Cab arrived!! Now what?

Well after slipping from 31st Dec to 31st March ETA along with thousands of others, I got home from work the other day to see a shiny new cabinet in place 200m away!! Very exciting. A week beforehand, they'd laid a slab with some cables and ducts poking through.

So what next? There is no noise from it and condensation is evenly spread so no heat, so I guess it's not powered up. Is there a standard process and timeline from physical placement of the cabinet to full-readiness? What happens next, and in what order?

I'm very excited!

From the time BT started preparing to install the cabinet, the work started in late october, finally able to order it on monday (17th jan).

The cabinet was installed mid november, after then the fibre(s) need connecting, power of course, other wiring from existing cab to new cab, finally end to end testing.

Our local cab was installed late August, including as far as I can see power/cabling - certainly I noticed zero activity for a long time.

Not orderable until mid Dec -- I ordered 31 Dec, and was installed on 18th Jan,

In reply to a post by andew:

From the time BT started preparing to install the cabinet, the work started in late october, finally able to order it on monday (17th jan).

The cabinet was installed mid november, after then the fibre(s) need connecting, power of course, other wiring from existing cab to new cab, finally end to end testing.

Other, different, data. Our local FTTC cabinet was installed by mid-September when the checker was estimating end-September for service.

The service date was then changed to end-December and later, in mid-November, a new trench was dug from the FTTC cabinet to what appeared to be a nearby electrical underground power line. That trench was filled in again after about one week.

At the end of December the service date was changed again to 30 March 2011. Last week (January) the trench to the underground power line was dug up again and it was apparent that a power line had not been installed to the cabinet in November despite the trench. That repeat trench has now been filled in again after about 9 days but I didn't see whether or not power had been connected this time.

I suspect that there is a major logistical problem facing BT. In order for the new cabinets to have power connected they need a sub-contractor to dig the trench, the electrical supply company then needs to attend at the same time as BT so that the cabinet can be opened and the power connected from the power line to the inside of the cabinet, then the roadworks contractor must re-attend to fill in the trench. It seems that in November stage one and stage three occurred, without stage two happening hence no power to the cabinet. I hope that the same farce hasn't happened again.

Addendum: I expect that this digging and re-digging is costing someone a lot of money; I hope it won't be added to my subscription costs!

Edited by Renfrew (Thu 20-Jan-11 23:38:54)

Here in Surrey, the council website has details of their roadwork plans. From that, I can see that the roadworks associated with power installation seem to come a month to 6 weeks after the cabinet works.

Our cabinet got power back at the beginning of October, but still no sign of service...

I would presume the power company would have access to the power compartment so they can bulk connect cabinets as required

I wouldn't hold your breath my cab was installed in early October with a activation date of 31st of December which slipped to March 31st and that what it still is.

last Saturday a BT speaker at a conference said that bad weather and problems with power connections to cabinets were impeding his rollout.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

... the roadworks associated with power installation seem to come a month to 6 weeks after the cabinet works.

That's magic . It works without power.

(OK, I realised later what you meant, but on first reading I got it wrong).

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 21-Jan-11 17:30:40)

At least you have a cab installed, not seen anyone at my cab for the last 3 months, despite BT installing the fibre to the current cab duct.