Updating post from Reddit.
Me and my housemates have moved into a house about a month ago. We had someone over to install the wifi, but they couldn't connect it for some reason. Openreach have come back and said that they need to dig up part of the drive and part of our neighbour's drive to install a new 'duct'. However, our Landlord is refusing and being very difficult. I wouldn't even know how to go about asking our neighbours if we can dig up a part of their drive. We need to get wifi and i don't know what to do. Can they refuse? surely they have to make sure we have access to wifi? Someone please help.
Edit:
To clear up some confusion. There is an old copper wifi box thing that has been disconnected from the previous tennants, but that kind of wifi is no longer being installed in my area, they are only doing fibre. The reason they are digging is because they need to connect a new wire to a duct, as the old one is 'obstructed'. This shouldn't cost anything but i will double check. Regarding the neighbours, the part of the road that needs to be dug is technically part of the public pavement, however, is infront of their drive and would stop them from using it and their car is often parked on that part. Thanks for the advice so far but i am still unsure what to do, i am very much not clued into tech stuff so all of this is very confusing. (Also, irrelivent but the Openreach guy who came to look at what was wrong spray painted on the drive and the pavement without telling us?)
Loving the sass from some people as if having useable internet is a luxury in 2025
I’m assuming that the property doesn’t have working copper or the OP is asking for fibre to the premises (FTTP) which is the only connection Open Reach will install in many places as copper is being phased out.
If open reach don’t use overhead poles for the fibre - it varies by region - then the only way to install a new copper cable for Fibre to the Cabinet or a FTTP connection will be through a duct. Won’t cost the landlord anything and the Open Reach civils team will “restore” the driveway after. For all but the most specialist of driveway surfaces what they do will be fine.
They will ask for confirmation of permission from the owner of the land.
While your landlord is being very short sighted in not permitting the installation of a modern internet connection, he is within his rights to sadly.
I would suggest:
If not then
Get permission for the Open Reach work from the neighbour.
Explain to your landlord that this will need to be done at some point if the property is to have a decent wired internet connection, and that it’s an important factor for many tenants. It will increasingly be a deal breaker.
If he’s still an idiot:
Check what the 4/5G signal is like on each of the networks inside your property and then sign up for a mobile broadband hotspot. I can get 200 down and 80 up on Vodafone where I live - it’s viable as an alternative. VMO2 and Three aren’t as fast where I live.
You might need to borrow a phone from people to check different networks. And then try https://speed.cloudflare.com to benchmark them.
Good luck.
Just to point out Virgin can be very slow to do an installation. However one of my neighbours was only delayed by 2 weeks.
Bottom line, your landlord is well within his rights to refuse.
However, I have to question WHY Openreach needs to dig a duct underground? I have FTTP and Openreach just dragged an optic fibre line from the nearest pole.
Maybe the fiber is going in the ducts, telegraph poles might not even be there.
Yeah some areas aren’t served by poles on open reach
We aren't, they added it to the house by using existing ducts. They broke the existing BT box on the front of the house in the process. But, it was ready for an install which I took up 3 years later. No poles on our estate.
We don't even have poles in my area anymore, everything is underground
Poles are so 1930’s.
Most places in the UK don’t t have poles of any kind.
"Most" places? Think you're VERY wrong.
I used to work for the company that Openreach outsourced the pole maintenance to.
It’s a small percentage of the UK these days as it was small and declining about 20 years ago when I left.
And since then all the homes built are built without them. Plus nobody does country lane eh an any more and haven’t done so for years.
And if it isn't avoidable, clarifying what other providers use the same system as then.
Your landlord is a small minded Pratt. At some point the house will be rentable due to not having fast WiFi.
That said you can’t force him unfortunately. Have a look at mobile options. Run a speed test on your phone and see how fast your mobile will support. If good enough then get a mobile router and sim and your good.
May not be good enough for gaming for other stuff should be fine. I can get 300mbps down from two different providers.
Is your landlord someone who is perhaps elderly and not familiar with WiFi. You may need to sit down and explain it to them. If you are willing to pay for the WiFi and the work involved, it would be a win for the landlord.
OpenReach will only make good the damage to a driveway. It may look unsightly. It is likely a builder may need to improve the appearance of the driveway after OpenReach have finished.
The landlord may be concerned about damage to existing structures, and that could be a valid point. Find out in writing what the damage would be and find out how much it would cost to get it made good. Get quotes for it and offer to pay for it.
If it is very expensive, so you dont want to pay that amount, then it may be your landlord has a point.
Without anything cost wise in writing, you have nothing to show your landlord either way.
Mobile router and payg sim card ✅
You don't need to ask your neighbour, OR will do that. Just pass them the details of your landlord and they will arrange the wayleave for this. I am not sure how flexible OR is, but our company will work with landlords to keep the disruption (and digging) to a minimum. If OR can't do it, check if Hyperoptic, City Fibre, Virgin or one of the regional providers who have their own fiber, is able to do it or find a better solution. Just make sure you tell them that the BT duct is blocked, so they don't try to use it.
Time to whip out a dongle mate.
Just not on the neighbours’ drive
Have you checked if house is already wired up for virgin media on coax instead? Might not be best option etc. But better than nothing.
Unfortunately if landlord doesn't want driveway dug up, he's within his rights to refuse...silly, but within his rights. I'd also go back to openreach and ask for alternative options, maybe at reduced speeds?
Last option would be 5G dongle or maybe starlink?, you can buy routers with an external antenna which you can just hang from a window or something for better performance if available
What's your phone signal like? EE/3 both do decent 5g hubs that can work fine on 4g+ as well - no cables required.
For 3 we even setup an external antenna on the balcony to make sure we have rock solid signal.
5G is nowhere near good enough for multiple people at once
That is massively dependent on area, network, and usage.
In many areas where 5G is available, you can easily get 100Mbps+ down and 10Mbps+ up (and often much faster), which is enough for most households that don't play online games that need low ping (the ping on 5G NSA is generally too high for many games, 5G SA is fine but rarely available).
In some areas, 4G/5G-based internet access is the fastest available option.
And you can run multiple 5g routers if needed (extra cost), 1 per tenant to avoid the arguments of who is downloading to much.
I got a 3-based router as a stopgap when I moved, and because my Virgin bill was getting silly.
I'm still using it a year and a bit later for £20 unlimited it suits me - I'm getting 400 + download and near 90 upload. It wouldn't be any good for gamers, I thing there is quite a bit of latency, but I stream on it with no issues.
Was this not mentioned in the agreement or conversations before hand? That's really weird.
I don't think it's a legal right to have WiFi and it sounds like it will bloody expensive so I can't see the land lord doing it. I don't even know if the neighbours would allow it.
I dont think it would cost the landlord unless its damaged caused on the property, if its just a BT failed line it should be free from past experience
It is free
True a failed line should be replaced. I guess I was assuming that it just didn't have one. Maybe it's a house split in two or something
sooner or later the landlord will need accept that their drive is going to need digging up as openreach will need to install fibre at some point. In the meantime, go for a lower package that isn't "full fibre". It won't be as fast but it's the cheapest way to get internet. This is unless you're in a stop sell area, in that case you're stuck.
Ive never asked any landlord. I just get it installed or whatever.
I'm not sure what to say about the landlord, I would assume he has to let you install the fibre connection now broadband is seen as a utility? Failing that, you could look at a mobile broadband option with someone like 3. If you get 5g in the property you'd have speeds similar to fibre anyway.
As for the Openreach part, it won't cost you to have the work done as it's their plant that's faulty. The spray paint is temporary and will be gone in a few weeks/couple of months, but it's there to let the other teams know where to dig - that part it outsourced.
Check the price on starlink in your area.
Edit. Just so I’m clear I don’t support your landlord. Internet access is essential for meany people and I’m sure a lot of people would not apply to live there if they refuse to install internet.
Edit edit. Starlink could be good for you anyway as it requires no installation as long as you have an outside space that is secure but otherwise mounting the dish To a window might also work
That does requite dish installation, with this type of landlord I guess this will be impossible as well
The “Rome” one just sits on the ground
Yeah, and cannot be nicked etc. Well guy is hard for no reason and thats all.
WIFI - Is the signal given off by your router. As soon as you plug this in it will give you wifi even without any internet connection.
I'm assuming you mean internet. Landlords can refuse it if it involves digging up properties. If you have a phone connection you can get internet. Maybe not fast internet but it will be broadband speeds just not fibre speeds.
There must be some pretty big details being missed out here, I'm sorry there is simply no way you can't get wifi without digging up the neighbours land, do you mean you want a new and faster FTTP connection to replace the one you already have?
Failing all else, get a 5G mobile hotspot - most networks do them now and unless you're a heavy downloader, or pro-level gamer, you'll likely never notice it wasn't a wired connection. You can also take it with you when you move.
Just be sure to pick the network with the best signal for you, and if they're all pretty bad then you can look to get an external mounting aerial to improve things.
I have unlimited data (4g) on my phone and so just use that. I mostly use the hotspot when I'm on my laptop, but if if I'm downloading anything, I use USB tethering. Been doing it for a few years now and it works for me. It probably wouldn't work for people who don't live alone, unless everyone already has unlimited data, or they require an excellent connection, but for me, who uses a lot of youtube, some online mobile games, and occasional downloading new games on my laptop, it works and is only £20 a month, and it means no fuss when moving.
depending on where you are the ‘3’ mobile internet router works really well
Can you get 5G WiFi instead? That doesn't need cables.
https://www.uswitch.com/broadband/guides/what-is-5G-home-broadband/
When I moved in there was a big problem with fibre access .. it would have costed £2k and necessitated digging up the drive . Simple solution for me was to use a 4g sim router plugged into to wall. Costs £40 a month and gives me 200gb download
The trouble is that you are having problems installing broadband, not WiFi. WiFi comes from your broadband router. If you can't have landline broadband, then you need to get a 5G broadband router. You will need to check which mobile network provider will give the best indoor coverage for you area, and an unlimited data plan. It won't be as fast as fibre, but will do for daily browsing and work tasks. It might struggle with 4k streaming and PCs that need lots of large updates.
Have you looked at starlink it's about 70 a month and an initial cost of 300, but you can take it when you leave and there is not fit term AFAIK,
Have you tried other networks?
Citifibre and virgin are the only other two providers of wired infrastructure.
starlink! They are doing an offer at the minute where you get the kit free if you sign up for a year. I get zero phone signal here and theres no internet providers either. Starlink runs between 300 and 400mbps. Its super fast and can be taken with you when you leave.
Get a sim card and a myfi router.
Mobile companies offer 5G home broadband which obviates the need for any cable. They can be fast and reliable too, depending on your postcode.
You could use Starlink or a 5G router.
Today it's a bit wild that internet is not seen as an essential utility like water and electricity.
CPE modems that take a SIM card are another viable option if nothing works out in your favor. Especially if your area have a good 5G coverage
Does the internet from 3, and maybe other network providers, need to be wired in? Do they run from a SIM card?
Ask the landlord if he knows what kind of internet was set up by the previous tenant. It might help you decide which way to go. If you get good reception in the flat, you might as well get a router working off mobile data. Three and EE have options and it works surprisingly well.
Just chose a different provider… you don’t need to dig up anything. You can even just get a three plug and play router with unlimited internet.
Tell the landlord you’ve decided not to have WiFi installed and are going for traditional wired network. Once he says OK BT can come, dig up the driveway to lay the fibre line and put the fibre terminator in the house, and then just stick a WiFi router in.
Then You’ll have both the landlord evicting you AND the neighbour suing you. Fantastic advise.
You’ll also need to get a ‘permission to work’ form signed by both the owners of the two driveways so if the tenant signs it as the owner they could be in further bother.
There’s many ways to skin a cat when it comes to internet. Getting yourself evicted rather than doing some research seems silly.
You need to get them to put in in the sky, they propagate don’t want to fork put the money, see what u can agree with them around going under the drive.
Try and come to an agreement, tell him you’ll cover any expenses for turning the drive back to the way it was, maybe they’ll acquiesce then
Openreach don’t need to do any digging, it’s a sales tactic so they put you on the higher plan/get more commission, you’re simply asking for a high speed internet, just ask for a lower speed that’s already compatible with the cables in the area.
30-40mbps might seem low but is still perfectly fine for a household, capable of multiple people doing work from home jobs. Better than no internet/a mobile sim based alternative.
30-40Mbps might seem slow? It it extremely slow, share it across 2 users streaming, something is doing update at the background and you are screwed.
For single person working from home is ok, but its 2025, landlord doing something like that is just pure stupidity.
Additionally, I don’t understand what you mean by saying they want to push a higher plan. In 99% of cases, for regular internet you pay around £30-40, regardless of whether it’s 50 Mbps or 1 Gbps symmetrical. Here, it’s probably about the fiber location and the fact that they can offer more services — nobody is forcing anyone to take them. And such a 1 Gbps fiber with a 3 ms ping is “slightly” better than 40 Mbps with packet loss, etc. So, I completely don’t understand your line of reasoning.
Whilst I generally agree with your single vs bigger household explanation, households can often stay easily below that usage especially if they don't have any 4k screens.
£10 extra per month for overkill broadband can be a lot to people near the breadline, or for OP, a lot of headache for minimal life improvement to have a new line dug. I'd suggest they confirm with their ISP there's no current copper/fibre line that they can use at lower speeds, because they may be able to avoid the faff.
If £10 per month is a deal breaker then I think there are bigger problems than landlord with his issues. Also this is a bit offtopic.
I think you don't remember life before these speeds. They're fine, it's nothing to write home about, but it's fast enough for 2 people streaming 4k Netflix videos at the same time with some headroom to spare. I don't know where you are, where internet prices are the same regardless of speed. For as long as I remember and even checking the BT website this very second, all of their plans are priced by promised speed. The only exception to that is their most expensive copper plan, which costs the same as their cheapest fibreoptic plan, but are 74 vs 150 Mbps. Of course openreach wants to phase out copper cables and are trying to upsell OP to a fibreplan hence all the digging.
Having said all that, I got fibre ran to my house from a pole over the road. I'd explore that option if at all possible.
Before current speeds, software used less data. So of course people could manage.
Hell one Google chrome tab open on “Google.com” with nothing searched uses 100x the computer power the whole space shuttle had.
What does that have to do with internet speeds? If you want to use the Google example maybe mention that a Google result page is ~2mb. Like I said, it's nothing to write home about but it's fine, it's perfectly usable for what average person does on internet these days.
Because you how to download the highly increased level of data. Anything under 500mb is criminal
Ok, and? Do you think waiting 20 minutes for an update vs 2 minutes is not fine or usable?
Unusable. I wfh and would be forced into the office if I said this to my boss
But OP doesn't, we're talking about an average internet user who uses it for social media, video streaming, and likely occasional gaming. I rely on 1 gig up and down connection for my work, but that's not who we're talking about.
How do you know OP doesn’t? They’ve only mentioned there’s at least 3 different people as different households there, so even just for video streaming you would assume they need a minimum of 100mbps
For 3 people gaming on an Xbox as in your example they’d require at least triple this, so 300mbps minimum.
If course i do remember as first connection I had was 512Kbps. Not sure what was your point in that.
Netflix bitrate can go up to 25Mbps, but let's say, 2 streams 15Mbps each, on the top of that, scrolling through insta etc that can generate another 10Mbps and there you go, also wifi being wifi - you have 50 on the router and then 40 over the even 5Ghz because people do not know how to set channels etc.
Not sure where are you checking the prices etc, but just compared everytjing I can see in Bham area, fiber is cheapest £30-35 for 1Gb up and down. Also I think you are completely not taking into account that this old bad copper lines can support usually 10Mbps up max, good look with google drive or anything cloud related to store photos of your cat or videos from the phone which can be few gigabytes. Whole night to upload 15 min video? Thanks
Fiber will be in the same price as copper line, let's say they will offer them 40Mbps for £30 and 500 for £35 etc
Actually you may only have a copper line on a stop sell, being forced to fibre and not have pre-existing fibre.
That's what happened at my house, I literally couldn't get the copper line activated.
Not sure about that, fiber broadband is better and more reliable and is pretty much the norm these days, prices aren't even that much more expensive. You can also just opt out at the end of the contract.
Landlord is being a bit of a prick denying this simple request imo.
My fibre is from overhead cable, no ducting needed. Openreach installed it.
You can stream 10 films at once on a copper connection. People do not need to have fibre to the premises unless they work in IT or have unusual requirements.
Edit: Dunno why I’m getting down voted. The average download over copper cable with fibre to the cabinet and copper to the property is 54Mbps, within 1km from the cabinet.
To stream a film it’s 3 Mbps for standard definition, 5 Mbps for high definition (1080p)..
So, unless you are over 1km from the cabinet, have kids trying to stream multiple films in 4K or are torrenting or you otherwise have unusual requirements, then I am correct.
I work in IT and I have no need for fibre at home. It's the kids streaming video that eats up all our bandwidth. My work uses about 1% of the total.
You're completely incorrect.
Open reach don't sell anything - they just install infrastructure.
It's BT, TalkTalk or whoever else that'll try up selling.
But in this case you must've missed the news - copper is end of life and has a stop sale.
Only new orders are for fiber
Something isn't adding up here.
Your landlord is well within their rights to refuse to allow the driveway to be dug up, and its not even their decision for the same thing to happen to their neighbours driveway, so you need to be realistic about what is being asked.
The landlord also isn't on any hook to ensure you have inherent access to Wifi. If that was important to you then it should have been something you cleared with them prior to taking out the tenancy.
The main question for me is why Openreach feel the only way possible to connect Wifi is to dig up the drive for a duct. This sounds like they're trying to install new cabling, which without any further context sounds like something on top of what you've asked for, so I'd clear that up with Openreach first. They presumably could provide lower speed over existing cabling.
If Openreach are adamant and no other company can service it then you might want to see if you can get a 5G hub. If your signal is good then its likely this will be faster then normal broadband.
Your landlord can't prevent you from installing wifi, you don't need to make any alterations to the property to install it.
What openreach install isn't wifi, it's a wired connection to their network, using DSL, amd that may very well require alterations to the property. You can avoid needing such alterations by using 5G instead - there are several companies offering 5G domestic broadband.
Be aware though this might not be reliable enough if you work from home. I was dog sitting at my dad's and it wasn't stable nor fast enough for my work.
However, this is network dependent so op's millage may vary.
Also depends on what your work is. Hardly anyone needs to stream ultra high definition video for work. As for reliability - just make sure that you use a different telco for your mobile phone, and tether to that when necessary.
Annoyingly, I might be one of the few who do!
It’s completely dependant on location.
In my first flat internet was included but it was dire and I had no clue where the router was (likely in another bedroom, it was a HMO) I got a 5G router and was able to work and game on it without many issues
It may come as a surprise to you - but renting a place doesn’t give you the right to dig up the driveway.
Even weirder - it doesn’t give you the right to dig up the neighbours drive way. Bonkers, right?
It may come as a surprise to you - but having broadband may be essential if they work from home or plan to use any devices that relies on it to work.
Even weirder - having broadband is kind of a big deal now days. The landlord will need to let anyone that rents after these tenants know that broadband is not available here. As the driveway is more important than the desirability of the property for future rentals. Bonkers, right?
Also if they live in a stop sell area you can't order a copper based broadband it will have to be fibre.
But what if the neighbour refuses? The landlord can’t do anything about it, even if he agrees? You can’t just dig up the neighbours front garden without permission.
I didn't say they could. That would be down to openreach to get permission off the neighbour. If they can't get hold of them, they could ask the tenant to ask on their behalf/give details of the engineer to the neighbour so they can get in contact with each other.
No I get that. But if the neighbour flat out refuses, there is nothing the tenant can do.
True, it would be back to Openreach to find another way to provide service.
A bottle of wine and a box of grass seed (for her lawn, not her) was enough to get my neighbour to say yes.
Nah, none of that is a surprise. I’m due to have fibre dug to one of my properties next week.
It’s almost certainly in the landlord’s best interest to have it done. But then again, the fact that OP seems to be confusing WiFi with just highspeed broadband suggests that maybe they are just confused and the digging is not necessary.
But what I found bizzare was the idea that the landlord has no right to refuse. Especially when it involves digging up a neighbours drive which, I assume, they would have absolutely no incentive to do?
