How do I find my BT cabinet?

My postcode is NE34 7DX

Im with virgin right now, and I know my cabinet is about 60 meters away. Its at the end of my street.
I am considering switching to BT infinity, and BT say Infinity is available to me with 76/20 quoted speeds.
Question I have though, is how reliable are these estimates?
I know speeds depend greatly on how far away your cabinet is, but I have no idea where my nearest BT cabinet is. All I see are the small virgin street cabinets, and the slightly larger virgin cabinets (where theres 2 or 3 of them in a row)

I have seen a couple of really old cabinets, which have been there for alot of years, and dont recall seeing any work done to them reciently, which would indicate that FTTC hasnt been installed yet, but BT say Infinity is available to me.

Can someone maybe point out where the BT cabinets in my area are? and if they have infinity enabled?

Thanks

There's no map of BT cabinets available to the public, though there are a few maps that people have compiled for specific areas.


The best thing you can do is to use the BT Wholesale DSL checker - by phone number if you have an active non-Virgin number at the address that it recognises, and by address (postcode and house number or name) otherwise. The postcode only checker often omits FTTC details.

This checker usually gives you the cabinet number - which you may find painted on one of the BT cabinets nearby. If you have FTTC available, the BT cabinet will be connected to a 'twin' which has the FTTC equipment in it - though this can be some distance away from the parent cabinet.


The estimates given are usually fairly reliable and are often on the pessimistic side - though not always, as they are an estimate. 76/20 is an estimate for the full speed available on FTTC at present - the sync speed is 80000/20000kbps, but the overheads mean the achievable speed is around 76/17Mbps.

If FTTC is available, you are free to choose any ISP offering FTTC services over the BT network - you are not limited to BT Infinity. However, Sky and TalkTalk use their own backhaul, which may not be enabled in your area yet - if you are interested in those ISPs, you have to use their own checkers.

Hi David, thanks for your reply.

Using the checker, I can see that cabinet 61 serves my house (or would, if I was with BT)
The checker tells me I can get up to 66.7 down and up to 20 up.
So there must be a BT cabinet in the nearby area that has twin somewhere, that has just been installed.

I have been looking at alternate providers, and Plusnet is one of the top recommended ones, which uses BT's network. They offer FTTC services, and seem like a good choice.

I did look into Sky broadband, but their fibre services are not available in my area yet. Which is a shame as I have a friend who is with Sky, and he says it's a reliable service.

Im interested in going with Plusnet, but the only thing that puts me off is the price. It's sometimes more than a tenner cheaper that BT, for seemingly the same service. I don't suppose you know why that is? You get what you pay for in this world....

Thanks for the help anyway.

I live in Kent and using your post code on google earth I have located what look like cabinets in centenary avenue. These may not be the closest to you but it maybe a start. You could try following the telegraph poles or the inspection hatches normally set into the pavement as these should hopefully lead you to a cabinet.

PlusNet are owned by BT Group and seem to attract mostly favourable reviews here. You could always dip your toe into the PlusNet forum here and see what you think.

If you chose PlusNet, you'd get the best deal taking both phone and FTTC from PlusNet - though there is no requirement to have phone and FTTC with the same provider so long as you have a phone line with someone (FTTC can only be added to an active phone line).

I see.

sholtie: If you mean the 3 big green cabinets thats are right next to each other, I think those are Virgin cabinets. They make the loudest buzzing sound when you walk past them >_< but they've been there for alot of years now.
I believe this is the closest BT cabinet to me:
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ll=54.975367,-1...

I dont see any FTTC cabinet around it though. Only the small Virgin cabinet across the road.

David: If I went with Plusnet, I would have to take a phone line with them too, as I currently have a virgin phone line.
Plusnet are cheaper than going with BT directly, but Plusnet charge 80 quid for installation, whereas with BT, its free....

EDIT: Ahh I see, the covers on the ground infront of the cabinets, indicate weather its a virgin, or a BT cabinet. I get it now. So all the big cabinets are BT.
With that in mind, the nearest BT cabinet to my house, is about 200 meters away (the one I linked above)

Edited by AndehX (Sat 02-Feb-13 17:36:59)

Op knows where the cab is- no need for this post

Edited by ccxo (Sat 02-Feb-13 17:37:36)

Hi ccxo

just noticed you edited, so ill edit mine too

Edited by AndehX (Sat 02-Feb-13 17:39:42)

Pictures of cabinets and what they are.

In reply to a post by AndehX:

If I went with Plusnet, I would have to take a phone line with them too, as I currently have a virgin phone line.
Plusnet are cheaper than going with BT directly, but Plusnet charge 80 quid for installation, whereas with BT, its free....

It can often be a case of trading an installation charge for a lower monthly charge.

If you take PlusNet's phone and fibre broadband together, it looks like the install charge for a new line is £49.99 - that's what their ordering system quoted when I started a fictional order to install a new line here. In addition, you have to pay a month's rental in advance, which is standard for any phone or broadband product.

Ah yes, I see what you mean.

I would probably just go with BT directly then, as plusnet is about 12 quid cheaper for the first 6 months, then its only 2 pound cheaper after that, but I have to pay the 50 quid installation change, which tbh, I cant afford right now.

So really, there isnt alot of difference in the prices between the 2, except I dont have to pay as much upfront with BT

Hi all,

Just checked the site (http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/reply/fibre/f4206565.html?vc=1) using post code HD22XG and got availability date as "Capacity expected 20 February 2013"...does anyone know if this date something BT normally hit as every other check states late 2013.

If the BT Wholesale checker says that, it sounds as if the current installation is out of capacity (lack of line card ports and/or tie cable capacity), but new capacity will be enabled in the cabinet around the date given. Keep checking every week or so - hopefully you will soon have 'available' so that you can place your order.

The warning, if other sites are giving a much later date, is that your postcode may be served from two or more cabinets. You cannot choose which cabinet you're connected to - it depends on the cabling.


It's much better to use the checker by phone number, and if that is not possible, by address (postcode plus house number or name). The postcode only checker is unreliable.

Thanks...

Can I ask what does WBC ADSL 2+ and WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M mean ?

with phone number it says...it says same cabinet which seems very far from my house 1500M+ so does that mean I'd get poor FTTC.

Telephone Number XXXXXXXXXXXXX on Exchange HUDDERSFIELD is served by Cabinet 13

Available Products

Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Downstream Range(Mbps)

Availability Date

Featured Products

WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 10.5 -- 9 to 11.5 Capacity expected 20 February 2013
WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M Up to 10.5 Up to 1 9 to 11.5 Capacity expected 20 February 2013
ADSL Max Up to 5 -- 3.5 to 7.5 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available

"WBC ADSL 2+" is the 'up to 16Mbps' ADSL service available from any ISP which uses the BT Wholesale network. It's actually capable of 24Mbps, but new advertising rules mean that they can only advertise a speed that 10% of customers actually get.

Annex M is a modified version of ADSL 2+ which swaps some downstream bandwidth for greater upstream bandwidth - it can manage up to 2.2Mbps upstream, compared to 1.1Mbps for regular (Annex A) ADSL 2+.


There's no date for FTTC showing in those results - that shows up as "WBC FTTC". FTTC and FTTP tend not to show if you search by postcode only - as I said, you must use this checker by phone number or address for accurate FTTx results. In this case, it looks like you searched by phone number, which is the best way to search.

1500m is a long way to be from the cabinet. At that distance, FTTC will probably not perform a great deal better than ADSL 2+. If FTTC is enabled in your area, you will have the option of FTTP On Demand later this year, but that may well be very expensive at 1500m from the cabinet - likely many thousands of pounds in installation charges.

Ok, I've bit the bullet and ordered BT's new totally unlimited Infinity package. It gets installed on the 16th. I cant wait to be rid of Virgin's horrible service.

They install the telephone line free as well?

David_W - thank you for the info and for the prompt response.

apparently so.

Can anyone explain what happened to my connection last night?

My Broadband Ping

That change, happened around the same time I signed up for BT Infinity.

Coincidence?

Coincidence.

But it looks like it changed from Interleaved to Fast Path.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

But it looks like it changed from Interleaved to Fast Path.

On cable?

Fast path? What does that mean?

Anyway, I took a visit to the cabinet I suspected to be number 61, the one that serves my house. (the one shown on google maps, here)
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ll=54.975367,-1...

This is what I found:
http://andson.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/fttc1.jpg

Needless to say im quite pleased, as its only 200 meters away from my house:
http://andson.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/fttc2.jpg

Im hoping I get a decent quality of service

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

But it looks like it changed from Interleaved to Fast Path.

On cable?

Oops!

On the other hand, what control is there between the node and the premises?

That's great. That's a small ECI (that's the manufacturer) FTTC cab.

Fast Path & Interleaved explained here. As James commented, it probably doesn't apply to your VM Cable connection, although that's what the BQM looks like to me.

It does apply on FTTC.

What speed estimate did BT give you?

Edited by RobertoS (Sun 03-Feb-13 13:12:18)

In reply to a post by jchamier:

On cable?

Umm . Have we established that?

66/20 was the estimate they gave me. Which is fine, if thats what I actually get. Anything above 30-40mb is fine, as long as its consistent, and I can stream videos in the evenings.

the FTTC cab doesn't look like its been there long, judging by the hedge thats been cut away. Looks like it was installed before xmas maybe? It definitely wasn't there this time last year.

Edited by AndehX (Sun 03-Feb-13 13:44:47)

wow, im so glad to be leaving Virgin. Check this out for "up to 100MB"

http://www.speedtest.net/result/2483159199.png

What router have you got?

its the latest model superhub. got it 2 weeks ago to replace the superhub I had.

vmdg800 or something like that, not at home atm so i cant check

Edited by AndehX (Sun 03-Feb-13 15:32:38)

OK. No matter .

So I have a question.

Once my service is installed, I assume I will be given a home hub. Can I replace the home hub with a router of my choosing? Or do I need to keep the home hub as a modem, and connect it to an external router, like you do with Virgin?

I would much prefer to use my own router, than the home hub if possible.

At the moment you are supposed to use the BT Openreach modem. It's up to you whether to use the Home Hub 3 - though you'd be well advised to keep it to hand in case you need it for troubleshooting.


You can use any router that has an Ethernet WAN port and supports PPPoE - connect it to the LAN 1 port on the modem in place of the Home Hub. The PPPoE user name and password is the same for all BT Infinity customers - they must be identifying by the circuit ID. Apparently it's:

User name: bthomehub@btbroadband.com
Password: BT


If you have a router you're using with the modem mode on the Virgin Superhub, you should just have to reconfigure the WAN port from DHCP to PPPoE.

In reply to a post by AndehX:

... I assume I will be given a home hub. Can I replace the home hub with a router of my choosing? Or do I need to keep the home hub as a modem, and connect it to an external router, like you do with Virgin?

You have a misunderstanding there.

The Openreach engineer will fit a VDSL modem with ethernet output to go to the WAN port of pretty much any router that has a WAN input port. Commonly called a cable router. On Infinity that is the HH, supplied before installation by BT Retail.

You are not, at this point in time, supposed to substitute anything for that modem. Bear in mind the modem is expected to be within 1.5metres of the phone master socket. (I say 1.5m because I think that is the length of the supplied VDSL cable). If you are having a brand new line installed, as opposed to re-activation of a dead one, you may like to consider where you want the master socket.

Your router can be any "ethernet" distance you like from the modem.

There is no compulsion whatsoever to use the Home Hub as your router, except perhaps as David says for Support to run diagnostics. I don't know the details of your Superhub, but assume it's settings can be adjusted in the way David says. You will know far more about that than I do, I expect.

I see. Cool. Im not actually using an external router at the moment, which is probably why my virgin service is so bad... but I am very interested in one for when Infinity is installed. Do you have any recommendations of a good router to use?

Edit: would the ASUS RT-N53 be a decent router to use with Infinity?

Edited by AndehX (Sun 03-Feb-13 19:03:22)

Yes, use the Home Hub first and see how that handles what you do with your connection.

Only then worry about buying other hardware.

The rt-n53 is not the best device from Asus, also only has a 100 Mbps WAN and LAN ports. With broadband speeds likely to only ever go faster I would only buy an ethernet router than had gigabit LAN and WAN ports in 2013

Edited by MrSaffron (Sun 03-Feb-13 19:36:33)

I was under the impression the rt-n53 was a gigabit router. Saw one relatively cheap on ebay and it says its 10/100/1000

See this ASUS page. Scroll down to "Ports".

Well, not the best start with BT.

Woke up this morning to find 2 emails telling me that my install date has been pushed back 4 days, with no explanation as to why.

If it gets pushed back again, I might just cancel the order. Waiting is a serious pet hate I have...

In reply to a post by AndehX:

If it gets pushed back again, I might just cancel the order. Waiting is a serious pet hate I have...

I use FTTC (tho' not BT Infinity), if you're unhappy with your current ISP then it's probably worth the wait...

In reply to a post by AndehX:

Woke up this morning to find 2 emails telling me that my install date has been pushed back 4 days, with no explanation as to why.

If it gets pushed back again, I might just cancel the order. Waiting is a serious pet hate I have...

This is happening a lot, not just with BT. The other biggies are Plusnet, Sky, and TalkTalk and we are getting lots of reports of delays and no-shows on Plusnet installs.

They are all down to Openreach of course. So cancelling to go to a different one is unlikely to help. (Though my opinion is you've chosen the wrong one, but that's a different question ).

you might be right, just have to wait and see.

I ended up going with BT, as its not much more than plusnet, and I get the benefit of BTFON (if I ever need it, which is unlikely) and I get 50gb of storage space which i will probably need since I wont be able to use my old blueyonder ftp anymore.

Sky fibre isnt available in my area yet

Edited by AndehX (Mon 04-Feb-13 11:28:40)

Back to normal, just as I thought

My Broadband Ping

You monitor is going to run out of yellow ink .

Was any part of that idle, such as the short better bit? Or does something on your system download a lot most of the time?

Do you use iPlayer streaming?

from about 10pm last night, till now, it's been pretty much idle. before that I was streaming videos from twitch.tv. The tbbMeter shows the streams I was watching, only used about 2MB of bandwidth.

Edit: Ok this is strange... Just did a speedtest, it's quater past 10 in the morning. This is the result:
http://www.speedtest.net/result/2487285915.png

I have never seen over 100MB on my connection before now. What the hell is going on? lol

Im going to do various tests through the day to see if it starts to deteriorate closer to peak times

Edited by AndehX (Tue 05-Feb-13 10:16:36)

If you stick that earlied BQM link in your sig, like mine is, that would be convenient .

Easier than going to your "profile" to get a new link, just right-click your earlier link here and you can copy it easily. Then wrap round words again of course .

ah I see. Should be sorted now then.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

But it looks like it changed from Interleaved to Fast Path.

On cable?

Oops!

On the other hand, what control is there between the node and the premises?

Lots, and I think there are SNR values and similar, but as its a screened coax cable the detail is quite different. Also there are multiple TV channel frequencies that get bonded on the latest DOCSIS 3 specification. (Which is why the SuperHub is a requirement these days replacing the old cable modems).

The issue the OP has (showing in the BQM) isn't a "cable" issue as much as an ISP issue - the VM ISP is showing again as overloaded. Shame there isn't a split between physical delivery and logical ISP.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by jchamier:

On cable?

Umm . Have we established that?

I assumed when the OP mentioned cable cabinets in the street. Looking back over the thread the OP could have been on Virgin's National ADSL service as early posts don't mention bandwidth or throughput.

He did confirm it at some time after I asked that.

take a look at my BQM. service from Virgin right now is an absolute joke. high utilization 24 hours a day? they must really be cramming as many customers onto my part of the network as possible...

Just staggering.

Can anyone explain this? My Broadband Ping

I Restarted my superhub yesterday, and afterwards, the graph was alot more stable...

Still sub par speeds in the evenings, and unable to stream video though.

Heres a look at my actual speeds over the past 24 hours:
http://andson.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/JDAST.png

Edited by AndehX (Fri 08-Feb-13 09:21:03)

Just to update. I've had BT Infinity installed, and the results compared to Virgin, are like night and day. Heres my new BQM:
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/9a071b7a3a4...

The link shows a blank BQM. Not active, as if it was just a question of enabling Pings it would show all red.

Anyway, on BT Infinity you can't have a static IP address, (you can on Business Infinity), so every time your IP address changes you will lose the BQM. And some other poor sod who gets the previous IP address will wonder what is going on.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Anyway, on BT Infinity you can't have a static IP address, (you can on Business Infinity), so every time your IP address changes you will lose the BQM. And some other poor sod who gets the previous IP address will wonder what is going on.

If you don't reboot the router, (and don't have a power cut) the IP stays the same for weeks.

I have a BQM running without worry

He doesn't seem to have anything there though. Neither the (old?) link in his sig nor the specific link in the post.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

He doesn't seem to have anything there though. Neither the (old?) link in his sig nor the specific link in the post.

I've seen a BQM for an IP that didn't respond do the same, show complete black. The IP was apparently not active on the router until the DHCP server had issued it the first time. (always same IP assigned to an account). (BE new network).

Hi, I've found my cabinet no is 27 (near bridgefoot/workington cumbria)

Is there a way to find out where it is, apart from hiring a 4x4 and following the poles?
regards, Phil

Maybe