No FTTC, but will I be able to get FTTP?

I've loitered on these forums for several months, but this is my first post (I hope its in the right place).

My situation is that my exchange is fibre-enabled, but OpenReach have informed me that my street cabinet is "not commercially viable" to be upgraded to FTTC. There is a BDUK project for my county, but they can't tell me whether situations like my own will be covered (I tend to feel that they will focus on rural areas rather than those like myself who live in a town).

So to my question... does anyone know whether FTTP is likely to become available to me? Or is FTTC a pre-requisite?

I work from home and would certainly be willing to pay a considerable sum to get full fibre. But am I just wasting my time hoping for this?

Thanks.

The yet-to-be-launched FTTP on demand service connects to fibre nodes which are part of the infrastructure feeding FTTC cabinets, if there's FTTC in your area (sounds like it) but not on your cab than I think FTTPoD is a possibility at least.

Thanks very much for the quick response.

Yes, there is definitely FTTC at my exchange and indeed I've seen the new fibre cabinets around town. I'd really like to understand why OpenReach decided not to upgrade my cabinet, but they don't seem to want to reply. (They told me that it wasn't commercially viable, but won't provide any further information). My guess is that the factors involved are one or more of the following:
1. I'm actually quite close to the exchange and get a good ADSL speed. Therefore, perhaps there is likely to be a smaller take-up than elsewhere.
2. Although I'm on a main street through my town, this end of the street is residential with almost no businesses. Therefore, perhaps lower take-up.
3. My county has just announced a BDUK project with OpenReach. Therefore, perhaps less incentive for OR to invest their own money.
4. Possibly the cabinet doesn't feed many properties, but I don't really have any way to determine that.

Its a shame OpenReach won't provide me with their reasoning. I understand that they are a business and need to make money from their investment. But that also suggests that if they are concerned about uptake, I could impact their decision by garnering support from my neighbours. I'd like to feel that I had some way to influence their decisions, but in practice I don't think I do.

Thanks again.

The Openreach superfast site does have an email address to submit interest - perhaps you could collect interest from neighbours and engage with them using that.

Thanks. Certainly worth a try

Although, my difficulty is going to be working out who shares my street cabinet.

if you can find phone numbers the BT checker now tells you the cabinet number

Which County?

The FTTP on demand needs a fibre aggregation node (bottom of page at http://www.thinkbroadband.com/guide/fibre-broadband.... this is installed as part of the FTTC roll-out and is usually near the street cabinet and its fibre twin.

If your cabinet has no fibre twin, then no aggregation node, so no FTTP on demand.

In theory you could be linked to another aggregation node, but that would involve the on demand product running even further distances, and as its £1500 for those at 0.5km, the costs would soon mount up,

I'm in Gloucestershire.

I'm only about 250m from the exchange (as the crow flies) and about 500m by road. So I must be pretty close to some fibre!

I reckon I would be happy to pay £1500 for FTTP. But it seems no-one wants my money

Just because your cabinet isn't done, doesn't mean there isn't a aggregation node nearby.

As long as your postcode is in the leaked December 2011 spreadsheet then it is pretty straightforward to find all the addresses on your cabinet, perhaps post your post code or Pm it to me and I or someone else will post all the post codes supplied by your cabinet, then I'll tell you how to turn that in to addresses and verify the cabinet number for those postcodes not supplied 100% by your cab.

Just because your cabinet isn't done, doesn't mean there isn't a aggregation node nearby.

While possibly correct, I suspect Openreach is not going to both with custom build cross links between areas, especially if that means a new bit of ducting, certainly would bump the price and might cause capacity issues further down the line.

As for BDUK there is a project and the contract was just signed before Christmas
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/5631-bt-brings-20...

Thanks everyone for your responses.

I have already looked at that spreadsheet, but my exchange wasn't in there.

I also know about the BDUK project, but as I said earlier, I suspect they are going to be focussed more on rural areas which currently suffer from a very poor speed, than on someone with a very good ADSL speed (but no fibre).

Two levels to the BDUK work

1. Work to get 2 Mbps to 100% of people
2. Work to >=25 Mbps to 90%

On part two, as connected to a FTTC exchange, your cab is an easy win to get a good number of people to add towards the 90%.

BDUK projects are NOT just rural, they are meant to be for ALL areas where commercial providers have not rolled out superfast services, or people cannot get 2 Mbps.

Council should have a map in their plan showing what area you are in, and if it looks wrong you need to chase the council.

No fibre cabinet, no FTTP on demand, at least for now.

Openreach are not allowing the overlay network to work on different segmentation to the existing network yet.

Edited by deleted (Mon 28-Jan-13 13:18:55)

The EO lines will arrive via the deployment of hybrid FTTC, and the presence of its corresponding aggregation node.

OK thanks - that's a bit more encouraging.

I contacted the Borders Broadband project a few weeks ago and they said "There will now be a period of nine months for planning where BT will carry out detailed survey work to give a more accurate build plan. Until this detailed survey work has been completed we are unable to give any further detail about how areas like yours may benefit and when."

So I guess I will just have to be patient.

Thanks again.

Well, that is very interesting. I just had an email from OpenReach to tell me my cabinet has been re-assessed and is now "in the program to be upgraded". Obviously there is a long way to go yet (I was told July), but nonetheless it is certainly quite encouraging.

Maybe engaging with OpenReach is very worthwhile for others in a similar situation!
(Or maybe I was just lucky)

They do periodically re-assess, so if costs have come down due to them building out other cabinets nearby that can make all the difference.