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

In reply to a post by MichaelJWP15:

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.

Even if BT did have some way where members of the public could all vote in their own area a demand for fttc/superfast broadband, I dont think some people would bother reading it. Oh wait, BT did have a website where everyone could register their demand a while ago and advertised it on television.

Anyway, even the governement/local county council hide all the information about broadband upgrades in the local area, and make it so hard to find out local information about broadband upgrades.
Oh wait, think Nottingham have published their broadband project plans.
http://www3.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/living/business/n...

Hmm, if broadband was so important and critical, why would anyone want to buy a new house built within the last 3 years where the broadband was so bad?

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Anyway, even the governement/local county council hide all the information about broadband upgrades in the local area, and make it so hard to find out local information about broadband upgrades.
Oh wait, think Nottingham have published their broadband project plans.
http://www3.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/living/business/n...

Hmm, if broadband was so important and critical, why would anyone want to buy a new house built within the last 3 years where the broadband was so bad?

The point is, the checker just tells you that you can't get FTTC. If your exchange is enabled, where do you go for further information?

As for the last point, obviously intended to be provocative, before buying the house my research showed that 4mb was available and FTTC was coming to the exchange soon. I must admit, I never knew about or considered that not all cabinets would be upgraded. I assumed that when equipping phone lines for new estates Openreach would ensure cabinets were future ready. More fool me.

If you want further information contact either a isp or the CEO of the BT group office who can give more information. Until broadband becomes a uso, improved information to the public is very unlikely to happen, unless ofcom decides to improve it, which is very unlikely.

When the FTTC rollout started a isp Eclipse had a exchange/FTTC map that showed you where your local cabinet was and if it was planned to be upgraded for FTTC, though this was quickly taken down once openreach/bt saw it.

Ideally Openreach need something similar and if the cabinet is not planned or its a EO line their should be a option to register interest in the service etc, we can hope for something like this.

New build estates its more to do with the developer and their agrement with openreach about what infrastructure they want to install.
Their is also the issue of take up of the service, a existing populated pcp will be of greater importance to openreach to deploy a fttc cab, rather then a new estate with a very low populated pcp.
Given enough time as the estate fills up so does the pcp and openreach can return to enable it, when its economically viable.

Edited by deleted (Mon 18-Jun-12 13:28:29)

Can you advise who the developer is or was on that site

There are 2 developers on this site, Barratt and Strata. The lack of broadband is really frustrating. I moved from a cable area but stayed with Virgin National, the speeds are less than 1mbps, and totally unnacceptable. My "broadband" hub is unplugged from the wall and I rely on a Mobile broadband device. (Which is also dire). There's got to be come kind of pressure we can put on BT to sort this out.

As a follow up to that, I've just heard from BT that Infinity will be operational in the first week in August. Don't shoot the messenger if I'm wrong though!

Just to update this, we're now in October and no sign of the cabinet being upgraded.

The broadband speed is terrible at 0.4 - 1.0mb, but worse than that is that it is very inconsistent with ping times up to 900ms and highly variable data rates. A smooth 1.0mb with low latency isn't so bad, as people know.

I suppose the most frustrating thing is the combination of BT Openreach being so closed to enquiry from the public, and also that they do not seem to take into account how bad current broadband is when taking a decision whether to upgrade a cabinet.

So, still waiting

You're extremely close to the exchange, it could be possible you're connected directly (EO Line) rather than through a cabinet. If this is the case, it's bad news in the short term but hopefully good news in the long term as there is a possibility that BT are going to upgrade EO lines to FTTP in the near future (at least, they are trialing it in current BDUK projects).

Edit
But I have no idea why broadband speeds are so slow considering your location! Sounds like there could be a fault on the line, especially considering the ping jitter?

Edited by deleted (Tue 02-Oct-12 13:03:21)

BT do not though show how they have arrived at whether a cabinet is economic or not. In most cases if they enable an exchange all the cabinets bar an expceptional few should be economic

I suspect the roll out is more politicalthan cost based.

In reply to a post by indigobanana:

You're extremely close to the exchange, it could be possible you're connected directly (EO Line) rather than through a cabinet. If this is the case, it's bad news in the short term but hopefully good news in the long term as there is a possibility that BT are going to upgrade EO lines to FTTP in the near future (at least, they are trialing it in current BDUK projects).

Edit
But I have no idea why broadband speeds are so slow considering your location! Sounds like there could be a fault on the line, especially considering the ping jitter?

Scrap that, Google Maps was giving false information for some reason!

What the stats from the router?

No reason a slow long line should have a ping in the 900ms range, back in the day when all people had was 0.5 Mbps ASDL pings were perfectly good.

Suggests a line with lots of errors, or an ISP that is running its network very congested, e.g. the non-LLU services from Sky, O2, TalkTalk

In the office at the moment on BT Infinity, so I will post my stats from home later. I agree it should be far better, but it isn't. It is on Sky broadband so I would expect it to be congested.

(Interesting that my work broadband is approx 100 times faster than home!)

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

BT do not though show how they have arrived at whether a cabinet is economic or not. In most cases if they enable an exchange all the cabinets bar an expceptional few should be economic

I suspect the roll out is more politicalthan cost based.

Why should BT show their workings out to determine whether CABs are economic or not?

The key decider logically will be the uptake of the FTTC service which would vary significantly from cabinet to cabinet for many reasons.

Remember that OR only get income from the charges to the wholesale providers (BTW, SKY, TT) and in theory I would imagine are not supposed to cross subsidise BTW and BTR (Infinity).

It will get sticky when the BDUK projects get involved as, presumably, OR will have to justify the share of money they provide and the "subsidy" for the "uneconomic" areas. Easier for whole exchanges than individual cabs.

Openreach is open as it is there to deal with Service providers in a fair and equivalent manner that fact that BT Reails does not not proves this to be the case - are you able to provide the name of developer who built the estate as they may not have a relationship with Openreach (some developers still only provdie copper access and not filbre) and also a road that is covered in the devolopmnet and i will investigate - as this cabinet may not have been picked up as having new build against it

It is called the Mistral estate and is built by Strata Homes (Headingley Road DN22 7TQ)

I'm not sure whether they took into account fibre when they provisioned the estate. Their customer care office was reluctant to talk to me about it, but said that it was up to BT Openreach to provide the FTTC.

Update on this for others who may be in the same position. BT Openreach got back to me, unfortunately as expected, the cabinet for the estate is not deemed economic to upgrade under the current model. It was described as not being in the current rollout "footprint".

So not much I can do now expect wait for things to improve, which I guess could take years.

I would certainly urge others not to fall into the same trap I did - I naively thought when researching the house for purchase that seeing as the local exchange was getting upgraded in 6 months, all cabinets on the exchange would be enabled for FTTC. It was only when I found that our cabinet had been left out that I looked for more information and found that many others were in the same situation. However, I guess even if I'd known the possibilities, I wouldn't have been able to find out whether the cabinet was due for upgrade.

My other bad assumption was that developers, when building an estate in the last couple of years, would make sure that it would be well equipped for the future i.e. running fibre to all houses. In fact I'd assumed it would be compulsory for them to do so.. how stupid that idea seems now!

In reply to a post by MichaelJWP15:

My other bad assumption was that developers, when building an estate in the last couple of years, would make sure that it would be well equipped for the future i.e. running fibre to all houses. In fact I'd assumed it would be compulsory for them to do so.. how stupid that idea seems now!

The problem with developers "running fibre to all houses" is that there is not, currently, a service that this model can connect to as FTTP is not, so far as I am aware, currently available except in areas inside the roll-out. When FTTP by demand is available I believe that this will only be for lines where FTTC is already available.

Presumably this is something that will eventually be available but only when fibre is "the norm" across the country.

Of course we would have expected cable TV to have covered the whole country and for cable operators to fall over themselves to cable up new developments - how wrong we were!

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

What the stats from the router?

No reason a slow long line should have a ping in the 900ms range, back in the day when all people had was 0.5 Mbps ASDL pings were perfectly good.

Suggests a line with lots of errors, or an ISP that is running its network very congested, e.g. the non-LLU services from Sky, O2, TalkTalk

The OP did date they were on Virgin ADSL which has had problems in the past.

Perhaps a move to another ISP, such as A&A for a couple of months on a rolling 1 month contract could get it investigated.

I'm actually currently on Sky Broadband, they've not been able to improve the speed so far. Will continue to push though.

May be faster to go for a mobile solution like Three HSPDA+

In reply to a post by MichaelJWP15:

I'm actually currently on Sky Broadband, they've not been able to improve the speed so far. Will continue to push though.

May be faster to go for a mobile solution like Three HSPDA+

Are you on the Sky LLU product or the over subscribed Sky Connect?

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

In reply to a post by MichaelJWP15:

I'm actually currently on Sky Broadband, they've not been able to improve the speed so far. Will continue to push though.

May be faster to go for a mobile solution like Three HSPDA+

Are you on the Sky LLU product or the over subscribed Sky Connect?

Actually, I don't know - is there any way of telling from the router status or my Sky account?

Because BT are recieving public money. THe information is certainly pretty much available to the LA's. If you approach your LOcal BDUK pattern they should be able to tell you whether you are in the Intervention program or not.

In reply to a post by MichaelJWP15:

So not much I can do now expect wait for things to improve, which I guess could take years.

The next hope, presumably, is that the BDUK funding will make your area economic again - which is probably more likely if BT wins your council's bid.

I imagine that there is something you can do, but it would require you (or someone, anyway) to act as a local champion, and garner sufficient interest that BT (or the council) recognise that there is a lot of demand for that cabinet - more than 20%.

I would certainly urge others not to fall into the same trap I did - I naively thought when researching the house for purchase that seeing as the local exchange was getting upgraded in 6 months, all cabinets on the exchange would be enabled for FTTC. It was only when I found that our cabinet had been left out that I looked for more information and found that many others were in the same situation. However, I guess even if I'd known the possibilities, I wouldn't have been able to find out whether the cabinet was due for upgrade.

There's a lesson in here for the public *and* for BT. I wouldn't move home without knowing the fibre capability. In fact, I didn't (and have the postcodes, query scripts, and maps to prove it).

My other bad assumption was that developers, when building an estate in the last couple of years, would make sure that it would be well equipped for the future i.e. running fibre to all houses. In fact I'd assumed it would be compulsory for them to do so.. how stupid that idea seems now!

BT have a guide as to the provision that needs to be made by developers. It seems like only in the latest version (created April 2012) where they specified the extra ducting needed for fibre - and they make a big distinction between the "tactical fibre" network (alongside copper) and the "strategic fibre" network (without copper).

Openreach Developer's Guide

It also mentions things that are seemingly alien to UK builders - voice & comms networks, comms cabinets and patch panels.

Interesting - I got a bit more info from BT Openreach. Apparently when the rollout plans were made, there was no cabinet for the estate yet as work had not yet started. So it wasn't necessarily uneconomic, more that it was nonexistent.

So while there is definitely nothing in for this financial year, the case is more hopeful.

I am in the same position on this estate and BT have told me that Infinity is expected to be covering all of Retford by the end of 2013 but won't give a definite date or rollout schdule. In the meantime, and reading a previous quote, I just switched from Virgin National (ADSL) to Be Unlimited (ADSL2+ aka LLU). I was suffering from the dropped connecions and between 0.4mbps to 0.8, but now get a consistent 2Mbps, which isn't by any means time to start streaming films, etc, but is more than reasonable and reliable to work from home.