Victoria's Blog

Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) Has Arrived!!

Back in 2017, the Connected Counties (Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire) team announced that the small village I live in was going to get an upgrade from ADSL to FTTP.  At the time I was less than impressed about the reasons we were going to get such an upgrade* but I’m not one to pass up faster and more reliable internet access.

The FTTP market of companies providing access isn’t as large as FTTC, so my choices for provider are quite limited.  I looked at all of the companies listed on the Openreach FTTP site (https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/fttp-providers) and whittled down the list to two… IDNet and Zen.  I was more interested in Zen since I’d been a customer before but having called the sales line and found out there was no ex-customer discount, the minimum I was offered was an 18 month contract and still a little bitter from my experience in 2017 with my ADSL connection, I went back on the search for another provider. 

IDNet was tempting given they are local to me but the price was a little high so I continued to search for another provider, leaving IDNet as the backup provider in case I couldn’t find another provider. 

I stumbled across Aquiss who aren’t on the previously mentioned Openreach link and read a few  Trust Pilot reviews on them.  One review in particular stood out which was from someone technical saying Aquiss staff didn’t treat him as a user with no knowledge but spoke to him in technical terms.  I gave them a call and was pleasantly surprised when the guy I spoke to about wanting a 160/30 or 330/50 connection gave me an honest answer that I couldn’t get those speeds now as they only have 80/20 connections but that he would give me a call in November when they hope to announce those new speeds. 

A follow up email (with a good answer to my question about peak time performance slowdown and that I can upgrade to the 160 or 330 plans in November when available) plus another phonecall about dates in the near future I can’t have the FTTP installed and I was sold on Aquiss. 

Now I just have to impatiently wait for my install! 😂

*) In 2017, Voneus announced they would bring wireless internet access to Hinxworth. Prior to Voneus agreeing to install faster Internet access, Connected Counties had said there were no plans to upgrade the internet connections in Hinxworth but they did offer myself and a few villagers the “opportunity” of partnering with BT (Community Fibre partnership) and sharing the cost of upgrading out cabinet (FTTC). I told them politely, NO, and that I’d be looking at a Voneus connection or alternative. 

Less than 5 months later, Connected Counties announced FTTP would be arriving in 2 years time… Funny that! I still can’t help but think the only reason we received an upgrade was because Voneus would take connections away from BT…