Roseisle-News.com

Community Blether

BT Openreach broadband costings

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Dear Roseisle residents

As you know we have for the last several months pursued BT to see if there was any possibility that the Roseisle district could have our broadband service improved.
After approaching the BT community fibre partnership we have received a quote for the provision of fibre to the premises for 75 houses, 50 short of the original 125 applied for.
In essence the cost of this service to the 75 properties would be £356,357 which equates to around £4775 per household.
If you exclude the offer of the voucher scheme of £500, this would leave each household having to find £4275 to see their service improved, and this would take up to 12 months to implement. Details of the offer are at the end of this email.
If we assume that not all of the 75 properties are able or willing to pay this sum, then the figure for each remaining household would increase.
We have 60 days in which to make a decision on whether to proceed.
Unless there are a good majority of the community committed to funding a large part of this offer, this option dose not look viable.
However, we are looking at less costly options which we hope to provide details of within the next few weeks.
When we have more information and the costs look much more affordable, then for those interested we will present it first at the Roseisle community hall and then post the information on the Roseisle website and email it out.
I would like to thank you all for your continued support while we try to get the broadband service to the area improved and also to thank our local MSP Richard Lochhead for his help.
He has actively progressed our predicament with BT community fibre partnership, as well as raising the issue of poor broadband service within rural Scotland with the First Minister in the Scottish Parliament.
Kind regards
Les Huyton
On behalf of the broadband project team
Please find below a copy of the offer provided by BT community fibre partnership for your interest.
Hi Leslie,
 
Please find attached the Openreach proposal for the provision of Fibre to the Premises Ultrafast broadband infrastructure for the properties as detailed within the document  As I always suspected,  this has proven to be a challenging project given the scope of coverage you requested.
 
To provide the infrastructure in the area identified by yourselves, we require to provide the following –
 
11 Km of 36F ULW fibre optical cable 

2.5 Km new overhead spans  

7 splitters

27 new poles

24 joints

4.2 Km of new underground duct provision 

2.989 Km mole-ploughed duct provision

492m carriageway duct provision 

 
There are  Government grants currently available that you could utilise in helping to meet a portion of the costs.  The grants are subject to terms & conditions as set by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport being –
 
i) A property currently being the registered address  of a Small to Medium Enterprise business, a Sole Trader or a Registered Charity would be eligible to a £3,000 grant voucher for the provision of a Fibre to the Premises connection
 
ii) A residential property would be eligible to a £500 grant voucher for the provision of a Fibre to the Premises connection
 
iii) The total value of Residential vouchers cannot exceed the total value of Business vouchers
 
iii) All parties agreeing to a voucher must confirm they will order a broadband service at a minimum 100Mbps speed on a 12 month term to be eligible for a grant. DCMS will seek evidence that an order has been place prior to releasing any funding.
 

As a reminder, Openreach will cover all costs for this project that fall within our own commercial threshold, and the figure below represents the remaining cost that your community would need to contribute for us to deliver an FTTP network – which would give download speeds of up to 330Mbps. These costs are subject to change, pending a survey.

Price (ex VAT) VAT at 20% Price (inc VAT) £356,657.00 £0.00 £356,657.00

Planning and building a fibre broadband network is a complex project. We start with a thorough design process to build a blueprint for your community and we follow that with a survey to make sure there’s enough space alongside all the existing utilities underground to accommodate new cables and equipment.

Once the actual build is underway, you will probably see our engineers at work. During this phase we’ll work closely with local authorities to reduce delays and keep disruption to a minimum and we also check if any road closures may be needed for the installation. After the network is built, we’ll carry out final quality and safety checks. All that’s left after that is to let our service providers know that people can now order a service from them. This is when you can upgrade to fibre broadband via a service provider of your choice.

I’d like to take this opportunity to explain why we think we’re the best people to bring fibre to your community:

– We’re Britain’s leading digital network business and our infrastructure already supports more than 30 million

customers throughout the country – We’ve invested more than £11 billion into our network over the last 10 years and our mission is to build the best

possible network, with the highest quality service, making sure that everyone in Britain can be connected

– The price proposal outlined in this offer letter is valid for 60 days from the date of this letter, and the figure

quoted is the cost payable to Openreach by the community.

– Should you wish to proceed, we have to contract with a Legal Entity (e.g. Residents Group or Managing

Agent/Developer) so you’d need to set one up, if there isn’t one already within your community.

– At the point you sign the contract to proceed, you’ll need to pay 50% of your share of the cost (outlined on the

previous page) at that time and pay the remaining 50% once the new fibre infrastructure’s available for Communication Providers (CPs) to offer service.

– The quote is subject to fibre capacity at the exchange, so a survey will be undertaken and the final price

confirmed to you prior to any formal contractual agreement with Openreach.

– The quote is based on private funding only (i.e. it excludes any local authority funds which would require formal

procurement and state aid approval.)

– Any infrastructure provided, will remain the property of BT and will form part of the BT estate.

– There are, and never will be, any ongoing costs that the community will be asked to bear for the fibre

infrastructure.

– Openreach will take responsibility for all future management once the new fibre infrastructure is provided.

– We will upgrade the infrastructure to make faster broadband speeds available, however to benefit from those

faster speeds, a fibre broadband service will need to be purchased by individuals from a service provider of their choice once the cabinet is live.

– Unfortunately we cannot account for external factors (such as power provision) in the typical timeline for getting fibre broadband to you, but in our experience it typically takes around 12 months from when you sign a contract to the point where faster services can be ordered.