topic Re: Openreach in Broadband

Openreach

Thatladuk — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 21:46:54 GMT

Good evening,

I live in an MDU currently and openreach is available all the way up my road to the house next to our block but not in our block. I contacted openreach via their online form and they advised that permission to install would need to be granted by our tenancy management team. Luckily I have a great housing officer and he filled in the online form today on great places behalf.

By the looks of things, ducts were already installed around our block and providing none of them are filled with [-Censored-] or crumbled in below ground it should be a fairly straight install.

Now, I also am aware that these things can take some time. Theirs 6 of us in this block and all want 1gb connections. It’s 2026 after all! Iv read in a couple of places that you can ask an ISP to push and chase the works and I wondered if that was, in fact, correct? I’m currently with plusnet and their packages aren’t extortionate, paired with decent customer service so I’d be happy to just upgrade my current 70mb package with them.

Anyone got any ideas? Is it worth a phone call?

Thanks in advance

Re: Openreach

bmc — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 21:56:04 GMT

@Thatladuk

What does the following say about Full Fibre. Look at the narrative below the results window. You can't post an image here until you've made a few posts.

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

That aside, if the duct work is in place it may not take too long to install the backbone network. Eventually you'll be looking for WBC FTTP in the results window.

Brian

Re: Openreach

jab1 — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 22:00:13 GMT

@Thatladuk wrote:

Now, I also am aware that these things can take some time. Theirs 6 of us in this block and all want 1gb connections. It’s 2026 after all! Iv read in a couple of places that you can ask an ISP to push and chase the works and I wondered if that was, in fact, correct? I’m currently with plusnet and their packages aren’t extortionate, paired with decent customer service so I’d be happy to just upgrade my current 70mb package with them.

Anyone got any ideas? Is it worth a phone call?

The 'ask an ISP to push and chase the works' option is one you won't have with PN - or any BT Group ISP. There are a couple that use the Openreach infrastructure, that I know of, who will go the extra mile for their customers, but as I say, these are not BT Group ISP's.

Re: Openreach

Thatladuk — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 05:40:22 GMT

Thanks for this.

The junction boxes are on every house up my street, that being said, there are no poles except for the one at the bottom of the street so im not confident the install would be that easy. But who knows. Hoping we can get it in this year at least, but i also have pretty bad luck when it comes to fibre installs

Re: Openreach

jab1 — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 08:32:10 GMT

According to that screenshot, even though you are in a Fibre Priority area, Full Fibre is not available to you. It may be that the BTw database is wrong, or it could be true that your block is not connected.

Is your current service supplied overhead or underground?

Re: Openreach

Dan_the_Van — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 09:54:45 GMT

@Thatladuk

Curious to know are these "junction boxes are on every house up my street" branded with Openreach ?

https://www.openreach.com/ might detail their plans and the opportunity to register an interest

https://checker.ofcom.org.uk/en-gb/broadband-coverage might detail what broadband options you have.

Re: Openreach

Thatladuk — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 10:06:32 GMT

Morning Dan,

They do indeed have there logo on them.

I have done all the checks and raised a query with openreach who responded that they hadn’t been granted permission to build on our block of flats and that our management team would need to contact them so that’s what has happened now.

It’s just as I say, how long will this take from them receiving permission too then mark the service as live?

Re: Openreach

bmc — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 12:43:31 GMT

@Thatladuk

Thanks for the information.

When they responded to you did it have the option to reply so you could say permission granted what next?

It shouldn't take too long if they're working in your area. As a Fibre Priority Exchange they have an interest in getting FTTP available sooner rather than later.

Brian

Re: Openreach

Thatladuk — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 15:38:20 GMT

Nobody is working in our area at present. I moved into the property back in October and have dealt with Cityfibre. After five engineer visits and them telling me they were not going ahead with any install due to costs (thats a whole other story!) it was actually their engineer that pointed out that Openreach had infact installed on my street and cityfibre had done a few also so advised I go to openreach.

My tenancy manager has contacted me today and the response he got from openreach was :

"Thanks for registering your Multi-Dwelling Unit (MDU) with us.
We’ll be in contact to discuss your property if we can include it in our build plans.
We're aiming to build Full Fibre to 25 million homes and businesses by December 2026 and we’re not stopping there. We intend to keep building after that too. That’s further and faster than any other broadband network in the UK.
The best way to keep up to date with our plans for your MDU is to register for Full Fibre updates through our Fibre Checker.

Disclaimer- at this MDU Desk we do not offer timescales and or updates as this goes through the relevant MDU specialist who will be in touch when we are ready to go ahead."

This is what always gets me. Nobody can ever give you a timescale lol. Very frustrating

Re: Openreach

bmc — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 16:10:17 GMT

@Thatladuk

Not the best of news but at least you know what's happening.

I assume OR will get in touch with the tenancy manager to confirm what works are required and he'll let you know.

Brian