Cabinet not enabled in Retford (new estate), any advice?

Having read up a bit, it seems I'm in the same boat as many people, we live on a new estate built in the last 3 years in Retford Notts (postcode DN22 7EE). Although there are approx. 100 houses, BT Openreach do not appear to have enabled our cabinet, and I'm not aware of any way of finding out when they might!

This is of course frustrating, I knew the exchange was due to be enabled quite some time ago and had been checking ever since to see when we might be able to improve our currently abysmal download speeds due to exchange line length - currently 1mb or less, and appalling ping/latency. I can see a new FTTC cabinet only 100m away from our house on the main road

Anyone know of a way of contacting BT Openreach to find out if they have plans? Also, would it be possible to order a new BT line from the FTTC cab 100m away on the main road rather than the estate cab?

Thanks - Michael

100 houses, is a small number, standard cab allows for 288 VDSL lines, so 500 homes is target. Smaller cabinets are available, but with pressure to cover greatest area, rather than solidly fill all towns, then smaller cabinets are often missed.

https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/loadReason.do is one path.

As for connecting you to the other cabinet, in theory possible, but cost could be large, e.g. 10m of new ducting to join up to that other cabinet, can cost a few thousand pounds.

I can see the logic but I do believe the current approach is a terrible way of rolling out what is now an essential technology.

The link you've supplied is to contact Openreach about other things not related to FTTC. The problem is that they say you should talk to your supplier, but all they can do is tell you its not available yet - which you already know!

I don't think the current approach of Openreach not talking to consumers is fair or reasonable - how otherwise can we question their logic when making decisions? In our case, the 100 houses in the estate can only get a patchy connection of <1mb speed due to exchange distance, therefore I believe there would be a very strong take up for FTTC.

Their have been quite a few threads about new build eastes not being enabled, for various reasons.

Their have been soutions to this problem such as contacting the estate management who via the developers will have contact with openreach.

Was a thread a few weeks back where a estate had about 3/4 cabs not enabled but the op organised the residents and looked to get a different service installed- this got openreachs attention and their now installing a FTTC cab for 1 or 2 of the cabs with more to be discussed.

The commercial rollout does not finish till 2014 at its likely that Openreach will return to do infill and address the exchange only lines where its commercially viable.

In reply to a post by MichaelJWP15:

I can see the logic but I do believe the current approach is a terrible way of rolling out what is now an essential technology.

How else do you suggest they do it?

In reply to a post by Andrue:

In reply to a post by MichaelJWP15:

I can see the logic but I do believe the current approach is a terrible way of rolling out what is now an essential technology.

How else do you suggest they do it?

When an exchange is enabled, activate all cabinets served by that exchange, don't just do the easiest ones and move on, all to meet notional "targets".

Don't antagonise people by advertising even faster fibre at 80mb when most people can't even get decent low speed broadband.

BT Openreach should provide customer service and feedback directly to consumers rather than dodging the issue. Even if they have to give bad news sometimes at least the customer will feel as though they have some way of communicating with the people actually doing the work. As their very name suggests, Openreach should be more open and publicly disseminate all the information about the rollout and the background information about how their strategy is developed.

But OR are doing this as a commercial venture so must make a return on the investment.

PCPs that will never generate the level of income to cover the cost of FTTC will increase the cost to other users / lower ORs return.

Since the roll-out was presumably planned some time ago there are bound to be developments that were not build at the time.

Agree that BT certainly could have handled communications much, much better but it is what you get from a large organisation.

Presumably the assume that the ADSL checker and the "where and when" site is sufficient. Part of the problem is that most people would not recognise a PCP if they walked into it - how do BT explain the upgrade status of the PCP to the public?

EDIT: Typo spotted by RobertoS - insertion of "could" in second last paragraph which makes a significant difference to what I said rather than what I meant to say

Edited by greenglide (Mon 18-Jun-12 11:10:40)

I found it annoying that there was no way the public could contact OR about their actual services when a data error prevented me from ordering.

I can sympathise with frustration about not being able to access FTTC services but BT are a commercial entity with no public service obligation for broadband so can't be expected to provide services at a loss. VM won't provide cable services on demand either.

It's a pity that the internet wasn't around before BT was privatised - if it had been then there would have been a public service obligation for sure but that could have meant there were no buyers either and we'd all still be on Strowger exchanges and dial up modems with an army of civil servants to pay plus a Minister of Wrong Numbers

With BT being in a virtual monopoly position with regards to high speed broadband, there definitely should be a public service obligation in place. (Virgin hardly counts unless they start expanding their inherited network)

I have written to my MP and EMP in this regards and suggest everyone else concerned does the same.

Post deleted by RobertoS