BT Rollout Progress September 2012

BT's progress against the schedule issued on the 25 September and up to and including the 30th September is Zero to date

The coming soon list has a 192 exchanges listed as to be enabled by the end of December 2012. This would need them to average about 3.2 a day to meet the schedule(Working days)


Current Progress 0%

Edited by deleted (Mon 01-Oct-12 10:02:34)

So you are saying you have checked all 192 exchanges?

Or is this your perceived progress?

THis is measured against actual progress as declared by BT Openreach,

Now I am sure there will be some activties going on in at least some of the 192 but none have gone live.

I think we should all stop replying to any of his posts, he's basically just spamming the forum with uninformed and unhelpful drivel.

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

Now I am sure there will be some activties going on in at least some of the 192

So not "Current Progress 0%" as you stated in your OP.

Declared where?

Or are you simply saying that the spreadsheets have no changed since they were published.

I have no objection about criticism of roll-outs and missed cabinets, and do understand the annoyance this causes for individuals.

But I do have objections to people who appear to be stating stuff with no backup, or relying on twisting of words. S1 user profile went the same way in the past, so very much am willing to do the same for S2 unless they are going to be more coherent, and actually be some use to other posters.

For example, create something that lets other people see the progress that he claims to be able to track, then people can see what he is talking about.

You continuaslly dislike an critisism of bT and that comes across very clearly from you. THe indformation I have provided is Factual . Now you may well dislike what the information impl;ies. But it presents a true reflection oof the rollout progress

This board is clearly becoming increasingly biassed and appears to be no more than a BT fan club.


If you dont lie fact then tough.

"Facts" with no corroboration are merely opinion.

Are you suggesting that the BT supplied information does not count as facts(possibly true but we can only accept it at phase value)

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

Now I am sure there will be some activties going on in at least some of the 192

So not "Current Progress 0%" as you stated in your OP.

If I had more than opinion then I would be able to do something with it, like e.g run it in the news.

Concerned member of public shows truth behind Openreach roll-out etc
which would get very different coverage to
Member of public believes Openreach roll-out failing

The coverage that could be gained by publishing evidence of the roll-out stalling would get us lots of coverage and wipe millions off the BT share value. Alas comparing two columns in a spreadsheet is not enough.

I have seen infill happening, but have not tracked it enough to know if this makes up for the lack of new exchanges where FTTC is available to order.

if you have the data, and don't want it going public, then am happy to keep it private, but have not sat down and done it myself. Did in August try to get something automated but got busy with lots of other stuff.

Do try to read. You are just making youdelf look silly. Tae post cleary stated it measeured progress against the data released by BT on the 25th September and progrees against that as reported by BT is 0%

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

Do try to read. You are just making youdelf look silly. Tae post cleary stated it measeured progress against the data released by BT on the 25th September and progrees against that as reported by BT is 0%

Can you post in english please?

The data is factual. What bit of this simple information do you not understand?
Now I know you wish to present BT in a good light by trying to fudge things but FACTS are FACTS

BT issued 3 Spreadsheets on the 25th September. as of the 30th September BT have reported zero exchanges being enabled. THat is pretty clear I would have though and not difficcult to understand but clearly it does seemto challange you.

A 192 Exchanges to be enable by end of December means if one uses working days that they need to average about 3 a day. So to date they are already 15 exchanges behind schedule

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

The data is factual. What bit of this simple information do you not understand?
Now I know you wish to present BT in a good light by trying to fudge things but FACTS are FACTS

BT issued 3 Spreadsheets on the 25th September. as of the 30th September BT have reported zero exchanges being enabled. THat is pretty clear I would have though and not difficcult to understand but clearly it does seemto challange you.

It also appears to challenge you.

As you posted yourself

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

Now I am sure there will be some activties going on in at least some of the 192

You are confusing measurement of progress against published milestones (exchange enablements) against a more granular measure of progress against the engineering tasks needed, yet unreported to the public, behind the scenes.

It's not too much of a stretch to imagine a project plan for these 192 exchanges that completes much of the work in parallel in the background and for enablement (progress by your standard) to happen for all within one week towards the end of the year.

I see three spreadsheets

a) 333 with very rough dates suggesting in 2013, but still to be confirmed
b) One with 192 exchanges to Dec 12 and another 52 for Mar 13
c) One with 1204 exchange areas where FTTC is available to order at some cabinets

Yes these are identical to the ones released last week. Is that the sole basis of the complaint?

Because if I was to run this as news I would HAVE to actually check all the exchanges on lists (a) and (b) to see if the problem was just that the spreadsheet had not been updated.

Why? Because if I was wrong, I would get jumped on very quickly.

https://twitter.com/Openreach_news is useful to track some (but not all as people have said their area has been missed sometimes)

Last announcements were 7 days ago, with 5 exchanges on 24th, 25 on 17th and 17 on 4th.

Seems to be a pattern, in that outputs in terms of twitter, spreadsheets and checkers may only happen weekly or every couple of weeks.

If we go for a month with no announcements on that list, then I will be double checking with Openreach.

It is measuring it against completions not internal milestones. THey may have a 100 echangewstarted but that is meaningless. It is a bit like Cowboy Builders where they start a job and then just disappear. It is results that count

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

It is measuring it against completions not internal milestones. THey may have a 100 echangewstarted but that is meaningless. It is a bit like Cowboy Builders where they start a job and then just disappear. It is results that count

I think even you will agree they have to start before they can finish.

And 6 days after the announcement is too early to panic and sound the man the lifeboats alarm.

As twitter feed shows, they appear to sometimes have gaps where nothing changes, then batches are pushing through.

Shall I make it perfectly clear to you, if I thought there was a scoop that would show Openreach was definitely not going to meet any of major deadlines e.g. none of the 100+ exchanges get enabled by Dec 12, then I would be running it in the news. Just because it would improve our page impressions, visitors and lots of press coverage from it.

The press eat up bad news with a massive appettite and if there is some I will do it, no matter who it involves. Announcing that in the 6 or 7 days since publication that no exchanges have been enabled would make me look silly.

Completion meaning a certain numbers of cabinets can take orders?

One can only work to the BT published data and to date they have declared no completions against that data. Given the typical pattern of releasing exchanges every one to two weeks I was not expecting any further exchanges in September. I would expect that they may release a few this week or early next week.

BT have also issued another MBORC for the following areas and as a result work will continue to fall further behind in at least these areas but will probably have knock on affect in other areas. Delays of up to 3 months are now becoming common.


This gives a clear indication that BT are under resourced and begs the question as to whether they are in a position to take on the BDUK work within the contractual timescales. Could we see another G4S type scenario?

Why are you obsessed with the Openreach rollout? If they did not publish plans and just announced individual cabinet areas when they were ready what would you do?

Yes. How many no one knows as BT does not declare that information. The indications are that at one time it was about 10 cabinets minimum but that number seems to be from anecdotal posts to be falling fast and there are reports of exchanges going live with just one or two cabinets enabled presumably to make the rollout look less dire than it is.

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

The data is factual. What bit of this simple information do you not understand?
Now I know you wish to present BT in a good light by trying to fudge things but FACTS are FACTS

BT issued 3 Spreadsheets on the 25th September. as of the 30th September BT have reported zero exchanges being enabled. THat is pretty clear I would have though and not difficcult to understand but clearly it does seemto challange you.

A 192 Exchanges to be enable by end of December means if one uses working days that they need to average about 3 a day. So to date they are already 15 exchanges behind schedule

There may be "data" but your interpretation is definately anti OR and you are using a very old trick to try and manipulate data to fit your own agenda.

They were published on last Thursday and there was only 1 working day after that so not exactly a surprise that "nothing happened." It would be doubtful that any kit could be installed in that time frame.

But if you want some FACTS, Openreach has borrowed £2.5 Billion from the markets and that sort of money doesn't come cheap. at 5% that is over £100 million a year in interest alone.

It will be a FACT certainly that OR will be getting as many cabinets as well as exchanges up and running so they can get income coming back to pay off said debt.

But even though you are a said expert of project management you don't seem to have any clue on what is needed. You must have only run small scale internal projects that were a doddle to plan an execute in comparison.

When you add in external agencies, contractors, suppliers, and all the other factors such as weather and blocked ducts this is a truly mammoth task and the fact that OR brought its completion forward a year shows they have it very much under control.

You really do seem to be upset that you don't have it and now have a big axe to grind.

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

The indications are that at one time it was about 10 cabinets minimum but that number seems to be from anecdotal posts

So why are you re-posting it as a fact?

Well I least I know now that you are referring to basically those spreadsheets, and thus know how to judge your statements, as very simple list comparisons rather than deep checks.

perhaps we should play spot the openreach van parked up and having a brew while they sit around doing nothing.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Well I least I know now that you are referring to basically those spreadsheets, and thus know how to judge your statements, as very simple list comparisons rather than deep checks.

perhaps we should play spot the openreach van parked up and having a brew while they sit around doing nothing.

We can't even do that not only do OR use Kelly communications, I spotted an OR van last week that had "Openreach supplied by" and it had a small local company name and number on it.

I doubt they were being involved in the rollout.

You sdeem to have difficulty counting. The lists were indeed published on the 25th October. THat is 5 days not including the 25th

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

You sdeem to have difficulty counting. The lists were indeed published on the 25th October. THat is 5 days not including the 25th

You appear to be including the weekend.

thie exchange may go live with only a few cabs completed woud be interesting to see how you knew that --that doen not mean that these are only cab being deployed in the exchnage which is why press releases on exchnage tend to follow a little while announcementr so that a approporate number of cabinerts are then live (alhthough some get delayed due to power, planning and other challenges) to enable better uptake (there are a certain percentage of each exchnage that has be enable to meet commercial criteria - which i can assure you is more than you intimate

I really don't see the point of bleating about ''way overdue''.

If they ARE overdue, they will know about it, and will cost it in.

Its a business... that means time = money

As has already been mentioned, vast wedges of cash are being invested. BT/openreach will get stuff in as soon as they can. they want a return on their investment.

Even though i have been critical of BT/Openreach in the past, i do not agree with your ridiculous assumption that this site, or its owners/admin are BT fan boys of any degree.

In fact, this site, is undoubtedly THE best site for information on Broadband and Fibre services in the UK.

Good God.

I had to wade through two pages of argument about what a "fact" was, and whether anyone used any facts to support their arguments.

Bob - Please do yourself, and us, a favour. When you make grand announcements, and want to label them as fact, please tell us the source you used to determine the fact as being the truth. Please give us links so we can follow up ourselves.

Do you notice that other people, show counter-facts do precisely that - and come up looking less bogus because of it?

There is a world of difference, when reporting zero progress, if you show:
- BT announced zero progress, and here is their announcement: http://whatever
or
- When I looked, BT hadn't updated a spreadsheet, so I'm assuming this means zero progress. I have no idea whether they intended to update the spreadsheet either. And I won't tell you where it is.

In reply to a post by Moradin:

Even though i have been critical of BT/Openreach in the past, i do not agree with your ridiculous assumption that this site, or its owners/admin are BT fan boys of any degree.

In fact, this site, is undoubtedly THE best site for information on Broadband and Fibre services in the UK.

I would go one further and say the site admins (seb, john and mr saf) have always always been fair and looked at both sides and be critical where needed. Without adslguide now thinkbroadband I doubt we have had the dsl rollout to date or it would have been far slower than it has been.

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

You sdeem to have difficulty counting. The lists were indeed published on the 25th October. THat is 5 days not including the 25th

And you have difficulty counting as ir is only 3 working days, 2 if you don't count the announcement date as it is unlikely they would be working on them on the day of announcement.

Unless you have proof that OR is spending money on overtime that means that they are working on the rollout over weekends.

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

THe indformation I have provided is Factual .

What colour is the sky on your planet?

The lists were indeed published on the 25th October. THat is 5 days not including the 25th

Wow, you're pulling info from the future now, no wonder they haven't completed what they stated yet!

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

You sdeem to have difficulty counting. The lists were indeed published on the 25th October. THat is 5 days not including the 25th

And you have difficulty counting as ir is only 3 working days, 2 if you don't count the announcement date as it is unlikely they would be working on them on the day of announcement.

Unless you have proof that OR is spending money on overtime that means that they are working on the rollout over weekends.

When OR did the final commissioning and testing of the cabinet I'm connected to they did it over 2 consecutive Sundays.

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

You continuaslly dislike an critisism of bT

Is that you Sir Richard?!

cheers, a

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

Are you suggesting that the BT supplied information does not count as facts(possibly true but we can only accept it at phase value)

I thought it was the phase value that was the issue worrying you.

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

THey may have a 100 echangewstarted but that is meaningless.

"echangewstarted" is certainly meaningless .

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 02-Oct-12 23:23:57)

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

In reply to a post by Bob_s2:

Do try to read. You are just making youdelf look silly. Tae post cleary stated it measeured progress against the data released by BT on the 25th September and progrees against that as reported by BT is 0%

Can you post in english please?

Don't forget you are talking to an experienced PM. His communication skills must be excellent, as that's the only way to succeed.

In reply to a post by tempest3k:

The lists were indeed published on the 25th October. THat is 5 days not including the 25th

Wow, you're pulling info from the future now, no wonder they haven't completed what they stated yet!

Pity you posted that. I was going to do similar until I got this far.

But these projects that were Project managed projects of over £500K, did they involve Parafil?