9 more months?

There's been a lot of activity over the past few months on the local cabinets in my village and I've been keeping a regular eye on the BT Wholesale checker. I got quite excited today when I saw that fibre products are now showing as being available.

Until I spotted the date -- 31 March 2014! This seems like an awful long way off, given that there have been promises from local politicians of "by September 2013", and the Openreach website is still showing "end of 2013" for availability.

Is it really likely to take another 9 months to get all the new kit up and running?

Below is copy/paste of the checker result output - up until yesterday only ADSL Max and Fixed rate 2mbps were showing.

------------------
Telephone Number 0125688**** on Exchange TURGIS GREEN is served by Cabinet 2
Available Products

Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Downstream Range(Mbps)

Availability Date

Featured Products

WBC FTTC Up to 66.5 Up to 20 -- 31-Mar-14
ADSL Max Up to 7.5 -- 6.5 to 8 Available
Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Other Offerings
FTTP on Demand 330 30 -- 31-Mar-14
Fibre Multicast -- -- -- 31-Mar-14

The long dates are there as people complained when they kept changing

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

The long dates are there as people complained when they kept changing

Which means it could be ready any time between now and March 2014, so just keep checking.

If it helps.

One near me had no date for months - cab has been there for 6 months.

A date of Mar 2014 appeared about two weeks ago.

Cab went live late last week. Hopefully a good sign.


Regards,


Gareth

In reply to a post by scottme:

There's been a lot of activity over the past few months on the local cabinets in my village and I've been keeping a regular eye on the BT Wholesale checker. I got quite excited today when I saw that fibre products are now showing as being available.

Until I spotted the date -- 31 March 2014! This seems like an awful long way off, given that there have been promises from local politicians of "by September 2013", and the Openreach website is still showing "end of 2013" for availability.

Yeah, happens. Mine has been "3 months away" for the last 3 years, although I was are that was a load of nonsense, as for most of that time they had never even applied for planning permission.

Cabinets started to go up early/middle of last year, but none are active yet - they haven't run the fibre out of the exchange yet (although didn't stop them marking the exchange is active).

Edited by arfster (Thu 27-Jun-13 16:26:25)

If the exchange is active then there will be at least one cab accepting orders.

It's very rare for a cabinet to need planning permission.

Most of the area is a conservation site, so they were needed (although they were all accepted, it's just a formality).

They finally applied at the start of last year, despite fttc being constantly "3 months away" for 18 months before that.

In reply to a post by scottme:

Is it really likely to take another 9 months to get all the new kit up and running?

No, only 4 months! The BT Wholesale checker is now showing availability as 31 October, so I am now trying to get my order in, though PlusNet's change product page isn't (yet) offering a fibre option. Wish me luck.

No ISP will show you fibre available until your cabinet is actually enabled. On the grounds of "many a slip twixt cup and lip".

The checker showed "available" this morning and the order is in. Installation date should be in a couple of weeks' time, subject to confirmation from PlusNet.

Good luck .

In reply to a post by scottme:

Telephone Number 0125688**** on Exchange TURGIS GREEN is served by Cabinet 2
Available Products

Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Downstream Range(Mbps)

Availability Date

Featured Products

WBC FTTC Up to 66.5 Up to 20 -- 31-Mar-14
ADSL Max Up to 7.5 -- 6.5 to 8 Available
Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Other Offerings
FTTP on Demand 330 30 -- 31-Mar-14
Fibre Multicast -- -- -- 31-Mar-14

U are lucky as NGA email me say it was suppose to be November 2013 but now put back to 31 March 2014 but bt checker on my telephone still not showing any FTTC date at all, no FTTC metion.

My FTTC service was installed this morning. The Openreach engineer was justifiably skeptical about the rat's nest of phone wiring in the house, but we managed to work out a reasonable solution which cuts through the tangle and should let me eventually get the new wireless router into the same location as the old one, which trial and error tells me is about the only place from which a WiFi signal can cover the whole house. That's a project for another day though.

Speed test is looking good -- nearly 72mbps down and over 18 up -- though I'm expecting it to degrade somewhat as more people get onto FTTC. I am the first in the cabinet according to the engineer!