based, but I always, always use ‘colour’, ‘flavour’, ‘neighbour’ etc. It has never occurred to me that anyone would be massively confused!
"but I always, always use ‘colour’, ‘flavour’, ‘neighbour’ etc. It has never occurred to me that anyone would be massively confused!"
Sorry, Pat. I can't afford all of the extra vowels. I also use "colour" and "flavour" in a subtly different way than color and flavor.
Your international audience does not thank you. Most of the world outside the US is taught non-US English and almost all the world outside the US uses metric, not the US customary system (even technical types in the US understand and use metric).
Additionally, the country that you've hitched your wagon to is having a bit of a moment, which doesn't win hearts and minds.
I'm in this situation and have been in touch with BT and my freeholder several times. The problem is that the freeholder wants details of the work, to know when it will be carried and, and to monitor it. Whereas BT want them to simply sign the wayleave on the basis that they have free reign to do whatever they want, when they want. I don't think the freeholder is being unreasonable and BT are being pretty ingenious by blaming others for this situation.
"Our understanding is that this is a known issue, where the landlord of an MDU needs to give their approval to allow work to proceed, but that telcos are not always able to identify the landlord in some cases."
Well, I can say this from experience (I used to cover Wayleaves for MDU's back when I worked for a cable provider) and it can be tricky identifying who owns the building shell and common areas of an MDU. However, there's usually a managing company (one that's looking after the shared areas) and they can usually point to the owners. So while it's a bit of legwork - it's not that much effort. Especially now when you can ask Land Registry (does cost, but it's not that much) as all property is supposed to be registered (Not sure what happened if the owner couldn't be identified - think it was then open to claim by the residents...).
Now, the tricky ones were where each unit was individually owned, with common areas in 'shared' but managed ownership. Then you need to get all the owners to agree, and for them to tell the management company they're agreeing, and for the management company not to be an arse about it. Those ones were fun, but not insurmountable. Problem was (when I left that company) that not all MDU's were economic to cable, so... they kept being pushed back. I'd hazard (but not seeing the examples for this current situation, can't be 100% sure) that it's still the case: The companies (BT/Openreach, Virgin Media or whoever) just don't see it as economically viable to cable the building so are just throwing out excuses as to why they can't install the upgraded service.
Very few mutli-tenant buildings have landlords who don't want broadband installed as it's a bonus selling point for them. Those that do object... are likely looking to use it as an excuse to increase rent.
"Those that do object... are likely looking to use it as an excuse to increase rent."
I expect that they've also seen the results of the slash and hack nature of those installations and don't want to spend all of the money to make repairs once they've been and gone.
Way back in the stone age, I worked for a company that did home electronic installations for rich people. The vast majority of the time we were working in homes under construction so it was easy to neatly route everything to a central equipment room/space and finish the installation to a high spec. Since the clients were very well to do, there wasn't the need to cut every corner to keep costs down. Doing it correctly and neatly was much more important. For internet providers, the priority is fast and cheap which means that sloppy is a given byproduct. They don't give a toss if not sealing holes drilled through from the outside lets water in and causes the render to separate from the wall a few years down the road or leaves a handy highway for ants to come in.
Houses in my town built in the 1700s and 1800s have full fibre from 2 providers (soon to be 3 when open reach get around to it)
Whereas my 1970s built estate missed out on one provider due to direct in ground cabling making it "uneconomic" and half the street missed out of nexfibre as they wanted to cut along footpaths under the purview of parks and housing (despite 90% of the houses being sold under right to buy) and when they approached roads the reply was "unadopted" rather than referring them to housing. So their build team left, I'd been in Comms with their wayleave team for months asking what was going on and all they would say is "we are in contact with the council" and the council just gave me radiosilence despite multiple attempts at contact.
Though the council are copping flak for a bunker mentality and institutional hostility to outside scrutiny
I remember frustrated owners in new tower developments who wanted an Openreach supply which was cheaper than the developer/freeholders supplier, Openreach could not supply as the council had an agreement that the pavement area around the development could not be dug up for new services for some years. There was a supply historically to these sites which is why an enquiry would show one but the developer had removed it during groundworks. The developers would always plead ignorance that this happened, which threy did, frequently. Cannot imagine why they had a preferred supplier........and locked out Openreach and any other altnet.......
"It's possible that some people will be stuck with slower connections for years whilst their neighbours enjoy gigabit-capable, ultra-reliable broadband – which research suggests will boost productivity and prosperity."
It will mainly be used for cat videos, kardashians and pr0n. Mostly the latter since asking anybody out from work is a fast trip to the lockup on a charge of harassment.
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