Fibre dates?

Our local village (Chinnor in Oxfordshire) has been marked to fibre for a while. According to SamKnows, our exchange (which is confusingly in the village, but called by the next village name Kingston Blount) has a RFS date set : 31/12/2014

On BT and South Oxfordshire sites the date for fibre is anything from March to June 2015. Which is likely to be correct? And will we get offered the choiuce of FTTC or FTTP? I live less than a mile from the exchange; I believe the nearest cabinet to me (OX394DT) is about half a mile away.

Currently I get 15Mb/S download and 0.9Mb/S upload, it's a faster upload speed I really need as I work from home in software development and regularly need to commit code to our cloud-based servers.

Forget SamKnows, regrettably I feel it has outlived its usefulness as a reference since the advent of FTTC/FTTP.

And will we get offered the choice of FTTC or FTTP?

Leaving aside FTTPoD which is extremely expensive both to install and run, users, if offered anything, are currently offered either FTTP or FTTC. As to which is offered this tends to be determined at cab level.

The exchange has some dozen cabinets, and they do not usually enable all the cabinets, so unless the dates given are confirmed as being for your cabinet then hard to be sure on any projected dates.

Also postcode OX39 4DT actually is served by three cabinets, Cab 2 is the most likely, then Cab 3 then maybe Cab 4.

As for FTTC or FTTP cannot give any indication of that

This may help.
The cabinets which MrSaffron has mentioned are down as being up graded for FTTC.

#The DSLAM cabinet for PCP2 is said to be installed s/o 74, STATION RD, CHINNOR, OX39 4HA.
# The DSLAM cabinet for PCP3 is said to be installed outside 48, LOWER ROAD, CHINNOR, OX39 4DU.
# The DSLAM cabinet for PCP4 is said to be installed outside 29, MILL LANE, CHINNOR, OX39 4QU.

If you put your phone number into this checker, it may not give FTTx estimates, only ADSLx, but the line above the table tells you your cabinet number.

If you have an LLU phone number that checker will not recognise it so then you use the Address option. Do not use the pure postcode option, as where you are it is likely to give incorrect information. (It only give data for one cabinet even if a particular postcode is served by several).

Thanks, I checked and am served by cab2, which is a bit odd as its further from cab3 although nearer to the exchange.

The new cabinets have have been installed for about a month now. However the BT and South Oxfordshire broadband sites are showing an availability date of June. Why such a delay?

After the cab is sited, it will need power and fibre.

Power is often installed on the same day, but can go wrong - it took my original cab 6 months to sort out, with three different sets of roadworks, in 3 different directions, seeking a suitable power source.

Delivering fibre can be a problem too, depending how many obstructions need to be cleared, and whether roadworks are needed, traffic lights etc.

Some copper tie pairs are needed between the new cab and the original PCP too. That takes a few days of jointing work.

After all is in place, some commissioning takes place.

Altogether, it can be a few days/weeks - but for the unfortunate few, weeks drag into months or even into years.

Unfortunately it does seem like weeks are becoming months etc...

We were originally told that fibre would be available by the end of June, now the expected date is put back to September. I happened to pass an Openreach engineer working down one of the street's covers and asked him when fibre would be enabled. He replied 'it'll be ready when its ready'....

So it could be another 3 months, but who knows? The worst thing is that there is no definitive answer available from anyone...

Update: I just checked and got this:

Featured Products


Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)


Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)


Downstream Range(Mbps)


Availability Date
High Low High Low
FTTC Range A (Clean) 68.6 50.3 20 14.1 -- Available
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 59.7 33 19.9 8.9 -- Available

WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 8 -- 5.5 to 12.5 Available
WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M Up to 8 Up to 1 5.5 to 12.5 Available
ADSL Max Up to 7.5 -- 6.5 to 8 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Other Offerings
Fibre Multicast -- -- -- Available
Copper Multicast -- -- -- Available

So it would seem that fibre *is* available... but BT have not bothered to contact me yet. Or maybe it's available from the cab2, but not yet to my home???

Was that check based on your phone number ? And did it confirm your cabinet.

In reply to a post by keith969:

He replied 'it'll be ready when its ready'....

How many time do you think he has been asked ... that day, that week, that month?

Why wait for BT to tell you? If you can order it you can get it.

I ordered it the day my cabinet went live i have had it 3 weeks and i just got an e-mail now saying its ready

In reply to a post by ZenUserJP:

Why wait for BT to tell you? If you can order it you can get it.

I ordered it the day my cabinet went live i have had it 3 weeks and i just got an e-mail now saying its ready

Why not reply to the OP, it would be a lot more useful for him.

If that result if from your line then you can order it now

Well I finally got it installed yesterday. Took about 10 mins for them to test the line and put in the new faceplate on the connector, replaced the hub with a 5 etc.

I don't get quite the spped I had hoped for, about 54Mb/s download and 8.4Mb/s upload (I know someone who lives opposite a cab and they get nearer 70/16) but it's still a lot better than ADSL2, in particular the upload speed is nearly 10x faster.

There is a nearer cab to me - wonder if you can get your cab changed? I guess it's probably linked to the infrastructure (we have good old fashioned telephone poles!)

anyone explain what this means?

FTTC Range A (Clean) 68.6 50.3 20 14.1 -- Available
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 59.7 33 19.9 8.9 -- Available

What's the difference between 'clean' and 'impacted'?

The High Low column titles give you the expected range, i.e. telling you that this is not a fixed speed product and until you have had it running you will not really know the speed.

Clean is a for a perfect line with no effects from internal extensions and little or no cross talk.
Impacted will be for those with lots of crosstalk or maybe have some wiring issues in the home or externally.

Cross talk is not a constant so speeds can go down over time, but the Vectoring project once it roll-outs should claw back most of this.

Chance of getting moved to a different cabinet - almost NIl. Two possibilities - pay BT for network rearrangement and that will not be cheap, or if BT has a need to rearrange for their own purposes and that is very, very rare.

Your downstream is well within forecasts however the upstream does look a little low. Which ISP and product are you on? Give your internal wiring a once over to make sure there is nothing casuing a problem. If you think there is a problem, get a copy of DSLStats, then grab a couple of screenshots of the Tones graph - host it somewhere and post a link. It may show a problem.

There is always a chance you may lose a little downstream speed as others are added which may put you into the 40Mbps region

Wired or wireless testing?

Please can you find the HH5 stats. Somewhere in a Troubleshooting menu I think.

Well the original figure I had before ordering FTTC was:

FTTC Range A (Clean) 68.6 50.3 20 14.1 -- Available
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 59.7 33 19.9 8.9 -- Available

However now the BT checker says:

FTTC Range A (Clean) 51.6 35 11.9 7.2 -- Available
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 43.3 25.5 11.9 5.5 -- Available

When I was first connected back in the end of July, I got 54/8. So the down speed was within predicted, but the up speed not so great.

Now I get (according to TBB tests) about 49/8. Is this due to more people taking on FTTC and hence crosstalk issues? And why would the upload speed stay constant while the download speed dropped by 10%?

Could well be cross talk and it does not need large numbers, just someone in a cable bundle with a pair close enough to affect you.

Why only downstream - crosstalk is not uniform in its behaviour, or another option is some noise source impacting has cost you some speed.

Thanks Mr Saffron, is it worth raising the issue of speeds with BT, or will they just say 'its's in the range expected'?