FTTC Rollout December 2012

Hey,
Anyone have an update on the rollout of FTTC exchanges in Glasgow, specifically the Cambuslang exchange that is due to be finished by December 2012? I have been looking for my cabinet but have been unable to find any bt cabinets near me. According to this site http://www.coolwebhome.co.uk/fibre/checker.php my postcode G728SX is on cabinet P25 and has a probability of 100%. What does the probability figure stand for?

I dont now anything on the progress of the Glasgow exchanges, your exchange Cambuslang is in the last holding holding slot of 2012, the next slot is the 31st March 2013 which it will move to if its not ready.
The exchange goes live when its ready and only Openreach know this, as for your cabinet, this could be cab 25, only had a brief look around your postcode area.

http://goo.gl/maps/PujQK

The 100% figure relates to the % of lines in your postcode that go to a cabinet, so for your postcode area all lines go to cab 25.
If you have a BT number then put it into the below checker and post back the results, if a non BT number then use the address checker.

https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/main.html

Edited by deleted (Wed 12-Dec-12 22:20:22)

thanks for getting back to me. I thought that cabinet would be the one aswell but its beaten down exterior made me think not so much. Ive often seen openreach vans parked up around that street. The only other cabinet i can think of that i could be on is this one http://goo.gl/maps/XsCJo , which is on the other side of the estate im in. these are the results from the bt checker: Exchange CAMBUSLANG

Your exchange is ADSL enabled, and our initial check on your address indicates that your line should be able to have an ADSL broadband service that provides a fixed line speed up to 1Mbps. However due to the length of your line the 1Mbps service may require an engineer visit who will, where possible, supply the broadband service.

Our check also indicates that your line currently supports an estimated ADSL Max broadband line speed of 3Mbps; typically the line speed would range between 2Mbps and 5.5Mbps.

Our check also indicates that your line should be able to have an ADSL2+ broadband service that provides a fixed line speed up to 1Mbps. However due to the length of your line the 1Mbps service may require an engineer visit who will, where possible, supply the broadband service.

Our check also indicates that your line currently supports an estimated ADSL2+ broadband line speed of 3Mbps; typically the line speed would range between 2.5Mbps and 6.5Mbps.

No mention of fibre speed from the bt checker on your number is never a good sign.
And if that is your cab and it has no new shell then its looking bad

That is a very small Openreach cabinet, so it could be cab 25, would need to compare all the postcodes that connect to cabinet 25 to narrow it down.

Some cabinets have very old shells, just down to age and weathering, as their is no mention of FTTC on the checker your cabinet has not yet been planned for FTTC.
So you are going to have to wait and see if anything happens in 2013/2014 by Openreach via commerical infill or through Scotlands BDUK upgrade.

You can send a email below to this address, as your exchange is in the commerical rollout, include your address and phone number as they will ask for this.
Openreach will be able to provide more information, if they do intend to ugprade your cab or not- can take up to 10 working days for a response.

[email protected]

Just because there is no mention of FTTC on the checker does not mean his cabinet has not been planned for FTTC. Many of our local cabinets, mine included did not mention FTTC until a few weeks before they went live, yet they were planned in the December 2011 spreadsheet. There are currently two cabinets which I know are scheduled for March 2013, they are currently scheduled on roadworks. org for installation next week yet the checker does not mention anything. In fact I've seen the checker show estimated speeds for weeks, and then stop mentioning FTTC for a few weeks, all prior to being live. How do I know this? I've checked every non live cabinet on two local exchanges for over six months on a weekly basis

With regard to his cabinet, it will be the one on the side of the estate nearest the exchange, highly unlikely to be the further one. Edit: Having looked at the locations, it could be either.

Here's a map of postcodes supplied by PCP25, I've checked the postcodes on the infinity checker and none show the PCP, sometime you can get lucky and the checker will tell you which PCP is installed at a particular postcode, it will even mention a DSLAM.

http://batchgeo.com/map/c34931b2d1f7da0c1c35fbca344d...

I don't think there's enough properties passed by it to make it viable, ignore the one the other side of the A724, it's probably erroneous data.

Edited by R0NSKI (Thu 13-Dec-12 08:39:12)

THat does not matter. FRequently the checker will not metion Fibre Speeds. I think they in the early days used to put in an extimate of the speeds but seem to no longer do so at least untill shortly before it is due to go live.

I'd be more optimistic but not expect it to be available for a few months yet

I am not saying his cab will never go live, but the fact it does not even have a new shell yet and his exchange is planned to go live on December 2012 is never a good sign of anytime soon.
In my area of Kilmarnock, all cabs where installed and went live at the same time apart from 2 that i can see.
And BT seem to be doing the same in Irvine aswel

In reply to a post by iwish:

I am not saying his cab will never go live, but the fact it does not even have a new shell yet and his exchange is planned to go live on December 2012 is never a good sign of anytime soon.

Those placeholder dates don't seem to mean much - mine is also Dec 2012, but repeatedly gets shuffled forward 3 months, and will be again. They've not installed the cabinet or even started laying fibre anywhere near here, and looking at the local roadworks progress at other exchanges I'm expecting it'll be another 6 months minimum.

I got fed up when my exchange missed the September dead line, so cant imagine how fed up you must be.
The problem with our area was blocked ducts everywhere and trying to get the man hours to clear them.

yeah it almost certianly wont meet 30 dec, especially as BT staff likely will have a holiday period over the christmas period.

I am trying to remember the timescales for my own cabinet but cant remember clearly, but I know I didnt immediatly have a FTTC speed estimate it took time for that to appear, it appeared before they placed the new cabinets, once the new cabinets were in the ground the rest happened very quickly to live service.

As far as I know the cabinet across the road from me still has blocked ducts because I havent seen anyone working since they gave up some weeks ago, but it may have been fixed still. My cabinet went live very quickly after they first placed it in the ground within 1-2 months.

The impression I get is BT are doing this in blitz style, once the cabinet is in they will do the work as quick as possible as its money lost whilst the cabinet isnt live but paid for, but if they hit issues then thats when trouble starts with people getting long delays because BT seem to be choosing to do the low hassle work first and then coming back later for the tough stuff.

Edited by Chrysalis (Thu 13-Dec-12 13:52:01)

In my area they cleared the ducts then laid the tube for the fibre, then stuck the cab in and had power to it the next day. Two days later they was blowing fibre in my village, then two weeks later it was live for orders.
Got install date for 9th of January and then get an email saying i could get the 28th of December if i want.

I just emailed openreach there, hopefully they can shed some light on the situation in the next few days. In my entire exchange area I have only seen two relativley small cabinets that look like they are the new fibre cabinets. I have done some checks on the BT checker on the postcodes in the sorrounding streets and the ones on the other side of the main road (greenleas road) from me seem to have fibre status' showing for them (Cabinet P4,P5,P13,). Which leads me to believe that my cabinet will not be getting done, regarldess of my property being fairly close to those that are.Whatever cabinet I may be connected to, the houses that the map shows that are conected to it, are all relativley new high value builds 2006+ and are most likley in an area to take up premium broadband offerings. Hopefully my cabinet is in a planned rollout for some time next year.

In addition, I think openreach should consider allowing communities to raise thier own funding to subsidise the cost of bringing FTTC to thier cabinet quicker as I am sure people on my street would be willing to contribute towards any fund.

In reply to a post by jimbob5050:

In addition, I think openreach should consider allowing communities to raise thier own funding to subsidise the cost of bringing FTTC to thier cabinet quicker as I am sure people on my street would be willing to contribute towards any fund.

They do sir. Try contacting [email protected] about this with detalis of the exchange and cabinet in question and ask them to put you in touch with the relevant person for your area.

HI Jimbob

Just to let you know BT have pushed back the FTTC upgrade of the Cambuslang exchange to March which is pissh if you ask me this is the second time it's been pushed back.

The BT wholesale checker was just updated to show the new date.

I've been looking forward to this all year as for the last seven years we've had terrible broadband Cambuslang.

Sorry about the bad news.

N.

In reply to a post by numptyx:

HI Jimbob

Just to let you know BT have pushed back the FTTC upgrade of the Cambuslang exchange to March which is pissh if you ask me this is the second time it's been pushed back.

Be prepared for quite a few more delays - mine was originally Jun 11, then Dec 11, then Mar, Jun, Sep, Dec this year, now Mar 2013 ..... and still no sign on the local roadworks site of the cabinet, or doing any fibre work.

They are actually doing fibre work elsewhere near me for other exchanges, if you dig around the roadworks you can see which exchanges are being worked on. Seems they only have one team doing 6/7 exchanges though, as the roadworks dates don't overlap. Over the last 6 months I can see them slowly working their way towards me - maybe next June or September at the current rate.

Kinda wasteful - a lot of cabinets have been installed and sitting unconnected for 3 months so far, and look likely to be the same for at least another 3.

Edited by arfster (Thu 20-Dec-12 02:44:53)

Got a response from Openreach

Thank you for your enquiry. You are connected to the Cambuslang Exchange, cabinet 25.

Our systems indicate that the cabinet has recently been brought into the programme and at present the work is in its very early stages. Due to the complexity of the work involved we are hopeful the cabinet will be ready for service by the beginning of August 2013, barring any complications.

So it seems that my cabinet may be getting connected after all, showing that not all cabinets are listed in the BT checker. Getting 5mbps right now which isnt too awful, so not too bothered about the August 2013 date, gives some time for fibre prices to come down a bit. Sky seems to be the only viable option right now as their the only one offering a uncapped and unmanaged line.

Also, it does seem quite wasteful having only one team between a dozen exchanges. You would think they would want to be effecient as possible so they can offer fibre and charge more money. Ideally there should be multiple teams working on exchanges concurrently.

Edited by deleted (Sat 22-Dec-12 14:37:15)

In reply to a post by jimbob5050:

... so not too bothered about the August 2013 date, gives some time for fibre prices to come down a bit. Sky seems to be the only viable option right now as their the only one offering a uncapped and unmanaged line.

It depends how true the unmanaged is. Apparently completely unmanaged can be detrimental in some cases.

Plusnet now have uncapped at £19.99pm, no throttling, but traffic management in the form of prioritisation for things like gaming and VOIP. Have a read of this blog. If Sky haven't got similar then ....

By August we should know how the PN product is proving in practice.

Jimbob

There are over 5565 exchangesin total. So there are a lot of teams out there.

A large exchange can have 100+ cabinets and there appear to be 4/5 teams that work on each at different times, building the Plinth, fitting the Cab, joining the Old and new, Fibre back to the exchange, and providing the power.

It would be uneconomic to train enough teams to do all exchanges at once, so they each cover a larger patch. At 2 Cabs a day it would still take 2 months to install 80 Cabs in one exchange, even longer to do all the other work.

Openreach have made 104 exchanges available in the last 3 months so must have had 50+ sets of teams working and installed around 5000 cabs. So even the manufacturer must be working flatout. People tend to forget the sheer scale of this when looked at country wide.

In reply to a post by jimbob5050:

Getting 5mbps right now which isnt too awful, so not too bothered about the August 2013 date, gives some time for fibre prices to come down a bit. Sky seems to be the only viable option right now as their the only one offering a uncapped and unmanaged line.

I wouldn't hold your breath on prices being reduced. They've started off pretty low already.

Think I'm in the same boat as you jibbob, and its now June 2014 and still waiting to get connected.

Just to let you know, our cabinet (P25) is the one down from the football park where the stream is.

lol im connected to cab 25 as well, this is beginning to be a bit more annoying than a joke!

i cant believe everyone else in cambuslang is connectected except us....

we should start some multi bonded wifi for people to connect to, aggregating all of our connections, or the very least sort out a petition?

I'm not connected to cab 25 but I'm keeping an eye on it as it was stood around the same time as mine (cab 31 on Old Mill Road/Westburn Road) and they now have the same go live of between July and Sept, seems like I've been waiting for ever (well 5 years since I moved in and left my 50mb fibre behind at my old place ( been on 5mb since, so I'm ready for an upgrade !)

Hopefully both of these cabs get commisioned soon, I think the power was installed to cab 31 last week as there was work going on and there now seems to be the hum of fans from the cab so fingers crossed !

One of my friend local street had Huawei FTTC cabinet stood there since March 2013 and now it pushed back to end of December 2014. He was fed up of waiting for FTTC to go live. It's been pushed back date 7 times in a row.

http://postimg.org/image/4bp09i0bn/

Edited by adslmax (Mon 07-Jul-14 13:54:23)