Hoo, Kent

Hi,
I'm on exchange NDHOO and get pretty good service on Eclipse with 6-7Mb down. I wasn't expecting FTTC for some time; there seemed to be no plans. So I was pleasantly suprised when new cabinets near to the old ones started appearing. Openreach Where and When showed end of March 2012. Near that time, it moved back to end June 2012. Could live with this. I saw some more cabinets appear and Roadworks.org indicated some BT work being done in the area with a major work happening to the adjacent village which is on the same exchange.
So, we have now got to the end of June and the status has changed from "Coming Soon" to "Future Exchange" with a date of end 2013. Really disappointed as I was looking forward to seeing it imminently.
Can anyone give any ideas why? Anyone have access to the most up to date cabinet data?
Many thanks
Graham

I Don't understand why BT would be bringing FTTC to Hoo as it is such a small exchange.

If you're on ADSL switch to a 21CN (ADSL2+) service and you'll get better speeds.

I visited Hoo a while back to collect an amp, I'm sure I saw an FFTC cabinet on Bells Lane, seems odd they have started installing them then pushed the date back that far, perhaps it's just yet another data error.

I just tried an address for roughly where I saw the cabinet and got this result:

Our check also indicates that your line currently supports an estimated ADSL2+ broadband line speed of 17Mbps; typically the line speed would range between 10Mbps and 19.5Mbps. Our test also indicates that your line could support an estimated ADSL 2+ Annex-M broadband upstream line speed of 1.5Mbps and downstream line speed of 17Mbps; typically the downstream speed would range between 10Mbps and 19.5Mbps.

Your cabinet is planned to have WBC FTTC by 31st December 2013. 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 57.2 Mbps and upstream line speed of 15.7 Mbps..

Go to be just an error in the data.

As 5km suggested above, try changing to ADSL 2+, you should get good speeds if your in the village, the exchange is here.

Edited by R0NSKI (Wed 27-Jun-12 23:03:11)

That's what I thought on the size of the exchange, and the surprise that it was being enabled. I did see a small increase in speed with 21CN, but not much of one. I can see from uSwitch that others in the village are getting faster speeds, but on the (old)package I am on with Eclipse, I don't seem to be offered ADSL2+ and the likelihood is that my modem will not support it (DG834Gv1 bought 9 years ago). I was avoiding changing package for as long as I could until I got FTTC as I didn't want a lock in, but perhaps I will call Eclipse and see what they say. I bought a new router (without modem) recently thinking that the wait for FTTC would not be long and as that came with a modem, a new modem would be a waste.
I'll have an experiment. In the meantime as you say, let's hope the data has gone awry.
Many thanks

You should certainly give them a ring, I don't see why they shouldn't be able to move you over to an ADSL 2+ service, this could double or even almost tripple your speeds. Going by what you get now you must be fairly close to the exchange.

If they won't move you over without locking you into a new contract you may want to consider moving to a ISP who does monthly contracts such as Plus Net, with prices starting at £6.49 a month.

Yes you will need a new router, I had to retire my trusty DG834 V1 when I moved over to ADSL2+. They are supposed to be compatible, but I had no end of problems, in the end I used my brother V4 version, they are supposed to be the best of the 834 range and can be picked up on ebay pretty cheaply (about £20)

Another tip, some ISPs cap your upload speed, this is the case with Plus Net but you can simply raise a support ticket asking for it to be uncapped, they may tell you it'll affect download speed, but it won't.

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

Yes you will need a new router, I had to retire my trusty DG834 V1 when I moved over to ADSL2+. They are supposed to be compatible, but I had no end of problems, in the end I used my brother V4 version, they are supposed to be the best of the 834 range and can be picked up on ebay pretty cheaply (about £20)

I had to retire my old V1 DG834 as well. It wasn't too bad on ADSL2+ but the AR7 chipset has a lot of compatibility issues especially with Broadcom based DSLAMs.