Exchange Under Evaluation Question?

My exchange (cmking) has finally gone Under Evaluation around 3 weeks ago on the Openreach Where and When site.

All the other exchanges in my area (South Birmingham) are already accepting orders and have been for sometime now.

My area (Kings Norton) seems to be the last for some weird reason as its a very popular area.

Finally My Question:

How long does an exchange normally stay Under Evaluation and what sort of time frame am I looking at for NGA's to start popping up, Has anyone been in my situation?

On another note, Does Openreach locate the NGA's as close to the PCP as possible or just where it would be easier for Fibre to pop up for it?

Thanks in advance.

The fibre cabinets are usually within around 50m, closer is better of course due to the distance issues with VDSL2

On how long, it could be a couple of months or it could be a year or two

OK thanks for your reply, I am still interested if anyone else has any experience with this.

Oh yes I forgot VDSL2 was vulnerable over distances to noise.

Possibly more important than noise is pure distance. Because of its many higher frequencies it suffers from attenuation much more than ADSLx does.

If you are close to the cabinet the difference between 10 and 60 metres distance between the pair of cabinets is irrelevant. At six hundred metres from the cabinet it matters. Seven hundred and it's hugely important.

My experience comes from watching the Openreach where/when site for the North Yorkshire BDUK rollout - exchanges were marked on that website long before any announcements anywhere else.

What I have noticed, over time, is this:
- No exchanges seemed to end up UE as part of the commercial rollout
- No exchanges seemed to end up UE as part of the first BDUK plans
- Subsequently, some of the small exchanges that were originally included in the BDUK rollout *and* were marked as FE with FTTP have gone backwards into UE status
- Some of the small exchanges that were marked FE with FTTP have stayed in the programme, but have not yet been upgraded

It was interesting to note those small exchanges that were earmarked for FTTP - it suggested that BT might have been thinking of making the exchange a FOX one, and possibly aiming to get rid of the exchange entirely.

My guess is that Openreach are re-evaluating whether to use FTTP on some of the exchanges they originally highlighted. This re-evaluation might be re-checking the cost of FTTP, or it might be awaiting evaluation of the recent FTTRN nodes.

IGNORE STATEMENT BELOW, JUST FOUND OUT THAT WHAT I THOUGHT WAS MY CABINET IS ACTUALLY A ROYAL MAIL POUCH BOX........

I have another question,

I'm aware that part of the NGA installation is adding a Green tapping card into the existing PCP, If I'm right in saying that..... If there isn't enough room to do that for instance the PCP is too small to accommodate such device then would a new PCP be installed?

Edited by mlmclaren (Sun 11-May-14 01:02:18)

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

I'm aware that part of the NGA installation is adding a Green tapping card into the existing PCP, If I'm right in saying that..... If there isn't enough room to do that for instance the PCP is too small to accommodate such device then would a new PCP be installed?

Sort of....
A new outer shell is installed.
So quite literally the old metal cabinet down to the base is cut off and a new larger outer shell/doors etc is installed over the connection panels etc - and now with enough room for the cross connection blocks to the PCP fibre twin.

I believe the reg's state that the fibre twin has to be installed within 50m of its parent PCP.

Edited by deleted (Sun 11-May-14 08:45:46)

OK I think I've seen a pic on google of them doing that....

I've actually found my PCP now and its not good news, its around 450m away from my property so by the guide I found on TBB I will only get around 40mbps and around 16mbps upload so looks like I'll be using a basic package.

So not exactly in any rush to get it now.

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

I've actually found my PCP now and its not good news, its around 450m away from my property so by the guide I found on TBB I will only get around 40mbps and around 16mbps upload so looks like I'll be using a basic package.

I'm about 450m from my PCP and sync at 52Mbps down and 9Mbps up (unlocked HG612 stats). My parents are 470m from their PCP and they get 80Mbps down and 20Mbps up. I assume their copper is better than mine, or less joins in the wires in the street.

well my main worry is that I will pay for 80/20 and only get 50/10, I want the upload more than anything but I've just found this website that makes more sense as I've seen 600m lines on here with 55/16....

http://www.increasebroadbandspeed.co.uk/2013/chart-b...

Like you said copper will have a lot to do with it and if its actually copper and not steel

There are many charts for VDSL2 performance, ours is fairly pessimistic because it takes into account crosstalk .

In essence once you get a speed estimate from the BT wholesale checker, you are probably going to get something between our checker and the wholesale estimate

Steel is not used by BT to carry signals in the local loop, there may be aluminium if you are unlucky

So the TBB one and the one I posted I should basically meet in the middle for the estimate really then.

And yes my mistake I meant aluminium, Its funny that people cuss aluminium as when I was on ADSL with BT in my previous property I was able to get 12/1.2mbps connection then some issues at the exchange resulted in the pair being changed to a copper line which didn't fix the issue and brought my speed crashing down to 7/1mbps, A 5mbps loss.

Though I'm almost certain that FTTC technology will react differently to aluminium than copper.

Is there any more info regarding Profile 30a on FTTC

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

well my main worry is that I will pay for 80/20 and only get 50/10,

Upload was my main reason for moving from ADSL. As was always the case with ADSL the price is for the service whatever speed your line connects at. I paid BE for 4 years for an upto "24 Mbps" service that only connected at 16 Mbps.

Openreach currently offer the ISPs two products, 40/10 and 80/20 but when I ordered BTretail only offered unlimited usage on the 80/20 product and I had no idea how much I would use (I now know I average around 150GB /month).

I don't know if Openreach will eventually allow ISPs to sign people up at the 80/20 plan and then move to the slightly cheaper 40/10 if their lines don't sync faster than 40. That would be logical and customer friendly but doesn't fit with the 'minimum term' approach that these big corporates go for.

Virgin Media with coax should be able to provide the paid for speed anywhere, but I had enough problems with NTL in my old flat (with 512k and 1meg services!) that I decided to keep well away from. They also don't have very fast upload speeds. My friends have 60/3 for example.

Well I'm using Virgins 50/3 service which is fine on download side of things but my uploading on Virgin isn't just speed, its mainly the way its shared bandwidth and using it at more than a 1/3 of its capacity

(so 100kBps)

will saturate the connection and make most demanding tasks impossible (Streaming and Gaming)

Profile 30 is further away than vectoring

I suppose its going to be something they roll out after they finish there nationwide roll out so 2015-16 maybe.

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

Well I'm using Virgins 50/3 service which is fine on download side of things but my uploading on Virgin isn't just speed, its mainly the way its shared bandwidth and using it at more than a 1/3 of its capacity

(so 100kBps)

will saturate the connection and make most demanding tasks impossible (Streaming and Gaming)

That is an odd effect you are getting, and I wonder if there is a fault in your area. (Each Virgin area for some reason is still technically set up in different ways). You should be able to upload at 300k/sec maximum, and that would slow down your downloads, but shouldn't affect anyone else.

Virgin is shared in the area but that means shared at a higher level, there is a few gigabit of download capacity that is carved up into the speed services (30/50/60/100/120 etc) and there is a about 50megabit of upload that is shared to give each customer their share. Its all complex because the cable TV coax was designed for TV, not for broadband, and so the amount of space on the coax for sending from the home is limited.

Cable Labs have worked wonders in the DOCSIS specifications but the cost of changing the coax and having more and more fibre to coax convertors (re-segmenting) is very high. The hardware costs of FTTC are probably lower once the cabinets are in.

That's what I said,

I can achieve 300kBps easy but it will knock streaming, gaming, VoIP out of use so I can only upload at 100-150kBps so my other services will still work adequately.

The Virgin network in my area is pretty good in relation to speeds and utilization though since the supercharged upgrades I have noticed the network struggling at peak times but never enough to cause great issues to my connection.

My main reason for wanting FTTC is so the upload has more bandwidth and isn't shared with local community...... (Local Loop)

One thing I do know about my local community is that many torrent constantly and don't understand anything about bandwidth or broadband what so ever... So they don't restrict there uploading so as you said such a small amount of upstream bandwidth being shared with many here as ADSL is only available and is around 1mbps so most are on Virgin and can really rock the boat.

Virgin have in recent years put a lot of upgrades into this area for upstream so it can cope and they have done well with battling the problem, but now they are giving out free upgrades and not upgrading the main head-ends.

So the network is being run close to its limits again.

I'm around 400m and was getting 72/20 until the 22nd April ago when it dropped suddenly to 49/19 when the line resynced at 10:35 in the morning and its stayed that way ever since. Openreach say it's OK because its still above the minimum for an impacted line, although I beg to differ.

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

I can achieve 300kBps easy but it will knock streaming, gaming, VoIP out of use so I can only upload at 100-150kBps so my other services will still work adequately.

That's normal TCP/IP if you saturate the uplink on any service, you stop the ACK packets working for the other streams. If you have a router with QoS features you could limit your uploads to ensure that the tiny ACK packets get through whilst your upload runs at 280 or 290 kbps. This has nothing to do with Virgin at that point.

My main reason for wanting FTTC is so the upload has more bandwidth and isn't shared with local community...... (Local Loop)

If you have FTTC with 80/20 and you upload at 20mbps, you will still stop downloads working reliably.

One thing I do know about my local community is that many torrent constantly and don't understand anything about bandwidth or broadband what so ever... So they don't restrict there uploading so as you said such a small amount of upstream bandwidth being shared with many here as ADSL is only available and is around 1mbps so most are on Virgin and can really rock the boat.

They shouldn't need to, why does the general public need to understand TCP/IP ? Surely the ISP should sort this out. One house should be able to upload at max without affecting others; its a limitation of HFC networks (Hybrid-Fibre-Coax) which isn't a problem with twisted-pair/fibre networks.

So the network is being run close to its limits again.

They are locked in a marketing battle with the FTTC ISPs. Headline speeds are virgin's weapon, rather than quality. The fact they all market 'fibre' to the home is the main problem, nobody is told they are on a shared system.

The FTTC and ADSL ISPs have better effect sharing at the DSLAM/Switch level, rather than Virgin's sharing at the coax level.

I knew I was going to hear a story like this, and I also knew Openreach would react like you just said...

"still within limits" or "well we did say up to"

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

I can achieve 300kBps easy but it will knock streaming, gaming, VoIP out of use so I can only upload at 100-150kBps so my other services will still work adequately.

That's normal TCP/IP if you saturate the uplink on any service, you stop the ACK packets working for the other streams. If you have a router with QoS features you could limit your uploads to ensure that the tiny ACK packets get through whilst your upload runs at 280 or 290 kbps. This has nothing to do with Virgin at that point.

Understood, But even only using 200kBps kills most connections even though I've got 100kBps left

My main reason for wanting FTTC is so the upload has more bandwidth and isn't shared with local community...... (Local Loop)

If you have FTTC with 80/20 and you upload at 20mbps, you will still stop downloads working reliably.

I also understand that and won't upload at full 20mbps (or speed I get)

One thing I do know about my local community is that many torrent constantly and don't understand anything about bandwidth or broadband what so ever... So they don't restrict there uploading so as you said such a small amount of upstream bandwidth being shared with many here as ADSL is only available and is around 1mbps so most are on Virgin and can really rock the boat.

They shouldn't need to, why does the general public need to understand TCP/IP ? Surely the ISP should sort this out. One house should be able to upload at max without affecting others; its a limitation of HFC networks (Hybrid-Fibre-Coax) which isn't a problem with twisted-pair/fibre networks.

I can't agree more with you there, Just explaining the situation as it is.

So the network is being run close to its limits again.

They are locked in a marketing battle with the FTTC ISPs. Headline speeds are virgin's weapon, rather than quality. The fact they all market 'fibre' to the home is the main problem, nobody is told they are on a shared system.

Yeah, Quality really isn't the sales pitch and the amount of times I've had to tell people that Fibre from Virgin isn't better the BT and that Virgin isn't fibre rather than a coaxial to a splitter in cab then more coaxial to a local node then fibre to Virgins head-end.

The FTTC and ADSL ISPs have better effect sharing at the DSLAM/Switch level, rather than Virgin's sharing at the coax level.

I know that's why I'm hoping it will be here soon.

Good luck

Thanks.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Openreach currently offer the ISPs two products, 40/10 and 80/20

A minor correction is required --

Openreach currently offer the ISPs three products, 40/2, 40/10 and 80/20

I was aware of that but the information is appreciated, On an slightly unrelated topic

I noticed Talktalk offer the upto 76 product but only with 10mbps upload, Is this because of them being a cheaper provider.

TalkTalk offer up to 20mb upload on their up to 80mb service. Proof:
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3496187129

Edited by deleted (Mon 12-May-14 17:19:50)

maybe on business and I know they did on there residential connections to but now its 76/10 for some reason

http://tinypic.com/r/u6dcw/8

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

maybe on business and I know they did on there residential connections to but now its 76/10 for some reason

http://tinypic.com/r/u6dcw/8

The FTTC speeds shown on TT website are your estimated speeds, though they are a bit on the conservative side. Here's what happens when i enter my number on TT website:
http://s17.postimg.org/idiaiirsf/Capture.png

So fibre large is definitely a 80/20 product.

Edited by deleted (Mon 12-May-14 17:38:11)

Just done a check on a different address and it seems that talk talk check under estimates the upload capability of the address I checked with even though I know 19 is achievable...

Pretty much all ISPs underestimate your speeds. Noticed you're after 4 static ip's on FTTC. Here's one option for £25.50 pm (+vat) with decent UK support:
http://www.talktalkbusiness.co.uk/products-and-servi...

Don't matter now anyway and talk talk would end up costing more the plusnet business so if I do go for a business connection I will go with plus.net plus 18 month contracts scare me enough... never mind 24 month.

Edited by mlmclaren (Mon 12-May-14 18:27:45)