Ultrafast Full Fibre Broadband
to your apartment

FAQs for residents, landlords,
Freeholders and Managing Agents

FAQs for residents

FAQs for Landlords, Freeholders and Managing Agents

  • 1. What are the benefits to providing fibre to my tenants?

    By installing full fibre you’ll be giving all present and future tenants access to the UK’s fastest and most reliable network. You can find out more about the benefits on our Landlord’s page.

  • 2. What will it cost to have fibre installed in my premises?

    Nothing, it’s completely free of charge to install fibre. Once the build is complete, your tenants will have the choice to upgrade to Ultrafast Full Fibre broadband. They’ll be able to choose and pay for a package from their chosen service provider. For information on service providers selling Full Fibre broadband visit our FTTP providers page. 

  • 3. Will you need access to the building or apartments to install fibre?

    We’ll need access to the common areas of the building for installation of the fibre, both internally and externally.

  • 4. Who will carry out the work?

    This could be an Openreach engineer or an Openreach partner, working on our behalf.

  • 5. Are your engineer’s Covid -19 safe?

    Yes, all Openreach engineers, and third parties, carry out a full risk assessment and comply with government standards. You can find all our standards on our Coronavirus pages.

  • 6. Will you need to dig up the external areas of my property and garden?

    The survey will determine the work needed and where we need to dig.  Wherever possible, we’ll try to use existing infrastructure to avoid excavating. Once we’ve completed the survey, we’ll take you through the proposed plans to make sure you’re happy for us to begin work. 

    It may be that your building already has a fibre connection and you won’t need a survey, but we’ll let you know this in advance.

  • 7. How long will it take?

    Once the wayleave has been signed, a survey may be undertaken to determine how Openreach will provide the fibre connection to the building. If a survey is undertaken, we’ll then contact you to approve this route before we commence build. The process of completion of build can sometimes take several months. 

  • 8. What is a wayleave and why are they needed?

    A wayleave is permission from the Landlord, Freeholder or Managing Agent, to access their building or private land to install and repair our network equipment. We need permission before we can install any new apparatus on private land. Our wayleave application will include the route plan, the wayleave agreement, and an explanation of why we need permission.  Once this has been signed and returned to the wayleaves team, we can proceed to install our equipment on the landowner's land. 

  • 9. How will the wayleave be sent to me?

    The wayleave will be automatically emailed to you. 

  • 10. What is the Asbestos Register?

    The asbestos risk register is a legally required document that shows that a building is safe and doesn’t contain any known asbestos 

  • 11. Why do I need to confirm that there is no asbestos at the property?

    Before we arrange a survey, or start installing fibre, there’s a legal requirement for us to confirm that there is no known asbestos in the property and that it’s safe for our engineers and partners to work in.

    For properties build before 2000 – we’ll need a copy of the Asbestos register for the building from the Landlord, Freeholder or Managing Agent. This can be either a digital or a scanned copy of the register which has been counter-signed, dated and shows the printed name of the Landlord, Freeholder, Managing Agent or Legal Representative. 

    For properties built after 2000 – we’ll need written confirmation that no known asbestos exists within the building from the Landlord, Freeholder or Managing Agent. 

    When we send the wayleave for your digital signature we'll also send you a statement for you to sign digitally confirming that there is no known asbestos at the property.

    You can find further details on Asbestos surveys here.

    We can’t arrange a survey or start work until we know the building is safe and will place the survey and order on hold until we have a copy of the asbestos register or confirmation statement.

  • 12. Why do I need a  survey?

    A survey maybe required to determine how we’re going to supply the fibre connection to the building. We’ll need access to the common areas of the building internally and externally to do this. We’ll need a signed wayleave before we can go ahead with the survey. However, it may be that your building already has a fibre connection and you won’t need a survey, but we’ll let you know this in advance.

Disclaimer

The provision of full fibre broadband may be subject to survey and route approval by the freeholder, and is at the sole discretion of Openreach.