7.8mbps FTTC speed predicted

My exchange, Blewbury is scheduled to get FTTC in December 2011.

My current stats are :
Channel: INTR, Upstream rate = 448 Kbps, Downstream rate = 2496 Kbps
Link Power State: L0
Mode: G.DMT
Channel: Interleave
Trellis: OFF
Line Status: No Defect
Training Status: Showtime
Down Up
SNR (dB): 6.2 12.0
Attn(dB): 63.5 31.5
Pwr(dBm): 17.7 11.9
Max(Kbps): 2752 748
Rate (Kbps): 2496 448

So it will be obvious why I cannot wait til December. Especially as I live in a village of 110 houses and our one cabinet is 300m away. The exchange is around 5km distance.
However when using the BTW checker it gives disappointing results I quote :
"Your cabinet is planned to have WBC FTTC by 31st December 2011. Our test also indicates that your line currently supports a fibre technology with an estimated WBC FTTC Broadband where consumers have received downstream line speed of 7.8Mbps and upstream line speed of 2.2Mbps."

No other number in the village gets a faster speed reported. So what does this mean ? No fibre to our cabinet here and we will connect kms away.

The next village to me which is halfway between us and the exchange reports speeds around 16 to 31 mbps. Numbers I have checked in the village where the exchange is located return the full 40mbps.

Does anyone know how reliable this data is likely to be, it is BT after all.
This is all very frustrating and a bit of a let down as we all worked very hard to win the BT Race to Infinity last year only to find that we will get ADSL speeds at FTTC prices.

The speed checker gives very confusing results (mostly underestimated).

For example, I too am in a village that now has FTTC (cabinet 600 metres away).

Speed checker says 14.6mb/s whereas actual speed I get is a consistant 23.2mb/s.

So, I guess you will get a speed in excess of mine as you are closer to the cabinet.

It's possible your cabinet is an SCP from the one half way to the exchange, and that is the one getting the fibre. In which case your copper for FTTC would start from there.

Is there a number on your cabinet, and if so, what is it? Is it a simple number or nn/n?

Hi, I was in the same boat as you 7.8Mb down and 500k up. I am connected through a pillar and the cabinet it is attached to is 1.3 miles away.

I actually get 16Mb down and a shade over 1Mb up. It all depends on quality of line and true distance from cabinet to premises. These figures are always conservative so expect faster speeds.

If you PM me a postcode I'll check which cabinet you are on, and how far away you are.

James

PM sent. Thanks for your interest James.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Is there a number on your cabinet, and if so, what is it? Is it a simple number or nn/n?

Just had a look. The cabinet is plain green with no numbers. Its obviously not fibre enabled as it has been there for a number of years. There are two BT manhole covers close by. Its the only cabinet in the village.

I need a break and some exercise so I will take a walk to the next village and see what cabinets I can see there and report back.

Well I have taken a look around the next village. They, like us have only one cabinet. This has several no. 1 stickers on it, black on yellow I seem to remember.
Perhaps the fibre cab has not been installed yet. The pub opposite the cab reports a fibre speed when available of 40mb. So it does look as though the fibre will be brought out this far anyway.

This still leaves me very puzzled about what sort of fttc we will be getting that only gives 7mbps. I suppose that represents 2km of attenuation down from 40mbps at the nearest cabinet as and when it is installed.
But does this mean that BT expect us to sign up for a fibre product, pay for a fibre service but not really get it.
Of course I know the answer but don't want to think about it. Neither do I know of any strategy to persuade BT to come clean and then actually give us fibre to our cabinet here.

Post or PM your postcode and I can probably tell you the cabinet number you are on, and what "Phase" you are supposed to get it. Unfortunately dates that far ahead are just meaningless holding dates, to fill the field in the database/spreadsheet.

Its unusual for the cabinet to not be numbered - so are you sure that is really your BT cabinet?

In reply to a post by jaba:

But does this mean that BT expect us to sign up for a fibre product, pay for a fibre service but not really get it.
Of course I know the answer but don't want to think about it.

The fact is that you *would* be getting fibre service in every other way except for the speed. You depend on the fibre being rolled out to the cabinet, the upgrade to the cabinet, the equipment in the cabinet, and the support/maintenance required for the cabinet to continue to run - just as much as someone who wins the postcode lottery and lives next door to the cabinet.

The bulk of the money paid for any "basic" fibre service with low bandwidth allowance (such as Plusnet's "Value Fibre" package) will go to the basic provision of the equipment, with little of the money allocated towards the actual speed.

Those users who get the faster speeds, and make actual use of it a lot, will tend to gravitate to the more expensive packages anyway - where the higher price goes to funding bandwidth (not speed).

Having said that, it seems likely you will end up with higher speeds than 7Mbps, as the checkers are pretty conservative. You just have to try it and see...

In reply to a post by jaba:

Neither do I know of any strategy to persuade BT to come clean and then actually give us fibre to our cabinet here.

If the checker says you can get fibre, then your cabinet is being converted - full stop. It is the only way the rollout is being done.

BT do have 2 types of cabinet - primary (PCP) and secondary (SCP), and the rollout works by conversion of the PCP only. If "your cabinet there" is actually an SCP, then it won't be converted there, as BT are not working that way - it will certainly take a lot to persuade them to change this part of their rollout.

SCPs are normally numbered "NN/X", where NN is the PCP number, and X is the SCP's index number within the PCP.