This update was posted on 26th March 2023.
Openreach has commissioned the final segment of the Cholesbury Fibre installation. The most recent additions are in postcodes HP23 6NE, F, G and Q. Out of the original 374 properties there are only two remaining where remedial work is still pending.
We believe everyone else within the scope of the project should be able to connect to Ultrafast Full Fibre Broadband. To ascertain whether you can have a full fibre connection, use the Openreach Fibre Availability Checker https://www.openreach.com/broadband-network/fibre-availability, enter your postcode, click on the address box then click on your address in the drop-down list that appears. A positive affirmation is: “Available Now, Ultrafast Full Fibre Broadband, up to 1000Mbps Download”.
The Parish Council has a list of every address that should be included within the scope of the Cholesbury Exchange project. Anybody who is denied access to full fibre when they believe that they should be included within the scope of our fibre project should contact us for assistance by email to cholesburyparishfibre@gmx.com. You would need to supply the name or number and postcode of your premises.
The project, which began in Summer 2020, has taken three and a half years and much sweat and frustration along the way to achieve the goal of getting everyone access to Ultrafast Broadband! Thank you to everyone who contributed by registering their address, to all who have remained patient along the way despite the delays and frustrations, and the many who got in touch with questions and kind words of thanks.
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This update was posted on 5th March 2023.
Work during week ending 3rd March on Cholesbury Lane has resulted in one of the two remaining segments (see article below) of the fibre installation being completed, tested and made available for those affected to place orders with their preferred Service Provider. This latest segment to be released runs from The Old Orchard on Springall Hill>Dundridge Manor>The White Lion>all the way up Jenkins Lane>Swan Lane as far as Stone Hill Cottage. Those who pledged their DCMS vouchers to Openreach should place their orders for a fibre connection this month.
We hope the ongoing installation work on the final segment, which runs from Parrotts Farm>Cholesbury Lane>Chiltern Cottages, could be completed shortly.
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This article was last updated on 11th February 2023.
The scope of the Cholesbury fibre project was originally planned to bring Ultrafast Fibre Broadband connections to 374 addresses which have been grouped into 10 geographic segments. By November last year engineering work on eight of the segments were completed and FTTP broadband made available to 264 addresses..
Openreach had promised during the Summer of 2022 that one of the remaining two segments would be delivered in December and the final one in January. However from October to end of January, Openreach only did a negligible amount of work and neither of these ‘segments’ were completed by the end of January 2023. So the critical work needed to connect the remaining 110 addresses still remains outstanding.
The delayed segments are:
1. From Parrotts Farm along Parrotts Lane to Cholesbury Lane and down to Dorriens Farm;
2. From the top of Springall Hill and Dundridge Manor all the way up Jenkins Lane and along Swan Lane as far as, and including Arrewig Lane.
During the final week of January and in early February Openreach advised that essential work affecting the above areas will be done between early February and the beginning of March. This will start with highways based work in early Feb in Jenkins Lane and then a road closure between 27th Feb and 3rd March on Cholesbury Lane. There is other ‘above ground’ work which will also need to be completed. We hope Openreach will complete all this outstanding onsite engineering work, delayed from the end of 2022, during the above period. If so it is estimated FTTP would then be made available for residents in both ‘segments’ above to place orders from the end of February!
There are 264 addresses within the project area where FTTP is now available and all these households should have received notification from their broadband provider that Ultrafast Fibre – FTTP- can now be ordered.
If you want to check on the availability of Ultrafast Fibre (FTTP), here is a link to the Openreach Broadband availability checker.
https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/ultrafast-full-fibre-broadband
If you have any questions you can contact us via the email addresses at the bottom of this page.
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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