You may want to check some of the other ISPs as some are more aggressive than others in starting to sell service as soon as possible, rather than waiting until all or the bulk of the cabinets have been installed.

In reply to a post by parish:

However, when I enter my phone number (and also those of friends who are on the same exchange, but it different locations) it says that Infinity isn't scheduled to be rolled out within the next 6 months - very clever wording; read it quickly and you read it as is within the next 6 months.

So what does it say then? I don't think anyone has reported wording like this before!

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

So what does it say then? I don't think anyone has reported wording like this before!

Neither have I. They seem to have changed the wording in the last week or so. The exact wording is:

BT Infinity is not currently due to be rolled out in your area within the next 6 months. Register your interest and we will keep you up to date about the BT Infinity rollout.

Right. That certainly suggests BT are doing something to try to better inform people about just when they might get fibre. Even if, for now, it appears a step backwards.

It only makes sense that BT make something of an effort at getting their time predictions better - each quarter-end would cause a barrage of date changes, follow by a chorus of complaints.

Here's hoping that when they start to give dates in the future, they have become more accurate predictions than in the past.

In reply to a post by RandomJointer:

I would have a guess that some delays were down to maybe Openreach considering FTTC cabinets as minor works and maybe some councils considering FTTC cabinets as major noticeable works.

I would have a punt that if cabinets were delayed for noticing that they planted them in the next phase rollout areas with more cooperative councils long before the spine was in place or even due rather than having them kicking around the docks

Maybe, though not the case in Twickenham given that planning permission for the first cabinets only started hitting Richmond Borough a couple of weeks ago.

I can assure you I have spoken with Richmond Borough and despite the likely perception of the area the only reason they are turning any planning requests down is genuine safety reasons such as one that comes to mind of sticking a cabinet on a junction blocking views of oncoming traffic, they are very keen to get this done.

EDIT: Incidentally they are keen to the point where residents have made objections over 'aesthetics' and have been disregarded and permission granted. This is easily available information via the Borough website.

Edited by Ignitionnet (Thu 12-May-11 23:26:59)

In reply to a post by hareng:

Quite true but most of the West Mids have a reasonable connection speed compared to what i have to put up with for 11 years on ADSL and ADSL2+. Its only been just over 6 years before i could get ADSL on 1/2meg fixed and had to push for that.

Incidentally 7 local cabs 6 of which were FTTC enabled last year supplying around 20,000 homes and i am the third to take it up, whats all the fuss?
Very few here are able to maintain over 1 meg excluding the shear number of dropouts measured in hundreds a day.

Both BT engineers stated only the worst areas will be done first, not my words. These same two separate engineers covered the West Mids and Staffs, next call could be 25 mile away far side of Brum or next door.

The exchanges picked in my area are short line areas. I would assume they will go for low cost rollout areas first which would probably mean short line areas first.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

It only makes sense that BT make something of an effort at getting their time predictions better - each quarter-end would cause a barrage of date changes, follow by a chorus of complaints.

Here's hoping that when they start to give dates in the future, they have become more accurate predictions than in the past.

But they are still giving lists for each quarter-end when you click an area on the map at www.bt.com/infinity with a list of exchanges under "GREAT NEWS! THESE EXCHANGES ARE READY FOR BT INFINITY", which is where my exchange is finally listed.

Am I correct in thinking that it's only after the exchange is upgraded that they start upgrading the street-side cabinets - it would certainly appear that way if my exchange is ready but it will be 6+ months before Infinity is rolled-out?

If so, then that is something that they don't explain, which will cause confusion and complaints. I was certainly under the impression that once the exchange was declared ready that Infinity would be available to everyone connected to that exchange (unless there was a technical reason why a cabinet couldn't be fibre-enabled).

I was talking about streetworks noticing rather than planning permission.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

God how annoying!!

I've been waiting months and months for FTTC, living on a new housing estate <2km from the exchange in a small village I thought we'd be on in no time...

It looks like our cabinet is pretty much the only one in the village which hasn't been FTTC'ed!!! Grr! Is there any way to request BT do our cabinet?

It says in the above link that we are FTTC ready

How annoying.

where are you based?

In reply to a post by RandomJointer:

I was talking about streetworks noticing rather than planning permission.

Tons of conservation areas around here, surely there would have been applications for the cabinets in those areas going in as well? None went in until the past weeks, certainly none were done before March 2011, the original date.