topic Re: Contact pushing to full fibre, Openreach want to dig up drive? in My Order

Contact pushing to full fibre, Openreach want to dig up drive?

Lexxie — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 20:12:20 GMT

Hoping for some help, my mother's Plusnet contract has run out and her bill has doubled In price. I was hoping to get her a new, more reasonably priced contract but PN tell me it's full fibre or nothing.

Openreach visited her property (but didn't ring the doorbell) and they now plan to dig up her newly tarmaced drive to lay the cable. Is this to be expected, that you don't have any say what they dig up to lay the cable? Would the cable not need to go to the part of the house you want to have the router in?

I spoke to a CS rep who was completely unhelpful and told me they were only going to to dig the pavement up, until I questioned this at it didn't make sense, and he spoke to his supervisor and came back and said it was the drive.

The new router has been delivered today (despite me telling the CS rep we didn't want to proceed) and I'm concerned openreach are just going to turn up and dig the drive up!

Any help or advice would be gratefully received. What are our options here?

Re: Contact pushing to full fibre, Openreach want to dig up drive?

Baldrick1 — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 22:07:29 GMT

Moderator's note:
Thread moved from Broadband to My Order

Re: Contact pushing to full fibre, Openreach want to dig up drive?

mystreet1 — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 06:56:32 GMT

Before digging on private land, permission has to be sorted from the landlord owner, your mum. Contact plusnet and get it added to her account that permission is NOT granted.

Re: Contact pushing to full fibre, Openreach want to dig up drive?

pvmb — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 07:00:32 GMT

@Lexxie wrote:
Hoping for some help, my mother's Plusnet contract has run out and her bill has doubled In price. I was hoping to get her a new, more reasonably priced contract but PN tell me it's full fibre or nothing.

Openreach visited her property (but didn't ring the doorbell) and they now plan to dig up her newly tarmaced drive to lay the cable. Is this to be expected, that you don't have any say what they dig up to lay the cable? Would the cable not need to go to the part of the house you want to have the router in?

Can't really answer about the drive matter - you need to query this with Plusnet/Openreach. But there are two 'aspects' of a fibre install:

1. Connecting your property up to the OR fibre network

This means a small grey box (CBT) affixed (usually externally) to the nearest available wall of your property with the underground (or overhead) fibre connection to the Openreach digital fibre network.

2. Fibre connection from the external CBT to the ONT outlet inside your property

The ONT is inside and needs to be within 1.5 metres of a power socket, but can be pretty well anywhere you want inside your property provided a fibre cable can be run from the CBT into the place where the ONT is.

Usually the router simply connects to the ONT via the short Ethernet cable supplied with it. However, Ethernet cables can, if required, be run over much longer distances. Though you would have to arrange for this work yourself.

Re: Contact pushing to full fibre, Openreach want to dig up drive?

Lexxie — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 07:08:41 GMT

Thank you @mystreet1, I'll call them now.

Re: Contact pushing to full fibre, Openreach want to dig up drive?

Baldrick1 — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 08:01:49 GMT

The key here is which service you are currently on and what does this say about the services available to you, see: https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/AddressHome. If you need help interpreting the results then obscure your personal details and post it here, including the narrative below the table.

There are instances cropping up where customers are still on the basic ADSL 'Broadband' service and live in a Full Fibre priority area. With the ADSL service currently being in the process of being shut down, if Full Fibre is available then that is the only option available from Openreach, who, in your case, need to connect your property to an underground service duct., There is a chance that there might be an Altnet available to you that use an overhead connection, if so, they should have been advertising in your area. The only other option is to use the mobile network.

Re: Contact pushing to full fibre, Openreach want to dig up drive?

Lexxie — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 10:16:50 GMT

Thank you for your help, it's much appreciated.

Here is a screenshot of the results, if you're able to explain what it says in plain English I'd be very grateful 😂

Re: Contact pushing to full fibre, Openreach want to dig up drive?

RobPN — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 10:22:15 GMT

@pvmb wrote:

This means a small grey box (CBT) affixed (usually externally) to the nearest available wall of your property with the underground (or overhead) fibre connection to the Openreach digital fibre network.

2. Fibre connection from the external CBT to the ONT outlet inside your property

The ONT is inside and needs to be within 1.5 metres of a power socket, but can be pretty well anywhere you want inside your property provided a fibre cable can be run from the CBT into the place where the ONT is.

(my bold)

@pvmb

In the interest of accuracy, and for future reference, you appear to be referring to (also here) the "small grey box" as the CBT (Connectorised Block Terminal) whereas its acronym is actually 'CSP' (Customer Splice Point). The CBT is further upstream, normally on a pole or in a hole.

Re: Contact pushing to full fibre, Openreach want to dig up drive?

pvmb — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 11:00:07 GMT

@RobPN

"In the interest of accuracy, and for future reference, you appear to be referring to (also here) the "small grey box" as the CBT (Connectorised Block Terminal) whereas its acronym is actually 'CSP' (Customer Splice Point). The CBT is further upstream, normally on a pole or in a hole."

Of course! Can't seem to keep track of all these acronyms at my age. 😆

Any possibility someone can edit the post?

Re: Contact pushing to full fibre, Openreach want to dig up drive?

Baldrick1 — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 11:53:08 GMT

@Lexxie

This is a full fibre priority exchange so the only available Openreach option is to move to Full Fibre.. The connection is underground and there is no existing duct all the way to the property, so a new one has to be installed.

Re: Contact pushing to full fibre, Openreach want to dig up drive?

Lexxie — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 12:58:34 GMT

Thank you Baldrick1. Does anyone know if there is any way to have a conversation with Openreach about what part of the property they will dig up, and where the connection will come into the house?

Re: Contact pushing to full fibre, Openreach want to dig up drive?

MisterW — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 13:32:40 GMT

@Lexxie

Does anyone know if there is any way to have a conversation with Openreach about what part of the property they will dig up, and where the connection will come into the house?

That's exactly what should happen with a 'KCI2 Assure' install process. Openreach come and do a survey to discuss/assess what work is necessary and then arrange for that work to be done. However it sounds like that's what they did below...

Openreach visited her property (but didn't ring the doorbell) and they now plan to dig up her newly tarmaced drive to lay the cable. Is this to be expected, that you don't have any say what they dig up to lay the cable? Would the cable not need to go to the part of the house you want to have the router in?

Re: Contact pushing to full fibre, Openreach want to dig up drive?

bmc — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 14:51:28 GMT

@Lexxie

Are you a designated person on your mothers account and, if not, do you live close by?

Did you mother receive a text from OR about the install and, if so, what did she reply?

As an emergency you could cancel the upgrade and start again. However, this would mean your mother continues to pay out of contract prices for a while longer.

As I understand it OR need permission to dig. If not granted they can't go ahead. Is there any other route from the pavement to the house near the driveway? OR are limited in their starting point due to where their ducts are.

The following gives an idea of a FF install. Note the video is slight wrong - as the router connects via ethernet cable it can go anywhere you're happy to run cable so two power sockets are not necessarily required near the ONT.

https://www.openreach.com/help-and-support/full-fibre-broadband-installation-checklist

Finally I'm guessing your mother still has her phone service. If so, is she aware she'll lose this with the upgrade to FF?

Brian

Edit : I forget to add - the people to try at PN are the PlusNet Customer Options Team on 0800 013 2632

Re: Contact pushing to full fibre, Openreach want to dig up drive?

Lexxie — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 18:44:53 GMT

I spoke with a wonderful CS rep called Zoe today, who was amazingly helpful. Mum hadn't been sent the correct info previously, and we had cancelled the contract, although that hadn't been done properly at the time. Zoe has sorted out appropriate credit for Mum, and we're going to try again, this time with an openreach engineer visiting to survey the property as to the best place to dig for the cable.

Thanks everyone in this thread for help and advice, much appreciated.