Street Cabinet Location

Hi,

My exchange is due to be upgraded to fibre later this year and I've been trying to find the location of my line's street cabinet. I've looked around the area and can't see any that are anywhere near to me. Is there any way that I can find out where my cabinet is (either on-line or by contacting BT)?

Any help is much appreciated.

There *was* a way, but Openreach got that map removed from the website.

One possible way is if you know the postcode for your street and surrounding streets. Put those in the DSL checker, and watch how the speed prediction (for fibre *only*) changes.
It will probably predict around 39Mbps for properties next to a cabinet, and around 30Mbps around 500m away, and so on.

Of course, cables follow their own route, and you can't predict exactly which way they go ( ours is not the closest cabinet), but it can help.

If you don't know postcodes, streetmap.co.uk will help there

Thanks for your reply, any suggestions are appreciated. The exchange isn't due to go live for a little while yet as the original date was set back for a few months but I just wanted to know where my cabinet was so I could at least get some idea of what sort of speed I might get. As I said, I've never been able to spot a cabinet anywhere near to where I live!

Which exchange are you on?

Hi Zadeks,

I'm on the Ashton-on-Ribble exchange (LCAOR).

Well I'm in a village served by telegraph poles and there are no cabinets anywhere to be seen, yet we are scheduled for FTTC in March (the exchange in the neighbouring town has been enabled). My estimated speed is 31.2Mb down / 7Mb up. How does this work in my situation? Are the "cabinets" effectively underground, accessed through the covers in front of most of the poles?

Is the village the only area served by the exchange? If within 100-200m of exchange then probably no cabinet, so full ADSL and full ADSL2+ speeds when it arrives.

Because an exchange is getting FTTC does not mean all lines will get it.

Overhead feed for last 0.25km, cabinet another 0.25km down the road.

No, I'm a couple of miles from the exchange, which serves a large town, so getting lowish speeds on ADSL Max (3.5Mb at best). I was basing the FTTC availability on my phone number, so it should surely be pretty accurate?

On whose checker?

If a large town then the cabinet will be in the town, overhead can drop down to a cabinet easliy enough, or are you saying it is overhead all the way through the town?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

On whose checker?

Sorry, the only one I know about:

http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/adslchecker.welcome

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

If a large town then the cabinet will be in the town, overhead can drop down to a cabinet easliy enough, or are you saying it is overhead all the way through the town?

No, I'm just talking about the village, which is considerably older than most of the town. There will have to be a cabinet or cabinets in the village otherwise we stand no chance of getting 31.2Mb!

OK, I found this a few hundred yards down the road - is that a BT street cabinet?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4480624/IMAG0188.jpg

An old one, but probably

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

An old one, but probably

OK thanks, I will keep an eye out for any activity in the area - I drive past it most days.

I don't believe it is

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

I don't believe it is

You could be right. I found another one the same. In both cases they are next to a pole that appears to carry power cables rather than telephone cables.

sorry bud but thats not a bt cab.

Oh dear, don't get the OP's hopes up. That is 100% not a BT cabinet. As for it's actual location, they aren't always that obvious ....... hidden behind hedges, etc.

Perhaps that's why I can't find it. I've certainly tried to look in all the hidden places that I can but I've never found one anywhere remotely near to me.

It's frustrating that BT/Openreach don't make the information available!

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

... hidden behind hedges, etc.

Like most useful information from them these days . More and more they seem to be adopting the "black box" approach.

It's frustrating that BT/Openreach don't make the information available!

Why should they ?
As someone said earlier, if they are estimating 31meg, then it won't be far away.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

It's frustrating that BT/Openreach don't make the information available!

Why should they ?
As someone said earlier, if they are estimating 31meg, then it won't be far away.

Indeed, probably within a few streets