topic Re: Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please? in Broadband & Landline

Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please?

FiestaRed — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 09:21:39 GMT

Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please? I'm just wondering how the changeover day went with BT Open Reach.

Re: Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please?

JimM11 — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 10:26:53 GMT

@FiestaRed Yes, apart from a 21 day extra delay, the on the day when OR got involved and it went as sweet as a nut. No issues, FTTP went live once OR finished installing, took about 1Hr for them, did the ONT FW updates and i switched over the DSL to the FTTP connection, FTTC died away and FF Full Fibre took over. Free part is only the FF Full Fibre upgrade and staying on the Package assigned to you with the ISP, you want to go faster then the price changes, just so you are aware.

Final install was done 15/10/2024, so original would have been 21-23 day's before this, non agreement with the contractor assigned to the install, plus he did not arrive until about 3pm on the 8-1pm appointment as his previous job overrun time wise but he did call to say was running behind schedule MJ Quinn by the book and NO thinking outside the box. Would have been a nightmare had i allowed him to do as he proposed so was NOT happening.

Re: Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please?

FiestaRed — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 09:49:41 GMT

Really appreciate the reply Jim. Thank you.

Re: Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please?

Schockwave — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 11:12:23 GMT

@FiestaRed < I upgraded to full fibre in June, and the person arrived earlier as two had arrived at the previous one he was going to, so came earlier, not a problem as I was there, had overhead cable, new one put in, box on the outside and one on the inside, roughly about three hours to do, as he had to climb the pole, still do have the old cable, not bothered, it does not work, as now have full fibre, but chose 74 Mbps, as am saving £9.- and it works well, the only reason I did it, to save money, although would have to do it at some point anyway, the way things are going. I only had a two week wait from date ordered until done.

Re: Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please?

FiestaRed — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 11:26:24 GMT

Thanks for the reply. I'm not really sure what "overhead" is with full fibre. Does that mean I could be getting either a connection from the point on the pavement outside my house or from the telephone pole across the road where my copper wire broadband comes from now? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Re: Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please?

JimM11 — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 11:34:14 GMT

@FiestaRed You need to go look yourself at what may be happening, use the BTW link below, fill in the Address Number and your postcode, the bottom below the table will say what you are getting, and if it's straight forward or complicated.

BT Broadband

Have linked mine below so if you need to see.

Re: Hot and cold messages from EE/openreach is this usual? - The EE Community

Re: Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please?

Schockwave — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 11:37:18 GMT

@FiestaRed , if you have copper via the pole, then they will do the same for the fibre, just new cable to the box outside your house to the box inside your house, it will be the pole as you have the copper that way, no digging up the road or garden, works exactly the same whether through the telegraph pole or underground.

Re: Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please?

Schockwave — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 11:38:22 GMT

The lower cable is the copper one and the upper one is the fibre.

Re: Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please?

FiestaRed — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 11:43:09 GMT

Brilliant. Thanks to both of you for all the help.

Clicking on the BT Broadband gave me a table and the lower part of it reads:

Our records show the following FTTP network service information for these premises:-Single Dwelling Unit Residential OH Feed hoist required.

FTTP is available and a new ONT may be ordered.

Re: Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please?

XRaySpeX — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 12:18:54 GMT

"Overhead" means your BB comes from a telephone pole, but that applies to @Schockwave . Yours may be either overhead or underground. To find out, what does BT Wholesale Broadband Availability Checker > Address Checker estimate for your address? Post the whole table, the text below it and the line above it, blanking out your address.

Yes, you will get Full Fibre (FTTP) overhead (OH) from a telephone pole, just like @Schockwave , but OR eng will need to bring along a hoist.

Re: Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please?

Schockwave — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 15:08:10 GMT

@XRaySpeX the company who came to me used a ladder for the bottom half and then climbed the rest on the pole, did not use a hoist, so depends who Open Reach send.

Re: Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please?

Denzel99 — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 17:57:22 GMT

As I understand it, it depends on the condition of the pole. If it is marked with a “D” for defective or deteriorated, (depending on who you talk to), it means they are not allowed to climb it with a ladder and a hoist is required. That may cause a delay in the install.

The survey notes at the bottom of the purple boxes on the BT checker, recommended above: https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL often says if it is a known problem.

If you can’t put your phone number in, use your address or the UPRN.* If it says UG that is underground feed, OH is overhead, i.e. poles. Also, if it says in the purple boxes “1 stage” that means it can be done in one visit. Something like KCI2 means two visits. One to do the external cabling work, then a second visit to do the internal work.

*UPRN (unique property reference number) is probably more accurate. You can look that up here: https://www.findmyaddress.co.uk/search

Re: Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please?

trevQPK — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 18:05:47 GMT

My upgrade from BT fullworks 50 to EE 900 full fibre went without issue technically. However, keep an eye on your billing, EE seems to have an issue getting things right.. So far my bills have been all over the place and I’ve had to contact them nearly every month.

Re: Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please?

FiestaRed — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 13:26:35 GMT

By way of an update, one of Open Reach's 'Trusted Partners' came today to upgrade my copper wire system to Fibre.

What a total waste of time. The engineer from the 'Trusted Partner' spent over four hours at my property and left my house saying "everything's OK" only for me to find I have no phones and an internet with a download speed of 6Mbps and an upload speed of 0.6Mbps. I have wires hanging from the wall, a loose telephone socket and a lot of mess. I'm now struggling to get in contact with EE to hopefully get something sorted out.

Re: Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please?

JimM11 — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 13:46:29 GMT

@FiestaRed Your phone does plug into the back off the EE Hub now, or a DVA Digital Voice Adapter if supplied, and the phone may take time to switchover from the copper to the Fibre, as time wise that can be 24-48hrs.

Speed should have been up there right away, but as EE say's you need to wait till midnight tonight, tomorrow is the time to be dealing with it all. Which contractor did your installation, mine was MJ Quinn and was swiftly sent packing, 21 day's later OR Engineers did it just fine.

You should have 3 Green lights on your newly fitted ONT, and the cable from the ONT to Wan Port 4 off the EE Hub, Power and Pon solid Green, Lan little dimmer with the Hub sending data back/forth between them both.

Re: Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please?

XRaySpeX — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 13:46:21 GMT

What speeds are reported by running the speed test in the EE app? That will not only measure the raw BB connection speeds you are getting at the router as well as speeds to the device from which you are testing.

Re: Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please?

FiestaRed — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 13:49:54 GMT

Sorry, I forgot to add that the 'engineer' said he couldn't find any connections in the cabinet so I do not have fibre.
Before the 'engineer' turned up, I had a system that ran at roughly 16Mbps and finished up with a botched job, no phones and less than half the speed I started with.

Re: Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please?

FiestaRed — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 13:50:59 GMT

The 'engineer' came in a van marked Kelly Communications.

Re: Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please?

JimM11 — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 14:01:55 GMT

@FiestaRed What connections in the cabinet, thought you were getting pole fed from the Top Mounted CBT that will be there. If the Engineer is in the cabinet did he say what for? Sure sounds like planning went out the window with all off that, He did stick your Fibre ONT on the wall hopefully. Aghh those ones, if he left it all alone then connections would be as before, your speed may recover in a 10day window, not so sure about your Landline, that may already be in the switch loop...

You will be able to find all out from EE CS, tomorrow calling in today is a waste off time, Engineer reports go in overnight.

Re: Has anyone had the 'Free' upgrade to Full Fibre please?

FiestaRed — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 14:01:11 GMT

He did absolutely nothing. He started off removing the telephone sockets then disappeared for about an hour and a half, van too, he then tried to put new phone sockets on the walls but finished up replacing the old ones.