Thank you Openreach (Not)

Says it all really:
http://community.fttc-check.alc.im/30-pcp-data-removed

Thanks for the info you did make available Adam, it was very useful.

Yeah, it was a shame, now there is nothing stopping openreach from changing the status of "Part of BT's 66% Commercial Plan" to "Not being deployed as part of BT's 66% Commercial Plan" as well as changing the phase and dates of the rollout to a later one, see that's the reason why I think Openreach and then BT moaned at him to remove it.
All because those 3 parts of information is my guesses on why he had to remove it.

TBH I couldn't see the issue in having Adam running his site, it certainly wasn't to do with all the Postcodes due to Google Maps would of been told to remove all the post codes on there.

As for openreach updating the fibre search down to the cabinet level, I bet those 3 parts of info won't be there, you can be assure of that.

as i have said before it openreach commercial data provided in confidence under strict disclosure terrms for CP's issued for guidance and not public consumption - and is nor for onward distribution outside of Cps

Edited by deleted (Tue 29-Jul-14 19:39:59)

not sure what you issue is if something is being provided by a company (at no cost to you) in terms of infrastructure outlay then that business whatever industry it is in has the right to determine how and where to spend its money for the most commerciall returns or not as the case or may be or in a while because itt needs to do other things first - we seen a number of threads where other operarors have had no interest in extending their network and that is down to the ROI it would gain for the outlay and the payback

Edited by deleted (Tue 29-Jul-14 19:51:46)

I have no issues with that, I have issues with them setting a date with my ISP back in 2011 where they have started to do the work to stop for a year then install stuff up my pole to then do nothing for another year without even telling my ISP why.
And what has made it bad is the we cannot even get broadband on our phone line due to a mess up with BT and last BB Provider also our exchange wouldn't be able provide us even with ADSL 2+ until the end of August anyhow due to no free ports.

And all this issue with FTTP and with ADSL 2+ has started to all build up.

"BT Openreach have requested" - sounds quite benign, doesn't it? What did they actually threaten?

surprised a Date was set with the ISP especially if this is FTTP -- soundsl like CP jumped the gun not sure how the CP could have offered you a service if the buikd was not complete -odd in the extreme but not surpising - just an aside who was the CP

was the 2011 date at an exchange level as there is serious misconception that all cabs on an exchnage are enabled whenr the exchnage is enabled so it is entirely possible that the exchnage was enabled in 2011 and an number of cabs were deployed -- anyhting to do with FTTP is hard complex and time comsuming ano not easy to do

i

Well the provider that we was offered to test the 100Mbit FTTP back in 2011 was Zen.
We well my brother (owner of connection at the time) was told that our exchange has just been upgraded to both FTTC and FTTP and where our postcode was down for FTTP which they are currently installing now and would we be interested in the trial, we said yes and they said ok.
We was told that it could take anything from a few weeks to a couple of Months which we said fine.

Long story short, they got around to the installing of the manifold and the bottle of the pole and nothing else has happened for over a year.
It has got to a point where half our road has been installed FTTP but their phones are connected to a different cabinet.
And both that cabinet and ours was to be done the same time, yet that other cabinet was done ages ago.

And when our provider tried to get any answers on the delay from openreach they got no response from them.
So its nearly been 3 years since we was suppose to of been given FTTP.

I understand installing fibre isn't that easy and can be tricky due to blockage etc, I have worked with fibre before, granted it was over 20 years ago and things have changed, but I just cannot see the difference between the difficulty between FTTC and FTTP granted FTTP needs to go a little further than what the FTTC does, but an extra couple of hundred metres shouldn't cause that much issue.
But like I said maybe a blockage underground or a tight fit with all the copper wires there may be a factor, but they could of at least notified our ISP of this and at least we would know why the delay and that they will be finishing it later on.

Shame it has gone.

Although the information was negative for me (not part of the 66%) at least it was clear what the status was.

Openreach claiming they will be adding more information regarding cabinets to its checkers sounds like a lode of rubbish to me.

Sounds like Openreach might be up to something...

Then I could be wrong... Only time will tell.

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

Openreach claiming they will be adding more information regarding cabinets to its checkers sounds like a lode of rubbish to me.

Sounds like Openreach might be up to something...

Then I could be wrong... Only time will tell.

It's all rubbish talk from openreach. They won't put anything on a rubbish site on bt openreach when and where. It's load of rubbish site! Very poor by openreach.

Edited by adslmax (Tue 29-Jul-14 21:45:06)

Well I'm still awaiting a decision for my exchange as its currently UE..

But tbh, I think FTTC is a joke for "super-fast" connection, But then Virgin Media isn't exactly advanced as I would like.

Bring me FTTP from someone other than Openreach....

Also still living at home at the minute so don't care much, and when I do move to my own place, I will make sure my ADSL line would be good and just get that with Annex M.

Annex M reduces the download speed if the sync on Annex A is ~16Mbps or lower. At 16Mbps, by about 2.5Mbps, with very little upstream added. At 20Mbps, hardly any download reduction and the full 1.3Mbps upload gain.

I understand that, 10/2 would be good enough for me

If you only get 10Mbps down (reduced from 12.5) you won't gain more than a few kbps up. Under 1.5Mbps total I would guess.

I get that Annex M only works over certain distances, but I would get a service with customizable line profiles, my previous post was just pointing out what I can live with.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

If you only get 10Mbps down (reduced from 12.5) you won't gain more than a few kbps up. Under 1.5Mbps total I would guess.

My BE line was Annex M, and before my line fault, I was able to get 16down and 1.5up with AnnexM enabled. After the fault was fixed I got 14down and 1.3up, with Annex M off, and with it on 13down and 1.0up. This was on a 27db loss line, just under 1 mile from exchange. ("clean line" said the SFI on the repair job).

Annex M is a very big lottery which is why most providers don't bother supporting it now that FTTC and similar is available.

Gents the informaion provided to the website was not in the public domain and only provided to CPs - (there are specific rules around what those CP can do with that data and what they cannot -(ioe forward it elsewhere

I understand that but its still s£$t, Why do they hide everything from use for..

Problem because they are estimated dates rather than guaranteed dates and when people see the date they expect it to happen and then complain to Openreach when it doesn't.

The alternative is that if they publish dates there is the potential of other providers to move in knowing Openreach's plan and scupper them.

Hmmm maybe..... Also doesn't help the Openreach cant seem to stick to there estimated dates at the moment..

I've seen some on here complaining about delays of up 9 months.. maybe more...

So not good for reputation really... Thats if openreach have a reputation left.

That's why they are so reluctant to publish the dates in the first place.

Different reasons drive changes to dates and some are almost certainly bad planning or cock-ups by Openreach. But some will be completely out of Openreach's control and may only be avoided by spending a lot more time and money up front in the planning stage - resource that is wasted if the job doesn't end up being problematic.

It is a balancing act. Openreach may or may not be doing a good job but as the full details of delays are unlikely to ever be published we will probably never know.

What is clear is that they are probably doing the largest single infrastructure rollout in the history of the UK and overall they aren't doing too badly.

In reply to a post by ian72:

What is clear is that they are probably doing the largest single infrastructure rollout in the history of the UK and overall they aren't doing too badly.

This is probably correct, and no they aren't exactly failing as they are managing to bump customers on poor speeds up.. Though some would disagree, specially rural folk on EO lines and long distance overheads.

Or even folk living in the centre of London on EO lines who have rubbish speeds as well. But, BT work on the stats rather than the individual and statistically the rollout is running well - but when your rollout is 66% then a third of people will be unhappy.

Edited by ian72 (Wed 30-Jul-14 12:23:24)

Yeah I did mean that too just forgot to type EO lines before rural fold on long lines...

Busy Busy Busy Morning

Have you ever tried managing a programme the size of the FTTC roll out? Especially one that is dependent on so many external factors ... It is not easy and there will be a team of project managers pulling their hair out at the problems they see.

Yes, nine month delays can happen but overall they are making best use of resources. For example they start to schedule a series of areas or cabinets. The local authority objects to one of them, so that then has to be renegotiated and re-planned.At the time of the issue the PM cannot be sure of how long it will take so he brings a block of installs forward and drops the problem one at the end to allow for issues to be solved.

Do you ever hear people singing BT praises when a cabinet goes live before te due date? No, but it happens and happens on a regular basis.

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

Openreach claiming they will be adding more information regarding cabinets to its checkers sounds like a lode of rubbish to me.

Hopefully they'll include the BDUK information if they do, fttc-check.alc.im did.

There will be limitations from the various projects, i.e. while BT is in all the projects the level of information that comes out into the public domain varies according to the choices of the councils, even if they would like us to think it is always Openreach that is saying no to publication of info. Hence why some counties tell you which cabinets are under survey and others don't

In reply to a post by Jax2:

Says it all really:
http://community.fttc-check.alc.im/30-pcp-data-removed

Thanks for the info you did make available Adam, it was very useful.

It seems a real shame that such a useful and informative source has been lost.

That site enabled me to find out more than the openreach one ever did.

A big thank you to the person who was running it.

And a bigger **** you to whichever idiot got it closed.

I think a lot is nervousness on the Council behalf as they are scared that if they give out information it will raise expectations and then people will complain when things don't happen - ie exactly what started this thread.

So, Council's just do not want to be caught in the same situation as Openreach especially as they are in the hands of BT in actually delivering this stuff.

I'm not saying they are in the wrong, But I do feel that all the money that government has given to Openreach to rollout superfast fibre has been wasted on trying to improve an old infrastructure that will keep costing them even more after they are finished...

FTTP is the way forward, I also think that a Radio system would be better... with obviously some improvements like better latency and more solid connections.

But I know there's a lot of holes that can be poked into that, and that you all will.

But surely you can't blame me for thinking the way I am.

And I was just about to start poking holes...

Here goes anyway.

FTTP - yes that would be great, but nowhere near enough funding to get the coverage so either more people would have gone without or more funds would have had to be found.

Radio - I wonder if the latency is partly because you are running at the speed of sound rather than the speed of light and therefore it will have higher latency unless you have a very tightly packed array of transmitters/receivers (which would then be very expensive).

I may be completely wrong and there may be other factors that could be positively influenced but would likely require expensive R&D and lots of time to get it past regulations to make it happen.

Exactly....

But you understand where I'm coming from right? (Upgrading an old infrastructure)

Yes, but understand the reality of maximising existing infrastructure and not over extending finance for something that has a very long payback period.

I know.... I'm just living in a bit of a dream world thinking that the job would have been done right the first time round.

Also wouldn't extending and upgrading the HFC (Virgin Cable) network in most areas of been better with upgrading to docsis 3.1 in future...

Or would I be correct in saying it was the highest bidders that got the contracts for areas and Virgin was not one of them.

I am not sure if Virgin ever were in the bid process or if they dropped out at some point. It was an "open" tender so Virgin had the option - given EU procurement they couldn't force someone into the process.

I am pretty sure that with BT Group there will be those keen to put full fibre infrastructure in place, the interesting point is that if you look beyond the rhetoric, the way the aggregation nodes are done to feed each fibre cabinet these AG nodes can be extended to provide GPON at a later date. Of course then the argument is over whether GPON is a dead end and full Point to Point fibre should be deployed, and the moans about the fact that GPON products are usually not symmetrical in terms of bandwidth.

Given the deadlines and money allocated and scale of intervention a FTTP heavy roll-out was never likely, though some areas are going to get FTTP from the BDUK project in their area.

... all the money that government has given to Openreach to rollout superfast fibre ...

That is only infill. The major part of the rollout is financed entirely by BT Group. They have to find the money themselves

Virgin Media would have had to open up to a wholesale access model, and while the downloads on their network are high extending to areas with no cabinets would probably have been even most costly that FTTC, since they would have to run fibre to the new cabinets, and the coax to every home that wanted it. Range of cable cabinets is actually less than the range of VDSL2 too, so more cabinets for the more densely packed areas

the public money has had to be match so if you £850m from publ and match form Local authority and match both of this with an operator operator -- that match is outside of the 2.5bn commercial you start yo ge t a view on the investimet

I don't think you'll find BT had to directly match. A lot of projects the BT proportion is relatively low but the offset is that Council's get a higher proportion of money back if take-up exceeds a given level.

In reply to a post by ian72:

I am not sure if Virgin ever were in the bid process or if they dropped out at some point. It was an "open" tender so Virgin had the option - given EU procurement they couldn't force someone into the process.

Ok..

Just a shame more couldn't be done really, I also guess a lot of money is being invested elsewhere like 4th generation and up mobile comms.

Have openreach started doing any copper arrangement work yet, I heard somewhere they where going to be rearranging the routing of some copper and replacing old cabling for new and having existing copper refubished?

In reply to a post by ian72:

A lot of projects the BT proportion is relatively low but the offset is that Council's get a higher proportion of money back if take-up exceeds a given level.

We had a very nice chap come from the Council to talk at a special Parish Council meeting to explain what is happening in my area. He said that the County Council will get money back when the uptake in the County reaches 20%, at the moment the uptake is 13%. When they do hopefully get money back it will be reinvested in further roll-out so a lot depends on take up.

In reply to a post by ian72:

I wonder if the latency is partly because you are running at the speed of sound rather than the speed of light and therefore it will have higher latency unless you have a very tightly packed array of transmitters/receivers (which would then be very expensive).

Radio has been slowed down to the speed of sound since I went to school then!

Perhaps not. Band with limitations could play a part though.

In reply to a post by Fastman2:

Gents the informaion provided to the website was not in the public domain and only provided to CPs - (there are specific rules around what those CP can do with that data and what they cannot -(ioe forward it elsewhere

Yep, and confidential information gets leaked in all walks of life.

Once it's in the public domain it can be very hard to remove, it's just huge shame he didn't make the data available to download, then it would have been as good as impossible to remove from the public domain.

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

I've seen some on here complaining about delays of up 9 months.. maybe more...

Ha, 9 months? 4 years here..... and still they've not done any work at all.

Dslchecker site is saying September now, when that rolls around it'll get punted on another 6 months, then the planning permission expires (it was 3 years ago!), that'll be another 6 months ......

In reply to a post by greenglide:

In reply to a post by ian72:

I wonder if the latency is partly because you are running at the speed of sound rather than the speed of light and therefore it will have higher latency unless you have a very tightly packed array of transmitters/receivers (which would then be very expensive).

Radio has been slowed down to the speed of sound since I went to school then!

Perhaps not. Band with limitations could play a part though.

Oops. I wasn't entirely certain as I was writing it but seemed to make sense - my physics GCSE was a long time ago and I blame senility for such a schoolboy error...

In reply to a post by ian72:

In reply to a post by greenglide:

In reply to a post by ian72:

I wonder if the latency is partly because you are running at the speed of sound rather than the speed of light and therefore it will have higher latency unless you have a very tightly packed array of transmitters/receivers (which would then be very expensive).

Radio has been slowed down to the speed of sound since I went to school then!

Perhaps not. Band with limitations could play a part though.

Oops. I wasn't entirely certain as I was writing it but seemed to make sense - my physics GCSE was a long time ago and I blame senility for such a schoolboy error...

Reminds me of a kid at school at the time of the first moon landing in 1969 ... he insisted that the audio of the scheduled transmissions from the moon would take far longer to reach earth than the video. No matter how hard we tried to convince him otherwise he wouldn't believe us until he had seen the actual live broadcast.

ronksi - interesting -- wonder how long you stay with your bank if your bank deatails and all your bank informaion were lleaked to a public forum or that bank woudl be in business --

that data is supplied monthly to CP's via a secure portal and strict controls about what can be done with it -

Ian the match is via gap funing and that gap funding is via premsies the match requirement of public money provdied -- so evening if you are correct and some of that is to due with aid intesity that could stil be around an addition 1bn on top of the 2.5bn of the commercial programme --

In reply to a post by Fastman2:

ronksi - interesting -- wonder how long you stay with your bank if your bank deatails and all your bank informaion were lleaked to a public forum or that bank woudl be in business --

that data is supplied monthly to CP's via a secure portal and strict controls about what can be done with it -

Oh fastman do stop banging on about it!

I wonder just how happy you'd be if everything you did was tracked by the government/companies, every email, every text, every phone call, everything you bought, every internet search because if there wasn't leaks and whistle blowers that's what would happen, but of course in your world it'd be top secret and you'd be none the wiser!