Lower Shelton exchange - every street has FTTC except mine

Hi all,

I've been waiting patiently for years now to be able to get decent broadband capability but it seems like BT has forgotten about me as it's just my street in my whole town that can't get it.

I've been checking on the OpenReach Where and When site every month and I've worked out that my local exchange is Lower Shelton but when I put in my post code it says 'Under Review'.

My post code is MK43 0NA. When I check using the post codes of the streets either side of me it says they are live and accepting orders, I've also double checked this by going through the sign up process on the BT Infinity site to see how far I could get, for example MK43 0AE and MK43 0QB.

I've tried the line checker but my line is actually with Sky so it doesn't help me much. I've also spoken to both Sky and BT on the phone and they both just say keep checking online as my cabinet probably hasn't been switched on, but why has everyone around me been enabled, except my road?

Any help or advice? I'm relying on a poor 3G signal at the minute for all my online needs.

why has everyone around me been enabled, except my road?

There can be many reasons why a cab (in your case cab 16) doesn't have FTTC enabled ranging from the cab being economically unavailable due to a low number of connections through to work outstanding and delayed due perhaps to blocked ducts, problems with wayleave or difficulties with or a very expensive to install power supply.

You cab appears to be cab 16. Have you located it? If yes, has an FTTC cab been installed in close proximity?

MK43 0AE is on cab 5 and MK43 0QB on cab 3 which are both FTTC enabled.

There are two green cabinets at the end of my road but I don't think they are particularly new. I can take a photo of them tomorrow when it's light if that helps?
There are about 60 houses on my road all unable to get connected, despite other smaller streets either side of me that are connected.

The number of properties in a street is irrelevant, what is relevant is the number of properties connected to a PCP (cabinet). The less properties, the less likely it is that the cabinet is commercially viable. From what I have read the number seems to need to be in excess of 250 and quite possibly more. For cabs that are commercially unviable see whether your local BDUK scheme is going to help fund an upgrade.

If still no go then you're going to be out of luck unless you can get together a scheme where the community find the necessary gap funds to enable BT to upgrade the cabinet. This is something I've been involved with where we are paying BT in excess of £15K to enable our cluster of 75 EO lines (we have no cabinet).

This looks like a PCP cab added (a while ago) to infill around a number of existing cabs, adding some capacity. As such, it is relatively small, while the surrounding ones are full ... which means fewer potential FTTC customers on your cab, and lots on the other cabs.

For more details in Beds, you probably want to be checking this website:
http://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/local-business...

They have maps, and a postcode checker there. Putting your postcode in gives "phase 8" which unfortunately means it is only planned for the basic-broadband phase (ie 2Mbps).

It means you probably have to watch for BDUK phase 2 - or BDUK SEP project.

Any help or advice? I'm relying on a poor 3G signal at the minute for all my online needs.

Any friends or neighbours within line of sight?

You could get a line installed there, and use a form of WiFi with directional-antennas to get the signal to your house.

Yeap looks like a small cabinet too small for commercial or current BDUK roll-outs. Might even be missed out from the SEP which with a 95% target can afford to miss 5% of the country.

If these are the two cabinets you are referring to, then one looks like PCP 16, the other I'm not sure what it is, pretty sure it's not a fibre cab though.

There are 46 properties listed for your postcode (MK43 0NA), and these are supplied by 5 cabs which are 3, 5, 10, 13 and 16.

3 only supplies the sales office and gets a 80/20 estimate
5 supplies four properties (7, 9, 11 & 14) and all get an 80/20 estimate
10 Supplies one property (40) which has an 79/20 estimate with an estimated ready date of 21 January as cab appears full.
13 supplies 26 properties - no FTTC
16 supplies 15 properties - no FTTC

No help to you what so ever (unless you are next door to one of the lucky ones), but it's some information you may find interesting. The high estimates mean that cabinets 3, 5 & 10 are all close by. Perhaps they were short of capacity and just used various other local cabs to supply the estate when built.

Edited by R0NSKI (Sun 28-Dec-14 20:37:19)

From what I can see, this cab serves 5 postcodes, but every single one of those postcodes is also served by at least one other cab. In every case, cab 16 serves a minority of the postcode.

MK43 0FE: Served mostly by cabs 3, 5 and 9 (all converted)
          Cab 16 serves 32% of the postcode.
MK43 0FF: Served mostly by cabs 3, 5 and 9 (all converted)
          Cab 16 serves 41% of the postcode.
MK43 0NA: Served mostly by cabs 3, 5 and 9 (all converted)
          Cab 16 serves 26% of the postcode.
MK43 0QW: Served mostly by cabs 13, 15 (not converted), and 11 (converted)
          Cab 16 serves 3% of the postcode.
MK43 0UR: Served mostly by cabs 5 and 9 (both converted).
          Cab 16 serves 17% of the postcode.

We're obviously looking in different places!

And ... ouch ... the cabs that have been enabled will also let you order FTTP on demand. So close, yet so far!

@Mike666

You probably need to talk to the local BDUK group, to make sure they understand that you aren't supplied. With the postcode largely covered by other (upgraded) cabinets, you might be invisible to them in their future plans.

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

If these are the two cabinets you are referring to, then one looks like PCP 16, the other I'm not sure what it is, pretty sure it's not a fibre cab though.

There are 46 properties listed for your postcode (MK43 0NA), and these are supplied by 5 cabs which are 3, 5, 10, 13 and 16.

3 only supplies the sales office and gets a 80/20 estimate
5 supplies four properties (7, 9, 11 & 14) and all get an 80/20 estimate
10 Supplies one property (40) which has an 79/20 estimate with an estimated ready date of 21 January as cab appears full.
13 supplies 26 properties - no FTTC
16 supplies 15 properties - no FTTC

No help to you what so ever (unless you are next door to one of the lucky ones), but it's some information you may find interesting. The high estimates mean that cabinets 3, 5 & 10 are all close by. Perhaps they were short of capacity and just used various other local cabs to supply the estate when built.

Yes those are the two cabinets I was talking about, how ironic that google maps captured them when the BT Openreach van was working on them too!

I don't live in one of the house numbers that you mentioned, but one of them is next door to me, does this help me?

It seems crazy how a few random houses in the street are going to be switched on and not others, with no date in sight, as well as every other property in the whole town!

As a side note, I've just done a speed check online of my connection and I've got a reading of 0.3 Mb/sec, and that's when it's working, which it rarely is, so you see what I'm living with

Edited by deleted (Sun 28-Dec-14 21:27:45)

My info came from the BT wholesale checker.

In reply to a post by Mike666uk:

I don't live in one of the house numbers that you mentioned, but one of them is next door to me, does this help me?

Depends how well you get on with your neighbour and if the data is correct for their address.

Do they have fibre broadband?

You could get a line installed to their property in your name, then extend it across to your house. This presumes that there is a spare pair on their line and it feeds back to the same cab. Not sure if this is practical or safe. It may be easier to share cost's/wifi.

Fibre broadband not currently available

You are served by cabinet number 16 on the Lower Shelton exchange.

Fibre broadband is available to order in parts of the Lower Shelton exchange, however your premises do not have access to fibre broadband currently.

This position may change, so please check back periodically.

In reply to a post by Mike666uk:

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

If these are the two cabinets you are referring to, then one looks like PCP 16, the other I'm not sure what it is, pretty sure it's not a fibre cab though.

Yes those are the two cabinets I was talking about, how ironic that google maps captured them when the BT Openreach van was working on them too!

When you look at the image in Streetview, it gives you an option to look at the older images too. For me this appears near the top-left of the screen.

The image with Openreach present is Sept 2010. The 2nd box (the one closer to the road, and apparently covered over in Sept 2010) is also visible in Aug 2010 and Jan 2010. However, the earliest image (March 2009) shows only the second box to be present; PCP 16 isn't present in that image at all.

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

My info came from the BT wholesale checker.

I guessed so.

Mine was from the Magenta Code-Lookup website

How do I contact my local BDUK group? I've searched and searched but it appears they don't want to be contacted by the likes of me.

Surely they can't upgrade the whole area except for the 1 cabinet that I need and just move on

In reply to a post by Mike666uk:

Surely they can't upgrade the whole area except for the 1 cabinet that I need and just move on

Unfortunately bud, from what I've seen... they can!

It looks like your only way forward is raising the money within your neighbourhood or street even and getting it enabled or looking into an alternative solution for faster broadband.

In reply to a post by Mike666uk:

How do I contact my local BDUK group? I've searched and searched but it appears they don't want to be contacted by the likes of me.

Phone number and email address on the web page I linked to earlier:
http://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/local-business...

Surely they can't upgrade the whole area except for the 1 cabinet that I need and just move on

Their overall target is to reach as many people as possible for the money, with the expectation that this will be around 90% of properties.

To do this, they obviously aim for FTTC to as many cabinets as possible, concentrating on the ones with the highest number of potential subscribers. If your cabinet falls outside that threshold, then they'll leave you out.

As others have said, local communities have stepped in with funding when BDUK won't cover them. You might have to resort to that ... but only after you've talked to the local BDUK project.

I've moved to part of the new development in Marston Moretaine 6 weeks ago from Milton Keynes where I was lucky enough to have FTTP (80/20), but I'm now down to poorly ADSL (1.5/0.5).

We're using an EE 4GEE wireless hotspot dongle thing for decent speed when we need it (working from home) but that's got a cap of 25GB and isn't a long term solution.

Bedford Council have just announced the next phase of BDUK in the area - not great news (still doesn't recognise my post code), but it looks like Marston/Lower Shelton may well be Phase 1 (yay) which starts Q2 2017-Q1 2018 (boo). Only 2 YEARS!! to wait!?!

http://www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/local-business...

Postcode checker:
https://bedford.firmstep.com/popup.aspx/RenderForm/?...

ben are you on cab 11 -- suggest you ask your developer whats happening !!!! you might be surpirsed at the response

In reply to a post by Fastman2:

ben are you on cab 11 -- suggest you ask your developer whats happening !!!! you might be surpirsed at the response

The ground around cabinet 11 is being dug up as of yesterday with Openreach notices around it.