FTTC Upgrades of Unviable and Unplanned Street Cabinets

Just wondering, has anyone else seen a similar scenario to this where their own cabinet isn't getting FTTC as it isn't 'viable' while another cabinet elsewhere is getting the upgrade despite apparently having less homes connected to it, requiring more work, or whatever?

The cabinet at the other end of our road (Acre Road) is in the final stages of upgrade, ours has been put back 12 months. Same demographic, but the other end has the working mens club, pharmacy and doctors!

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

Just wondering, has anyone else seen a similar scenario to this where their own cabinet isn't getting FTTC as it isn't 'viable' while another cabinet elsewhere is getting the upgrade despite apparently having less homes connected to it, requiring more work, or whatever?

yes and I have bitched about this a few times on here

in the cases I mentioned the pattern was the other areas were more affluent.

of course now my cabinet is getting FTTC, so my case is now out of date.

Edited by Chrysalis (Sat 03-Nov-12 15:09:46)

I'm not surprised that Haywards Heath 53 is viable.

It is only a couple of hundred metres of good duct space away from 1 which it used to be a pillar of. It has plenty of space in the shell. It is close to power.

It feeds a lot of ground including an industrial estate.

I suspect the delays on it are down to major roadworks that have been going on nearby for months that needed copper and fibre plant moving and prevented anyone else from putting up traffic lights a hundred yards away to put in a fibre cab for example.

In my view, plucking a cabinet in Yorkshire and trying to do some DIY planning comparing it with one plucked out of Sussex is unlikely to generate anything useful.

In reply to a post by partial:

I'm not surprised that Haywards Heath 53 is viable.

It is only a couple of hundred metres of good duct space away from 1 which it used to be a pillar of. It has plenty of space in the shell. It is close to power.

It feeds a lot of ground including an industrial estate.
--
In my view, plucking a cabinet in Yorkshire and trying to do some DIY planning comparing it with one plucked out of Sussex is unlikely to generate anything useful.

Had Openreach said that the story wouldn't have happened. Unfortunately the Commercial Modelling Unit Head said this:

HAYWARDS HEATH (SDHYWRD)
- This exchange is part deployed,. There will potential be more coming in future phases.
- However Cab 53 is not in the footprint as has a low total homes passed and is not commercial.

In determining the most commercially viable cabs to deploy to we take into account the costs of deployment and the likely take-up. The likely take-up percentage figures are good for these cabs, but they are both quite small, so the costs of deployment are not being outweighed by sufficient revenue.

This would be confirmed by that the MSAN going in is the smallest in terms of capacity that Openreach have available.

Openreach informed me that each cabinet is required to be judged as an entirely separate entity, so the presence of a fibre enabled cabinet nearby is allegedly irrelevant.

It's a 35.8 metre run from PCP to DSLAM, it's a 22.8 metre run from cabinet to power.

It does indeed feed a lot of ground unfortunately that ground passes about 160 premises, residential and commercial.

The cabinet mentioned in Leeds passes more premises, has a clear duct run to the fibre spine via both a cabinet being enabled 300m to its south and a community centre which is served by BT fibre 200m to its north, and has access to power within 15 metres. It has plenty of space in its shell also. That the HH 53 has so much space in its shell despite being a physically smaller shell than the cabinet in Leeds kinda implies that it doesn't have many lines connected.

If it were as easy as you'd mentioned I'm sure that someone in Openreach would've been able to tell either me or one of the journalists that asked questions those pretty simple explanations both for its viability and for the cause of delays rather than saying that it doesn't pass enough premises.

EDIT: In the name of open disclosure I'm the Carl Thomas in the story. If it were really that simple I suspect I would've been shot down pretty rapidly rather than being greeted by initial panic, followed by confusion, followed by silence, followed by denial.

Edited by Ignitionnet (Sat 03-Nov-12 19:01:50)

Leaves around 30998 to figure out to see if there is a real pattern of abuse in locating where FTTC is rolled out, and not rolled out

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Leaves around 30998 to figure out to see if there is a real pattern of abuse in locating where FTTC is rolled out, and not rolled out

If it weren't contrary to many other statements at various levels from people who work within Openreach directly I'd agree.

Sadly the Commercial Modelling Unit Head, the High Level Complaints team, NGA Enquiries agents, the GM of Complaints and Escalations, an NGA Planning and Design Manager, a Network Investment Customer Engagement Manager, and a regional Partnership Director were unable to give this evidently simple explanation.

EDIT: When you have a moment please do check out the story itself. No-one is suggesting a 'pattern of abuse' beyond an article which I had zero input into and for precisely that reason haven't referred to.

Edited by Ignitionnet (Sat 03-Nov-12 19:17:09)

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

yes and I have bitched about this a few times on here

in the cases I mentioned the pattern was the other areas were more affluent.

of course now my cabinet is getting FTTC, so my case is now out of date.

I can fairly confidently assure you that affluence isn't generally an issue. BT have enabled some really nasty areas which are a very long way from affluent on the same exchange as the cabinet I'm referring to.

These cabinets were, however, directly on the fibre spine so their deployment costs would've been relatively low as far as backhaul goes, and being on a main road power wouldn't have been far away.

In reply to a post by Discus:

The cabinet at the other end of our road (Acre Road) is in the final stages of upgrade, ours has been put back 12 months. Same demographic, but the other end has the working mens club, pharmacy and doctors!

Not quite the same, yours was planned in but for some reason delayed. There are a ton of reasons why a cabinet can be delayed and it's work asking [email protected] if they can explain the cause of the delay.

Question is whether if you asked the same question again you would get the next random answer on the crib sheet