FTTC cabinet upgrade limited notice

My local rag noticed BT applied for planning permission to upgrade a bunch of cabinets across the area for FTTC. Alas, none near me.

For those of you wanting to know if there are any plans for your cabinets it might be worth keeping an eye on your local planning department to see if there have been any applications.

Permission is only needed for conservation areas, teleco powers allow them to put cabinets in other areas at their own will. It is possible they will inform a council of this in advance, but not through formal planning permission.

Ah well, that screws that great idea. Although perhaps it does mean that my cabinet will get upgraded too (not being in part of the conservation area).

Here's an alternative theory...

Our County Council has a website where roadwork plans can be seen. This website seems to get to see roadworks that are associated with FTTC cabinets - including duct work and power connections.

So you might see entries there, even if planning permission is not visible.

Good call. Turns out my village is about to be descended on by BT - just not my cabinet Lets hope that's because it's all ready already...

In reply to a post by Dash:

Good call. Turns out my village is about to be descended on by BT - just not my cabinet Lets hope that's because it's all ready already...

For your cabinet to be FTTC enabled there has to be a new FTTC cabinet within a few metres of it. The existing cabinet does not get fibre run to it.

Ours is near the top of the leg of a T-junction, where the leg is a side road to our estate and the cross-bar is a main road. The old cabinet is on the opposite side of the main road opposite the side road.

Strangely, all the fibre cabinets here seem to be, deliberately, placed across the road from the original cabinet. Even on roads built with huge verges, BT seem to have deliberately chosen to cross roads.

For example, This cabinet has its partner across the road, on the north-western corner of the T.

In this example it seems to have been harder to site the fibre cabinet opposite, rather than next to the original.

It has struck me that both of these cases have put the fibre cabinet on the side of the road without a pavement - so it may prove to have been cheaper to run the fibre that side, even allowing for the cost of ducting across the road. That would imply that they weren't highly motivated to put the fibre down the existing ducting.

The cost/ease of getting the electric feed seems to be one of the main points on the FTTC cabinets location.

It would imply that the electric cables are on that side of the road.

I hadn't thought of it that way, but with the hassle my cab had getting power, I'm perfectly prepared to believe that the electicity supply is indeed a major factor.