Original article ISPreview UK:Read More
Broadband access provider Openreach (BT) appears to have recently made their “Fibre Checker” a bit more informative via the addition of several new status messages to reflect different stages of network availability. This is primarily useful for those still awaiting the arrival of their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network.
According to some of our forum members (main credit to squarecrumpets via Thinkbroadband’s forum), the Openreach checker has been updated to show more details when performing a postcode search on a property. This seems to be reflected by six possible responses to an address check, which are summarised below.
Revised Availability Status Messages
1. We have no plans to build Full Fibre to this property yet
2. We’re planning to build in this area
3. We’ll be building in this area in the next year
4. We’re building in this area now
5. Available to order soon
6. Available to order now
The new approach provides a little bit of extra detail to help show the operator’s roll-out progress through its different deployment phases, which represents a small but useful change. Consumers may of course wish for something more specific than this (i.e. clear dates and timescales), but network operators need to be careful about managing expectations because delays and complications sometimes do crop-up with complex FTTP builds.
Just take note that website browsers sometimes cache old responses. So if you’re regularly using this checker to test the status of a local build, then it would be wise to clear your browser cache once in a while or to try checking via a different web browser (avoids stale cache polluting the output).