Llanelli Exchange Accepting Orders but why no service ready?

Hi,

I am wondering why (and quite frustratedly so) the BTO (When & where) website says my exchange is Accepting Orders but yet when I contacted Plusnet and Sky (my current ISP) they are unable to provide me with the FTTC service

Any ideas why this is the case and also have any of you had a similar experience, like how long is the lead time between the exchanges going live and ISPs begin to accept orders?

My postcode is SA152BX

* Would you recommend me going to BT directly and signing up with them?

What does the BT wholesale adsl checker say for your line, will need to use the address checker as your phone line will be with Sky, the postcode checker is too inaccurate.

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

The exchange accepting orders does not mean you can get the service, as it requires each pcp to have a FTTC twin installed before you can order FTTC from Sky/Plusnet/BT etc.

Not all cabinets are enabled for FTTC at once, the deployment is done in stages so it could be a few months before the service becomes live.

Edited by deleted (Wed 27-Mar-13 17:45:48)

yeah I just checked on the link you provided and results say:

WBC FTTC Up to 39.9 Up to 6.5 -- 30-Sep-13 <---

just a bit eager beaver you know

Will the upto 39.9 MBs mean I *maybe able to get a faster connection speed or will that mean more like something of what its current like with the situation of the ADSL2+ services atm, *anything upto 24 MBs which, in my case equates to just about 8MBs.?

It is an estimate, but the majority of people seem to get faster speeds, some however get slower speeds. Speeds may also reduce over time as others take up the service and crosstalk increases.

The distance from your cabinet is the biggest effect on speed, followed by the quality of your line.

OK, so let me just get my thinking straight..

From what I have been told by NGA @ openreach, they said that I will be connecting from PCP #83.
That BOX is large Its kind of like the size of a mini sub-station.

Anyway, that specific box is located a fair bit away from where I live.

This is what the actual Box looks like !

An Openreach engineer who came to fix my BB previously said that I am currently being served from the box in the image below.
I assume this maybe the box I end up receiving my FTTC off ?


Am I right in also thinking that the box specified above is the main Aggregation Point, which then in turn goes on to feed the smaller DSLAMs (the little green boxes; you know, the ones which look like pillar boxes)

This is one of the boxes which is located closer to my home.

See this illustration below for approx. distance from one of the green boxes to my home.

Take a look here

Then obviously, from there onwards I will be served over the existing copper lines?

*The images were from old GMaps data - Which have not been updated since Openreach have installed the latest boxes, so I just pasted one in for example purposes only, lol

I have quite a few of these newer green boxes all within a few hundred meters of my home, if not even closer.

How much do you think I will be charged for the FTTPoD service and installation based on this information and distance estimations

Given that there are no retail FTTPoD products available yet, all anyone can do is guess.

Firstly, be patient the exchange was forecast for Sep 13 on the openreach site so has been completed way ahead of forecast, this tends to mean only a limited number of cabs will be live so far. It only went live this week so maybe only 10 cabs are up.

Other cabs will follow as fibre work is completed.

Secondly, Sky and Talktalk will have to order links to connect into their networks from the Head end exchange, as this is Llanelli this will be new. They tend to wait until a significant volume of customers are accessible so that this is economic to do, other ISPs using the BT Wholesale network will be able to provide earlier as the BT backhaul is connected much earlier. ( On exchanges where the Head end is already live this can be the other way around).

Thirdly, I have serious doubts about the big box, that is like no other BT box I have ever seen a picture of. It is much more likely to be a sub station!

The DSLAMs will be alongside the copper cabs and do not need an aggregation point, they are connected directly by fibre back to the exchange.

The second picture looks like a paired copper and fibre cab as expected. Find the one with 83 painted on it and that is yours. Hopefully it's fibre pair is already there.

Little boxes are likely to be Virgin CATV boxes nothing to do with BT.

The info I was provided by BTO in an email incorrectly matched the wrong PCP with the Street name resulting in mixed messages.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, it turns out the cabinet which my property will be serviced from has now been enabled.

This now means I can start to pick a decent ISP for my Fibre connection

BTO Checker Results for my Cab.

WBC FTTC Up to 32.2 Up to 5.9 -- Available <--
WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 8 -- 5.5 to 15 Available
WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M Up to 8 Up to 1 5.5 to 15 Available
ADSL Max Up to 3.5 -- 2.5 to 6.5 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available