Will "BT" move my telephone line to a nearer FTTC cabinet?

I have been with Be ADSL2+ for several years without any problems. Be has now been bought by Sky and so I have been looking at alternatives, especially FTTC. I have just found the speed estimate site that gives the estimated WBC FTTC speeds for my line as 48.7 Mbps down and 8 Mbps up. Not the 80 down 20 up I was expecting!

It also specifies the cabinet number to which the line is connected. There are now FTTC enabled cabinets nearer than this one - is it possible to get "BT" to move the telephone line connection to a nearer cabinet to improve the FTTC speed?

You can ask them (it's called a "network rearrangement"), but they usually say no, and charge a fortune even if they say yes - it isn't a thing included in the standard connection charge.

It will depend on ducts or poles going in the right direction, and capacity back to the exchange too.

Be cheaper to buy yourself 3 phone lines, take FTTC services on all 3 and bond them. Moving you from one cabinet to another will cost a fortune.

Many thanks WWWonbat & Ignitionnet for your learned and quick replies - it looks as if I will have to stay with Be/Sky ADSL2+ until my contract is ended or the service deteriorates and then re-asses the options - Pity!

So 48/8 isn't fast enough? The mind boggles

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

So 48/8 isn't fast enough? The mind boggles

Haha I was thinking the same. My nearest cabinet is only about 50 yards from my house I presumed I was connected to that one at first until I looked it up it. But the new houses that have been built must be for that cabinet. There cannot be many on that cabinet though I would have thought as there was only two relatively small housing developments but the rest of the village are on the other cabinet (as far as I can tell from walking / driving through the village as it is only a small place)

But my estimates are 36 Down and 6 up which I am more than happy with as I am stuck at 2up and 0.3 up at the moment due to the distance to the exchange.

Yes, you can ask to have you line "Re-routed" but charges maybe incurred.. This was something which I looked into prior to my cabinet going FTTC live. At the time the closest (live) FTTC cabinet was situated at the end of the next street away from where I live but the cab I was actually connecting from had not yet been FTTC activated and no information was provided (at the time) if this cab was ever going to be FTTC enabled..

Anyway, a quick email off to NGA asking if I could have my line switched over to the other Live FTTC who were happy to put me in touch with the relevant BTO dept. which by the time I got a reply it turned out my cabinet which I was already on had became FTTC live.

Also a point on your speed estimates,
From my particular experience I was estimated as 38Mbps down and 6Mbps up which was massive under estimate. I can actually achieve 68/18.5Mbps [80/20 Profile] which isn't too bad at all considering the initial estimate I had.

I also have a feeling my line can handle much more !

When I moved into my last place 9 years ago, there wasn't a phone line in the house and there was no spare capacity from the PCP at the time. The options BT gave me was wait for about 6 months because they adding capacity for a new housing development down the road or an EO line for £20,000.

The joys of living in a town where the council continually approves conversion of properties into HMO's and ignoring the effect on the local infrastructure.

In reply to a post by simon194:

The joys of living in a town where the council continually approves conversion of properties into HMO's and ignoring the effect on the local infrastructure.

and a country that can't do shared infrastructure very well.