Rossington (SLRN) RFS slips from March to June

I live in Rossington, Doncaster in South Yorkshire. My Exchange is Rossington (SLRSN) and I am connected to cab 4 or 6. The Open reach checker until very recently showed the end of March 2012 for Fibre to the cabinet availability. However this has changed and is now reporting June 2012

I was so pleased that our Exchange was being enabled for FTTC & FTTP that I have eagerly been monitoring the RFS dates. Locally I have seen the fibre being blown in, new cabs deployed and engineers with laptops etc working on the said cabs for some months now.

Yet inexplicably the Exchange has suddenly slipped 3 months on the RFS date. Isn't it strange that until last week all was well then suddenly its going to take an additional 3 months? So I am presuming that BT only update their RFS dates periodically? and therefore just how reliable a predictor are they?

Would it be fairer to state "You might be able to order Infinity after this date and we would like to be able to offer the service but this could change without notice and by several months."?

So, does the 3 months extra mean 3 months? Could it be longer maybe 3 months then another 3 months then another 3 months? or could it be that the delay is only a week or two but BT added a standard 3 month offset to the RFS date because that is how they play things?

I suppose what would make me happy (beyond obtaining Infinity service) would be more information. A coming soon or RFS date that turns out to be inaccurate is really a Fail.

It would be good to have a website where the process of installation is explained in broad detail (in terms of obtaining way leave, power issues, roadworks, duct clearing) along with average time scales for each step of the process.

Then tie this into the postcode / phone number supplied by the customer / potential customer. Maybe traffic lights as each step is complete

Obtainng wayleave
Deploying Cab (n)
Pulling Fibre
Power for Cabinet (n)

Collapsed duct causing delay in connecting cab 2. Repairs scheduled for..

You get the idea. We could then appreciate the deployment process, identify delays where BT/OR are awaiting upon a third party so we can cut them some slack. RFS dates would change dynamically and we would all know where we stood.

Today all I can do is wait three months whilst posting here (or accosting a BT engineer) in the hope that some more detailed positive information is posted in this thread. I think it would be a big stepforward if all customers were offered this additional information.

I work in IT and at times do so from home.. At work we have a 100Mbit non contended fibre connection,a a 40Mbite d on a 5:1 contention )and a Zen 4Mbit ADSL connection.

I then find myself needing documents / content / ISO files which for me to edit involves maybe an hour or more both ways. Add in family members with iPads, Laptops, streaming TV and the sky box completing downloads all at the same time oh amd the invenitable iOS iCloud backups.

Leaves me with no bandwidth left. Sure we could schedule download time in the same way we do with the bathroom in the mornings but we shouldn't have to. We could have had our FTTC service!

I would appreciate feedback, comments, offers of cash, an informed interpreation of when my Exchange will realy go live and what the big holds up have been!

Lots of love and best wishes.

The march 31st date like the june 31st date are just placeholders, where if the work is not completed before March 31st it goes into the next placeholder date, the work is compelted when its ready and only OR know we have to wait.

A exchange will go live for FTTC when the first 10 cabinets are ready, some cabinets can be delayed for months etc.

OR has their own sub section on their website about their fibre deployment

http://www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/the-big-build/

While it does go into detail about the project it does not contain detail such as the individual stages and a timeframe to which they will be completed.
One Isp Eclipse had a UK map showing all the cabinet locations however this was removed as the information is deemed commercially sensitive by BT, its the main reason why something like you suggest will not appear unless OR and BT decide to offer that service.

Their are ways to see the progress of work through Roadwork sites both CC and national ones as they will show the work and if you can get hold of a OR engineer as they will usualy give a good indication when the cab will be ready.

Unfortunately management doesnt seem to think to offer people the information that would be needed as its commercially sensitive.

So between now and June the 31st your cab may go live and you can place a order or it will be longer till its ready.

Well, I was going to sympathise with you as I'm over in Balby and we had the same thing - showed March, then wasn't. (SLDC P36 phase 6b)

BUT... I just went to BT.Com to do an update and it says I can order Infinity now. It wasn't saying that at the weekend when I last looked. Seems like Donny is happening at last

Openreach engineer said that they sometimes have to admit that they can't complete all the work needed in some areas, so they have to let it slip. 3 months may not be the actual case, it's doing that because they schedule in quarters of a year. It may only slip a few days or a couple of weeks, then will pop up as available.

I was about to jump ship, having been with Virgin since the days of Bradford Cable digging up the street. They are about to give me a 20Mb upgrade, scheduled in next few weeks. We've been on 10Mb for some time.

Looking at price, and factoring in having to get a new BT line installed (that will be knocked down to free), I'm actually better off staying where I am. The time taken for Infinity to appear has seen Virgin give me a better deal and (soon) faster broadband.

Your lucky !!

My exchange Finningley is not even on the radar yet.......... (

Best bit is I work on the Digital Region network too. And there not doing it either !!

Bad times.....

Map ISP was actually Timico

If you are in a Digital Region area, then they have the BDUK responsibility, i.e. no more funds coming to the area. So they had better do it, or you will be stuck with what you have.

In reply to a post by ccxo:

The march 31st date like the june 31st date are just placeholders

Thirty days hath September, April, June and November...

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

In reply to a post by ccxo:

The march 31st date like the june 31st date are just placeholders

Thirty days hath September, April, June and November...

..all excepting BT who make it up as they go along

Hi,

Logged in now.

I can assume you Finningley Exchange will not be getting any SLU services from DRL.

The original rollout was for all 54 exchanges in S Yorks to be done, this was then "scaled back" to just 36 due to costs. They were apparently then using profits to fund the remaining 18 exchanges, but in reality this is never going to happen.

The problem is no one knows about this shiny new network sat virtually doing nothing as it is never advertised anywhere. DRL argue they are a wholesale provider so shouldnt have to advertise but the ISP's they have attracted are only small outfits so can not afford big marketing budgets.

Its a vicious circle really, and its a real shame. The network is cutting edge and has oodles of bandwidth, 17a rolled out and tested already things such as VDSL2 bonding aswell as providing FTTP for business internet services too.

Ontop of this, a lot of the areas were done over 2 years ago now, so they had a 2 year head start on BT Infinity services, but slowly and surely now BT are covering 2/3rds of the exchanges we have done.

Anyway, I could go on forever on my thoughts on this. In the past I sat back and not commented on the threads on SYDR but have decided now its time for me to defend it a bit seeing as though I have worked on it since the first fibre was laid and certainly know whats going on with it !!!

Cheers

I was the original poster in this thread and I have received information from BT regarding this situation in Rossington and why the service date got pushed back.

The source is a colleague of Ian Livingston the CEO!

All the street cabs in Rossington were completed on time and all have power and have fibre connections back to the Exchange since last month.

The hold up is that Open Reach need to bring a fibre spine across the railway line to the Exchange. Unfortunately it has taken longer than expected for access to be agreed. I was told last week that this fibre will be in place this week or next. We should be able to order services by the middle of the month at the latest (May) and perhaps a little earlier.

Now, the postings regarding Digital Region is very interesting particularly the bit about oodles of bandwidth. I should show my hand at this point and make clear that I purchased two DR circuits one a 100Mbps fibre and the other a backup 40Mbps VDSL connection.

Initial experiences were not good. The VDSL circuit never achieves anything like the 40Mbps promised despite being within 100m of the cab and given that we have an uncontended configuration. Secondly the fibre link provided did not work post install as it seems DR didn't know the VLAN id for the circuit! (took 5 days to resolve). We also had to change our IP addresses twice on both circuits as the routing changed. (We were on Thales Transit network for a while) and then there were problems with Juniper kit dropping packets and the engineer being at a conference in the US. It goes on.

Now, we have run speed tests through to the Thales data centre in Doncaster and the speeds are excellent and it's clear there is oodles of bandwidth there. However it seems very contended to the Internet.

The 100Mbps circuit doesn't run at near to 100Mbps. I consider 60 or 70 upstream good and 40 down. Speaking to the guys at Thales I was told that I should only expect 60 down on the 100 circuit.

Of late the circuit has been stable but is not operating at the speeds I hoped for (which are in excess of our actual current bandwidth needs).

I was promised that once DR had cabs in my area (Rossington) I could be linked into the work network. Not to bothered about that buy it's just as well given that DR have dropped any plans to install cabs in my area. Since their is no BDUK funding likely either I am left with just the Open Reach GE product to choose from.

Now I know why my Exchange has been fibre enabled despite more financially viable Exchanges in other areas still awaiting Open Reach's attention!

I don't understand why none of the other big ISP's use the DR access network. Could it be cost? Do they charge more than other providers for access and port rental?

DR is going to go belly up at some point. Probably when the local authorities have got fed up with pumping money into it.

Sure the physical cabs and network will still be there but who will pay Thales for monitoring and management? Perhaps Open Reach will step in and buy it up for peanuts or perhaps Virgin can extend their network?

But in its present form and without any substantive effort at increasing its subscriber base either directly or via big name ISP's it won't last.

Andy

First, without some thought I was a bit confused by some of your latest post, probably because of the huge amount between the two parts I now quote together.

I should show my hand at this point and make clear that I purchased two DR circuits one a 100Mbps fibre and the other a backup 40Mbps VDSL connection.
...
I was promised that once DR had cabs in my area (Rossington) I could be linked into the work network. Not to bothered about that buy it's just as well given that DR have dropped any plans to install cabs in my area. Since their is no BDUK funding likely either I am left with just the Open Reach GE product to choose from.

I assume the first two are for a business you are involved with, not at Rossington.

As for the rest .

I don't understand why none of the other big ISP's use the DR access network.

Surely that is answered by a summary of the bulk of your post:

- the speeds are nothing like what is advertised;
- it took 5 days to get the FTTC connection working due to DR incompetence;
- 2 IP address changes needed, twice;
- packet loss could not be sorted out because a single engineer was unavailable;
- it seems very contended to the Internet;
- you imply with "It goes on" that there have been other troubles as well.

That doesn't sound like the sort of thing major players would want to buy into.

Roberto S & Anon

I would like to add my two penneth here as I know exactly about this case.

Yes, I know exact the circuits your talking about.

Anon, what you seem to fail to recognise is that DR is a wholesale network. They only provide the network between your site and the ISP interconnect.

The 100 Mb circuit will never get 100Mb throughput, due to TCP overheads. This was proved with a speedtest to a speedtest server in our core and you got 92 Mb downstream and circa 62 up if I recall.

If your getting bad speed test results with internet speed testers then it is the fault of your ISP, not the DR network.

The issue regarding the vlan tagging did not take 5 days to resolve as it was me that came and did it. We stated what vlan the service would be presented on to the ISP, the fact that did not get passed on correctly was not our issue.

The ISP addresses being changed again was down to your ISP. You were put onto the thales internet service as a favour while the issues with your ISP were sorted out, that is why your address had to changed. This was a good gesture from DRL in my opinion as the issue was not within their network and they gave you an alternative internet service.

As for your packet loss between juniper routers, again must have been your ISP network. For one you would not see "hops" on the DR network and two they do not use Juniper kit, its Alcatel.

And finally, regarding your talk of contention, there is none at either the access, aggregation or core levels on the network. The links are very future proof and even the street cabs would need a good amount of customers for the uplinks to get near to contented.

The aggregation / core links will not get contended for a long, long time.....

I will happily discuss this or the DRL network further as far as I can. I am just sick of people slagging it off all the time when they dont fully understand how it all works, so I felt the need to put the record straight on this one.

And, now to top it off in might end up in the hands of BT anyway..............happy days ha ha

Good job I am off to pastures new.......................