This article was published in the June 2022 edition of Hilltop News.
We are anticipating that fibre infrastructure will soon be installed, tested and released for connections to the 390 addresses that are served by a project which Openreach has designated Cholesbury XX Cholesbury-CRM51932. The largest group of addresses in the project are served by the Cholesbury telephone exchange and are in either Cholesbury-cum-St Leonards Parish or Asheridge. There is also a small group in Hertfordshire along Cholesbury Road from Shire Lane to Chesham Road near Champneys.
The fibre service covered by this project’s funding brings fibre to the Distribution Points (DP) that serve one or more addresses. Nearly all of these are on poles from which telephone cables radiate to individual addresses. These poles display a placard identifying them as DPXXX.
To bring fibre service to your premises, you must order service from a Communications Provider of your choice which will typically be an ISP such as BT, Vodafone, EE, Sky Broadband, Zen, etc. There are dozens of these providers who offer a wide range of service levels and charges. Some even make the installation at no initial cost.
Your choice of ISPs is limited to only those that can make use of Openreach infrastructure. Even then, ISPs have individual terms of service with Openreach which has the result that the range of services that they can offer you varies among the various ISPs. For instance, if you want to have Pay TV over fibre, only a few of the largest ISPs can offer that service. If you do not know what download speeds you should commit to, we suggest you begin with something in the 150Mbps range. If you make large uploads, be sure the ISP offers sufficient speed options for that. It is also advisable to use a separate provider for web site hosting and email provision, so you can easily switch ISP in future without fear of losing those.
The physical installation of fibre service will begin with Openreach running a fibre cable from their infrastructure to a junction box (Customer Splice Point or CSP) that they will place on your outside wall. After a fibre compatible router has been delivered to you by your Communications Provider, Openreach will install a box (Optical Network Terminal or ONT) inside and bring fibre through the outside wall to that ONT. There must be at least two power sockets near the ONT and router.
When fibre has been fully installed, your copper connection and the master socket inside your property will be redundant although Openreach will probably leave them in place. Now your internet and telephone will be connected to the outside world using the fibre connection which is called IP (Internet Protocol). For the telephone, this connection will be Voice over IP (VoIP). Whilst your previous telephone service had electricity to power it from the copper cable, fibre has no external electrical power source. If you do not want to acquire a VoIP type telephone, your broadband provider should supply either a router to which you can connect your present telephone or and Analogue Telephone Adaptor (ATA). Some older telephones may need to be replaced.
Within the scope of the project, 255 properties pledged and validated their Rural Gigabit Vouchers to Openreach which made funding of the infrastructure possible. Due to the size of the project and thanks to the strong support by those helpful local people who validated their vouchers, no residents covered by the scheme have been asked for a financial contribution toward infrastructure costs.
The Dept of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS/BDUK) will let residents who pledged and validated vouchers know when the service becomes available. The full T&Cs that apply to those properties can be found at https://gigabitvoucher.culture.gov.uk. Click on “About the Scheme” then below the map click on “Terms and Conditions”. The relevant document is dated 8th April 2021 Version 7.0. Basically, it says that you must contract with your chosen supplier for at least double your current broadband speed (as attributed by BT) or for faster than 100Mbps – whichever is lower. Even if your current broadband speed is more than 50Mbps, you are not required to take more that 100Mbps unless you want to. The contract for service must be for a minimum of 12 months.
Also, within the scope of the project, 135 properties which did not pledge and validate vouchers will still have access to a fibre connection. Although they will not be contacted when the service is available, they can take the initiative to contract with a Communications Provider of their choice for the service they require. There should only be the connection cost as agreed with the Communications Provider. The T&Cs referred to in the above paragraph do not apply to these properties. Those who choose to not have a full fibre connection for the present will be required to transfer to a VoIP system for telephone communication when the national copper network (PSTN) is decommissioned anytime between now and the end of 2025.
In the event of a power outage, which we all experience too often here, you will need to rely on a mobile phone or install a power source to continue making and receiving telephone calls regardless of which type of telephone you will be using. The choices for providing this back up range from small units that include a Battery Backup Unit (BBU), Power Banks or a Mini UPS. None of these provides much more than an hour’s capacity. If you require a dependable solution for a much longer period, this involves putting your router and telephone on a full-size UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) such those from Cyberpower or APC.
For those wanting to learn more, here are some suggestions for finding answers to your questions about living with fibre IP services:
A UK web forum that is loaded with useful advice and information is www.ispreview.co.uk. It has discussion forums, news on services and papers on relevant topics. Some relevant papers can be accessed by clicking on the Articles button on the Home page, then:
Click on General Articles Summary and scroll down to 29/12/21 Solutions for Battery Backup Units and 23/4/19 Swapping to Broadband VoIP.
Click on ISP Tips and Guides and scroll down to 6/1/20 The 2020 Best UK Broadband which links to 2/12/21 The 2022 Editors’ Pick of the Best ISPs for Home.
Use your search engine to find written descriptions and videos of the actual physical installation process and what you can do to prepare for it. You should stick to ones that pertain to the Openreach network and ISPs that can access Openreach installations.
Chris Brown, Chairman, cholesburyparishfibre@btinternet.com
Bill Ingram, cholesburyparishfibre@gmx.com
Cholesbury-cum-St Leonards Parish Council