Fibre Broadband - Impossible Cable Route?

[dr_gn]

Signed up to a mobile phone deal for my son with EE. I’m with them now, and with BT/EE for WiFi. New deal Includes an upgrade to fibre broadband, and still works out £10 a month less than we’re paying now in total.

They insisted that our house is eligible for fibre, despite it being 30m from the road, and out of line-of-sight of a pole. Two assistants and the store manager explained how it works (new cable fitted to the house). None of them seemed to get the potential issues at physically getting a new cable to the house - even after showing them the property on Google Earth. Anyway - they insisted they could do it, and there’s a survey on 19th January.

I don’t want an above ground cable, nor do I want a cable passing over/under property I don’t own, and digging up 30m of block paving and 2 linear metres of concrete floor seems un-feasible. Is there an option to use the existing cable to draw the new cable up the drive, or will I have to revert to non-fibre? Difference in monthly cost is +£2, but it would be good to get fibre sorted out.

Any ideas? Thanks.

[FunkyGibbon]

We are 145m from the fibre connection on a telephone pole. They just used the path of the existing phone line and the 2 poles in the garden.

Assuming you have had old phone line to the property at some point they can follow that.

[sjg]

However your copper line gets to the house they’ll reuse, if it’s underground it should be in some sort of conduit. The fibre cable is tiny so they can usually squeeze it in. Worst case they can mole a new conduit, no need to dig a trench.

[theboss]

If your existing cable is inside a duct they can re-use, they'll just pull the new fibre through.

If it's buried or inside a duct which is damaged/blocked then its obviously a more involving job and you'd have to decide whether its worth having paving lifted for example.

Nothing's impossible just varying degrees of ballache and expense

[dr_gn]

Thanks all. I believe the copper wire is in conduit under the drive. Could they use the existing wire to pull the new one through, or do they have another way of pushing it through 30m ?

[theboss]

Is there a service on the copper? In any case I think it’s very doubtful they’ll remove it.

In my case they had to come from a chamber about 40 meters away, and used rods to bring a draw rope through the duct. The rope was then used to pull fibre through at a later date by another team. These guys are used to pulling cables through manky ducts all day long. They won’t be phased by it.

[camel_landy]

If there’s already a conduit, they’ll find a way, then pull the fibre through.

M

[somouk]

dr_gn said:

Thanks all. I believe the copper wire is in conduit under the drive. Could they use the existing wire to pull the new one through, or do they have another way of pushing it through 30m ?

Thats how they did my dads last week, pulled the fibre through using the old copper cable.

[dr_gn]

Thanks all. Interested to see how they end up doing it.

I was amazed at how easy it was for the water guys to fit a meter to my Mum’s supply (about 1’ underground, through an access flap) without turning the mains off in the road.

Edited by dr_gn on Saturday 24th December 20:41

[theboss]

dr_gn said:

Thanks all. Interested to see how they end up doing it.

I was amazed at how easy it was for the water guys to fit a meter to my Mum’s supply (about 1’ underground, through an access flap) without turning the mains off in the road.

Edited by dr_gn on Saturday 24th December 20:41

I know the feeling. I had a new electricity connection a few weeks ago and watched them remove the old service cable and connect the new 3 phase joints on the live cable under my driveway without any of the neighbours going offline or anyone getting killed. I was actually nervous about the whole thing but they were incredibly cool and the lad who did the joining was a youngster clearly under supervision. Totally professional and safe when you know what you’re doing, and of course they do several a day most days of the week.

[Stevemr]

In theory, if there’s a duct then a draw rope should be left in, in practice it’s rare they are.
They may be able to use the existing wire to pull new one through. Failing that, they can use a cobra to push through, it’s like a flexible fibreglass rod on a reel that will push through the duct.