Openreach announce 156 new FTTC locations

Hooray !! - My exchange has appeared on the latest roll-out list.

Wasn't expecting this so soon, as it was only upgraded to ADSL2+
about 6 months ago !

Probably not out of woods yet though, as there is no guarantee
that my particular street will be enabled !

Our exchange got ADSL2+ a week ago, about 5 months *after* FTTC went live.

Umm...I see that since the latest 156 FTTC exchanges have been announced, my exchange (LSEPSM) FTTC date on the BTO website has slipped from Sept 2011 to '2012'

In reply to a post by charles1:

Umm...I see that since the latest 156 FTTC exchanges have been announced, my exchange (LSEPSM) FTTC date on the BTO website has slipped from Sept 2011 to '2012'

Indeed. My own, LWTWI, has slipped again. It was originally scheduled for March 2011, which then became June 2011, then July 2011, and is now 30th September 2011.

Presumably in 3 months it will, also, join yours in the class of 2012.

Seems rather odd announcing new exchanges when they, clearly, are running months behind with the current ones.

Don't panic Mr Mannering! . It really is probably just a holding date.

My cabinet was moved from Dec 2010 to March 2011 then settled at Sept 30th in January.
It was literally driving me bonkers.

It went live today with no notice at all, just suddenly saying available on the checker!

There's a distinct lack of Openreach activity here to give any confidence of that.

Richmond Kew also, I think I may have seen some fibre being pulled but that had its date pushed back again also.

Regardless it makes them look rather foolish announcing new exchanges when unable to complete current ones within 6 months of original schedule - these exchanges were only added to the schedule 9 months before they were supposed to go live.

Agreed there. They definitely haven't been very clever with the information they have been giving out. There has been debate as to whether it has been a ploy to stop people coming towards the end of their contracts from signing new ones, in the hope they will hang on for infinity.

I dont normally do conspiracy theories, but where BT are concerned?

I see the trend of doing rural exchanges in the east midlands continues.

Why they can do greater manchester but no city ones in the east midlands I would like to know.

count the names that end in 'shire.

The three in Scotland are reasonably nice areas. Maybe that's the thing. Places with a bit of cash.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

... it makes them look rather foolish announcing new exchanges when unable to complete current ones within 6 months of original schedule

On the face of it, this is perfectly true - you have to ask why BT are adding new exchanges into the 2011 schedule, when the ones already in there keep being put back.

But you also have to consider that the roll-out has a variety of dependencies - and those could mean that the overall roll-out can move faster, with more exchanges in parallel, even if some of the current ones are seeing delays.

For example, having spare engineers sitting idle in Lancashire isn't going to help get London rolled out faster, so you might as well set them to work in the North-West. Or if the bottleneck is in training engineers, then you have to keeping feeding people in where you can, and have some exchange areas for them to work on as soon as they're ready.

Or perhaps they've learnt that ordering power connections in Birmingham takes 3 months instead of 1 month - so they choose to start some extra exchanges early to take account of this. Maybe they'd choose to install cabinets first, well before they start on the exchange & backhaul.

Perhaps they're anticipating more snow next winter, and need to start lots of exchanges now, doing outdoor work, to give them more indoor work in the winter.

Who knows, but its a complicated project to manage, even if the technology itself is now straightforward. The trick is getting all the people being as effective as they can, no matter what delays the outside world throws in the way.

BUT...

What I like is that they've now separated the list into a "coming soon" and a "bit further away" section. I think they're doing that in response to the frustration they've been causing, and they're trying to respond by being more accurate when they can, and more vague when they can't.

In reply to a post by camieabz:

The three in Scotland are reasonably nice areas. Maybe that's the thing. Places with a bit of cash.

this keeps coming up. I agree, although I didnt say it this time as I cant be sure of all the new EM ones listed. But they all rural.

My exchange "PEARTREE" is actually in well inside the Derby City boundary,
as is "CHELLASTON".

Perhaps they just have an aversion to calling Derby a city, who knows ?

- Alex

It's beginning to sound like my local exchange upgrade could be a year
of two away then, based on some of the comments from other posters.

- Alex

ok thanks for that info I stand corrected on that then, I assumed as they tagged shire at the end, although I know the leics ones arent in the city area.

Edited by Chrysalis (Fri 08-Apr-11 11:37:55)

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

Richmond Kew also, I think I may have seen some fibre being pulled but that had its date pushed back again also.

"They" were pulling cable in here a couple of weeks ago ("just in time", I thought, for a July 1st date) and we've suddenly been moved back to September.

It must have been a big fibre as it was a massive cable (being drawn through the existing ducts like it was attached to a Formula One car!), there's no new developments planned around here (so it's unlikely to have been a regular multi-core copper cable), plus they were right next to our street cabinet with the cable disappearing down the duct in the general direction of the exchange.

Of course; it could equally have been a new multi-core copper to add capacity to an existing cabinet (but that's doubtful, given the estate and cabinet are less than 9 years old you'd have thought it would have had plenty of spares).

In reply to a post by adebov:

It must have been a big fibre as it was a massive cable (being drawn through the existing ducts like it was attached to a Formula One car!),

I thought they pulled empty ducting for fibre - and then blew the fibre down the ducts when it was actually needed.

That way the fibre doesn't break from the strain of being pulled.

Maybe you are right - perhaps it was the ducting?

Yay, my exchange is being enabled!!!!

But I have an exchange based line - no green cabinet, so there is no upgrade path for me at all ever.

Openreach need a lesson in Geography they do not acknowledge the counties of Wales. They always state exchange and Wales, while In England it is always Exchange and County. At the last count Wales have 22 different Counties.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

I thought they pulled empty ducting for fibre - and then blew the fibre down the ducts when it was actually needed.

That way the fibre doesn't break from the strain of being pulled.

There didn't appear to be an OR crew nearby pulling the cable through, so it's quite probable it was being blown through rather than being pulled (either way; it was unravelling at some rate).
It's also quite possible the ducting was either empty or having only a few multi-core copper cables. It's the last cabinet on the way out of town (hence the rubbish ADSL speeds) and serves maybe fewer than a hundred homes at one end of a new(ish) housing estate.

If it was a 'massive' cable, it aint gonna be a fibre tube. They are relatively small.

In reply to a post by adebov:

(either way; it was unravelling at some rate).

Common sense suggests that this would be being fed into something with little friction - so something going into ducting, rather than ducting going into earth.

But I've never seen it in action, so I have no idea

Looked to be about 1" diameter, maybe 2" (which, compared to the tiny cables which feed individual homes, is 'massive').
Still can't imagine how they've already ran out of capacity on a relatively new cabinet when there hasn't been (and there are no plans for) any building/housing developments for years.
Equally; I can't imagine why they're bothing to install a fibre to a cabinet which has its FTTC enablement dates subject to continual movement (so far it's gone from Dec '10 to Jan '11, to March '11, to June '11, to July '11, to Sept '11 - All bets are off as to when OR finally get round to doing it)!

Seen it in action when it was being installed locally. What you probably seen was the tubing being pushed through existing ducts for which the Fibre will be blown to the new CAB.

In reply to a post by nelix01:

Seen it in action when it was being installed locally. What you probably seen was the tubing being pushed through existing ducts for which the Fibre will be blown to the new CAB.

If that's the case, it's nice to see OR wasting time installing tubing around six months before we're due to go live (which, of course, won't happen for at least 9 months to a year), instead of concentrating on areas due to go live soon.
Maybe we've just discovered why almost all published dates slide (because BT OR are too busy faffing around in areas which aren't due for half a year)!