Calne Cabinet 10 and E2 status

There is some confusion about the status of these two cabinets in Calne.

Cabinet 10 has been upgraded with FTTC in the BT rollout, but still there are many places which can not get an FTTC connection from Cabinet 10. And those people have no idea if they will ever get FTTC, and since Cabinet 10 has been updated by BTO, there seems little interest from Wiltshire Council to upgrade this. So how to find out from BT about the future plans for Cabinet 10?

Cabinet E2, has been upgraded by Wiltshire Council and is to go live soon. What does the E in E2 mean if anything?

There is a belief that the E2 and 10 cabinets are physically in the same location. Can anybody confirm this? And what is likely to happen to those on Cabinet 10 who are stuck on ADSL.

Also many people on Cabinet 10 are still connected using DACS, is it correct BT are obliged to remove DACS if a person asks for broadband to be connected?

Thanks for any helps or thoughts anybody can offer.

PE2 is on the county project plans.

Got an example postcode for someone cabinet 10 who cannot order FTTC? The councils are not addressing those areas unless it falls into the 2 Mbps USC funding area, which is generally being left to the end.

Exchange also has a fair bit of exchange line lines, some might see FTTP but again as it may be in the later stages of the project. So chase project teams for info.

Thank you Andrew, I think but will have to confirm that postcode SN11 9LA is on Cab 10 and unable to order FTTC.

We think Cabinet 10 is located at Quarr Barton, SN11 0EB, but I have not been able to 'see' it on Streetview as it may be in a location not visible.

I susspect E2 is/ was a pillar/scp. It's a few hundred metres from PCP 10

Junction Lickhill road/ newcroft road

Hello,

Sorry to jump on this thread but I'm just a newbie on this forum who is also suffering from the vagaries of Wiltshire Council's broadband policy!

We live in an area of Wiltshire (Castle Combe) whose cabinets have been upgraded to Fibre but seemingly the only beneficiaries are those who live relatively close to the cabinets.

We are 3.5km from a Cab 2 but have not been offered any upgrade whatsover despite being stuck on ADSL with a max of 1MB!

I noticed that Andrew had mentioned councils are leaving those outside of the USC of 2MB until the end - is this their policy?? It makes no sense that people who have existing poor services are left out until the very end yet people with already adequate services are upgraded using public funds?!!

Its not declared policy but it does seem to be the way things are going i.e. do the easy stuff first and see how much money is left and maybe just offer you a voucher for satellite broadband in a year or twos time.

There are technical solutions for telephone line based solutions, or fixed wireless or even 4G mobile but a case of money and always easy to do the big bulk and hit the key coverage milestones early.

Thanks for that Andrew. I agree that this seems to be the way they are going forward but if you read their initial pitches for BDUK funding it was communities such as ours who were currently poorly connected that would get priority.

I read one of your articles on ADSL2+ with power boosting that would have been ideal for a community such as our with a long-ish line from the FTTC cabinet. Surely a solution such as that can't be that expensive?

I just find it very disappointing (not alone I'm sure!) that they don't look at the basic solutions first to deliver an adequate service for everybody.

I suggested this and e-mailed a link to your article to our Wiltshire Online rep but unsurprisingly that was met with silence!

In reply to a post by sjlly:

Thanks for that Andrew. I agree that this seems to be the way they are going forward but if you read their initial pitches for BDUK funding it was communities such as ours who were currently poorly connected that would get priority.

I just find it very disappointing (not alone I'm sure!) that they don't look at the basic solutions first to deliver an adequate service for everybody.

From a project perspective, BT don't know the details of which cabinets are going to be upgraded until they've performed some of the survey & planning work (and even then details can change). Only then can they get an idea of which properties are going to benefit from FTTC speeds.

With the project broken down into a number of phases (some projects have as many as 10 phases), the survey & planning work for the later phases doesn't happen until a long way into the overall timescale.

But it is only at this point that anyone can say, with reasonable certainty, where the properties are that will fail to benefit from the fibre installation - and are therefore the ones to qualify for "basic" provision.

If the project starts providing "basic" service for "everyone" before the cabinet coverage is known, you'll find that the budget gets wasted (or totally blown) on 2Mb rather than on 24Mb+. At best, you'll provide 2Mb support to many properties that subsequently end up with superfast provision.

The councils want to get as many properties served by 24Mbps, and want to waste as little as possible on 2Mb provision. With those requirements, there isn't much of a different approach that can be taken.

However, with a second batch of funding coming along, councils will have to make that decision all over again: do they push the 2Mb provision to the back again, or do they just go with the existing plan, and accept that some of this will be over-provisioned with superfast speeds later? At least BT will have better survey data in time for that decision to be made.

Suffolk are the only ones to have made a decision on the phase 2 extension funding so far - and have chosen to keep the basic provision in place, accepting the potential for waste.

North Yorkshire had a similar decision, but their increase in funding was from within phase 1; they decided to push the 2Mb portion back by a year - but doing that freed up £2m that could be re-budgeted from the "basic" provision into the "superfast" provision.

I read one of your articles on ADSL2+ with power boosting that would have been ideal for a community such as our with a long-ish line from the FTTC cabinet. Surely a solution such as that can't be that expensive?

Where was that article?

There are technical problems with running a "power boost", where the lines with boosted power overly interfere with lines that aren't boosted.

Not gone to find article, but there was talk of ADSL2+ repeater in local loop, and would deal with the 8 or 16 lines in that bundle, ie. more suited to the rural environment and Ericsson had their version at a trade show way back in 2010

The thing with Openreach is they are a large firm with a long engineering heritage so things get tested and processes streamlined, which makes low volume tasks something they don't do well.

Four councils with 4G and 98% coverage on the way so they are told, spending on 2 Mbps via fixed now might be wasted if the person can suddenly get 20 Mbps or better from 4G in a years time.

Tough call for councils, as cannot be seen to waste money and based on reactions in here when estimated dates change one can also partially understand the lack of information.