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.

the urban fund is being handed out as vouchers to SME generally, so used differently to the normal BDUK funding.

If the area already has Virgin Media cable then that would stop any government funding too

In reply to a post by Freo:

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.

MediaCityUK already has it's own 10Gbps core network as part of the development offering 10-100Mbps internet speeds to all the offices and apartments.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

If the area already has Virgin Media cable then that would stop any government funding too

My area had virgin media cable and BT had put a new FTTC cabinet too. No difference if it had virgin or not.

Your 'area' wasn't BDUK funded either!

In reply to a post by adslmax:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

If the area already has Virgin Media cable then that would stop any government funding too

My area had virgin media cable and BT had put a new FTTC cabinet too. No difference if it had virgin or not.

That's not government money - Where BT install FTTC is a commercial decision by them .BT have installed FTTC in lots of areas where Virgin have cable because it is commercially worth wile for them (not surprising, cable co's installed cable where it was most likely to make them money).

But if an area has virgin it won't be eligble for government money , eg BDUK because there is already faster BB available.

Freo

Whilst there is no information about cab locations you can always look around to find it yourself. A walk around the area will normally find a coiuple in a city area.

It will normally be a green box about 1m high and 1.3m long, You are interested in the one with a number corressponding to that quoted for your line. There are some photos of typical ones here on Roberto's site

If you are in a big block of flats ( 200-400!) there is a chance it is hidden in the basement. If so this will be why you do not have FTTC. If this is the case you will have to lobby the landlord to approach BT giving them permission to place an FTTC cab alongside and sortout the power issue OR get enough people interested to get the landlord to approah BT and ask for FTTP this is actually a better way forward in most blocks of flats as it overcomes the power issus.

As you already have 20Mb you may findit difficult to get people interested in Fibre but people at the top of the block may get less than you.