UKC

Had to cancel fibre installation (upgrade from copper ADSL) as they wanted to route cable across the front of the house from the existing duct (enters via toilet where there's no power sockets) to where there's power sockets in the hall.

Supposedly they'll dig a small trench (which we'd prefer) - do they actually do that? I'll have to ask them.

Other option - forget fibre & copper as using my phone it's 50Mbps on 4G mobile and 110Mbps on 5G mobile. Upstairs 5G goes to 250Mbps!

Wifi is 25-35Mbps within the house, ethernet is 70Mbps so presumably that's the limit of our copper ADSL broadband. 

Is 4G or 5G mobile broadband a permanent solution or is it flakey in bad weather or in evenings and other busy times?

This was prompted by the end of analogue phone lines.
I see that landline phone numbers can be ported to a mobile.

Any suggestions for a 5G mobile/cellular router or is 4G good enough?

Had 4G for a few years, as copper wire internet was sub 1mbps. 
It does the job, streams TV ok (occasionally a few seconds buffering before it starts), fine for work.

It can suffer from network congestion (our only mast a couple of miles away is surrounded by caravan sites). Currently 18.4Mbps download, 16.1Mbps upload. I'm not a gamer so happy with that. However we are in a rural area with limited mobile infrastructure, more civilised areas will be better.

Depends on cost, who pays for trenching etc..

It could be a good investment if you sell just to say you've got fibre, even if you don't actually use it yourself. 

We are on 4G mobile as it is the only viable answer in our rural location.

It works very well but if we could get a fibre connection there would be a lot more competition from different providers to keep the price reasonable.

Do they have to dig a trench or can the cable be routed across the front of the house?

Across the front of the house is logical, but ugly as it would have to climb* from ground level to above door height, traverse* above front door & descend* to near ground level on other side of front door, all on the outside of the house.

That's the logical route but the ugly route that we're not keen on, hence we'd prefer them to did a trench along the edge of the lawn.

*well, this is UKC

I'd dig a trench and put in conduit, future proof for the future and no more digging years down the line. We ran conduit up the inside of house wall, to a deliberate power point in the upstairs hall where the router and fibre unit sit, gives better coverage around the house and garden (imho).

Is this Openreach, or another provider?

Despite the analogue phone service being discontinued, Openreach has no plans to stop broadband service - which is digital - over copper wires, in areas where they don't provide fibre to the premises.

A contractor for OpenReach connecting to CityFibre. Our service is with BT.

I would be surprised if you even notice that cable after a few weeks.

In our old house they dug a trench in the lawn for the cable, but it can only have been a few cms deep. I'm sure at some point it's going to surface and get caught by a lawnmower.

Not my problem though now as we aren't there anymore!

When we upgraded to fibre when we changed suppliers they dug a trench across the front lawn from the connection point and popped the cable through the the wall in the corner of the living room.

We may have had a lazy contractor. He said he was on his last day, I think he wanted a cancelled job!