What the???

Until only a couple of days ago my Exchange (Boxford EABFD) has been showing on the Openreach Where and When site as CS with a RFS date of 31/12/2014. Today it is showing as UR.
On Samknows it did say RFS for FTTC and FTTP for 31/12/2014 but this has now changed to FTTC No but still RFS 31/12/ 2014 for FTTP.
I am on cabinet 1 which was down to get FTTP. In Boxford itself a FTTC cabinet has been put in place for cabinet 2 and lots of ducting has been put in for cabinet 1 FTTP with more to come shortly according to roadworks.org.
My wife went out today and noted there was a couple of Openreach vans in our road with a big wheel of black cable with a blue stripe along it's length apparently being fed into the new ducting so that is a very hopeful sign to me.
The question is though, what is going on? Anybody know if there is any significance to the changes of status on the Openreach website and Samknows?

a big wheel of black cable with a blue stripe along it's length

Sorry to say, it should have a yellow stripe on it to denote fibre.

My wife was driving past so did not really get a good view but I have just just asked her again and she says there was a larger beige tube going down into the hole (as she puts it) which went along to the next hole (inside the new grey ducting which they put in a few weeks ago under the BDUK scheme) with a much thinner blue cable going (she thinks) into the beige tube. I will have to have a look tomorrow but I doubt if there will be anything to see as it will be all sealed up again. As I can't even watch a 480 utube clip tonight on my awful broadband I find this frustrating and worrying.

Blue cable probably a pull through rope and beige might be the grey duct pipe rough size of gutter pipes

Roadworks.org will usually give updates on work in an area

Yes thanks, I did look at roadworks.org but nothing there relating to my very local area and today's work, only stuff like more ducting going in over the next couple of months and blockage clearance in one place later this week slightly further afield but all in the area supplied by my cabinet. Strange.

Hi. Well, we were told the following:

"At a briefing prior to the Parish Council meeting last Thursday (17th July), Jonathan Chown, Business Development Specialist from Suffolk County Council, revealed that the plan for the 01787 numbers in Polstead Parish is to provide Fibre To The Home/Fibre To The Premises (FTTH/FTTP)(they're the same thing). This will use a direct fibre-optic connection from Hadleigh optical exchange to a router in your home."

The availability date was stated as December 2014. (It would have been sooner, apparently - but the much-in-demand fibre-splicing engineers were diverted to some lower-hanging fruit)

It depends on exactly where you live, of course, but the orange bits on the map here: http://polstead.onesuffolk.net/what-s-new/better-bro... show the extent of the Better Broadband for Suffolk commitments.

Hope that helps.

vaio

Edited by deleted (Mon 15-Sep-14 23:17:01)

Yes , thanks vaio.

I was at that meeting and happily for me I am in the area to get FTTP. It is just that with the change of information on the BT Wholesale website I am a bit worried that things may have changed since that meeting and that the plan is no longer viable due to some unforeseen circumstance.

Hope not!

I wouldn't trust SamKnows, it did the same for me, despite the fact that there's an FTTC cab right next to my PCP and I'm close enough for decent speeds.

I think there's a bug in their data.

The moral is DO NOT rely on checkers that give an exchange wide answer, as for example cabinet has no plans for anything yet I believe.

Cabinet 2 has actually gone live and is taking orders, it is normal for FTTP to take longer due to the extra duct work needed.

Address SPONG BUNGALOW, HOWE ROAD, GROTON, SUDBURY, CO10 5HE on Exchange BOXFORD is served by Cabinet 2



Featured Products


Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)


Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)


Downstream Range(Mbps)


Availability Date




High

Low

High

Low





FTTC Range A (Clean) 18.4 12.6 1.2 0.8 -- Available
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 15.5 7.2 1 0.6 -- Available

Thank you Andrew, puts my mind at rest.

So much for the new BT Wholesale Where and When site which is supposed to give out better information!

The ADSL checker gives no information for me using my number apart from ADSL2+ is enabled but waiting for more capacity (yet again) with no hint of when fibre will be available. I knew cabinet two had it's fibre twin but did not know it is enabled.

There are certainly quite a lot of roadworks coming up putting in ducting in the area with some running right up to 23 Dec so I hope fibre will be available sometime in the first quarter of next year. Hopefully early in the new year!

Openreach is sometimes tied in the level of information they can give out due to contracts with the councils and the councils claim vice versa.

The BT Wholesale checker is NOT the where and when site, its a subtle difference but an important one.

Anyway an update, two Openreach guys turned up today and connected a lovely black cable with a yellow stripe up from the chamber at the bottom of my pole and pinned a coil of it to the pole ready for the eventual connection to what will apparently be a 12 fttp manifold.

They were really chatty and told me that there are a lot of blockages to be cleared over the whole area but also just down the road from me a 50 metre gap with no ducting has been left along the road because there was some sort of problem (they suggested other services in the way) which had been referred to the "Civils" to sort out. They said it would be sorted - eventually!

They were of the opinion that a lot of work had been done on this FTTP project already so it was highly unlikely the project would be dropped at this stage and were of the opinion that sometime in the first quarter of 2015 would be a reasonable time-scale to look at and I could allow myself to become a little excited when the manifolds appear on the poles.

Edited by Jax2 (Tue 16-Sep-14 10:50:05)

Thank you, most informative, and a reply to a different post at a guess ?

Lol, yes a different post! Just replied to the one at the bottom in flat mode.

The post structures baffle me

If you select the "next two weeks" option on the roadworks site, you can see the works going from Hadleigh right to Bildeston - they've already started in Hadleigh out to the A1071, which is presumably what your wife saw?

Anyway, the description of the works when they get to Bildeston includes putting a fibre cabinet in too, specifically it says to be connected to PCP7.

So if you are getting FTTP is it going to cost you more ?, our exchange is FTTC but I would like FTTP even if I help to put in the fibre !.

At the moment if you are in a FTTC area there are only to routes to full fibre. Either FTTPoD (not available in most areas, quite expensive and few ISPs offer it) or full leased line (available pretty much everywhere, very expensive comparatively).

And where FTTP is available you can't get FTTC. But, a few ISPs offer the FTTP services and are generally on a par cost wise with FTTC but higher speed packages are available up to 330Mb/s.

There's one near us offering 1Gb up and down. Prices were actually quite reasonable, but you do have a relatively high installation cost (c£100 upwards).

Not available where I am unfortunately. They only go where BT doesn't!

That is probably Hyperoptic or B4RN (or possibly a handful of others). Good options potentially but only for a very small percentage of the population. The disadvantage is they don't wholesale so you are completely tied to the ISP.

In reply to a post by gazzyk1ns:

If you select the "next two weeks" option on the roadworks site, you can see the works going from Hadleigh right to Bildeston - they've already started in Hadleigh out to the A1071, which is presumably what your wife saw?

Anyway, the description of the works when they get to Bildeston includes putting a fibre cabinet in too, specifically it says to be connected to PCP7.

I live miles away from Bildeston which has had FTTC for some time. Not sure exactly what my wife saw as she was too busy watching the road and only got an impression in failing light but the next day they were putting in black cable with a yellow stripe leaving a coil coming from inside the chamber and taped for now to my telegraph pole. I have now discovered that the hold up is some more trench work has to be done for more ducting which will entail closing my road. This cannot apparently be scheduled before mid December so the time scale for my FTTP has slipped to March.

In reply to a post by APTMAN:

So if you are getting FTTP is it going to cost you more ?, our exchange is FTTC but I would like FTTP even if I help to put in the fibre !.

Not sure if you are addressing this question to me but the answer for me is no, the cost is the same. The Suffolk BDUK has decided that all the connections to my cabinet will be provided with FTTP so as it is native FTTP it will not cost me any more. A different cabinet has already got FTTC and other cabinets will not get fibre at all. Don't know how they decide such things but I have hit lucky, it is just a long wait.

It was Gigaclear.

you'e right, you are tied, but if the choice is between c 1Mbps or I Gb then I guess it might not be such a hardship?

In fact, their 200Mbps up/down worked out as cheaper than the equivalent BT package for FTTC, including telephone rental. And it's not "up to" 80Mbps, but the full 200Mbps each way, since it's FTTP. It seemed a bargain to be fair.

But ultimately getting it is a lottery, since you have to hope you're not on the BDUK plans to stand a chance of getting it!

In reply to a post by shure:

It seemed a bargain to be fair.

True, but almost no-one takes into account the reliability & robustness levels of the voice service, and access to emergency services.

I recently read of a place that lost its phone service for a day; the three emergency services stationed vehicles out there 'just in case'. We're not in that sort of place for internet-based voice services yet.

I fear that many people are sleep-walking into a situation where they end up relying on a service that is simply "best effort".

There may be a small difference in set-up costs, as with FTTC the non-engineer visit to the home means a cheaper £50 wholesale cost, rather than the £99 charged for engineer to visit on either GEA-FTTC or GEA-FTTP (ignoring FoD which is what you don't have)

In terms of decision making it will be

a) Cost of the cabinet for FTTC versus FTTP for an area
b) Benefit i.e. if only say 20 out of 100 lines could get superfast from a cab, then FTTP is more likely, but depends on (a)
c) If businesses on the cabinet and project has some EU money it can sway things sometimes.
d) Just random luck and slip of a planners pen

At the end of the day money is big decider, FTTC is used so much simply because with the limited funding available they can cover more premises and gives leeway for options (b) and (c).

In reply to a post by shure:

It was Gigaclear.

you'e right, you are tied, but if the choice is between c 1Mbps or I Gb then I guess it might not be such a hardship?

In fact, their 200Mbps up/down worked out as cheaper than the equivalent BT package for FTTC, including telephone rental. And it's not "up to" 80Mbps, but the full 200Mbps each way, since it's FTTP. It seemed a bargain to be fair.

But ultimately getting it is a lottery, since you have to hope you're not on the BDUK plans to stand a chance of getting it!

It is good for those that can get it. The risk is if the company needs to reduce costs that they could end up contending services massively and the customer would have no choice of anywhere else to go to. But, if I had the choice I would be signing up - unfortunately I don't.

I don't think they would benefit from that.

The way they operate is to target communities that do not have public money being spent on them under the BDUK initiative. If they generate sufficient interest within a community (currently 30%) then they install FTTP to the ENTIRE community, otherwise it's not commercially viable for them, since the biggest cost is in the digging and laying of cables. At least, to just outside each property. then any new householder can just request connection and pay the set up fees (c£100) to bring it into the property. if they don't want it, the connection just remains outside.

Home owners (or businesses) can choose to keep their old BT line or disconnect entirely and use e.g. Vonage for phone services. But the old BT infrastructure will still remain in place. Now we are talking 1Gb FTTP connections (therefore both up and down) and largely rural communities (since urban conurbations will undoubtedly be receiving attention from the BDUK funding), so contention issues are highly unlikely for the foreseeable future. And people could always go back to their 1Mbps BT line if they wanted!

the catch, if there is one, is that at least 30% of a community has to register interest before they will start digging. They won't just go to an individual's house for obvious reasons. But if you are being left off the BDUK plans then you have nothing to lose by registering interest with them

Contention isn't necessarily just in the local area. They are presumably handing off to a central network somewhere that will have other links from there. The peering links and backhaul could well cause contention depending on their model.

There is also the fact the company could potentially decide to double their charges overnight. Or the company could go bust.

I am not saying this is likely but it is a potential risk.

It's a valid point, but even if it drops down to "only" 200Mbps, it's still faster than anything else out there and having the same speed both up and down is a bonus in this heavily digital age, especially with all the cloud computing going on.

But backhaul could affect anybody, so the risk for them is not greater than anyone under the BDUK umbrella. I think the only possible risk is in the charging, which is always dangerous with a monopoly. But again, you could always fall back on the 20CN BT lines...

But they are about to IPO and they have ambitious growth plans. Just how far do you think they would get if tales of villagers held hostage to unethical price rises were to leak out to the general public? I don't think pricing themselves out of the market would do them any favours, so I'm inclined to think that's not a huge risk. To be honest, I'm inclined to think that somewhere down the line they'd probably have to do their own version of LLU once they reached a certain size, and had to open up their network to competition.

In reply to a post by shure:

I think the only possible risk is in the charging, which is always dangerous with a monopoly. But again, you could always fall back on the 20CN BT lines...

The lesson of South Yorkshire suggests that there is a risk of the company failing to fund their business model, and attract enough income. The result would be that they simply walk away, or hike the prices.

IMO, the real lesson comes from our existing broadband: It is treated as a free commodity, given away as a sweetener when you sign up for much more expensive TV packages.

It wouldn't surprise me if a naked-FTTP company ended up having to do *something* with TV packages in order to make a financially-viable bundle.

they'd probably have to do their own version of LLU once they reached a certain size, and had to open up their network to competition.

Hmmm. VM cover 48% of the country, and haven't hit that hurdle yet.

Very different issues in South Yorks

You can never say anything with a PLC is certain, even BT could be bought by someone and the direction changed. USC/USO would mean some time to take effect. Or more likely another buyer for Liberty Global across whole of Europe.

There are several FTTP operators around so if one was to go to the wall, then buying assets and customers would be an attractive thing.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

There are several FTTP operators around so if one was to go to the wall, then buying assets and customers would be an attractive thing.

I wonder what the exit plan is for the groups providing funding into these operators. I wonder how many are in it for the long-term income from subscribers, and how many are in it with the aim of being taken over by Liberty Global/VM or Sky, or somesuch.

We certainly see that new-build fibre is starting to appear with an initial lock-in to a TV service (usually Sky), so it wouldn't surprise me for retro-fit FTTP operators to end up going down a similar path.

of course the risk is always there for the business. If Worldcom can go under no-one's safe.

But as far as the consumer goes I don't see the risk. The worst that can happen is that the customer has to go back to their old BT broadband. But as long as there's an opportunity to get something better then I struggle to see a downside. The alternative is to be guaranteed to stay at a snail's pace