Brinscall Exchange - rollout starting

I chatted with the Openreach guys working in the area and they confirmed that they were already installing fibre to the Brinscall exchange. What I really want to know though, is which cabinets are going to be included in the rollout plan? I live in Wheelton, a small village next to Brinscall, so it is not guaranteed that our cabinet will be connected.

I've tried SamKnows, Openreach availability checkers, I've even tweeted superfastlancashire, but no-one even acknowledges that the rollout has even started (which it clearly has). How do I find out up to date reliable information, and how do I find out whether Wheelton is include the rollout plan?

Thanks for any help,

Chris

Very difficult to find out as NGA email enquiries had stopped ages ago. U have to kept checking BT Wholesale Availability Checker once a week.

Cabinets 1 through to 6 (all of them) are in the plan, cabinet 1 might even be FTTP

No sign of plans for EO lines but that may be a later phase

Fantastic news! Thank you for that information - it's great to know. I have previously been in touch with BT Wholesale to discuss the possibility of installing fttp to our property (which would be cabinet 1), so that might be coming is also good to know.

I realise I might be pushing my luck now, but do you have any indication of rollout timescales, other than 'by the end of calendar year 2014'?

Thanks again.

During 2014 is the only indication so its a case of seeing how work progresses.

NOTE FTTP teams seem to be rare, so often get called off to other places. So do not be surprised if FTTC goes live before FTTP

Also plans are subject to change of course.

Thanks Andrew - I appreciate the update. At least I know it's on the way!

I too have been checking on this on an almost daily basis. I live in Withnell Fold which I thought was never going to have its local cabinet upgraded. Found the following today

http://91.194.152.202/AnitePublicDocs/00472616.pdf

Confirms it will be done in the next 2 months. Planning approved.

Wheelton must have planning in too?

I've been tracking the planning applications as well - Wheelton seems to be served by Cabinet 1 which is in the middle of Higher Wheelton - about 1 mile, or just over, away. There is no planning application for a new box to be installed in Wheelton itself - so it is fingers crossed that we will be able to get fibre at all as we are at the maximum viable distance from the cabinet. Even though the speed will be slow for fibre - it will be a whole lot faster than we currently experience so fingers crossed, we can order it.

MrSaffron - as a very well informed member on this forum, do you have any view when Cabinet 1 at the Brinscall (LCBRI) exchange is likely to go live? The BTOpenworld team have been working on the connection for at least three months now (connecting our village of Wheelton to the cabinet), but the Openworld 'when and where' site still insists that the plan to connect us is still 'under review'.

Thanks for your help

Hi Chris, I also live in the village. Wondered if you had any updates on the status? Superfast lancashire are completely useless. SFL are saying another six weeks - work seems to have come to a halt again though.

Sadly, no matter what I try, I don't hear anything from SFL. I had previously been in touch with Lancs County and Chorley councils and was getting some information, but even they seem to be playing catchup with BT's plans.
The last update I had was from one of the members of the team working on the supply and they suggested the end of summer - but as you say, if they aren't even around anymore, then I can't see that happening in reality. I've also noticed that there is no planning application for a new cabinet alongside cabinet 1, so that would also suggest it will be a while yet.
That's why I was hoping MrSaffron would know more - he's the only one who seems to know what is really going on.

I'll post more if I hear more.

Well - how weird is that? Little more than 10 minutes after I posted that last comment, I saw somebody lifting one of the BT 'manholes' - so I wandered over to see them. It turns out that they are from BTOpenworld and they were performing final checks of the system before the cabinet goes live. He reckoned that there were a couple of minor issues to resolve, so by the end of August the cabinet should be live. He also confirmed that everyone in the village would be FTTP.

So, happy days!

That's interesting. Not sure how they can be doing full testing when various parts of the village still aren't connected. For example behind Meadow street the BT pole in the field still has fibre dangling from the bottom and hasn't been connected.

I've seen three BT vans today on Whins lane but they didn't seem to be up to much.

The last contact I had with SFL was pointless as I was just told to be patient. I did hear that Openreach have already been fined for not delivering the infrastructure on time.

From my conversations with openreach engineers it still isn't clear who will be actually putting the fibre into each home. IE the FTTP engineers or the openreach home broadband team that come to enable the new service. I suppose with a village like this there are unique issues but I'm really tired of the lack of coherent information from SFL. I mean, the SFL website still says "under review" even now!

Fibres can do distinct different jobs so perfectly possible for an FTTC area to go live while still splicing in more fibre for FTTP.

The same with FTTP one cluster can go live, while another is still having work done.

On the FTTP installs, the install for a home takes two visits, one to install the fibre to termination box on the outside of the property, then another visit to do the short run to the inside and terminate it at the fibre ONT. This two steps are only done when you order, otherwise the work for the roll stops once the fibre manifold is in place (mainfold is the black pot that lives on the pole or in a pavement chamber) and relavant fibres are in place and lit.

Fibre is delicate so won't be dangling from a pole, but you will be seeing the fibre tubing that the fibre is subsequently blown throw

Thanks MrSaffron - I've definitely seen the the mainfold on our pole.

Just to clarify does all fibre always from from underground? Or could it in theory be carried over ground between poles? The reason I ask is that last week I saw BT putting a new over head cable between our pole and another further down the street.

Chimp

It can be overhead or underground

Hi Chris,

You heard anything else about the rollout? I've been away for a few weeks - come back and doesn't seem to be any progress.

Hi - yes, the good news is that cabinet 1 is now live for fibre via FTTP. I see this cabinet has also appeared on MrSaffron's list of go-live's for w/e 23rd August. It actually seemed to go live exactly two weeks ago - for BT customers. You can check the BT Wholesale website here.
The bad news is that I have recently changed to Sky, and it is not yet available through them (although I consistently get a 5MB download speed which is very surprisingly good compared to the 1.5-3MB speed I had previously). I checked with Sky customer services and they said it can take up to two weeks for BT to notify other providers - which I never knew or quite understand, but that is also clearly not true as it's still not available. Out of curiosity, I checked with PlusNet as they are owned by BT, and they aren't offering fibre yet either. Hopefully it will only be a few more days....

Edited by deleted (Wed 26-Aug-15 09:31:32)

I think it maybe a very long time as I understand sky don't offer services over Openreach FTTP

Still not available for me. Not sure whereabouts you live in Wheelton but I've seen at least four poles with fibre tubing/housing still dangling so fibre hasn't even been connected.

Seems to have been like this for about a month now with no further progress.

Have you tried entering your details into the BTWholesale checker? For ourselves (at the Dressers end of the village), that at least reports that "Our records show the following FTTP network service information for these premises:- Single Dwelling Unit Residential OH Feed with no anticipated issues." and shows FTTP as an available product.
However, the problem now is finding a supplier to provide broadband. As one of the relatively few 'native' FTTP / FTTP-only areas, we fall outside of most of the offerings from mainstream ISP's. The only realistic option seems to be BT Infinity (funny that, given they put in the line!). Sadly, I signed up for Sky about 2 months ago, so now I have to wait for 10 months for my contract to end before switching and paying BT's higher fees unless I want to pay a lot of early termination fees. I have found other providers, such as directsavetelecom, but we are clearly a 'niche' installation and we'll suffer from the lack of competition and we'll always face paying more through lack of choice.

Have you looked at Plusnet ? They'll give you service over FTTP.

Hi, there aren't many providers offering FTTP. I think Zen and Plusnet may do. Plusnet was a trial and may now be closed to new customers. Gutted about the Sky contract! I'm going to have to stick with BT even tho they keep creeping the prices up. I think I'd just eat the cost of the sky contract myself! I did use the wholesale checker and it's still saying 2.5mbps ADSL max as the only available product. So it would seem that Lower Wheelton isn't connected up yet. I've emailed super-useless lancashire but I've yet to receive any response at all. I've been keeping my eye out for BT vans whilst taking the dog for a walk so I can ask them what the latest is.