FTTP on Demand: Costs & Installation Explained

This is the guide we send to clients weighing FoD against the alternatives. It walks the full process — order, survey, ECC quote, civil works, activation — and tells you, plainly, where FoD wins and where it does not. AMVIA brokers both FoD and leased lines, so we have no reason to push you toward either.

How does FTTP on demand work?

FTTP on demand is ordered through an ISP, not directly from Openreach, and triggers a bespoke fibre build from the nearest full-fibre node to your door. The ISP places the order, Openreach surveys the route, quotes the construction cost, and — if you accept — builds and activates the line.

The product exists because the standard Openreach rollout reaches premises in a fixed sequence. If your area is years down the queue but you need full fibre now, FoD pulls the build forward at your expense. The trade-off is the upfront Excess Construction Charge.

The end-to-end journey has six stages:

• ISP selection and order — you pick an ISP that holds the right Openreach wholesale relationship (not all do) and they submit a formal FoD order.
• Openreach survey — engineers assess the route, duct availability, road crossings, wayleaves, and the civil cost. Typically 2–4 weeks, longer for complex routes.
• ECC quotation — Openreach returns a one-off Excess Construction Charge for the build.
• Decision — you accept and pay (via the ISP) or withdraw at no cost.
• Civil works — permits, traffic management, duct and chamber construction, fibre blowing, and the network termination point at your premises.
• Provisioning — the ISP activates the service, usually within a few working days of Openreach confirming build completion.

What is an Excess Construction Charge (ECC)?

The Excess Construction Charge is the one-off fee for the physical fibre build beyond what Openreach already provides as standard. It covers digging, ducting, chambers, road crossings, and the labour to run dedicated fibre from the nearest node to your building. It is paid on top of the normal monthly FTTP tariff.

The ECC is what makes FoD unpredictable. Two premises on the same street can receive wildly different quotes depending on duct condition, distance, and whether a road must be opened. The survey exists precisely to price that uncertainty before you commit. Crucially, the survey is normally free and you can walk away once you see the number.

How much does FTTP on demand cost?

FTTP on demand costs range from zero to well over £15,000 as a one-off ECC, plus your ongoing monthly FTTP tariff. The figure depends entirely on the civil engineering the survey uncovers — duct extensions, road crossings, and wayleave complications all push it upward. Below is the practical banding we use with clients.

At the very high band, a dedicated internet access leased line is almost always the better commercial decision — you get a guaranteed symmetric service and an SLA for a comparable or lower total cost. We cover that crossover point below.

How long does FTTP on demand take to install?

End to end, FTTP on demand takes between three and eighteen months from order to live connection. The survey and quotation phases are reasonably quick; the civil works are the variable that decides everything. Simple builds finish in weeks once digging starts, while wayleave negotiations and road permits can stretch complex jobs across a year or more.

Plan around the upper end. If your project has a hard deadline — a new office, a lease start, a migration date — the civil works phase is where slippage happens, and it is largely outside your ISP's control once permits and landowners are involved.

When is a leased line a better option than FoD?

A leased line beats FTTP on demand whenever the ECC climbs into the thousands, you need guaranteed upload speeds, or you require a service-level agreement with fix-time guarantees. FoD delivers shared-style FTTP with no symmetric guarantee; a leased line delivers dedicated, uncontended bandwidth backed by an SLA.

The two products solve different problems. FoD is about getting standard full fibre early. A leased line is about guaranteed performance and accountability. Once the FoD ECC approaches what a multi-year leased line would cost, the leased line wins on almost every axis that matters to a business.

If you are unsure which side of the line you sit on, our explainer on what a leased line is and the FTTP leased line option set out the differences in detail. For lighter requirements, standard business broadband may close the gap without any civil works at all.

How widespread is full fibre in the UK right now?

Full fibre coverage in the UK has expanded fast, which is steadily shrinking the number of premises that need FoD at all. Before committing to a bespoke build, always re-check standard availability — your area may now be covered. UK regulator Ofcom tracks this in its Connected Nations reporting.

According to figures reported for Q3 2025, the Openreach FTTP footprint reached 19.7 million premises, covering 58.7% of all UK premises (Q3 2025 data, source: ISPreview). Total full-fibre coverage across all operators — Openreach, altnets, VMO2 and KCOM — reached 79.5% of UK premises, roughly 26.7 million premises, in the same period (Q3 2025 data, source: ISPreview). The government's broader gigabit ambitions are set out in its Project Gigabit programme.

The practical takeaway: rollout is moving quickly, but there is no refund if the standard programme reaches you after you have paid for FoD. The ECC buys the build to your premises; later area coverage does not claw any of it back.

What should you ask before ordering FTTP on demand?

Before you authorise a survey or accept an ECC, pin down the commercials and the protections. FoD is a large, largely irreversible spend once construction begins, so the questions below are the ones that save businesses from nasty surprises mid-build.

• What is the estimated ECC range before we commit to a formal survey? (Some ISPs can give a rough indication.)
• What happens if construction costs exceed the surveyed ECC estimate?
• What are the minimum FTTP contract terms — and what protects my ECC investment if I leave early?
• What is the realistic total timeline for my specific location, not the best case?
• Have you priced a leased line as a like-for-like alternative?

A good provider answers all five without hesitation and shows you the leased-line comparison unprompted. If they cannot, treat that as a signal.