BT Confusion

Hi,

It's now the 30th June which is the date our exchange is listed to go live on the BT site:
http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumer/asset...

This is about right as the councilor who petitioned to get the roll out for our estate was originally told end of March 2011 and then that was pushed back to 30th September 2011 due to the bad weather.

The FTTC cabinets were installed at the beginning of last week and I spoke to a BT Openreach engineer working on one of them yesterday and he said they were working to fix a blockage in the fibre "spine" which comes from the exchange, but that could be solved that day and the cabinet he was working on should be completed by the end of the day. That wasn't my cabinet but you would assume they would be working around them.

I found this link on Google:
http://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?snapid...

This shows my postcode as on the cabinet about 200m away (which now has a FTTC cabinet next to it) and shows:
Percent Lines: 100
Uplift: 6.91
Phase: 6b
Deployed: Yes

However, both the BT Infinity and BT Openreach checkers show no availability of FTTC and the Infinity checker actually says:

BT Infinity is not currently due to be rolled out in your area within the next 6 months. Register your interest and we will keep you up to date about the BT Infinity rollout.

@infinityfibre on Twitter who are a BT partner and claim to have access to Openreach systems also say there are no plans to roll out in our area - which is clearly wrong as they are installing the cabinets and BT Openreach engineers working on it.

Anyone else experienced anything similar?

How often do the checkers get updated?

As far as I see it at the moment, it looks like the cabinets will be live and ready in the next few weeks but no one will be able to orders because the system says no.

Thanks,

Ian

This shows my postcode as on the cabinet about 200m away (which now has a FTTC cabinet next to it) and shows:
Percent Lines: 100
Uplift: 6.91
Phase: 6b
Deployed: Yes

Deployed means it's on the planned deployment list not that it's 100% ready for service.

Your first link is more "marketing speak" than up-to-date planning data. I would assume that the marketing material is put together from plans valid at the time, but then updated rather less frequently - if at all. And we know the real plans keep changing...

The second link is the escaped postcode spreadsheet, which seems to be valid data about the planning, but not a status of the current deployment.

There is another spreadsheet which lists the actually-deployed cabinets for each exchange - those "ready for service", RFS. *That* is the spreadsheet that tells you whether you should be able to order anything - the name is BTW-FTTC-Exchange-and-Cabs-16062011, and links can be found on this page of the BT forum.

The checkers are updated regularly, and are usually the best place to find out the status of your own line - particularly the BT Wholesale one (link). Most other sources have exchange information only, and aren't up-to-date.

In reply to a post by bookey:

Deployed means it's on the planned deployment list not that it's 100% ready for service.

Yeah, I guessed that - especially when it was dated April and the cabinet only just went in

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

The second link is the escaped postcode spreadsheet, which seems to be valid data about the planning, but not a status of the current deployment.

But surely the cabinets getting installed are?

There is another spreadsheet which lists the actually-deployed cabinets for each exchange - those "ready for service", RFS.

Cool - that's interesting.

I've not checked it yet but I assume mine won't be in there as it only went in last week and won't be active yet.

The checkers are updated regularly, and are usually the best place to find out the status of your own line - particularly the BT Wholesale one (link). Most other sources have exchange information only, and aren't up-to-date.

That checker doesn't mention FTTC at all....

Do you think that's a bad sign?

Is it likely that when the cabinet gets turned on that i'll just appear in the checkers and available to order on the BT Infinity site (how long does that usually take after the cabinet is ready for service?) or could we be sat with a working cabinet but no ability to order for a while as there are no estimated dates or indication of intent in any of the checkers?

It's clearly getting installed and work is going on, but my worry is that everyone else seems to have estimated dates etc in the checkers and the only answers I can get is no plans to provide it in the next 6 months, which is daft when the cabinets are getting installed.

Thanks,

Ian

In reply to a post by ichilton:

But surely the cabinets getting installed are?

Indeed, they are a good sign. But the go-live date can be anything from a week to 6 months after the cabinets appear. To be fair, both of those numbers are extremes, and the usual period seems to be more like 3 months - the feeling is that getting power is the biggest factor.

That checker doesn't mention FTTC at all....

Do you think that's a bad sign?

Is it likely that when the cabinet gets turned on that i'll just appear in the checkers and available to order on the BT Infinity site (how long does that usually take after the cabinet is ready for service?) or could we be sat with a working cabinet but no ability to order for a while as there are no estimated dates or indication of intent in any of the checkers?

It's clearly getting installed and work is going on, but my worry is that everyone else seems to have estimated dates etc in the checkers and the only answers I can get is no plans to provide it in the next 6 months, which is daft when the cabinets are getting installed.

It was always true that the checkers had estimates in them for a long period before the service went live - the best indication of a *real* go-live date was when the checker changed from a "provisional" date of the end of a quarter (eg 30th June) to an "odd" date, such as the 18th July.

However, even the presence of a "provisional" date in the checker isn't a very reassuring sign in terms of date accuracy - although it does seem to be a good indication that service will be available. BT do seem to have been shifting their planning behaviour a little, so I wouldn't be too worried about some anomolies in the checker.

For me:
- The best indication of both whether and when an exchange will first go live comes from the Openreach Where-and-when site.
- The best indication of whether a cabinet is to be included is the spreadsheet you've seen
- The best indication of when a cabinet will be live is from the BT Wholesale checker, but only in the last 2 weeks before it actually goes live.

So yes - expect an indication to appear in the BTW checker.

Some final reassurance: We've had lots of people question whether the system has gone wrong, and that their cabinet has gone live without their own line getting the correct ordering indication. However, I don't recall a single case where this has turned out to be true, save one or two people at the start of the trials a year ago.

Hi,

Thanks for that.

The exchange is in the when-and-where list as Sept-11, the PCP spreadsheet says 100% on my postcode and the cabinet has gone in so hopefully you will be right and the checker will show just before the go-live date.

The BT engineer from the other day was working on the next cabinet round from mine this morning so I talked to him again - was working in the cabinet so I could see it was all populated with all the equipment and not just empty, and his job was working on the cross connect copper to the original cabinet.

The fibre tube was just hanging out and over the top though so they have at least that to terminate and I assume they will still need to get power connected up to it so hopefully it won't be too many weeks before completion.

Thanks,

Ian