BT Cabinet Installing

************, **********, Telford, Telford And Wrekin
Works Start: 25 Sep
End: 08 Oct

Low impact, delays unlikely
Location : (PCP13), NGA RELATED WORKS, SIDE OF ** ************, **************
Description : Install 4m of 1 way poly duct in Footway,Provide 1 Provide/Recover 1 NGA Cab and base (1.5m x 0.5m)
Current status: Advanced planning
Traffic lights, etc: None/signing only

*************, ************, Telford, Telford And Wrekin
Works Start: 24 Sep
End: 07 Oct

Low impact, delays unlikely
Location : (PCP37) 368686,304152 368688,304172 SIDE OF ** ************* *************, TELFORD, SHROPSHIRE
Description : Install 16m of 1 way poly duct in Footway,Install 4m of 1 way poly duct in Verge,Provide 1 Provide/Recover 1 NGA Cab and base (1.5m x 0.5m)
Current status: Advanced planning
Traffic lights, etc: None/signing only


Does this mean will installing new FTTC Cabinet? Found it on roadwork.org as BT doing work in my area soon.

Yes

Seems like loads of cabs being done around your area, just had a quick look on roadworks.org

Yep I got email from BT Openreach as my area start work in late september & early october for all cabinets to be installing. Hope the go ahead LIVE will be ready by end of 2013.

nice Christmas present from you to your other 1/2, Fibre Broadband. Mention Shopping, Shopping, Shopping

He already has 120Mb from Virgin apparently Ian.

I did think about a spare backup broadband service, but hang the expense, lets go to mcd on home BB failure.

Indeed. Wifi and a heart attack all in one. What's not to like?

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

He already has 120Mb from Virgin apparently Ian.

Yes and I will have 80/20 too. Useful to have both broadband (one for backup)

Edited by adslmax (Sat 14-Sep-13 00:17:24)

Should one require a royal servant, I should happily clean after oneself for two florins per sundown.

Edited by deleted (Sat 14-Sep-13 17:03:00)

I walk to the pathway today and saw there is five BT Openreach van installing fibre from the main road all the way to my cabinet box there. I spoken to Openreach men and they say new FTTC cabinet will be installing next week next to cabinet number 8 box there. He say the FTTC should be ready before November 2013.

I took two photos today:

http://s5.postimg.org/d16vpiaav/20130914_170409.jpg

http://s5.postimg.org/4wyrkrnvr/20130914_170420.jpg

Excellent news. I'm on that cabinet 37. I did see the Open Reach guys down the road the other day by the big roundabout, and was hoping it was fibre rollout. Woo hoo! I wonder when we can start placing orders? 2 here please!

In reply to a post by stevebrowne:

Excellent news. I'm on that cabinet 37. I did see the Open Reach guys down the road the other day by the big roundabout, and was hoping it was fibre rollout. Woo hoo! I wonder when we can start placing orders? 2 here please!

It will be ready by November say BT Openreach if all plan go well without any issues

Edited by adslmax (Tue 17-Sep-13 21:31:56)

In reply to a post by pcoventry76:

Don't forget it takes time from when it goes like to accepting orders. Our area has been live for 2.5 weeks now but still nothing showing on DSL checker for fibre. Not sure how long it actually takes

Very true. It quite annoying when the FTTC cabinet is LIVE and ready. But BT Wholesale take ages to updated their site to become accepting orders. Look like we won't getting ready for at least December 2013. I dunno why it take BTW a long while to updated?

Edited by adslmax (Tue 17-Sep-13 21:37:52)

It usually doesn't. The accepting orders marker is placed by Openreach.

There are other things to do with the cabinet once it's powered up. Things like uploading firmware, testing, line card installation, configuration.

Even though you might be able to hear the thing humming away there are still a few tasks to be completed before it's handed over to CPs. Depending how these go these can take a couple of weeks or longer.

A few weeks back it said that we couldn't get it until March next year, so I'm just pleased that it's sooner!

Thanks for this, so if BT Openreach man told me it will be in November ready, I think it will take a further 4 weeks before accepting orders in December (god, I hate xmas installation date as openreach often too busy)

In reply to a post by stevebrowne:

A few weeks back it said that we couldn't get it until March next year, so I'm just pleased that it's sooner!

It could be March 2014 (accepting order) don't get our hope up too high. But, I think & trust myself that we are getting it in late November 2013 because BT is speedy it up before xmas come.

Edited by adslmax (Tue 17-Sep-13 21:47:04)

I just copy and paste from openreach email to me.

[email protected]
to me

Dear Sir,



Thank you for your enquiry about fibre broadband, you are connected to cuckoo Oak exchange cabinet WN/CKO 8. When rolling out fibre broadband, we don�t necessarily upgrade all the deployable cabinets at the same time. This may be for our planning or local planning reasons, engineering resource or technical issues, as such, you cabinet is still in the planning stage with the build stage commencing later this year.

If all planned works go without any problems, we are currently predicting that your cabinet will be live to take orders for fibre broadband in November 2013.



Regards



Tony Franklin
NGA Enquiries

For what it's worth they're really not hanging around here in Ulverston! (Though I think an alliance of businesses here is paying for much of it, so no doubt they're under immense pressure to get our town done ASAP... the pacing may vary in other towns)

Precisely 1 month ago we first spotted Openreach vans pottering around near the exchange with a big reel of fiber. Did a bit of research and found all the planning permission and the link for checking your number etc and that sure enough, it's due here 31st December.

3 weeks ago we noticed numbers had been painted on the BT cabinets. Figured it'd be a while, never thought much of it. Went on holiday on the 13th, came back on the 20th to find the whole town had been kitted out with fiber cabinets (with roadworks around them)! Wow!

Did some more reading, learned that it doesn't mean much, cabinets can be sat there for 3-6-12-even 18 months before activation.

In the past 4 days though they've finished connecting the nearest couple of cabinets to the mains and the copper cabinets and filled in the road again, and today Openreach have been spotted on their little seats connecting everything up.

I'm cautiously optimistic that things could be done in record time over here O_O

Good to hear. Hopefully that sense of urgency will be infectious.

In reply to a post by pcoventry76:

Don't forget it takes time from when it goes like to accepting orders. Our area has been live for 2.5 weeks now but still nothing showing on DSL checker for fibre. Not sure how long it actually takes

I can beat that my exchange went live in April and guess how many cabinets are accepting orders? one! lol

Some cabinets say available 30-Sep 2013 (which I do not believe as they just keep moving the dates) where others say April 2014 which is a year after the exchange went live.

Hopefully your lucky though

Im having trouble figuring out BT's roll out plan on my Exchange.

Although they've physically installed and powered loads of cabinets, they haven't connected them all yet up to fibre.

First they enabled three cabinets on an west to east line road. Fair enough. Then there seemed to be a huge delay in anything else, I figured they might be "testing" before rolling out to the rest.

Next thing I know, they enabled "cabinet 1" a mile north from my exchange. So maybe they're doing it by cabinet order? Except then they jumped to cabinet 15 which is a quarter mile the other way and the first cabinet south from the Exchange!

Continuing to go South, they skipped enabling the next cabinet, 21, and then enabled the one round the corner, cabinet 16!

Then they moved back north and have enabled the cabinets between a mile north cabinet 1 and the exchange.

DSL Checker shows that that there are three cabinets near cabinet 16 - 13 and 14 and 22 which they've so far ignored. They still haven't done anything for the cabinet they skipped on the main road, cabinet 21.

They've skipped cabinet 21 and enabled cabinet 23 which is about half a mile north east from the Exchange (but would explain the CASS van I saw and a guy blowing fibre through there).

So there's no geographic reasoning, no numbering reason, no logic I can think of to explain why they choose which installed FTTC cabinet to enable.

It's like they just stick in a pin into map blindfolded.

On top of that, although they took off at a blistering speed enabling around 9 cabinets in around two weeks. But over the past two weeks, they've done one or two cabs at the most!

I can't figure it out.

sjdean - openreach had to negotiating a Wayleave for permission to install our plant, this may cause further delays.

http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/contactus/wayle...

They seem to be doing our outer estate first, 2 guys have been spotted today connecting things to both our fibre and copper cabinets. Whilst the town centre still has roadworks in most places. Maybe it's done from a random number generator or something though, to shorten any "why did you favour x over me?" calls.

Of course, they could be trolling us and ours could be sat there for a year while town whizzes on!

Plusnet said it was available (despite wholesale checker still saying 31st December) and tried to put the order through but of course it failed, maybe that's a sign it's getting pretty close though.

Edited by deleted (Thu 26-Sep-13 19:31:59)

When they enabled our cabinets, it seemed to go in stages, and the cabinets seemed to make sense, like they were along a common line, a bit like roots spreading out.

However, there were the odd cabinets which took some time to enable, one still isn't after 15 months of being installed, and there are still a couple which have not even been installed yet.

All sorts of problems hold them up, from gaining permission (where required), wayleaves, power supply, blocked ducts. Street works permits etc.

So what seems completely random to you could have a perfectly good explanation behind the scenes.

Mine are suppose to be ready by November 2013 but it now delayed until March 2014. Disappointed.,

[email protected]

11:34 (9 hours ago)

to me

Dear Mr ************,



Thank you for your enquiry regarding Fibre Broadband.



The cabinet feeding your line PCP8 is not due for deployment until end-November 2013, however we are currently negotiating a Wayleave for permission to install our plant, this may cause further delays until end-March 2014.

Please be aware that the engineering work required to commission a Fibre Broadband cabinet is often complex and should conditions on the ground change, there is a risk that the delivery date may be effected. Please track the date for commissioning through the line checker of your chosen service provider.

Please note that many sites that show Fibre Broadband availability dates only show when the exchange goes live and not individual cabinets off that particular exchange.

If you have any further questions, please ensure you have read the FAQ's on our website, http://www.openreachfibrebroadband.co.uk/faq/ . If your question is answered within the FAQ section, we may not respond to your e-mail.



Regards



S**************

NGA Enquiries
Email:- [email protected]|
W Web: www.openreach.co.uk

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

When they enabled our cabinets, it seemed to go in stages, and the cabinets seemed to make sense, like they were along a common line, a bit like roots spreading out.

However, there were the odd cabinets which took some time to enable, one still isn't after 15 months of being installed, and there are still a couple which have not even been installed yet.

All sorts of problems hold them up, from gaining permission (where required), wayleaves, power supply, blocked ducts. Street works permits etc.

So what seems completely random to you could have a perfectly good explanation behind the scenes.

But that's the problem. The cabinets are in, the ducting is in, the power is connected, the fibre even runs past one cabinet that has been bypassed in the process. They have made extraordinary progress with the enabling majority of cabinets, and then just stalled.

Even Cabinet 1 a mile away, they enabled, went past about 3 cabinets and a while later did they actually enable those.

So no, I don't buy that there's any plan. There are no odd eceptions, there's no pattern. It's probably financially motivated IMHO.

Simon

I don't actually want to come across as an insufferable know it all. I've got a list of cabinets so far that I've mapped out

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=
215556211082981061880.0004e05045aca7a0e3213

Bearing in mind that all cabinets are installed and connected to power, they're just waiting for fibre, and in the case of 21, fibre runs out the front of it round to cabinet 16 a little further away....

The first few cabinets they enabled were in a line and made geographical sense. But then they enabled the furthest cabinet north away bypassing the cabinets in between and then moving south, moving back north and filling in the blanks, forgetting the rest in the south, going north east....

There are cabinets a little further out in the sticks that will require a little extra work as the date has changed, and I could understand that for my cabinet. Cabinet 19 now has a date of May 2014, Im guessing because that can't be found, it might be in a back alley somewhere. Cabinet 18 meanwhile is nicely tucked away on the pavement and has no date.

Fair enough, there are problems.

But I don't think there's any wayleaves required (except for the one which I think might be round the back of a supermarket), they're all connected to power, they all have the ducting in place. Im just not following the haphazard nature of it all.

It's not geographical, it's not numeric order, it's not even a case of install the farthest away and fill in the blanks! Going South, they did 15, bypassed 21 and did 16, even though 21 is en route to 16, and 16 which is the end of the run wasn't enabled before 15....

Of course it's financially motivated, they're not doing it just to be nice.

Quite a lot of our cabinets have been skipped, even though fibre runs nearby. These are probably judged financially unviable. Either due to not enough connected properties, or they don't want to risk losing profitable leased lines from businesses.

As I said before, there is one cabinet which was installed over a year ago, I would think fibre runs right past to other nearby cabinets, and I see there being no problem with power, but something must be a problem. Can't see them just forgetting, but I suppose it could happen.

Take a look at my map, link in signature. All cabinets have there history viewable by clicking on them.

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

As I said before, there is one cabinet which was installed over a year ago, I would think fibre runs right past to other nearby cabinets, and I see there being no problem with power, but something must be a problem. Can't see them just forgetting, but I suppose it could happen.

That's exactly my point though. I don't think it's a case they've forgotten and the chances of there being a problem is really small. It seems silly to install a cabinet, to plan an installation and then not bother.

It more than likely is financially motiviated, which is actually less of a problem for me if people come clean over it. If they start with the "oh plans, and ducts etc" I'd be still thinking, you installed ten cabs in two weeks, why is the next 15 going to take three months and they're in a close physical location! I've seen other people who have had woofly waffling from BT and Im sure they just make it up as they want to depending on other eligibility critieria which sees cabinets come in and out of the equation on what is perceived to be currently a random basis.

Your cabinet is probably one of those ones that they just can't really be bothered with while they got something better to do.

Incidentally my cab is one of two that have been rescheduled to 31st December 2013 with another new cabinet the opposite side of the area also scheduled for 31st December 2013 which is just totally bonkers.

Incidentally, one of those cabinets, cabinet 12, also has cabinet 11 on the other side of the road, but that has no FTTC cabinet yet, but has been scheduled for 31st May 2014! It's on the other side of the road, barely 100 yards away!

If they can physically install the cabinet in less than two weeks, why the hell would it take an extra five months to route the fibre to Cabinet 12? The mind boggles.

And when I see complete and total nonsense like that, I just realise how pathetic BT are. My cabinet will probably be enabled in a day, that's the irony of it, there probably won't be any problems, but I just get the sense that they can't be bothered yet.

Edited by deleted (Fri 27-Sep-13 19:14:30)

So in summary you think BT have spent the money on the cabinet hardware and install and are just leaving it there consuming electricity and earning them no revenue because they can't be bothered with it?

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

So in summary you think BT have spent the money on the cabinet hardware and install and are just leaving it there consuming electricity and earning them no revenue because they can't be bothered with it?

In the short term, yes.

Explain otherwise why a cabinet can be installed for a year with seemingly no problems but never enabled? It probably be will enabled at some point in the future, but for now, not.

Which cabinet, specifically?

Several of those cabinets have completed so should be available soon.

Maybe the two fibre people are elsewhere?

In reply to a post by Ribble:

Which cabinet, specifically?

The one R0NSKI was referring to.

However my cabinet is Cabinet 13 on CMSPR... While I would like that to be done sooner for obvious reasons, it appears that has been moved back to December 13, and I see no obvious reasons why... Cabinets in, power etc since July, but no fibre yet. However I am interested in seeing some progress being made in the general area, in this case I would like to know what is happening with cabinets 21 (the bypassed cab), 14 and 22 which are in close proximity to cabinet 16 and the scale of delays raises an eyebrow given how fast I know these installers can work....

As I say, I saw a fibre engineer doing some work up by cabinet 23, it was live on dsl checker within a few days!

In reply to a post by Ribble:

Several of those cabinets have completed so should be available soon.

Just to confirm, Im not sure about R0NSKI, I just added my tuppence in here, but Im on the CMSPR exchange in Birmingham

21 and 22 should go live in a few days. 14 has a blockage and 13 has a problem with the fibre route.
Can't say any more
I don't know which cabinet RONSKI is referring to so unable to comment. Things like section 58's and third party wayleaves can create long delays for apparently no reason.

Edited by deleted (Sat 28-Sep-13 11:49:04)

Both of those seem determined to delay Hunslet 82. Humbug.

I do feel your pain though sjdean.

Thanks.

Much appreciated.

I wonder what's wrong with the fibre route. So it is serious trunking issues (embarrassed of CMSPR here). Do you know when they'll start the work? I'll be driving up and down that road for ever to see what's happening.

Regarding 14 and 22, I guess it's an issue at the cab itself... But I would have thought if there was a blockage to 13, fibre could come another way, perhaps as a junction from 14 down Robin Hood Lane, whether all the junctions are in place to enable that to happen though I don't know. Im just guessing they're trying to go shortest route.

Simon

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

Both of those seem determined to delay Hunslet 82. Humbug.

I do feel your pain though sjdean.

But you see, when you get the info, everythings better again. It's not the delays that bother me, it's the lack of information. BT have done such an amazing job with the first few cabinets, it seemed things would be plain sailing for the rest. So when problems occur, you can't imagine it being trunking (though it was possible), and with everything in situ except for the fibre, you figure the engineers have moved on to another area.

Town's not moving much, to be fair it's only been a few days though and we still have a date of 31st December so there's every chance resources will be moved to exchanges under tighter deadlines. Just after seeing ours being worked on non-stop, a breather takes a moment to get used to

Interests me that BT's checker says up to 59 for our predicted download speed... we're 400m from our cabinet by road (I measured point to point on the council's OS map) which according to this http://www.thinkbroadband.com/guide/fibre-broadband.... means we'd be lucky to get much more than 40. Excellent news if we do get 59 though!

I was referring to NDBRO 26, which I think you said should be enabled later in the year.

They keep putting my cabinet installation date back too Adslmax.

Originally had an August date, then Sept, it's now Oct.

Must be a wayleave problem, although they haven't started on any of the cabs around here yet.

Yes, it a pain to wait so long. I can see two new cabinets is installed (one in Canonbie Lea by roundabout as it not available until March 2014) and other one nearby Madeley also in March 2014. My area is no cabinet yet but now March 2014.

You probably won't get it now until March 2014.

Just gone cabinet hunting. No idea what all the local dog walkers and joggers etc thought with me parking up, staring at green boxes and stooping to listen to them Looking to add the numbers to a Google Map.

Anyway ours is whirring, the 2 nearest are also whirring, and many more I struggled to hear (it's a small town but traffic-wise it's like a city centre these days) but look completed and I *thought* I could hear them, so things are looking very positive. In fact I counted 10 that I suspected were powered (3 I was 100% sure about) which if the Openreach site is anything to go by could mean the exchange gets the nod for orders soon. Even though the exchange itself says 31st December still at present.

--
There is one other which has disappeared, just out of interest - they'd started on the trenches and I think had put the cabinet in but it's gone and the ground is sealed back up with some markings saying things like "BT duct ends here", I'm guessing they're struggling with that one and am glad it's not ours! I toyed with the idea of a house on that road at one point, even more glad I stayed with the parents now than I was already

In reply to a post by LakesGeek:

Town's not moving much, to be fair it's only been a few days though and we still have a date of 31st December so there's every chance resources will be moved to exchanges under tighter deadlines. Just after seeing ours being worked on non-stop, a breather takes a moment to get used to

Same here, watching the way they install the cabs and how quickly they got the first cabs actually rolled out for fibre, it sounded like they'd have the rest done in no time at all bar a few exceptions. Massive slow down at the moment, but I know they can do it when they want - several cabinets have got roadworks notices and to all intents and purposes they're straight out within a couple of weeks it seems fixing the problem ready for the fibre again.

Looks like the fibre blowing and the duct blocking occurs at the same time around this neck of the woods. So when I see a few cabinets with problems and no information or activity what soever, I get a bit grumpy

Ooooooooo, I notice that Connecting Cumbria, after tweeting about Yanwath being the first activation under the scheme a couple of days ago, has mentioned rapid progress in Ulverston. We're only a l'il town, but a very noisy one when it comes to shouting about broadband so clearly it's paying off (We're the only place they've mentioned apart from Yanwath, Carlisle and Penrith). I have a feeling mayyybe next week might see us up and running. Just a hunch.

Annnd as of this morning it's available and ordered Yippee!

Edited by deleted (Sat 05-Oct-13 10:52:35)

Congrats. Two more cabs in my area have gone live in a month. So far with one cab every two weeks, and no road works notices.... I think the October date for six cabs is decidedly dodgy, and Im not holding out hope Im going to be live before the end of June (even thought they say December). Not because of any major problem, I just think because there's a problem, my cab is now back of the list and the planning is none existant. There'll probably be five months planning for one days work. Or they'll probably squeeze my cabinet in when the're not doing anything else.

I think I'm so peeved off, Im not going to order FTTC when it's available just to spite them. I've had enough of the whole ridiculous charade. Seriously, there is nothing happening around here. Apart from those two. I wouldn't mind if I started seeing grey spray paint on the road.

Rats to the lot of em.

It's your choice what to do. As has been explained many times, the planning takes place over wide areas and can be affected by factors that are not readily apparent on the ground, such as wayleave and section 58 issues arising when ductwork problems are discovered.

BT Openreach and their contractors will target their efforts to where it makes the most difference. This may mean a particular cabinet with issues sits for a while, but it doesn't mean a complete lack of progress. The six cabinets you mention may be affected by a common issue remote to the immediate area. You may not see any more paint on the road, because new roadworks may be unnecessary.


We had cabinets sitting on the ground for over a year in this town before anything was enabled. I don't know why - but it's best simply to accept it's ready when it's accepting orders. What's best - ordering a service that has been tested and that BT Openreach are confident will work to specification, or having a service installed (potentially in place of a working ADSL connection) that is unreliable?

In reply to a post by David_W:

It's your choice what to do. As has been explained many times, the planning takes place over wide areas and can be affected by factors that are not readily apparent on the ground, such as wayleave and section 58 issues arising when ductwork problems are discovered.

Not this again. There's no wayleaves, no s58, no power issues, cabs are just idle waiting for someone to kick into gear to sort out the duct issues, survey, paint lines, post a roadworks notice, dig up and sort everything out. Why my cab is being left to being one of the last to resolve the issues with I don't know. I can only hope they at least know WHERE the problems are, otherwise it could be much much longer.

In reply to a post by David_W:

BT Openreach and their contractors will target their efforts to where it makes the most difference. This may mean a particular cabinet with issues sits for a while, but it doesn't mean a complete lack of progress. The six cabinets you mention may be affected by a common issue remote to the immediate area. You may not see any more paint on the road, because new roadworks may be unnecessary.

Eh? Lack of paint means roadworks are necessary? You realise you also contradicted yourself? If a cabinet is sitting with no action, how is that anything but a complete lack of progress? Sure, I do realise things happen in the background, but currently, very little progress is actually being made. It would be nice to see a few marks on the road indicating where to dig in preparation.

The one cab that they have worked on recently and should in theory be good to go, is not going to be enabled before mid-November.

The six cabinets are dotted around the area, no commonality as far as I can see, different locations, just individual issues affecting the rollout. More likely as others say they ran into problems and went onto other areas that weren't so problematic. Which is fair enough, but if they're working on other areas, then they aren't working on mine.

In reply to a post by David_W:

We had cabinets sitting on the ground for over a year in this town before anything was enabled. I don't know why - but it's best simply to accept it's ready when it's accepting orders. What's best - ordering a service that has been tested and that BT Openreach are confident will work to specification, or having a service installed (potentially in place of a working ADSL connection) that is unreliable?

I can accept financial priorities elsewhere, again, it's just annoying the lack of progress even for the simplest of tasks. NGA say my cab is due for the start of 2014, so Im guessing my cab probably won't be upgraded much before February when originally scheduled for September.

Im not complaining about the delay, but quite clearly that original estimate (September 2013) was wrong and they were only prioritising a subset of cabinets in the area. Therefore it is fundamentally incorrect to advise September. While I accept ducting issues, if all the cabinets were prioritised, wouldn't they have known about the ducting issues back in August? If they knew about them back in August, much of the work would underway by now? Clearly not. There's not even a hint of any work roadworks notice, or paint on the ground. Therefore this cabinet is one of the last on the list and the planning process appears to be very disjointed.

If it takes six weeks just to activate a cabinet, Im not surprised a cabinet with issues would take at least four months from now! They got to survey, plan, get permission, there's probably two to three months, the work will probably only be a few days, then another six weeks for activation. January/February.

No, I I think the drawn out process is unacceptable given how fast they can work and I still only get the impression BT work on prioritising a subset of cabinets, activating 10 cabinets then fit in the rest as they can.

In reply to a post by sjdean:

No, I I think the drawn out process is unacceptable given how fast they can work and I still only get the impression BT work on prioritising a subset of cabinets, activating 10 cabinets then fit in the rest as they can.

You really need to chill out and calm down a bit. BT is a large company carrying out thousands of installations of which your cab is just one. As has been repeatedly stated there can be many reasons why a cab is delayed few of which are apparent or obvious to anyone not having an inside knowledge of the project.

Think yourself lucky rather than hard done by even if your connection appears to be towards the end of the queue. There are many users for whom an FTTC connection is but a dream including many in the larger cities with EO connections where BT is doing nothing and no BDUK funding is available.

Yeah I completely agree with MCM. It's been a long wait for lots of people, for lots of different reasons, and loads of people desperate for fibre still have nothing.

I think the "lack of paint might still mean roadworks" comment might have meant that "roadworks" may have been necessary elsewhere, so you wouldn't necessarily have seen anything visible. Or they could have just been installing fibre in another area where people felt exactly the same as you.

Ordering late won't spite BT at all, IF the timing of your order has any effect at all (which it probably won't), then ordering late might simply show BT there is a relative lack of demand/enthusiasm in your area and it'll discourage them from rushing FTTP or whatever other future stages of internet development may take place.

Edited by deleted (Sun 06-Oct-13 06:57:56)

We're very complacent in this country and like to moan about people "unfairly treated" instead of the people that mess everything up in the first place. I use that term in absence of another metaphor.

When I've moaned about the hospital delaying my operation, people like to complaing that Im expecting preferrential treatment. Im not, I just want to be scheduled at a normal time and not have my appointment cancelled again. I would just like to be scheduled properly.

The same argument here. Im not after preferrential treatment from BT, and Im not expecting unrealistic timescales. But I think their initial estimates for availability dates are woefully flawed and aren't able to activate 30 cabinets within a month and therefore shouldn't be showing that.

They obviously are aware of the issues with my cab, and December 2013 may be a realistic deadline yet it is annoying as they appear to not be doing anything on it during the short term (we're not covered by s58, power issues, conservation or wayleaves and it appears Birmingham are fairly flexible with roadworks!).

But again, I get the impression, as do many other people, that BT just prioritise X number of cabinets in an area to be able to mark the exchange live, while the rest can wait as they move onto other areas. It is misleading. Fair enough there are problems but the roadworks teams should really deal with them before moving on.

But you know what, the people who have been waiting two years should be seen first.

If you want scheduling to be perfect then the only way is to build a huge amount of slack into the system.
You can either do that by having a large number of staff doing nothing waiting around for the snarl up to occur whereupon they can jump into the breach so to speak and prevent the bottleneck occuring.
Alternatively you can do it by putting huge gaps in the schedule knowing that things will go wrong and then these gaps will get filled up by the over-running jobs.

But of course no one want to pay for that sort of thing, so we have "just in time" which works fine until there is a snarl up. JIT works best when you(BT) can control the process and the inputs into that process: like a production line.

When you moan about your treatment/schedule and get it sorted you do realise I suppose that YOUR problem gets sorted at the expense of someone else getting their schedule messed up? Or that maybe their need might have been greater than yours?
There is no longer any free/slack available these days, so they just muck up someone else's schedule to keep you happy - so yes you are asking for preferential treatment.

Frankly I think BT should never have put out any schedules at all they should simply say we will do it when it gets done, we will do the easy one first and the difficult ones last and we might have finished by 2020. But I suspect they were pressurised into it so simply invented some numbers off the top of their heads.
I'm sure they could have spent a lot of time analysing everthing and coming up with the correct(ish) numbers - and how much time and staff would have been wasted on all this analysis rather than just getting on with the job instead.....

Doing this job is not like buliding cars. There are endless things totally out BT's control that can go wrong in each cabinet installation - and each one is therefore in effect a bespoke jobs rather than the mass market production line.

I likewise am 6 miles from a citycentre in southern UK. I'm not fibre enabled and the BDUK maps recently published by the county council have shown my and the next door cabinet is not being done though others nearby are. So there is no possibility for me or the other 400 people on these two cabinets getting FTTC for the forseeable future - meaning before end of 2017. Yes possibly in 2018 to 2020 and beyond another HMG/EU subsidised program may come along to infill remaining cabinets in the UK.

I would finally add that to many poeple/families faster broadband is not really that high up on their priority list in their lives.

You've probably read that BT (or rather, OR) got reprimanded for trying to put more realistic dates on cabs going live - that's why their own checker now gives the most conservative estimate possible. I personally (and a lot of people here) think that people shouldn't have made the complaints which resulted in that reprimand - OR were trying to give more realistic dates which they often hit, and often missed. But at least they were trying. Now they're forced to give extremely conservative estimates which often mean next to nothing, i.e. one cabinet in my area was not on that leaked spreadsheet, no roadworks were planned, and then it just got installed and went live; and the first time roadworks.org reported it was the morning they turned up.

So, given the above complications, the best thing anyone can do is Email the enquiries@NGA address about their specific line/cabinet and go from that advice. The various contractors turn up when they're told, then OR can cross-connect it as they're available... has anyone got any data indicating how many demands for cross-connecting a PCP to a newly-installed fibre cabinet are "raised" every week? It must be a lot.

I think everything has been said, hasn't it, just calm down and order your FTTC, it'll be good. You asked for it and now you've got it.

Edited by deleted (Sun 06-Oct-13 09:31:05)

In reply to a post by sjdean:

In reply to a post by David_W:

It's your choice what to do. As has been explained many times, the planning takes place over wide areas and can be affected by factors that are not readily apparent on the ground, such as wayleave and section 58 issues arising when ductwork problems are discovered.

Not this again. There's no wayleaves, no s58, no power issues, cabs are just idle waiting for someone to kick into gear to sort out the duct issues, survey, paint lines, post a roadworks notice, dig up and sort everything out. Why my cab is being left to being one of the last to resolve the issues with I don't know. I can only hope they at least know WHERE the problems are, otherwise it could be much much longer.

You can assert all you like - but, assuming the original commissioning date has passed, there is a delay for some reason, otherwise the cabinet would be accepting orders. Unless you know the network topology intimately and have access to all the engineering information, you have no basis on which to say "there are no issues".

For all you know, BT Openreach attempted to bring up the connection to this string of cabinets at the handover node and the port in the layer 2 switch there is defective, or there's a fibre break that would overload the remaining good links if the remaining six cabinets were enabled, or it's clear that an aggregation node is defective because the error rate in the fibre network is awful. Once you're dealing with a part-commissioned system, you can't just switch it off and pull it apart - you have to schedule the engineering work. At this point, if you're unlucky, you find another issue arises whilst planning the fix for the known one - maybe the tube you need to blow new fibre through is blocked or a duct has collapsed, so you need to bring back a team of engineers that have been redeployed to another area and are now tied up there, or you need to dig where there's a section 58 issue or council restrictions on roadworks.

I don't work for BT Openreach or their contractors, but I used to work for a networking company and I know the sort of surprises that commissioning can throw up, especially when there's several teams involved on different parts of the project.

In reply to a post by sjdean:

In reply to a post by David_W:

BT Openreach and their contractors will target their efforts to where it makes the most difference. This may mean a particular cabinet with issues sits for a while, but it doesn't mean a complete lack of progress. The six cabinets you mention may be affected by a common issue remote to the immediate area. You may not see any more paint on the road, because new roadworks may be unnecessary.

Eh? Lack of paint means roadworks are necessary? You realise you also contradicted yourself? If a cabinet is sitting with no action, how is that anything but a complete lack of progress? Sure, I do realise things happen in the background, but currently, very little progress is actually being made. It would be nice to see a few marks on the road indicating where to dig in preparation.

The one cab that they have worked on recently and should in theory be good to go, is not going to be enabled before mid-November.

The six cabinets are dotted around the area, no commonality as far as I can see, different locations, just individual issues affecting the rollout. More likely as others say they ran into problems and went onto other areas that weren't so problematic. Which is fair enough, but if they're working on other areas, then they aren't working on mine.

If you'd stop letting your own "I have my RIGHTS to my fibre NOOOOOOOW" approach (which is how it's coming across, even though I'm sure it's just your frustration boiling over) cloud your judgment, and read what we're all trying to tell you, it would help.


As has been said by another poster, I suggested that the issue relating to those six cabinets might be common to them all, and remote from the area. In that case, there'll be no new paint on the roads in your area, because the fix will not require roadworks in the immediate area. Openreach and their contractors don't spray paint on roads or dig holes for fun!

If any faulty ducts have already been repaired and all power hook-ups and tie cables are in, chances are that they won't be digging again in the local area. Any fibre issues are likely to be resolved by blowing additional fibres into the tubing that's already in the ground, or by running additional / replacement tubing into already repaired ducts. However, that's not to say something else won't arise that requires fresh roadworks. There could be a fibre break in a run of tubing with no spare capacity remaining in a run of ducting that is now also full. Other street works might have damaged a duct after the fibre system was initially installed, allowing water ingress to flood the system.


It's a failure of causality to say "it's all there, there's no obvious works going on and they've turned the rest of the area on, so they've walked off the job and can't be bothered". You have no access to the information that allows you to draw any sort of firm conclusion.

Fixing faults is a methodical and iterative process of dealing with known issues and testing again. Until the system passes all commissioning tests, even the commissioning engineer has no idea what surprises remain to be dealt with.

In reply to a post by sjdean:

In reply to a post by David_W:

We had cabinets sitting on the ground for over a year in this town before anything was enabled. I don't know why - but it's best simply to accept it's ready when it's accepting orders. What's best - ordering a service that has been tested and that BT Openreach are confident will work to specification, or having a service installed (potentially in place of a working ADSL connection) that is unreliable?

I can accept financial priorities elsewhere, again, it's just annoying the lack of progress even for the simplest of tasks. NGA say my cab is due for the start of 2014, so Im guessing my cab probably won't be upgraded much before February when originally scheduled for September.

Im not complaining about the delay, but quite clearly that original estimate (September 2013) was wrong and they were only prioritising a subset of cabinets in the area. Therefore it is fundamentally incorrect to advise September. While I accept ducting issues, if all the cabinets were prioritised, wouldn't they have known about the ducting issues back in August? If they knew about them back in August, much of the work would underway by now? Clearly not. There's not even a hint of any work roadworks notice, or paint on the ground. Therefore this cabinet is one of the last on the list and the planning process appears to be very disjointed.

If it takes six weeks just to activate a cabinet, Im not surprised a cabinet with issues would take at least four months from now! They got to survey, plan, get permission, there's probably two to three months, the work will probably only be a few days, then another six weeks for activation. January/February.

No, I I think the drawn out process is unacceptable given how fast they can work and I still only get the impression BT work on prioritising a subset of cabinets, activating 10 cabinets then fit in the rest as they can.

You are complaining about the delay - that's why you posted. You are assuming that the lack of obvious roadworks in the area means BT Openreach have given up on your area and unfairly (at least that's what I'm picking up) moved on to another area, despite there being a myriad of possible explanations for the delay and the fix quite possibly not requiring roadworks in your immediate area.

This is a complex national roll-out with a huge number of dependencies at local, regional and even national level (if a ship sinks with a bunch of cabinets on the way from the Huawei factory in China, there might be a sudden shortage of new equipment and spare parts might have to be used to build replacements for damaged cabinets, even though BT Openreach deliberately went for a two vendor policy). BT Openreach want return on sunk costs - they've done most of the work in your area, and they will want income from it, but they don't say "sjdean has had his deadline put back twice, so we're going to pull an install crew off a job 60 miles away to fix the fault on Monday knowing we will throw away the entire deployment strategy for the region for the next two months by doing so".

The issue won't be financial now. Funds for the deployment in your area have been committed, and will contain some contingency. It is possible a major unforeseen issue arises during any fault-finding that makes fixing that fault unviable, and the cabinets are removed, but this is extremely unlikely. However, just because there's a financial contingency doesn't mean there's spare engineering effort available on demand - there's many different teams involved in network deployment and commissioning, and you don't keep expensive resources sat idle merely as a contingency. There will be plenty of unforeseen work on a major project to absorb available resources, which means any remedial work in your area will have a lead time.



You have a choice as a consumer. If what BT Openreach has done has so wronged you, give up on FTTC and stick with what you've got, or order cable / wireless / 3G / 4G / satellite.

There are many communities fighting for FTTx deployment using BDUK money who have appalling ADSL speeds or no possibility of ADSL because of long lines, and who are likely too remote to benefit from any BDUK money. There are others on exchange only lines in served areas who are unlikely to get FTTC, because the necessary network rearrangement is not cost-effective. There are those who have been promised FTTP, but the huge delays in the FTTP deployment in many areas have led to a lot of areas designated to receive FTTP to get FTTC instead, with the consequent exclusion of those on exchange only lines and others receiving many times less than the expected FTTP speeds because of long or poor quality D side cables that would have been known to represent a significant issue in the area.


There will be delays once the cabinet is enabled, as it can take several weeks to get an installation appointment. I'd be very surprised if you're not on FTTC within six months, assuming you don't give up on it. It may well be sooner than that, but getting petulant over a few weeks of delay at this stage does nothing to help your situation and might upset the people who are trying to help.


It was complaints over missed FTTx target dates that led to the adverse ASA decision against BT earlier this year, and to BT Openreach changing the majority of the remaining commercial roll-out target dates to March or May 2014. Any target date is just that - the date by which there is an aim to provide service, assuming nothing unforeseen arises.

The public has choice. Either we accept that unforeseen issues arise, causing targets to be missed, or we lose access to the information we have. If people use the information that is made available relating to commercial roll-out against BT Openreach and other parties, all queries will be answered with vague responses like "engineering work is ongoing in your area, but I am unable to provide any further information", "at this stage, we have no information on whether your address will be served" or "we have no information relating to your area".

The situation is slightly different with BDUK supported roll-out, where the use of public money and the contract with a public-sector body means the Freedom of Information Act applies, but even in these cases a lot of information is exempt from the Act.



You have no choice but to let BT Openreach and their contractors get on with the job. If you ask them nicely, you might get some information - but it will not be a definite commitment to provide service from a specific date.

Whether you contact BT Openreach or not, I suggest you accept that it is overwhelmingly likely that best efforts are being made, but the need to target resources for best effect means that sometimes portions of an area are left for a while, to allow a later planned return with all resources needed to complete the known work.

In reply to a post by David_W:

In reply to a post by sjdean:

In reply to a post by David_W:

It's your choice what to do. As has been explained many times, the planning takes place over wide areas and can be affected by factors that are not readily apparent on the ground, such as wayleave and section 58 issues arising when ductwork problems are discovered.

Not this again. There's no wayleaves, no s58, no power issues, cabs are just idle waiting for someone to kick into gear to sort out the duct issues, survey, paint lines, post a roadworks notice, dig up and sort everything out. Why my cab is being left to being one of the last to resolve the issues with I don't know. I can only hope they at least know WHERE the problems are, otherwise it could be much much longer.

You can assert all you like - but, assuming the original commissioning date has passed, there is a delay for some reason, otherwise the cabinet would be accepting orders. Unless you know the network topology intimately and have access to all the engineering information, you have no basis on which to say "there are no issues".

Whoah. Back up. I know there are ducting issues, my problem is how long they're taking, and Im asserting that when BT want to move they can move, they dug up Cabinet 16 within two weeks of it being installed to fix a ducting issue. So they're dragging their heels on it.

There is no reason that they cannot get man power on it right now apart from a) they have no man power, b) they aren't working on it, c) their priorities are elsewhere.

In reply to a post by David_W:

For all you know, BT Openreach attempted to bring up the connection to this string of cabinets at the handover node and the port in the layer 2 switch there is defective, or there's a fibre break that would overload the remaining good links if the remaining six cabinets were enabled, or it's clear that an aggregation node is defective because the error rate in the fibre network is awful. Once you're dealing with a part-commissioned system, you can't just switch it off and pull it apart - you have to schedule the engineering work. At this point, if you're unlucky, you find another issue arises whilst planning the fix for the known one - maybe the tube you need to blow new fibre through is blocked or a duct has collapsed, so you need to bring back a team of engineers that have been redeployed to another area and are now tied up there, or you need to dig where there's a section 58 issue or council restrictions on roadworks.

They said a problem routing the cable. Which is fine though, that isn't the problem, and I don'd mind them working elsewhere quite frankly. Im just aggrieved that they can "estimate" 30th September, and, even if everything went well, they wouldn't be ready for 30th September. The cab has been in the ground gathering dust for two months (I realise Im lucky compared to others waiting two years), but again, no Section58 issue, no power issue, no conservation issue, just collapsed ducting. Now I now when they were enabling the first ten cabinets, if they wanted to dig up a cabinet, it was up in two weeks and the trunking sorted.

The thing there is, it doesn't have to take a long time.

In this case it is. It's somewhat unfair to blame trunking issues (although that is a problem), when it's fairer to say that the delay has been caused by trunking, but the length of the delay is caused by engineers being elsewhere.

I would say if they had attempting to check connectivity to each cabinet BEFORE each switch on, they COULD have been working on the issues sooner. As it is those engineers are elsewhere because they DIDN'T check sooner.

In reply to a post by David_W:

If you'd stop letting your own "I have my RIGHTS to my fibre NOOOOOOOW" approach (which is how it's coming across, even though I'm sure it's just your frustration boiling over) cloud your judgment, and read what we're all trying to tell you, it would help.

But I patently don't want my fibre now. But I am thinking BT could work a bit more effectively. Seems absoutely insane to do a couple of cabs here and a couple of cabs there, and wait six weeks for the next installment, when they could work methodically and logically within the confinses of an area working through the issues before ploughing onto the next Exchange. It's why things take so stupidly long to resolve. To me it just seems BT are only interested in number of cabinets and their "Race to Infinity" - which is exactly all it is. The availability checker is load of nonsense, no one knows their plan and to sit on their hands for several weeks not doing anything is insane. If they told me next year, or I wouldn't be getting it ever, fine. But to say, you can have it by the end of September, maybe, but actually are estimates aren't even valid for when there's no issue... now we've failed the estimate and will put it back three months, actually it will be four, maybe, but we're not going to do anything for a couple of months, when we work on it for a couple of days, you can have it two months after that. Maybe. If there's someone in the area. But you probably still won't get it then because of our BDUK commitments.

Im sorry but the whole thing is a flaming shambles.

In reply to a post by David_W:

As has been said by another poster, I suggested that the issue relating to those six cabinets might be common to them all, and remote from the area. In that case, there'll be no new paint on the roads in your area, because the fix will not require roadworks in the immediate area. Openreach and their contractors don't spray paint on roads or dig holes for fun!

I do know in my situation, they've said it's a problem routing from the exchange to the cab, and I can only presume it's due to the bigger trees and the tiny street it has to come down. As I say though, I do know that when the engineers start working on it, they're amazing. The work they're doing is absolutely incredible. It's frustrating not seeing any action when they could have it fixed in a week, and it really is nothing other than trunking, no difficult council, no Section 58, no power issue, and I think if they came in another way, it would be even easier.

In reply to a post by David_W:

If any faulty ducts have already been repaired and all power hook-ups and tie cables are in, chances are that they won't be digging again in the local area. Any fibre issues are likely to be resolved by blowing additional fibres into the tubing that's already in the ground, or by running additional / replacement tubing into already repaired ducts. However, that's not to say something else won't arise that requires fresh roadworks. There could be a fibre break in a run of tubing with no spare capacity remaining in a run of ducting that is now also full. Other street works might have damaged a duct after the fibre system was initially installed, allowing water ingress to flood the system.

CMSPR was only enabled a couple of months ago, not that many cabinets all things considering, haven't seen any road works to impact on anything recently, in fact, we'd be the first fibre run in this direction from the Exchange.

In reply to a post by David_W:

It's a failure of causality to say "it's all there, there's no obvious works going on and they've turned the rest of the area on, so they've walked off the job and can't be bothered". You have no access to the information that allows you to draw any sort of firm conclusion.

Well they can't be bothered "yet", NGA said problems routing cable. That is all. 99% certain it's not caused by anything else other than loads of blocked ducts, and if other areas are anything to go by, I might suspect they will have to run a load of new trunking down the road to compensate.

No easy feat... But... the sooner they start, the sooner they end. Which is why I do think as well, if they had started earlier in the process....

In reply to a post by David_W:

You are complaining about the delay - that's why you posted. You are assuming that the lack of obvious roadworks in the area means BT Openreach have given up on your area and unfairly (at least that's what I'm picking up) moved on to another area, despite there being a myriad of possible explanations for the delay and the fix quite possibly not requiring roadworks in your immediate area.

Apart from NGA saying it is a problem routing the cable? And it fundamentally isn't the delay Im complaining about, because problems occur, but it's how effective they are in solving those issues that Im taking stock with, and the lack of transparency in their rollout. Who knows, maybe I'll eat my words again and we'll see some work scheduled for the start of November or something and the cab go live in December. However NGA did say start of 2014 for activation while availability checker still says December 2013.

To simply blame trunkning is unfair and only one of the issues. The rest is planning, manpower, scheduling...

In reply to a post by David_W:

This is a complex national roll-out with a huge number of dependencies at local, regional and even national level (if a ship sinks with a bunch of cabinets on the way from the Huawei factory in China, there might be a sudden shortage of new equipment and spare parts might have to be used to build replacements for damaged cabinets, even though BT Openreach deliberately went for a two vendor policy). BT Openreach want return on sunk costs - they've done most of the work in your area, and they will want income from it, but they don't say "sjdean has had his deadline put back twice, so we're going to pull an install crew off a job 60 miles away to fix the fault on Monday knowing we will throw away the entire deployment strategy for the region for the next two months by doing so"

Right, and that is fairer and more accurate statement. The missing part of the puzzle. They have a roll out strategy, and so not going to pull people off the install job 60 miles away to sort out my cabinet. So think about this then.... They have "abandoned" the cabinet, until they can get around it. They can't be bothered with it until a team is free. They don't focus on area and all the cabinets like they do with the first ten, they concentrate on the first few then move on to the next area to meet their roll out strategy enabling the rest as and when.
.

In reply to a post by David_W:

The issue won't be financial now.

Ahh you miss my point. From a business point of view, it makes sens to focus on higher capacity areas that could sign up more people, in other words, what is financially more rewarding.

In reply to a post by David_W:

There will be delays once the cabinet is enabled, as it can take several weeks to get an installation appointment. I'd be very surprised if you're not on FTTC within six months, assuming you don't give up on it. It may well be sooner than that, but getting petulant over a few weeks of delay at this stage does nothing to help your situation and might upset the people who are trying to help.

Well it's actually a few months, but hey ho. At least I haven't waited a few years.

In reply to a post by David_W:

It was complaints over missed FTTx target dates that led to the adverse ASA decision against BT earlier this year, and to BT Openreach changing the majority of the remaining commercial roll-out target dates to March or May 2014. Any target date is just that - the date by which there is an aim to provide service, assuming nothing unforeseen arises.

Is it really too much just to get OpenReach to divulge some status updates against each cabinet (without being overly specific). Would cut half the grumbles overnight.

In reply to a post by David_W:

You have no choice but to let BT Openreach and their contractors get on with the job. If you ask them nicely, you might get some information - but it will not be a definite commitment to provide service from a specific date.

I've asked NGA if they could let me know the scope of the problems. But I guess the fact it takes them two to three weeks to reply, Im not surprised they're taking that long to schedule an engineering team.

In reply to a post by David_W:

Whether you contact BT Openreach or not, I suggest you accept that it is overwhelmingly likely that best efforts are being made, but the need to target resources for best effect means that sometimes portions of an area are left for a while, to allow a later planned return with all resources needed to complete the known work.

I thiunk the best efforts giving the resources available are being made. Whether those resources and plan could be utilised better, which instead of just a "Race to Infity" we had more like a gentle jog ensuring that each area was sorted comprehensively before moving on (as I say, if Cab 16 could be dug up within 2 weeks of first being installed, Im mildly surprised it takes several months for the rest). Im sure they could work more effectively by retaining the engineers in the area to go through the catalogue and back log of issues recalling the fibre engineers to do the cable when necessary road works are complete.

Ironically, I'd probably have to wait til next year while those who have been waiting for two years are sorted.

And depends on your terminology of best effect. If best effect is statistics and numbers, showing that they have enabled X exchanges with cabs passing X houses fair enough. But my best effect is to get the whole area upgraded comprehensively. At the moment it just feels very disjointed and leads to people waiting two years!

In reply to a post by zom22:

When you moan about your treatment/schedule and get it sorted you do realise I suppose that YOUR problem gets sorted at the expense of someone else getting their schedule messed up? Or that maybe their need might have been greater than yours?

Whoa. I didn't demand preferrential treatment, and there were emergencies at the hospital. But I fundamentally did not want to be escalated above anybody else. When my operation was cancelled three times, all I wanted was essentially to be on the top of the next list (well - at my fair place in the list of routine surgery) rather than be bumped to the back.

In reply to a post by zom22:

There is no longer any free/slack available these days, so they just muck up someone else's schedule to keep you happy - so yes you are asking for preferential treatment.

Im sorry? Getting scheduled surgery is preferential treatment? Asking to be treated in order is preferential treatment? Disagreeing to others and myself having preferential treatment is asking for preferrential treatment?

So when someone else gets preferrential treatment and mucks me up so I have to take three days off work for surgery that gets cancelled is fine, but me asking just to have people there to cover the scheduled surgery and take my rightful place in the queue is wrong?

In reply to a post by zom22:

Frankly I think BT should never have put out any schedules at all they should simply say we will do it when it gets done, we will do the easy one first and the difficult ones last and we might have finished by 2020. But I suspect they were pressurised into it so simply invented some numbers off the top of their heads.

I think they should focus on each area and get a comprehensive roll out instead of darting between others and having to wait several weeks before anything happening to make sure there's a team in the area. If they worked closer together in the roll out, they could work comprehensively. Instead it seems more a case of numbers.

The actual engineers on the ground are amazing. As I say when Cab 16 was dug up two weeks after install, it seems to me if they had tried to activate the next cabinet (half a mile away) at the same time/day later, they could have found the issues and dug that up the same time as Cab 16 and resolved the issues. Being two months later now for an activation, suggests it wasn't done at the same time. which does suggest it is a numbers game and the time that engieners are scheduled in the area are woefuly inadequate. and only good enough for doing ten cabinets during the initial roll out.

If the issue is indeed with routing back to the exchange, there's still many potential issues that explanation could cover. Unless you know what they've already tried, at what point they found an issue, what the issue was and what work they've done to identify other issues, you can do no more than speculate anyway.

The problem could be a full duct (unlikely that they didn't know about it in advance, but could have happened unexpectedly if the records are wrong), a blocked duct (tree roots?), a collapsed duct, difficulty gaining access to a third party site where the route passes using a wayleave - or something else entirely. Are you absolutely sure of the route the ducts take back to the exchange, and that they're heading to your local exchange rather than somewhere else? Sometimes the NGA-FTTx handover node is at a neighbouring exchange. This is why I suggested the work may not necessarily take place where you expect, and may have some sort of external dependency to be resolved.

You cannot be sure the issue is lack of field engineering resources, or that it can be resolved by immediate allocation of field engineering resources. It may need specialist back room staff (planners etc.) or a specialist sub-contractor to be brought on to the job.


The end quarter dates were only best-guess estimates that gave some sort of indication of when and where work would take place. There has never been a mad rush at the end of the quarter to hit these dates - near the end of the quarter, the date for individual cabinets and whole exchanges are slipped, sometimes by more than three months and maybe not for the first time. I think my exchange slipped around a year and maybe approaching 18 months, with one of the slips being six months in one go. It was certainly over a year from the original estimate passing to service becoming available. (If anyone has any records, what was the original estimate for SMFK? Actual RFS was end November 2012).


I can't see how it's possible to provide and verify connectivity to each cabinet in advance without risking delays elsewhere. Implicitly, that says that until the fibre network is in place, no other works should take place. In reality, some delays were caused by installation of the cabinet itself (including planning / conservation area issues), by the power connection or by installation of the tie cable to the PCP (which may require the PCP to be reshelled, and requires the installation of a duct between the FTTC cabinet and the PCP before the tie cable itself is installed). Are you seriously suggesting that none of this other work, which can lead to unexpected delays, should start until the fibre network is complete?

On a project of this size, you deal with what you can during the initial programme in an area, then return to deal with anything outstanding later once you have gained the best possible understanding of the outstanding work and can commit all the resources necessary for each remaining stage before you start it. If you need two different resources on site at once, there's no point sending just one of these resources because the other is unavailable.


Your suggested 'finish each area and move on' is laudable in theory, but it means some combination of holding back a lot of resources as a contingency for the current area rather than putting them to work where you can, holding up all work in subsequent areas when problems arise in a current work area, and building in vast amounts of recovery time. None of these are practical - you put the resources you're paying for to work in any sensible way, and you move resources on to the next area once their work is complete rather than standing them down (whilst quite possibly continuing to pay for them) just to wait until an arbitrary start date.


Your desire for more information to be made available is laudable but, again, unfeasible. Plans can change rapidly. The engineering teams would have to waste resources responding to requests for information. Members of the public (and their MPs) may try to hold BT Openreach to a plan that subsequently fails to make sense - indeed, that is what you're doing, by saying, in essence that the issue is merely getting the fibre back to the exchange, so why is nothing visible happening on what you understand to be the route.


Ultimately, the answer is, as you have been repeatedly told, "when it's ready". Unless BDUK money is involved, in which case there are specific contractual commitments relating to areas and dates, it's up to BT Openreach whether and when they enable these cabinets. If the issue with the fibre network is too difficult or impractical to resolve, they have the right to abandon commercial deployment and recover the cabinets.

In reply to a post by sjdean:

I just want to be scheduled at a normal time and not have my appointment cancelled again. I would just like to be scheduled properly.

I have to ask, do you have the slightest clue about the massive amount of work involved in both scheduling and installing NGA throughout the UK? From your repeated posts which seem to simply one moan after another be I suspect not.

Remember that no-one is forcing you to use a BT product. You're completely free to contact another supplier and have your very own connection installed. Of course that will cost you infinitely more than you might expect to pay BT to use their FTTC network. In our case BT are happy to provide us with FTTC, there's just the small question of the £30K they require to start the job. - and that's for 75 properties in central London.

I would be surprised if it wasn't a serious case of tree roots given the location of the BT boxes to the trees, and with cable tv being installed many years ago, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a lot of trunking issues.

That's fine though, that's not the point, Im appreciative there are issues.

And Im not suggesting the fibre teams wait around in an area until the blockages have been cleared.

But it would be nice if BT would schedule enough time to fibre upgrade the entire area, then the Cabinets that do have problems can be located and the issues passed to whoever it needs to be passed to earlier and road work teams scheduled much earlier.

People do keep saying delays are caused by power, delays are caused by tie cables etc... But around here, they dug the trenches and the hole, laid a concrete base, installed the power, the cab, the trunking and ocvered with concrete. So everything else is up and running, barring tie cable ducts and routing back to the exchange.

Around here BT use several contractors, so it may well be them holding things up, but given how the estimates keep slipping, roll out going behind, the anecdotal comments from a vast number of people where BT just keep making excuses and pushing cabinets back and not telling the whole truth (see Urban Haze for an example), it seems clear that they don't have enough teams and there is actually a back log of work to complete, which a few extra teams could actually complete quicker. I really doubt that they'd be waiting around when there is actually work to do.

Simon

Location : (PCP37) 368686,304152 368688,304172 SIDE OF ** CANONBIE LEA ON GLENDINNING WAY, TELFORD, SHROPSHIRE, *** ***
Description : Install 16m of 1 way poly duct in Footway,Install 4m of 1 way poly duct in Verge,Provide 1 Provide/Recover 1 NGA Cab and base (1.5m x 0.5m)

^^ this work had been completed today, nice new Huawei FTTC cab - 288 max

In reply to a post by sjdean:

I would be surprised if it wasn't a serious case of tree roots given the location of the BT boxes to the trees, and with cable tv being installed many years ago, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a lot of trunking issues.

That's fine though, that's not the point, Im appreciative there are issues.

And Im not suggesting the fibre teams wait around in an area until the blockages have been cleared.

Duct damage can occur for many reasons. The area where I live was a green field development in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The BT ducts were installed when the estate was built. Since then, Virgin (and their predecessor companies CableTel and ntl: ) have deployed a cable network and Anglian Water (and their contractors) have retrofitted water meters. I'm sure these major programmes of work and routine minor works by the various utilities have damaged some of the BT ducts, though I have no inside knowledge of the problems that BT Openreach and their contractors found during the FTTC deployment. Ground heave may well be an additional problem in this area - we're on clay that shrinks considerably when dry. As you say, tree roots are always a risk to any sort of underground pipe or duct.

The only way to find some problems is by attempting to install a new run through the duct. You hope to succeed first time, but there's a myriad of reasons why you might not. Any duct blockage or collapse could be easily remedied, might be in a nightmare location under a road surrounded by other pipes and cables, or somewhere that is even more of a nightmare (along a live railway, underground where access has become impossible and a new route must be found, through Ministry of Defence property, etc.).


It may well be that the best approach is to build a small amount of contingency for easily remedied faults into your initial programme, but leave any more intractable issues for subsequent targeted work. Using this approach, you have no idea what will be in the follow-up programme until the initial programme starts throwing up problems, then there's likely to be a lead time before follow-up activities commence. Though I have no inside knowledge, this seems to be the approach BT Openreach are using for the FTTC deployment.

In reply to a post by sjdean:

But it would be nice if BT would schedule enough time to fibre upgrade the entire area, then the Cabinets that do have problems can be located and the issues passed to whoever it needs to be passed to earlier and road work teams scheduled much earlier.

People do keep saying delays are caused by power, delays are caused by tie cables etc... But around here, they dug the trenches and the hole, laid a concrete base, installed the power, the cab, the trunking and ocvered with concrete. So everything else is up and running, barring tie cable ducts and routing back to the exchange.

You're just not getting it, are you?

If BT Openreach did all the fibre network work first, you'd know there were no further delays there. However, this would do nothing to change the delay you are currently facing, because a realistic date was set, and it turned out to be unachievable due to unforeseen issues.

The only way Openreach could have hit the target date despite unforeseen problems is to pad the target date (and all other target dates). This slows down the overall project and creates the risk of teams standing idle because they've finished the planned work without needing all the contingency time, and their next planned job doesn't start for a while.


Padding the target dates as you suggest wouldn't help you. The delay you're complaining about would have been incorporated into the original target date in this scenario.

An alternative would be to continue setting reasonable target dates internally, but adding a huge amount of padding to public dates. This is, in effect, what has now happened. People wanted information, so BT Openreach made it available. Some people complained when these best effort dates were missed, so they were all padded out to the end of commercial deployment. People then complained their cabinet / exchange had been delayed. The internal programme remained unchanged, but it was now too risky to publicise accurate information.


By holding back all the other work (foundations for the cabinet, putting the cabinet in place, providing power, installing duct for the tie cable, any necessary remedial work to the PCP, installing the tie cable) until the fibre network is complete and working, as you suggest, means any delays that arose from any of those steps would be added to any fibre network delays. In other words, the delays will be consecutive and therefore cumulative, rather than overlapping to some extent.

By overlapping the work to the greatest possible extent, you minimise the overall delay. If you don't believe me, sketch out some Gantt charts and add in delay to one or more steps in different dependency scenarios. Imposing the constraint that no other work takes place until the fibre network is complete can never reduce the overall delay, but can only increase it.


Moreover, without doing all the other works, how are you going to prove the fibre network is functional? If you don't have the cabinet base installed and the duct to the aggregation node in place, you'll have to go back later, open up the fibre manifold that contains the aggregation node, and fuse the fibres to the cabinet to the aggregation node fibres. Until you've done this (which involves a tiny but non-zero risk of damaging the work you've already done) and connected a device to the cabinet fibres, you can't be certain all is working.

The fusion splicer gives an indication of the quality of the splice, but you can always be unlucky enough to damage the fibre after splicing, or it may already have been damaged elsewhere. If you find B4RN's YouTube video about their broken fibre, you'll see a graphic example of the sort of weird fibre fault that happens sometimes. That fault could just as easily have happened in an urban location.

In reply to a post by sjdean:

Around here BT use several contractors, so it may well be them holding things up, but given how the estimates keep slipping, roll out going behind, the anecdotal comments from a vast number of people where BT just keep making excuses and pushing cabinets back and not telling the whole truth (see Urban Haze for an example), it seems clear that they don't have enough teams and there is actually a back log of work to complete, which a few extra teams could actually complete quicker. I really doubt that they'd be waiting around when there is actually work to do.

You can always throw more resources at a project, but whether it's cost-effective to do so is another question entirely.

BT Openreach can't afford to have teams sat around doing nothing just in case a problem arises. Both Openreach and their contractors can't find and stand down teams at will - you are making a considerable commitment to bring a team together, train and equip them.

Obviously, there is some degree of flexibility, as BT Openreach will be able to bring in some resources from contractors on a short term basis. The use of well-managed contractors helps rather than hinders a complex project, as it gives you additional flexibility.


The premium you pay for engaging contractors on a short term basis is often not worthwhile, especially for edge of network problems. The brutal commercial reality is that it's likely much cheaper to slip a string of six cabinets for 3-6 months until a planned return can be made than to throw spot hired resources at it. Commercial deployment is 'best effort' work, with no penalty for missing or slipping a deadline other than the relatively small loss of not opening for business earlier. I believe BT Openreach are working on a 15 year payback for GEA-FTTx, so losing the rental on a relatively small number of ports for a few months is fairly small change overall.

The economics would be rather different if you'd lost a backbone link to a fibre break, but in that case, Openreach would probably move resources from lower priority work.


It's a matter of opinion how transparent you believe Openreach to have been about the commercial deployment and any delays. Typically, they have been far more candid and open than I would have expected, though there have undoubtedly been exceptions. I expect the degree of openness depends in no small part on the local managers.

Now that Openreach's candour has been used against them and their ISP customers via the ASA decision, it would be no surprise if Openreach clammed up completely about the remaining commercial deployment.

In reply to a post by sjdean:

From a business point of view, it makes sens to focus on higher capacity areas that could sign up more people, in other words, what is financially more rewarding.

Normally yeah, but I don't think OR are doing that in this instance, with it being externally funded (with whatever requirements and contract details are agreed as part of that).

Otherwise our area probably wouldn't have been done at all, let alone having ended up one of the first of the Connecting Cumbria scheme - most people around here still think that a "broad band" is something to do with female musicians, and even half of the technically minded people I've spoken to have questioned whether they're bothered seeing as ADSL is fast enough for what they do already. I consider us very fortunate and if it was entirely commercially driven with emphasis on the highest revenue generating areas and none of the pressure from local government, councils and businesses, we probably would be looking to 2020 or beyond.

There's two deployments going on at the moment.

The commercial deployment is funded entirely by BT Openreach. This phase of deployment has almost finished, with the final work due to be completed by the end of May 2014. BT Openreach are targeting this deployment wherever they believe they will maximise their return on investment, and have complete discretion over where to cover and by what date. My understanding is that sjdean's cabinet is a commercial one.

The Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) projects, such as Connecting Cumbria, are part funded by public money. The BDUK contract binds the winning bidder to cover an agreed area by agreed deadlines. So far, BT Openreach have won the BDUK contract in every area, and they're the only organisation bidding for the remaining areas after Fujitsu dropped out.

Ah I see, in that case he'd be right, it'll be a lot more heavily based on profitable places to activate first.

In reply to a post by David_W:

The only way to find some problems is by attempting to install a new run through the duct..

I'll bear that in mind for the next contradiction....

In reply to a post by David_W:

You're just not getting it, are you?

If BT Openreach did all the fibre network work first, you'd know there were no further delays there. However, this would do nothing to change the delay you are currently facing, because a realistic date was set, and it turned out to be unachievable due to unforeseen issues.

The only way Openreach could have hit the target date

You're just not geting it are you?

Im not bothered about the delay or target dates not being hit for problems. What I want to see though is a speedy resolution with appropriate prioritisation,

So the only way to see if there are ducting problems is to attempt to run the fibre (or perhaps run a camera or rod). Trouble is, that initial phase is taking longer than the estimated activation date - even for cabs without problems.

This either suggests BT is not allowing enough time for cabs that aren't even problematic, or BT aren't doing the cabs together sweeping across the region and they are just doing in dribs and drabs.

If they had tried to fibre earlier as part of the initial install, any issues could have been found and reported earlier.

In reply to a post by David_W:

By holding back all the other work (foundations for the cabinet, putting the cabinet in place, providing power, installing duct for the tie cable, any necessary remedial work to the PCP, installing the tie cable) until the fibre network is complete and working, as you suggest,

Bored now. Why am I constantly being misquoted? I didn't suggest any such thing. I was saying Im tired of people telling me what could be wrong with my cabinet based on what happens with theirs "it could be power, it could be this, it could be the cab is on a green field site from the 70's..." errr, no.... I know my area having lived here 35 years.

BT did the cabinet install differently for us, so when someone quotes power as being an issue, I realise the other person doesn't know what they're talking about.

So I know the majority of those things aren't the issue and can have a reasonable expectation as to what the issues are.

Based on other cabinets in the roll out, if they can fix a problem on Cab 16 within two weeks of install, why have they only just got around to trying the fibre to my particular cabinet? Why longer than two weeks? Forgetting my cabinet, why is it going to take two months longer to activate the cabinet half a mile down the road from Cabinet 14?

Because it's not a priority like those first ten were.

Im happy to accept that it's a priority based system, but don't pretend it's just a ducting issue which is going to take three months to resolve. It is a ducting issue, but they don't want to deal with it yet.

snip rest of stuff retorting the suggestion I didn't actually make.

Oh by the way, the other comment I had made from earlier, if the FTTC system was made in to some kind of tick box system about each stage and engineers could apply a line or two of generic comments about problems/issues/solutions/status on the problems per cabinet to be fed back on the FTTC dsl checker, they could cut out half the emails to OpenReach asking what's happening with their cabinet and people would get more information and a realistic idea of what's happening.

You've had a lot of patient explanation about why your views about prioritisation and resolution of problems likely differs from BT Openreach's approach. You've also had posters, some of whom are far better informed than I, trying to explain the issues - and yet you carry on with your clearly uninformed comments. I'd like to see you get a rod around a typical duct. The duct is very unlikely to be a perfectly straight piece of pipe, and even if it is, adding a potentially difficult to retrieve solid object to any existing blockage seems likely to makes any problem more intractable. How, precisely, are you planning to get a rod to the point of blockage anyway?

One of the vendors BT Openreach uses for the fibre network is Emtelle - there's confirmation on Emtelle's web site. I believe BT Openreach are using Emtelle's Direct Install system - traditional winch-based techniques to get the tubing into the ducts, then blow in the fibres. I have no idea whether Emtelle's is the only or even the predominant system that BT Openreach are using, but this will give you some sort of idea what is involved.


There is an unavoidable link between target dates, resource allocation and resolution of problems - but BT Openreach are wrestling with these issues not on a cabinet by cabinet basis, so much as on a whole project basis across a multi-year, multi-billion pound project. Roll-out issues affecting a handful of cabinets are but a tiny blip in the overall scheme.

BT Openreach's preferred strategy for the commercial roll-out seems to be to persevere with the programme in an area up to a point, then slip any unfinished cabinets down the programme to allow time to plan and subsequently deliver the necessary remedial works. This is interpreted by you and by others as Openreach walking off a part-completed job, but in terms of keeping expensive resources fully utilised and maximising overall progress, it's likely to be a good strategy. Ploughing on in the face of difficulties may well be less efficient at getting the remaining work done than planning the job over again in the light of the known problems.


You're continuing to make comments along the lines of (and I paraphrase) "this cabinet's issues were resolved in 2 weeks, so this nearby one taking 2 months means it's not a priority". The truth is that all you can do is speculate about the reasons, because you have, at best, a small amount of information you've gleaned about the sort of issues that arose during the works to date. Without a comprehensive insight into the problems found, the status and routing of the local network ducts, and the strategies that have been tried already and that are planned, you have no way of forming any sort of informed judgment about the reasonableness or otherwise of the decisions that have been made.

I cannot see how you've concluded that delays to two different cabinets that seemingly lacked a single common cause (otherwise resolving that problem would have allowed both cabinets to proceed) means ten completed cabinets were a priority and the others aren't. Are you suggesting that certain cabinets are 'throw all available resources at these, they matter' and others are 'am I bovvered?'. (Forgive me, but I'm stuck with a mental image of the bad cabinets being sent to the naughty step for a while). Priority in a project of this magnitude and complexity seems likely to be finely grained, and linked to planning factors such as efficient use of available resources and controlling overspend.

You can continue to try micro-managing Openreach's project here for them if you like, but I can't see what it achieves.


If your cabinet is indeed in the commercial roll-out, it's up to Openreach when and if they finish it. You have no leverage over them as a potential customer, via an ISP, for a single port (for which BT Openreach will charge the ISP £119.40 ex VAT per year for the wholesale 80/20 FTTC product).


I'm going to leave it there, other than to endorse the final paragraph of MCM's recent post.

Edited by deleted (Tue 08-Oct-13 02:42:43)

BT had completed installed FTTC cabinet last week. Can hear the fan. But why is taking so long to wait until end of March 2014.

http://postimg.org/image/mkfp3rcf7/

You could read one of the other 3,000 posts on here that mention this kind of situation. Would be a great place to start.

There's every chance you'll get it sooner. Ours said 31st December but we just got it installed today.

Incidentally the engineer said we managed to be the first in our town (pop 12000) to get connected

In reply to a post by LakesGeek:

There's every chance you'll get it sooner. Ours said 31st December but we just got it installed today.

As I explained earlier in the thread, most if not all of the remaining commercial deployment dates were set to the end of the commercial deployment following the upheld Advertising Standards Agency complaint. Unfortunately, the inability of some people to accept the dates were not a promise but a 'best effort' indication subject to change means BT Openreach and their customers are now very conservative on the dates they quote.

If you are waiting for a cabinet to be enabled, you can get a nice surprise when it is enabled earlier than expected. BT Openreach don't wait for an arbitrary date - if a deployed cabinet has completed its commissioning tests, they start accepting orders fairly quickly.

Oh I know and I saw, I've been keeping track of it all. In a way it's nice that they offer conservative estimates as it makes a refreshing change from the optimism most companies go with for everything. "Up to 8MB", "Unlimited", Apple's infamous "Available by Fall" (meaning the last day before Winter), hard drive capacity stated in unformatted base-10 gigabytes to inflate the numbers, etc etc. It's quite pleasant to be told "up to 59" and find you're getting a constant 62, and "by 31st December" and see it go live in the first half of October. As long as people don't always expect "sooner and faster than predicted".

Did someone from Openreach tell you it was completed?

In reply to a post by Ribble:

Did someone from Openreach tell you it was completed?

Jiust email openreach NGA waiting for a reply.

Probably waiting commissioning

I am bit surprise it went LIVE today by Little Wenlock who are being left out of BT FTTC. http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2013/10/15/shrops...

Ground work has started on the cabinets around here this week - including mine, Cab 12.

Exciting times.

Edited by wolvesmad (Thu 17-Oct-13 11:27:06)

In reply to a post by wolvesmad:

Ground work has started on the cabinets around here this week - including mine, Cab 12.

Exciting times.

Your exchange still future exchange plan for end of 2014 say BT Openreach - don't get yourself hope up too high. The cabinet could staying there from now until end of 2014 because the Hollinswood exchange isn't FTTC enabled yet until late 2014.

There is no metion of PCP12 on roadwork.org. Only the PCP19 (Dale Acre Way, Hollinswood)

Edited by adslmax (Thu 17-Oct-13 14:58:31)

Date : Oct14-Oct25
Location : PCP12)
Description: Install 10m of 2 poly ducts in Verge,Provide 1 Provide/Recover 1 NGA Cab and ...
More
Current status: Work in progress


Tried the BT checker and it says between December 2013 and May 2014 for FTTC

Edited by wolvesmad (Thu 17-Oct-13 16:06:54)

Lucky you wolvesmad.

Mine still not on roadwork.org and BT Checker (telephone and address) still showing no sign of FTTC nor no dates (nothing)

Don't think my area won't be getting now but it so strange of why did openreach layed fibre optic on the footpath 4 weeks ago. http://postimg.org/image/orkt6w337/ as openreach man told me that I will getting FTTC by November 2013. But openreach nga email me say it still waiting for wayleave premission and might not be planned until 2014 March now.

I had checked roadwork.org for today, next two weeks and next 12 months. Still nothing. Disappointed as I feel wayleave premission might be rejected.

Edited by adslmax (Thu 17-Oct-13 16:36:36)

In reply to a post by wolvesmad:

Tried the BT checker and it says between December 2013 and May 2014 for FTTC

what speed estimated does it say?

You've cable and have claimed that Virgin Media are better than Openreach so it's all good surely?

The world's smallest violin is playing just for you. I thought I was bad but I moan less and I'm stuck on unstable (dropped 10 times today) less than 2Mb ADSL...

Yes but I need up to 20Meg upload thought. For video upload to youtubes, fb and google+ more quickly. But, virgin media only had up to 12Meg. I hope Virgin Media hurry up bring out 200/20 then I don't need BT FTTC.

Edited by adslmax (Thu 17-Oct-13 19:40:08)

Once you can get it buy a dual WAN loud balancing router and you're golden.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

Once you can get it buy a dual WAN loud balancing router and you're golden.

or get both bt lines with 2 x FTTC bonded together 160/40

Yup, or pay for a dedicated leased line with an SLA if 2.5Mb doesn't serve your extremely important Facebooking and YouTubing needs adequately.

I think what you're after is lower latency and ping times, as opposed to 100 times the bandwidth that you actually need. Once you get past about 15Mb/sec, assuming that you're not FTPing massive files in order to keep your job, that amount of bandwidth is fine. Again, what you then need to look into is stability of connection and/or ping times. A 30 second video, even in 1080p, of some bloke "reacting" to another YouTube clip, doesn't require a 200Mb line. Neither does updating your Facebook page to tell everyone what you had for dinner. If you're streaming films or telly (legally of course...) just plan ahead and download it all before you start watching it - that way it won't matter if your ISP is providing you with a 14.4Kb sevice when you actually sit down to watch it. Still no excuse for your ISP to provide you with an appalling service of course, and I would definitely complain to them (not here), but at least you get to sit down and watch your thing.

One last thing which is most probably irrelevant: What spec PC are you using? Anything pre-Core 2 wasn't really designed for stereaming/decoding and rendering video which maxes out a 16 Mb/sec connection, whilst you're Facebooking and doing whatever else in other tabs at the same time. "Netburst architecture" sounds brilliant but... well, it was rubbish, and its name bore no resemblance to its capabilities.

Edited by deleted (Fri 18-Oct-13 05:57:48)

61 down 20 up.

I'm not far from the cab at all. It will be a massive improvement from 6mb.

Quite lots of Cabinets going round the Hollinswood according roadwork.org but still nothing in my area

U should get around 70/18 max (wolvesmad)

Hopefully. Hoping i've got a decent D side bit of copper that doesn't go all the way around The Wrekin before getting to my house.

If the cabinet go plan well, then had to wait for your exchange to enabled FTTC in late May 2014 and then another wait for all final testing from cabinet to exchange eg: power, connection etc then after that another final step for wholesale to change LIVE on the ADSL checker. And another 4 weeks of activated FTTC pre-order. So, u probably look around nov to dec 2014.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

If the cabinet go plan well, then had to wait for your exchange to enabled FTTC in late May 2014 and then another wait for all final testing from cabinet to exchange eg: power, connection etc then after that another final step for wholesale to change LIVE on the ADSL checker. And another 4 weeks of activated FTTC pre-order. So, u probably look around nov to dec 2014.

Did you roll a dice to get those dates or are you just sulky because Openreach have dared to delay your cabinet so you're stuck with a mere 120Mb down, 12Mb up?

Ignore the above Wolvesmad it's complete nonsense. The exchange will be live early, your cabinet will probably be one of those that is live when the exchange is marked RFS, and Nov to Dec 2013 is closer than Nov to Dec 2014.

Incorrect. The cabinet cannot go LIVE until the exchange is enabled first. His exchange isn't FTTC enabled yet.

Actually exchanges are marked as live when they have a certain number of enabled cabinets on them. Quite difficult to enable cabinets and trigger an exchange as ready for service if you don't enable cabinets until the exchange is ready for service.

The exchange work is relatively painless compared with the work done in the field.

The cabinets here probably go to a larger exchange.

Good to see you pay attention to the posts in the forum though.

Which is what I tried explaining to David_W (I think it is) that it seems strange BT can throw all available resources at X number of cabinets and then fail to complete the rest with the same gusto.

I know there's problems, but flames, if BT worked with that same pace....

My theory is that although there may well be problems with ducts and trunking and whatnot, that is only part of the problem. The other thing is that BT simply are not interested in enabling (or even trying to enable) all the cabinets in an Exchange area all in one go.

I think they're prioritising on max yield and getting most number of Exchanges live and fill in the blanks later.

Either 1) They should have found out about the problematic cabinets at the time of their physical installation then - as they're doing in Kingstanding Solihull (ie for me this would have been found out end of July), or 2) they would have found out about the problems as part of the fibre roll out (it's not unfeasible to think that activating an area for fibre means enabling every good cabinet and coming back later for the rest - which would have been towards the middle of September), or 3) They're only interesting in enabling X cabinets, and the lack of progress is because my cab is one of the last on the list to activate, they've only just got around to finding the problems at the start of September and it will take several more months to plan and only a day to fix (I suspect).

It's not unreasonable to be miffed about this.

From the perspective of my cabinet which bears no resemblence to wolvesmad.... What gets people frustrated isn't the delay, but the delay knowing that it's delayed just because there's no one working on it, there's not even any signs so far that it'll be worked on over the next month. I've heard so many stories about BT reporting planning permission issues, and the council are unaware that they've even applied for planning permission. Which in my line of work is just classic, we've got a lot of work and your cabinet isn't priority. Well that's fine, but you probably shouldn't have scheduled it for the end of September, and you shouldn't have it scheduled for December 2013 when even NGA say that it won't be ready until January 2014 at the earliest.

The OpenReach guy I spoke to a few days ago who knows the area raised his eyebrow himself when I said there would be a four month delay on Cab 13 in my area. He thinks it's a very simple problem. Time will tell, but I can say there's been no work on my cabinet in three months.

We have a reasonable expectation that if things are scheduled for September 2013, that things should be ready for September 2013, a few days, a couple of weeks out, understandable. But I think most normal people have a reasonable expectation that if there is a problem, they'll be working to fix the issue, escalation, planning, permission, scheduling, site survery, roadworks notices, roadworks, call back the fibre people in at least some kind of queue basis. We have a reasonable expectation that if it's delayed to January 2014, that it's because there is some major work that needs to be completed, and not just a case that that it's only going to take a couple of days to do work but they can't get around to it for two months, then the fibre four weeks later, and commissioning six weeks after that....

And I think it debatable whether BT should claim an Exchange is Accepting orders. Maybe Ofcom could force them to do a %age complete based on number of cabinets....

Edited by deleted (Sat 19-Oct-13 16:52:24)

In reply to a post by sjdean:

And I think it debatable whether BT should claim an Exchange is Accepting orders. Maybe Ofcom could force them to do a %age complete based on number of cabinets....

No real point. BT's progress is measured by the homes they pass with enabled cabinets not exchanges.

If your cabinet is in the commercial roll-out, it's entirely up to Openreach what they do and when - there's no contractual nor regulatory requirement to stick to the original plans. By all accounts, you'd be happier if they'd planned your cabinet for 2023. When they're early, you'd be delighted.

I know you're frustrated, but it clearly didn't make sense for Openreach to stay working on the ground on the remaining cabinets in your area, otherwise they would have stayed on the job. As you said yourself, they're prioritising work based on maximising coverage, but, as Ignitionnet says, it's number of cabinets enabled and number of homes passed that are the primary metrics, not number of exchanges with some cabinets enabled (or all the planned cabinets enabled).


Your continuous speculation about the residual work doesn't help anyone. Unless you have inside knowledge, it's mere assertion - and if you did have inside knowledge, you would have surely posted that by now. Talking to the staff on the ground may give you an idea, but they don't necessarily know everything about what is going on.

On what basis - other than mere assertion - do you suspect it's a single day fix that's months in the planning? How will you know it was a single day fix when the cabinet is enabled? What does it matter anyway?


As I said earlier, it's people complaining about dates being missed that has led to many of the public dates becoming heavily padded. The project is proceeding at the same pace as before - just without the same level of public insight. Even before the adverse ASA decision, some of the dates were missed, sometimes by several times.


The end point that you care about is your cabinet being ready for service - unless you're following up on your earlier threat to boycott it. It's overwhelmingly likely it will come soon - but when is impossible to predict when without inside knowledge.

In an ideal world, the whole country would have FTTP today. With the limited resources available, Openreach have to do what they can to make the best of every available pound, which means gradual roll-out and most areas getting FTTC.

I agree with sjdean. Ofcom might do something about it. Because one of my friend had FTTC cabinet and BT Checker say FTTC available and he had contact his isp and the isp told him that BT Wholesales rejected the order because the exchange isn't FTTC accepted yet. A few week later the BT Checker change from Available to March 2014. No wonder my friend is so angry and wonder why BT mess us around.

Edited by adslmax (Sun 20-Oct-13 00:49:13)

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I agree with sjdean. Ofcom might do something about it.

Why would they? Proposed roll-out dates for FTTx are not a regulatory matter. The commercial roll-out is being done at BT Openreach's sole commercial discretion. Ofcom have no power to issue directions to BT Openreach to roll out a particular FTTC cabinet by a particular date.


This is not the first time you've suggested in these forums that an individual takes a complaint to Ofcom that Ofcom lack the power to deal with, adslmax. As Ofcom's own site makes clear, Ofcom do not have the power to investigate individual complaints, though they do have a customer contact team to maintain surveillance for issues requiring their attention.

The principal duties of Ofcom are found in s. 3 Communications Act 2003 (I've no idea how legislation.gov.uk has managed to come up with a prospective version - this section was commenced in its entirety on 29 December 2003; there is a section 6A not appearing in this text that was inserted by a subsequent amendment and has also been commenced, but that relates solely to postal services).

Suggest we take a breath here - the cabinet enablement and exchange end are being done by Openreach, the ability for any CP to use that and sell a service to a customer is in the hands of the CP who has other equipment and configuration activities before the end-user can order

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I agree with sjdean. Ofcom might do something about it. Because one of my friend had FTTC cabinet and BT Checker say FTTC available and he had contact his isp and the isp told him that BT Wholesales rejected the order because the exchange isn't FTTC accepted yet. A few week later the BT Checker change from Available to March 2014. No wonder my friend is so angry and wonder why BT mess us around.

orders can happen before an exchange is marked as AO.

I was installed and running whilst my exchange was CS.

Thought that seemed rather steep so fingers crossed Igitionnet. The lines around here are dire. They are only doing 4 cabs on this exchange initially.

I was shocked to see them doing the ground work on Saturday morning.

In reply to a post by wolvesmad:

I was shocked to see them doing the ground work on Saturday morning.

I see BT Openreach working on the sunday too in Madeley area (cabinet)

One week ago cabinet 18 in Market Drayton, Shropshire was marked as available 31st May 14 on https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/main.html however during this weekend I checked again and found that it is available now.

This morning on the xilo/uno availablity checker Exchange: Market Drayton(WNMD) has fibre available on my number, estimated downstream speed is 67Mbps which is close to the btwholesale checker figure of 68.2Mbps

Cabinet has now been installed. Looks like an Huwaei 288 line cab.

In reply to a post by wolvesmad:

Cabinet has now been installed. Looks like an Huwaei 288 line cab.

any photo please?

I'll try and get one when I take the dog out later but it's identical to this :-

Cab

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

orders can happen before an exchange is marked as AO.

I was installed and running whilst my exchange was CS.

I can confirm this as well. Openreach "Where and When" for LCULV still says CS 31/12/13 at this very moment, and we've had FTTC installed and running in the house for a week

Then the BT official When & Where plus Wholesale Checker is a waste of time if it doesn't updated in time.

I also notice Telford bring in lots of Huwaei 288 line cabinets.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Then the BT official When & Where plus Wholesale Checker is a waste of time if it doesn't updated in time.

I also notice Telford bring in lots of Huwaei 288 line cabinets.

The exchange is marked as RFS when a certain number of cabinets are live, not as soon as the first one goes live. It's a balancing act between annoying people due to 500 premises on a 30,000 premises exchange being able to receive and giving information late.

The wholesale checker carries the appropriate information. The Microsite is not authoritative.

Yeah I can see why they wouldn't mark ours as live yet - it's mostly the outskirts that are enabled, most of the actual town centre still has inactive cabs!

There are actually 10, which is a number I saw bandied around somewhere for an exchange to be marked as live, but it must be a more manual process.

My cab enable date is now Nov 30th

Really looking forward to moving over to FTTC.

Excellent news; I hope it all goes smoothly and you get an early Christmas present

Cheers, fingers crossed!

In reply to a post by wolvesmad:

My cab enable date is now Nov 30th

Really looking forward to moving over to FTTC.

That's not fair! My exchange was first enabled FTTC and was promised that I will get it first before hollinswood and still no cabinet installing yet! Grrrr! BT are useless and liar. But congratulations wolvesmad getting it first. I am going to complaint to BBC Watchdog about BT.

Edited by adslmax (Mon 04-Nov-13 19:23:18)

In reply to a post by wolvesmad:

My cab enable date is now Nov 30th

Really looking forward to moving over to FTTC.

You can placed an order now for installation date Dec 1st. As if you order after Nov 30th - you might not getting FTTC until after xmas because BT are very busy nearby xmas period,

In reply to a post by adslmax:

You can placed an order now for installation date Dec 1st. As if you order after Nov 30th - you might not getting FTTC until after xmas because BT are very busy nearby xmas period,

Nope. Openreach won't accept the order until the cabinet is live.

Yep BT won't let me place an order.

So u won't get it by the time by xmas then. Probably after xmas now.

Wow you know the lead time on FTTC installs in his area and that they're considerably longer than normal?

That's pretty cool.

He did say Probably, which could well be a fair estimate. Around my neck of the woods, they seem to be taking six weeks to activate a cabinet after all other work is completed. At least that's the indication I got from NGA, so the November date given for this cabinet may well actually end up being pushed back to December and activated half way through December.

But that's a probably. Wouldn't be a surprising probably.

I'll be checking my BT Broadband control panel every day from the 25th onwards to see if it will let me order.

They've only done 4 cabs on this exchange, all of which have now been installed. Hopefully they flick the switches early.

2 to 6 weeks, they keep it conservative.

The guy received an estimate for RFS of the end of this month a few days ago. Given how close that date is to now you'd assume it comes with a fair degree of accuracy.

Given said poster claimed you could order before the cabinet was marked as RFS, and previously that wolvesmad would be waiting until spring of 2014 for the cabinet to be RFS, it's pretty generous giving him credit for fair estimates.

In reply to a post by wolvesmad:

I'll be checking my BT Broadband control panel every day from the 25th onwards to see if it will let me order.

They've only done 4 cabs on this exchange, all of which have now been installed. Hopefully they flick the switches early.

The cabinet could be live by Nov 30th and it might stay live until end of May 2014 when your bt checker might change to accepting order. I know BT are there to fool you and frustrated you.

I don't think your cabinet isn't live until May 2014.

If they are saying it is going to be enabled 'by November 30th' there is no way they are going to wait until May.

The exchange is ready to go according to my Openreach source.

Ignore him. Posting junk on here appears to be one of the hobbies that clearly make his life so rich, full and complete.

It's fun up to a point to answer, if for nothing else to ensure the junk gets challenged as someone who isn't aware may believe it, then gets old really quickly.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

The cabinet could be live by Nov 30th and it might stay live until end of May 2014 when your bt checker might change to accepting order.

There is no way to parse that sensibly.

Paraphrasing what you wrote, the cabinet might be live by the given date, and it might then stay live until the projected end date of the commercial roll-out, at which point presumably it self-destructs. Meanwhile, the date the cabinet turns live on the checker is entirely random.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I know BT are there to fool you and frustrated you.

Openreach are there to provide a service. Sometimes their best effort dates turn out to be unrealistic due to previously unknown problems, and they have to revise their dates. It sounds like wolvesmad's cabinet has slipped slightly. Openreach often put the public target date back a month on a small slippage, but this extra month is often worst case and the cabinet may well be enabled earlier than 30 November.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I don't think your cabinet isn't live until May 2014.

Removing the double negative, this says "I think your cabinet is live until May 2014". We'd better watch out for bombs or other destructive devices attached to the cabinet at the end of May, then, when Openreach are ready to blow up their expensive asset.


Much of the time you post inaccurate rubbish, which takes other people's time posting corrections. This time, you seem to have gone for posting surrealist rubbish.

BTO installed cabinet there four weeks ago. Last week it was estimated to go live 30th Nov 2013 and now it changed to available now even thought one of my mate live there, he try to order it as it say it not available until late 2014 say his ISP as they say BT Wholesale checker is misleading.

http://s5.postimg.org/lzzdvz5ev/Untitled.jpg

Edited by adslmax (Wed 06-Nov-13 14:00:26)

If the BT Wholesale checker says the cabinet is enabled, it is almost certainly accepting orders from any ISP using BT Wholesale.

There may be a delay for those ISPs who use non-BT Wholesale backhaul because the backhaul network or the necessary GEA Cablelink is not yet in place. The ISPs potentially affected by this are Sky, TalkTalk and, in some cases, Zen (though Zen use BT Wholesale in locations where they lack presence).

That cabinet is live so must down to their ISP. If its Sky, TAlkTalk or Zen , they may use their own network so may have different availability dates to BTwholesale

His isp is Sky. As Sky told him FTTC not available until late 2014.

I think BT Wholesale should have including a full list of the isp's who willing to accepting orders on this checker.

Edited by adslmax (Wed 06-Nov-13 14:53:11)

Just tried TF7 5RL in the BT Retail checker Adslmax and it will allow me to place an order for infinity.

Bit tricky as their are so many, some have a number of resellers that are not direct BT wholesale customers, and some May use a mix of BT wholesale and their own/ another providers network according to their own commercial practices.

Wolvesmad your bt checker could be changed to available now anytime now, U have to keep checking every days. I be surprise it available now.

I'll keep checking it daily I think.

In reply to a post by wolvesmad:

I'll keep checking it daily I think.

Wish that BT Wholesale checker had option there to add your email address to alert u of any change in their database.

I setup a webpage watcher service, using a url with my phone number, every time there was a change in the results I would get an email, so I knew straight away, well within a few hours of it going live.

I think someone posted instructions on here, and I certainly have.

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

I setup a webpage watcher service, using a url with my phone number, every time there was a change in the results I would get an email, so I knew straight away, well within a few hours of it going live.

I think someone posted instructions on here, and I certainly have.

How to get it? Is this the one? http://www.aignes.com/index.htm

Edited by adslmax (Wed 06-Nov-13 15:51:38)

This is pretty good to alert u http://www.cable.co.uk/tools/availability/

Possibly if you don't mind giving your address to some unknown website!

The URL I use is http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/pls/adsl/ADSLChecker.Te...

It only works with non LLU phone lines, and I've changed the number (you'll need to substitute 01234567890 for your number), you'll need to google for a web watcher service. I'm sure with you're knowledge you can do that

Edited by R0NSKI (Wed 06-Nov-13 16:05:45)

The idea is that you use the availability checker of your intended ISP, which will check for the availability of all necessary infrastructure. Most ISPs use BT Wholesale - it's only a handful that don't, though the two main exceptions, Sky and TalkTalk, are two of the largest ISPs.

The BT Wholesale checker is there as a service to the wider community. If it highlighted customer ISPs, that could be seen as BT Group favouring BT Wholesale based ISPs over non-BT Wholesale ISPs who take services directly from Openreach, which could give rise to regulatory issues. It is possible for an company using BT Wholesale WBC only to cover a limited geographic area, depending on which BT Wholesale nodes they choose to connect to, though this is more likely to apply to companies contracting directly with BT Wholesale to provide home service to their employees in a limited geographic area than an ISP serving the general public.

What the different between these two sites by BT. I checked both sites and it appear the same, no difference. The dslchecker is no padlock security but BTWholesale checker had padlock on it (high security)

http://www.dslchecker.bt.com

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

Edited by adslmax (Wed 06-Nov-13 16:11:40)

Here is showing same post code TF7 5RL but one say available now and other one say 31 Mar 2014. Rather strange.

http://s5.postimg.org/b1o4dsgtj/Fibre_Checker.jpg

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Here is showing same post code TF7 5RL but one say available now and other one say 31 Mar 2014. Rather strange.

The postcode based checker has always been unreliable for FTTx, as it doesn't cope gracefully with postcodes where there are multiple possible routings (two different PCPs or some EO lines).

When using the BT Wholesale checker, you should use the phone number of the line in question if it's a BT Wholesale line. If there is no existing BT Wholesale line, use the address based checker.

In reply to a post by David_W:

In reply to a post by adslmax:

The cabinet could be live by Nov 30th and it might stay live until end of May 2014 when your bt checker might change to accepting order.

There is no way to parse that sensibly.

Yes there is. There's no need to criticise someone who its obvious English isn't easy. I get the gist that what he means is that the cabinet could be installed and ready to go but not necessarily activated for ordering until much later in the time frame. Granted May 2014 is a bit long off, but Nov 30th and all other dates are meaningless until you see "Available".

In reply to a post by David_W:

Openreach are there to provide a service. Sometimes their best effort dates turn out to be unrealistic due to previously unknown problems, and they have to revise their dates.

Actually they're there to make a profit for the shareholders, providing a good service is one of the things that gets them the punters that pays the dividends. Of course those dates OFTEN turn out to be unrealistic not just because of problems, but because of them just not doing anything and moving onto another area to achieve headline figures.

In reply to a post by David_W:

It sounds like wolvesmad's cabinet has slipped slightly. Openreach often put the public target date back a month on a small slippage, but this extra month is often worst case and the cabinet may well be enabled earlier than 30 November.

Or it could be like one of the cabs local to me, Cab 14, small problem, put back a month, should be nearly live. 1 month on, still no activity or roadworks of any description, no action, surprise, put back another month. Still not seeing anything. Oh well, engineers elsewhere. Probably put back another month. Fingers crossed for wolvesmad, but again, 30th November means nothing if OpenReach decide engineers should be elsewhere.

In reply to a post by David_W:

Removing the double negative,

Oh dear. Correcting someones English. I really hate this on what should be a friendly internet forum. By all means, correct his factual errors....

In reply to a post by David_W:

Much of the time you post inaccurate rubbish, which takes other people's time posting corrections. This time, you seem to have gone for posting surrealist rubbish.

It's easy to tell what he means, he means he wouldn't be surprised if the cabinet wasn't activated for service until May 2014! It's not likely, but it's also not beyong the realms of imagination that wolvesmad cabinet is delayed another month or two for very little reason other than engineers are elsewhere.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

BTO installed cabinet there four weeks ago. Last week it was estimated to go live 30th Nov 2013 and now it changed to available now even thought one of my mate live there, he try to order it as it say it not available until late 2014 say his ISP as they say BT Wholesale checker is misleading.

http://s5.postimg.org/lzzdvz5ev/Untitled.jpg

Done the search by Telephone number? Or run the next doors neighbour through the telephone number checker? That's more accurate. But DSL Checker results can take a while to update at ISP's.

I am fuming furious that Openreach still doing more cabinets in Hollinswood area PCP22, PCP35 and more etc. Our area is the middle of no cabinets yet, the left and the right side had all FTTC available. I don't understand why the middle area is no FTTC cabinets yet?

It's so annoying for openreach to do other area than my area. NGA haven't reply to me for 17 days now, Bet NGA is fed up with me now. Roadwork.org for next 2 weeks, next 12 months showed no work is done by BT in my area.

Edited by adslmax (Wed 06-Nov-13 19:51:04)

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I am fuming furious that Openreach still doing more cabinets in Hollinswood area PCP22, PCP35 and more etc. Our area is the middle of no cabinets yet, the left and the right side had all FTTC available. I don't understand why the middle area is no FTTC cabinets yet?

It's so annoying for openreach to do other area than my area. NGA haven't reply to me for 17 days now, Bet NGA is fed up with me now. Roadwork.org for next 2 weeks, next 12 months showed no work is done by BT in my area.

Just because it doesn't show any activity for the next 12 months doesn't mean that it won't come up in a a couple weeks. It does happen. But yes, what you're experiencing is why I get frustrated too. It's not that Im impatient or hate waiting. Im British, I queue, I wait my turn. What I don't enjoy is being shoved to the back of the list while everyone else is taken care of first.

Like when I was in the hospital, I understood emergencies came up and delayed my procedure, but being delayed three months there again, sorry, if I was due for surgery then, i should have been due for surgery the next time, not three months later. To me it's unacceptable to say, if I can't complete the work when I originally scheduled, I'll do everything else I had scheduled first and put you to the back of the list because we can't reschedule everything else.

Which is what it sound like IMHO.

BT have been working under a tent on my cab all this afternoon. Dedication that.

I think the Hollinswood cabs are being aggressively rolled out now because the lines around here are horrendous. You can get 16mb and virgin cable Adslmax. There a lines around here on 512k and 1Mb with no Virgin Cable.

In reply to a post by wolvesmad:

BT have been working under a tent on my cab all this afternoon. Dedication that.

I think the Hollinswood cabs are being aggressively rolled out now because the lines around here are horrendous. You can get 16mb and virgin cable Adslmax. There a lines around here on 512k and 1Mb with no Virgin Cable.

Cuckoo Oak was the first FTTC by BT Wholesale as a fibre roll out lists back in Feb 2013. What annoying me is the large coverage area the left, the right, the top and the bottom all have cabinets already installed but the middle area got nothing? It doesn't make any sense to me! Right I can see Cabinets 1-7 already have FTTC and Cabinets 10-17 had it too. Why number 8 and 9 not doing?

Edited by adslmax (Wed 06-Nov-13 21:41:39)

In reply to a post by sjdean:

Just because it doesn't show any activity for the next 12 months doesn't mean that it won't come up in a a couple weeks. It does happen. But yes, what you're experiencing is why I get frustrated too. It's not that Im impatient or hate waiting. Im British, I queue, I wait my turn. What I don't enjoy is being shoved to the back of the list while everyone else is taken care of first.

Like when I was in the hospital, I understood emergencies came up and delayed my procedure, but being delayed three months there again, sorry, if I was due for surgery then, i should have been due for surgery the next time, not three months later. To me it's unacceptable to say, if I can't complete the work when I originally scheduled, I'll do everything else I had scheduled first and put you to the back of the list because we can't reschedule everything else.

Which is what it sound like IMHO.

I agree with you. It's so wrong. I had fired up email to BT Openreach liv garfield and make a formal complaints

I reckon they'll get round to them soon

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I agree with you. It's so wrong. I had fired up email to BT Openreach liv garfield and make a formal complaints

Openreach have no contractual or regulatory obligation to roll out any of the cabinets in the commercial programme, so when and where they roll out is at their sole discretion.

It's the Communications Providers who are Openreach's customers, not the CPs' end users, so there are no customer relations issues in changing the roll-out order.


As any complaint neither relates to a failure to comply with obligations, nor is about maintaining good relations with a customer, it's a waste of time writing to Openreach or Ofcom.

Openreach's commercial imperatives in the ongoing roll-out are to increase the number of homes passed as quickly as possible and to fulfil the obligations imposed by the BDUK contracts, whilst keeping their costs down. Unless a departure from the proposed roll-out plan would breach a BDUK obligation, Openreach do not mind changing the order of the roll-out plans.

I don't know why they have stalled on yours Adslmax. Maybe it's a wayleave problem?

They are still rolling out the odd cab in Wellington and Oakengates so i'm sure they will do yours.

Unfortunately with BT, it's very hard getting accurate information out of them.

Got email reply from NGA about time. They say:

Dear ************,



Thank you for your enquiry. You are connected to the Cuckoo Oak Exchange, cabinet 8.



I have been in contact with the Project Manager and he advises that work will start on the deployment of cabinet 8 in a later phase, towards the end of 2014. If all goes to plan, we are hopeful the cabinet will be ready for service November 2014, barring any complications. However we are currently negotiating a Wayleave for permission to install our plant, this may cause further delays until end of November 2014.



I suggest you continue to monitor our Web-Site which will keep you up to date with our latest deployment news for your exchange, the site also contains FAQs.



The Web-Site can be viewed using the following link:



http://www.openreach-communications.co.uk/superfast/...



I am sorry I cannot provide a definite date at this time.



Regards,

Emma

So, it been pushed back from November 2013 to November 2014 now. Not happy at all. So, why is Hollinswood got no wayleave premission and why cabinet 8 need wayleave premission for?

On the bright side after a 10 month campaign and 11 month wait, construction has started on the local cabinet here.

This will boost broadband speeds in this area from 1 - 2Mb downstream and 200-600k upstream.

Regarding your question a Google of 'wayleave' gives an Openreach page as the first response. Have a read.

Thank you for that copy/paste. While Openreach will hit their target of 66% commercial coverage by May 2014 they are clearly planning to continue with cabinets they've already decided to deploy but were unable to, which is good to know.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

So, why is Hollinswood got no wayleave premission and why cabinet 8 need wayleave premission for?

At a guess, the cable for Hollinswood doesn't cross someone else's land but the cable for Cab 8 does?

Or, possibly, the landowner involved for Cab 8 is hard to find/being difficult.

It say on this page it taken within 12 weeks but wait for a year?

How long do I have to obtain a wayleave?
We want the service to be provided as quickly as possible for the customer and end-user (i.e.: the resident or business). The sooner the wayleave application is agreed, signed and sent back to us, the sooner we can get to work. We normally only send out one reminder letter, but hope to have had a response within 12 weeks.

In reply to a post by billford:

]At a guess, the cable for Hollinswood doesn't cross someone else's land but the cable for Cab 8 does?

Or, possibly, the landowner involved for Cab 8 is hard to find/being difficult.

My cabinet 8 is sit by by owner address wall and lots of residental pathway.

http://postimg.org/image/6aqeg2n4z/
http://postimg.org/image/orkt6w337/

Maybe the owner of the house wall rejected BT cabinet there?

Edited by adslmax (Thu 07-Nov-13 13:17:46)

In reply to a post by adslmax:

It say on this page it taken within 12 weeks

No it doesn't- note the word "hope"�. (springs eternal etc etc)

I try to puzzle out why is Cabinets 1-7 already have FTTC and Cabinets 10-17 had it too. Why number 8 and 9 not doing and need wayleave? Doesn't make any sense at all?

Maybe 8 and 9 were the only two that needed wayleave? Not all cabinets need it, it depends where they are and what cable routes are intended.

Hi guys, I have a question.

I was wondering, can 1 Fibre cabinet cater for 2 normal cabinets?

The reason I was asking is that I'm on the Runcorn Main exchange and by my house we have a bus way. On one side of the bus way (2 lanes) there is a Fibre cabinet by Cabinet 25, but on the other side, there is another cabinet (Cabinet 26) with no Fibre cabinet by it. The distance between Cabinet 25 and Cabinet 26 are literally about 10 to 20 meters away from each other.

I'm on Cabinet 26 and on the checkers (BT Wholesale and Samknows.com), it is stating that it will be around May 31st when FTTC may be available in my area, yet there is no VDSL cabinet next to it, only next to Cabinet 25.

Any information or explanation would be greatly appreciated!!!

I was wondering, can 1 Fibre cabinet cater for 2 normal cabinets?

No, at least not at present. In the future, maybe.

In reply to a post by DarkKobra1977:

Hi guys, I have a question.

I was wondering, can 1 Fibre cabinet cater for 2 normal cabinets?

The reason I was asking is that I'm on the Runcorn Main exchange and by my house we have a bus way. On one side of the bus way (2 lanes) there is a Fibre cabinet by Cabinet 25, but on the other side, there is another cabinet (Cabinet 26) with no Fibre cabinet by it. The distance between Cabinet 25 and Cabinet 26 are literally about 10 to 20 meters away from each other.

I'm on Cabinet 26 and on the checkers (BT Wholesale and Samknows.com), it is stating that it will be around May 31st when FTTC may be available in my area, yet there is no VDSL cabinet next to it, only next to Cabinet 25.

Any information or explanation would be greatly appreciated!!!

I seriously don't see why it wouldn't be possible. From what I understand they it's copper lines from the premises to the PCP cabinet, and then they take a line from there to the VDSL box. Providing there is spare capacity and appropriate trunking is in place, I can't see why two cabs can't share one VDSL cab.

Having said that, we have a similar setup near here, two cabs (11 and 12 on CMSPR), a few metres apart, one VDSL cab installed (cab 12 - not yet activated), but there is another (cab 11) with planning permission for an additional VDSL cab which has not yet been installed yet. Cab 5 elsewhere on CMSPR also has planning permission, looks like that will be installed start of December. No news yet on 11, guess they're waiting to see if they can do Cab 13 yet

Could swing either way.

May is long enough away that the cabinet may appear and be connected up with time to spare.

In reply to a post by Ribble:

I was wondering, can 1 Fibre cabinet cater for 2 normal cabinets?

No, at least not at present. In the future, maybe.

Why is this though? It's only a case of taking a lead from the PCP to the fibre cab and the fibre cab takes the data off? When Fibre can be fed from another Exchange, it's kind of surprising to hear this?

The fibre cabs usually only have capacity for around 20% take-up - so running two lots of old cabs from one fibre cab makes that ratio worse.

Where take-up is high (i.e fibre cab full) they do add new cabinets, but there can be a period when a cabinet is full.

Each FTTC cab is applied a power setting according to the CAL value of the associated copper PCP to reduce the effect of crosstalk on other services running through the PCP. It's quite likely that 2 PCPs , even in close proximity will have different CALs due to different E side lengths and cable types. Therefore 2 different power settings maybe required on the same FTTC cabinet. That may not be possible , or that Openreach haven't come up with a solution to achieve it.

In reply to a post by Ribble:

Each FTTC cab is applied a power setting according to the CAL value of the associated copper PCP to reduce the effect of crosstalk on other services running through the PCP. It's quite likely that 2 PCPs , even in close proximity will have different CALs due to different E side lengths and cable types. Therefore 2 different power settings maybe required on the same FTTC cabinet. That may not be possible , or that Openreach haven't come up with a solution to achieve it.

Thanks for that. So there are technical issues why it's not possible which goes far beyond location of said cab or take up. Im presuming it would be possible to connect two PCP's to one FTTC cab if CALs, Crosstalk and Capacity weren't an issue?

Oh dear I bet you are not happy. I'm sure you'll cope on Virgin 120 for the time being - they've relaxed the traffic management now too.

Our cabs haven't needed a wayleave because they are on grass verges next to public highways.

My cab is in some bushes on a grass verge. No properties near it, no land for the cables to cross, right next to an existing cab.

That cab you've put a photo up of will need groundworks which will effect the tennants living next to it.

Wouldn't shock me if they decided to move it away from that house.

I had email BT Openreach they are more than welcome to install FTTC on my property wall as my house wall is on the main road, which it will be perfect for Openreach to put FTTC box there instead of my old cabinet 8 to the owner of the property house (who might refused wayleave premission)

Wolvesmad, I think u are probably right, openreach might move that cabinet 8 away from it and put that at the end of the main road nearby my property house. Why not BT do this way and forget wayleave premisson. They shouldn't put fibre cable under the public footpath two months ago if the wayleave rejected it.