FAQ

FTTP stands for Fibre To The Premises, as opposed to the Fibre To The Cabinet (FTTC) which Upton currently has. With FTTC, the fast fibre internet connection only goes as far as the BT cabinet in the village, from where the broadband runs to each property over the old copper telephone circuits using ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line). ADSL download speeds are 80Mbits/sec at best (probably less than 40Mbits/sec), and upload speeds are significantly less than this. With FTTP, the fibre connection runs all the way into your property and to the modem, resulting in download and upload speeds measured in hundreds of megabits per second.

With the arrival of streaming television channels, home working and video calls, fast internet is becoming to be considered an essential utility.

A UK Government report in 2021 reckoned that fast broadband increased the value of a property by £3500.

A survey conducted by Huawei in 2021 ranked a high-speed internet connection as the second most important factor for UK house buyers. Broadband speed was deemed more important than the number of bedrooms in a property and was second only to the overall size of the property. Nearly 9 in 10 estate agents stated that their clients were looking for properties with broadband speeds greater than 100Mbps.

The lack of FTTP will increasingly become a negative for prospective house buyers.

You can get an idea of the monthly cost of a fibre connection from Airband.

Your ISP would be Airband.

One can gain an impression by looking at reviews, for example on Trustpilot.

In theory you are free to switch after the initial contract term. The BDUK voucher scheme requires that suppliers make their fibre available on a wholesale basis to other ISPs – however there is no requirement for other ISPs to use it. Many ISPs will only work with Openreach fibre, for example.

Suppliers will always use the lowest cost means to get fibre to your premises. If existing underground ducts are available and in good condition, they will usually be the preferred option. Failing that, they can run the fibre overhead on telegraph poles. If that isn’t an option the most expensive route is to dig up the road (although in so doing they might fix some potholes along the way!).

The fibre terminates on a wall inside or outside the property in a box called a Customer Splice Point (CSP). A fibre cable runs from this to an internal fibre modem/wireless router – which requires mains power.

In theory they can use existing poles. Some are used exclusively for Openreach telephone cables, while most in the village are shared by Openreach and SSE. Although they are all technically available for use for fibre, in practice shared poles prove more difficult.

In the same way as existing telephone cables, overhead fibre is more at risk from storm damage.

Airband provides all residential customers with a dynamic IP address as standard. If you think you require a ‘static’ or ‘fixed’ IP address, you should contact their customer support team. This leaflet from Airband, dating from 2017, suggests that there would be a £5/month charge for this feature.

BDUK require all schemes to have full, detailed and compliant solutions submitted by August 2026, and all schemes have to be completed by March 2027. Time is therefore of the essence.