How to find out about cabinets?

For nearly 2 years now my exchange has been FTTC ready. When I check on http://www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/where-and-when/ it says Accepting Orders. But whenever I put my phone number in, I am always told that fibre is not available in my area.

I live in an area of Manchester that has a lot of houses and apartment buildings and I am sure that a lot of people would get fibre if it is available.

From the BT and OpenReach websites I can not find anything out about it. How can I find out if/when my cabinet will get fibre, or where my cabinet is located?

I have a minor concern that for some reason the problem is the phone line I am connected to, because I had some problem getting broadband here when I moved in: Basically there were 2 lines in the apartment. One seemed to be the original that was installed when the apartment was built a few years ago, but it seemed dead; the other was a new BT OpenReach one that a tenant must have had installed, but whenever I used online broadband checkers I was told that there was no BT line available at my property, even though I could see a phone socket with "BT OpenReach" written on it. Whenever I phoned up broadband suppliers I was told that the line was not active. I believe this could have been due to a previous tenant not paying the line rental.

Anyway, most broadband providers told me they couldn't give me line rental and I had to contact BT to get a line installed before they could offer me anything. A lot of this seemed to be due to the incompetence of the people in call centres who don't know anything except "computer says no". It was actually Post Office Home Phone who eventually got it sorted out for me. It took me about a month for the phone line to be activated and then another month for me to get broadband because after my provider said it was activated, it did not work, and a BT engineer had to "plug me in" at the cabinet or something like that. However, once it was working, it was fairly fast for ADSL2+ (about 20Mbps), so I'm not far from the exchange.

My concern is just about how difficult it was to get standard ADSL2+ here (and why it seems like there are 2 phone lines installed for no apparent reason). Could it just be another case of someone needing to "plug me in" again or do I really not have fibre at my cabinet, and how can I find out?

For nearly 2 years now my exchange has been FTTC ready. When I check on http://www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/where-and-when/ it says Accepting Orders. But whenever I put my phone number in, I am always told that fibre is not available in my area.

What does the BR Broadband Availability Checker have to say for your telephone number. Does it mention the cab to which you are connected, in which case it will be something like:
"Telephone Number xxxxxx on Exchange VAUXHALL is served by Cabinet 18 "
or does it make no mention of a cab such as in
"Telephone Number xxxxxx on Exchange VAUXHALL".

If the latter then you are on an Exchange Only line and will not be able to get FTTC regardless of whether the exchange is enabled or not unless BT carry out a network rearrangement and re-route your line via an FTTC enabled cabinet. BT are unlikely to carry out a network rearrangement without third party finance such as council or BDUK funding alternatively this has sometimes been done using funds raised by those whose lines are involved.

Thanks. It says served by cabinet. Is there somewhere that I look at information about cabinets or find their location?

In short no

In reply to a post by Freo:

Thanks. It says served by cabinet. Is there somewhere that I look at information about cabinets or find their location?

Does it say anything about FTTC? Before the WBC/ADSL2+ line.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Does it say anything about FTTC? Before the WBC/ADSL2+ line.

All it says:

WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 18.5 -- 17 to 20.5 Available
WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M Up to 18.5 Up to 1.5 17 to 20.5 Available
ADSL Max Up to 8 -- 7 to 8 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available

Not planned then, for some reason.

If it's not even planned, how long is it likely to be before it becomes available? Over 2 years?

Maybe never. You could try you regions BDUK program if they have any plans for it

In reply to a post by Ribble:

Maybe never.

That would be surprising. The exchange has it and I believe there would be a big uptake here if it was available. Hundreds of people in my building, about 5 other residential buildings of similar size within 100m, and lots of streets with houses. Perhaps there is some geographical/environmental reason that they don't want to dig the roads up, e.g. the trams.

All I can find from searching is that Manchester is to be one of the ten 'super-connected' cities to receive a share of the £100m Urban Broadband Fund and that Salford got £50m. I would think that MediaCityUK would bring increased demand for fibre as well... it's certainly made the property prices increase a lot with the increase in demand.

Also this:

The Urban Broadband Fund project will provide Superfast Broadband (up to 100Mbps) across the whole of Greater Manchester and Ultrafast Broadband (up to 1Gbps) to the cities of Manchester and Salford.

Focus areas include key employment and business areas in the cities, and multiple occupancy business and residential buildings

They pretty much describe exactly where I live and work. So hopefully it will improve in the next few years, although I most likely will have moved by then. I think fibre availability will be a key thing I look for when I move this time.