W. Sussex BDUK Phase 2 cabinet about to be installed?

Hi there,

The CEO of West Sussex County Council has told me* that the cabinet that serves my house is earmarked for Phase 2 of their BDUK funded project... all of which of course is 'subject to survey'. Given that our cabinet is just a few metres from the fibre that serves there rest of my village I can't imagine the survey saying it's not possible.

(The reason for BT not upgrading our cabinet when the rest of the village's were was because our cabinet only serves 62 properties)

I was told me that the survey for my cabinet was due to take place this month and this week I noticed spray painted marks on the pavement.

I'm not sure how to embed this picture within this post so please follow this link to see a photo. Where the white box is marked out is the closest pieces of hardstanding to where our existing box is, so if it is for anything else it's a bit of a coincidence. I understand the LV is marking out 'low voltage' - possibly street lighting, which makes sense as there is a street light in that direction.

Can anyone say if the markings mean an FTTC box is coming anytime soon?

I'd also be interest to know if any one knows how these roll outs happen, i.e. do BT complete all the surveys in each phase, regroup to decide which can be done, then plan the actual engineering and installation; or do they do the survey, if all is good start the installation?

After such a long wait for a crazy decision that BT made I'm keen to know if us finally getting fibre - albeit cheap FTTC - is actually within sight, or if its still months/years away

All comments gratefully received.

Many thanks

* amazing what response you get when you copy in journalists, your local MP and the CEO of BT!

Hi - the image link is broken... Where exactly are you please?

Who was the CEO of Wscc that responded? Wscc no longer have a chief exec as the old one left a month or so ago and is not being replaced.

And as the other poster said, your link doesn't seem to work (and you can't post images directly here so so need to use something like Google but maybe the permissions are wrong on the file)?

link works for me , but have to sign into google to view.
Given that the OP has already been told its due for site survey then its a certainty the markings (which appear to show DSLAM position and LV cable path) are for FTTC.

In reply to a post by Ribble:

link works for me , but have to sign into google to view.

It would be helpful of Google if they told you that - it shows the image name but with a broken image icon below. and a very large empty placeholder. There is a Sign In link but not shown as required...

Hi Tony,

Apologies for the broken link. I'm not sure why this is as the sharing option is set to "Anyone who has the link can access (no sign in required)"

FWIW I just tried accessing the photo in Safari. I got the same issue - broken image. I guess when the chaps at Google say "anyone can access" what they neglect to say is "as long as you're using Chrome"

After looking at the e-mail I sent it was in fact to Louise Goldsmith who is the 'Leader' rather than CEO. It was Louise Goldsmith who sent local parish councils letters to say that their parish was to be included in Phase 2.

I'm in Cuckfield, but connected to Haywards Heath via Cabinet 38.

Hope this helps, and hope I get fibre soon - our ADSL line has got worse recently, dropping below the threshold to properly access iPlayer.

Thanks,

Tom

Edited by deleted (Mon 24-Mar-14 15:03:08)

Yes, so you essentially sent the letter to a leader of the current political body rather than to the civil servants. Politiicians will tend to pass these things on as they are directly voted by us members of the public.

I believe that Councillor Goldsmith is actually the political lead on the West Sussex BDUK project so has more than a passing interest.

Edited by ian72 (Mon 24-Mar-14 16:30:42)

Hi

Well I was using Firefox so tried Chrome - but still broken, until I login to Google of course which I try and avoid doing as much as possible... Anyway, it certainly looks like a fibre install is happening there. Our cabs were stood for nearly a year before they went live though so keep your fingers crossed. It's great when you do get it! I went from 8 or so on ADSL2+ to 56 initally but down to about 49 now due crosstalk and some evening congestion as new installs get added, BT estimate was 35 but now dropped to 32 or lower so not complaining (yet).

Apologies again for the pithy Google experience. I know what you mean about them and their all seeing algorithms... I thought (and we all know what that did!) that it was a sign in free process to view the file.

Thanks for coming back to me WRT the markings. Hopefully we're at the point of no return, and that 21st century technology will finally be with me.

Well, I say 21st century technology. Of course we all know that FTTC isn't, but compared to ADSl I guess it's at least a good effort.

Will just then need to find an alternative ISP - I'm damned if after all this delay and taxpayer subsidy I'm going to give BT my money!

Thanks again,

Tom

Edited by deleted (Mon 24-Mar-14 22:15:37)

Hello
Our village West Chiltington is in phase one of the WSCC BDUK roll out. The best source of info is Roadworks.org supplemented by the WSCC Highways roadworks text info [not map]. Things actually happened very quickly just after we got the first scent of an upgrade. The roadworks info changes very quickly and can even disappear. They are installing our cabinets at the moment and we only learned that we were in phase one in mid January 2014. how long we will have to wait untill they are switched on is another matter.

Well they need to get a wriggle on - this morning's rain has almost washed away the white markings!

Got a can you can replenish them with?

So, the story continues...

...West Sussex CC contacted me to see if I could help them site the DSLAM on the land that belongs to the development (which is not on the highway) as our existing cabinet is placed on said private land.

I was only too happy to help and met with BT and WSCC on Friday. They said that they will be installing a 'Huawei 96'. I was shown a picture of this and it it small. But then our PCP is a small one as it only has to support 62 properties.

So, question is, if everyone in our development signs up for fibre will the Huawei 96 support 62 lines without too much of a speed reduction?

Thanks,

Hauwei 96 will be able to supply FTTC to all 62 lines with plenty of room to spare

The 'Huawei 96' is yet another size I did not know of. I assume it will take the 32 port cards, needing 3 to be 'full'. WSCC and BT are contracted (as far as I can ascertain) to provide 20-25% of capacity, so expect 1 card in your box giving 32 lines (33%). It appears that further line provision will be at BT's expense when they see the commercial need.

Which usually means extra cards added as needed

Well, work started on Saturday and the foundations and ducts are in place for the DSLAM. I guess we're getting close...

...which makes me think that I should perhaps start to look around for an ISP. After BT's refusal to install the cabinet without taxpayer money I'm kinda loathed to then reward them with my ISP account.

A friend in the village who's cabinet was upgraded by BT about 18 months ago recently tried to get fibre from Talk Talk and Sky. Both said that fibre wasn't available (it is for this chap). Is the ability to get fibre from a non-BT ISP dependent on some other factor, ie the ISP having already installed their kit in my exchange (Haywards Heath)?

I'm thinking to perhaps go with EE as I'm probably going to switch my mobile to them as they've announced support for calls over wifi (until now I've been tied to O2 as this is the only MNO that I get a faint signal for in my house... wifi calling takes that monopoly away quite nicely)


Thanks,

EE is just white-labelled BT.

most cabs in the commercial deployment would normally be in excess of 200 - 300 customer -- yours has 62 -- -- as an aside very few cabs that size woudl also be done BDUK project either (62 is normally too small even for BDUK)--

Edited by deleted (Sun 29-Jun-14 20:20:19)

In reply to a post by Fastman2:

most cabs in the commercial deployment would normally be in excess of 200 - 300 customer -- yours has 62 -- -- as an aside very few cabs that size woudl also be done BDUK project either (62 is normally too small even for BDUK)--

If the 62 premises are close together sounds like a good candidate for it-that-must-not-be-named. A single 64-split would do nicely.

Thankfully WSCC BDUK team saw sense and realised that with BT's tanks parked throughout the rest of the village that if they didn't upgrade our cabinet we stood zero chance if ever getting above 4Mb as no other commercial outfit would've been able or make it work.

@Ignitionnet can you expand on your comment? I'm intrigued... The 62 properties are mainly houses, but are close together (it's a 6 year old development), and the copper lines are connected from the cab to the properties via underground ducts, so it all nice and neat. And what is a 64-split?

In reply to a post by twhh:

Thankfully WSCC BDUK team saw sense and realised that with BT's tanks parked throughout the rest of the village that if they didn't upgrade our cabinet we stood zero chance if ever getting above 4Mb as no other commercial outfit would've been able or make it work.

@Ignitionnet can you expand on your comment? I'm intrigued... The 62 properties are mainly houses, but are close together (it's a 6 year old development), and the copper lines are connected from the cab to the properties via underground ducts, so it all nice and neat. And what is a 64-split?

Certainly. Fibre to the Premises is often delivered via Passive Optical Network. This means a single fibre split using basically mirrors to separate the light and recombine it. You can split the signal from a single fibre as standard 6 times - 64 premises less perhaps one test port. On some kit a 7th split can be added to make 128.

With all ducting from properties to cabinet in a dense configuration it would seem to me to make way more economic sense doing that than deploying a cabinet for 62 properties. Definitely more sense for the council and government anyway as this one upgrade would be you guys all set, no need for further taxpayers' money to upgrade you later on.

Cabinets cost the same to build initially whether connected to 62 or 620 properties. I would bring this to the attention of your council - BT need to justify VFM both short and longer term.

Thanks for that. I've put that question to the folks at the council.

Let's see what they come back with. I suspect the monopolistic folks at BT have hoodwinked them somewhat. It's not like BT haven't got form for delivering questionable value for taxpayer money!

In reply to a post by twhh:

Thanks for that. I've put that question to the folks at the council.

Let's see what they come back with. I suspect the monopolistic folks at BT have hoodwinked them somewhat. It's not like BT haven't got form for delivering questionable value for taxpayer money!

Probably. Though if you believe BT apparently councils are telling them to deploy FTTC to business parks and the like. I have my doubts.

Clearly every business park getting native FTTP would be ideal, but what if that meant that businesses NOT on parks or residential areas missed out on an improved service because the money got spent on the 100 business parks across a county?

The technical bar was set low and the central Government kick start funding was never going to encourage widespread FTTP

The outcome is entirely the result of the inputs which were to be seen to be doing something, but without spending too much money.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Clearly every business park getting native FTTP would be ideal, but what if that meant that businesses NOT on parks or residential areas missed out on an improved service because the money got spent on the 100 business parks across a county?

The technical bar was set low and the central Government kick start funding was never going to encourage widespread FTTP

The outcome is entirely the result of the inputs which were to be seen to be doing something, but without spending too much money.

Andrew, at some point the cost per premises passed, and that's the only figure that matters, equalises out between FTTC and FTTP because the premises count is so small.

The cost to get fibre to a cabinet at the edge of an industrial site or to the edge of a housing estate is the same whether it's going to be feeding GPON or an MSAN.

This is where BT have to be pulled up to ensure value for money. They would be angels if there weren't a temptation to ignore FTTP in favour of FTTC now and BDUK version 2 money later.

They have made some absurd decisions in the FTTC v FTTP debate. When it's their own money their mess ups will cost them that's fine, when it comes to public money somewhat closer scrutiny is both wise and necessary.

Worth remembering it's not just about the initial build costs - the OpEx on FTTP is lower, there are no line cards to purchase nor an MSAN to power and no telemetry or monitoring required.

Edited by deleted (Mon 30-Jun-14 12:09:24)

But with FTTP the cost of installing that last few metres from the DP to the building will be different to that of FTTC in terms of man hours at the very least.

There does come a point when FTTP makes more sense, and looking at roll-out plans FTTP is featuring, now whether it goes ahead is another matter and I think it is being left to the later stages invariably.

Being honest any other operator of the scale that could have handled the number of premises needed to be done in the time frame would have also run such an impersonal and with arbitrary decisions type scheme with a clear view to what income/subsidy is available for future work.

As things stand lots of scope for CityFibre if they get themselves up to speed to become the 21st century Virgin Media competing in the suburban landscape with both BT and Virgin. Oddly parts of York are getting the council backed CityFibre FTTP and some parts are down for BDUK gap funded FTTP, once the cityfibre postcodes are published will do comparisons and overlaps with Virgin Media.

Councils are past masters at doing what the spreadsheet says works best, be it planning refuse collection or running a broadband project with feedback from the tax payer often being a very long way down the list.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

But with FTTP the cost of installing that last few metres from the DP to the building will be different to that of FTTC in terms of man hours at the very least.

There does come a point when FTTP makes more sense, and looking at roll-out plans FTTP is featuring, now whether it goes ahead is another matter and I think it is being left to the later stages invariably.

Agreed, however even with this in mind in places where there is pre-existing ducting such as industrial estates this isn't such a major problem. FTTP should in these instances be scarcely more time consuming than running another copper drop.

I have noted FTTP being left until the back end of rollouts for the most part in BDUK areas, with the obvious exception of Dolphinholme where they seemed in a huge rush.

A BT employee has commented that local authorities wanted industrial estates done this way - I suspect the LAs wanted them done as quickly as possible and BT elected to do this via FTTC. I find it extremely hard to believe that a local authority would ask BT to do any area in FTTC over FTTP, or even know what they were asking for.

Edited by deleted (Mon 30-Jun-14 13:51:37)

The big rush in Dolphinholme - well a few pictures of a few poles, but no pictures of actual FTTP kit, fibre blowing or tubing that I recall. Lancashire has a lot of politics going on from a large number of sides.

If a council is told, we will do FTTP to 50 businesses for the money you are willing to spend, or FTTC to those 50 and another 50 with FTTC elsewhere in the same budget then guess what the council would pick, so long as it helps towards the superfast target.

The projects are NOTHING to do with future proofing connectivity for the next thirty to forty years, which is what some are campaigning for. Look at what is being considered innovative for the final 5%, stuff that people have been doing since 2003.

BT is far from perfect, but when you add the mixture of politics and public procurement why expect anything different.

Andrew,

The councils don't choose the technology, they give BT a coverage target and leave them to decide how to reach that target. I don't think there's that level of micro-management, and if there is BT lower the coverage they agree to accordingly.

The projects are indeed nothing to do with future-proofing, which is precisely my point. The councils leave BT to get on with it and BT decide which technology to use.

FTTP only really seems to enter into the equation later on when a clearer idea of the costs is present.

This is probably for the best though given the Milton Keynes experience!

The council's can set priority areas and targets for FTTP but it would almost always result in a knock on effect on other provision and so a lot have been very careful not to set targets. The impacts of a target generally are not easy to work out before setting to the target and could be disastrous if set wrongly.

I do find the talk of how the market will move on, and how Virgin will ride their competitive horse into the village, putting the frighteners on BT, thus forcing BT to make their infrastructure more robust and better priced, a little misguided.

It's not going to happen. Not for the next few decades anyway. Virgin have no intention whatsoever in coming to our village. We're stuck with whatever BT and their tax funded monopoly protection scheme decides is best for us.

And as for these 'other' technologies... 4G, 5G? gimme a break. We can only get a flimsy 3G from one MNO at the best of times. Satellite..? Wireless? Fine if you don't like uploading or live near a tree, or the wrong side of the hill from where the mast is.

In all honesty I think the village I live in would have been better off if BT had stayed well away. At least then we could have gone to a different provider and looked at getting a FTTP solution. Although would have taken longer, I'm convinced we'd all have been better off.

Anyway, that's slightly off the topic of my original post. Just thought I'd join in

Virgin have got no interest in expanding footprint in West Sussex at all. With only Crawley and Worthing covered most of the landmass of West Sussex have little choice for fast Internet.

And 3G is a joke across pretty much the whole of West Sussex. And I agree that 4G is not looking like it will be much better unless a lot more masts are installed (and in the downs and cities like Chichester that isn't going to be very likely).