Does Ribble what what 'cival work' has halted SWTB rollout?

I'm gutted to say the least. Our exchange, Tenby (SWTB) was meant to be live before end of December. When it hadn't gone live, I checked this AM and go live date has changed to 'by end of March 2015' so I emailed Superfast Wales asking why. Their answer: "Unforseen civils work has meant we were not able to get fibre to the Tenby exchange as we had expected" so they are now apparently working on alternatives!

Could Ribble or anyone else with inside info PLEASE try to find out what has halted the rollout? We were so close - all the CABs are in and an engineer told me before Christmas that it would be first week in Jan once fibre is pulled from the nearby 'master' exchange (Haverfordwest). Our neighbour exchange, Saundersfoot went live today with others around here in the coming days so it makes it all worse

Edited by WelshWArrior (Mon 05-Jan-15 20:12:22)

Susspect its just spine duct and cabling work

Thanks for the reply Ribble - I hope you are correct and it is just the actual fibre installing left to do and nothing major stopping it. Shame Superfast Wales won't elaborate!!

You say 'spine duct' - is that the ducting that the actual fibre goes in as it travels towards the CABs? If so, there was a lot of that being put in in the month s before Christmas - black stuff with a yellow (?) stripe on it?

Edited by WelshWArrior (Tue 06-Jan-15 11:56:43)

That's the tube they blow the fibre down, but is probably where the issue lies. Somewhere where they couldn't get the tube through.

Hmm that's what I thought! Perhaps I'm being a bit pessimistic but I've heard too many horror stories of probs like this causing months and even years of hold ups!!

I just hope they can get around it (perhaps literally!!) soon!

Yeah, we have been waiting for BTO to finish off ours that started back in 2011 and still yet to complete ours, we even have all the fibre manifold etc our end already fitted in the pit and up the pole and just waiting for the tubing and fibre to be installed, but I am sure it will get completed some time soon or they will possibly loose out on up to 12K homes to VM who are currently installing in our area.

Thanks
Paul

Which area - the VM East End of London expansion?

Superfast Cymru seem to be a waste of time. The information they gave our A.M. was hopelessly out of date. I'm trying to find out what is going to happen with a PCP in Blackbridge, Milford Haven as it serves Waterston where I have friends struggling with 1.5 meg speeds (on a good day), WE have been told it is included in the roll out but the cab itself is more than a mile outside of the village, so I am anxious to see what (if anything) they are going to do there.

Cant believe Tenby is still ongoing, especially as you guys had ADSL2 long before we did in Pembroke.

It could be worse.. this cabinet could be yours !

Indeed, should be getting FTTP. Who knows when though.

Hahahaha - yep glad that isn't mine!!!

I've been doing some research on roadworks.org today and there are loads of BT works starting around here in the next week and several of them on the road between Kilgetty and Tenby are to excavate and unblock ducts so fingers crossed, assuming that's the route the fibre is taking, that is the cause of the current hold up.

Luckily, my CAB (number 3) is the first on the way into town so should be the first to be enabled according to the Openreach guy I spoke to before Christmas.

How are your speeds now mate? Stabilised? What you sync'd at?

Ribble - you had me all excited for a second then!! Saw your comment about FTTP below mine and thought you were replying to mine. I soon came to my senses though!

I've had the following very much more promising reply via Facebook of all places. Kind of the opposite of the Superfast Wales said by email but I'm going with this one anyway:

Ben, as I have previously stated, the good news is we expect the first cabinets to go live in Tenby prior to March, we have hit major problem there which set us back from the December date, Saundersfoot however we managed to deliver on time, we have pushed the date back to March as we work to quarterly dates but we are confident the first cabs will go live in Tenby prior to that date - Cheers, Ceri

Edited by WelshWArrior (Wed 07-Jan-15 10:49:53)

Well about a Month or so ago I filled in loads of forms on loads of different networks like VM, Hyperoptic etc hoping to get fibre installed.
Hyperoptic emailed me back about 24 - 48 hours later stating no due to I live in a house and they only install into blocks of flats and that was it.
Then a few weeks or so ago I got a phone call from VM saying they are installing in my area E12 and that in a few months will possibly be installing down my road E12 5AX, I thought well I have waited for BTO to install our FTTP since end of 2011 what's a few more months, currently they are closer than I thought they would be and at the moment they are installing cabinets, chambers etc and preparing roads a few turnings from us.

TBH, I am really hoping where VM is installing in our area it will get BTO moving and at least give us a choice on what network to use VM with their 152 / 12 or 330 / 30 (if BTO finish off the current FTTP install that was started the end of 2011) or 80 / 20 or 40 / 10 (if they downgrade us to FTTC)

I may wait a little while after the first lot is complete to see what speeds we would get and then buy the best for the buck, also if we was to be downgraded to FTTC by BTO we may need to see what speeds we would get (currently about 470m from PCP Cabinet so add up to 10m more for the bridge over link) and if not that good then go with VM.

But the way I see it at the moment if BTO doesn't finish the FTTP install by the time VM installs their network which will give us 152 / 12 we will be going with VM and I am betting a loads of others will also do the same so that's about 12,769 homes using 41 cabinets (some partially installed with FTTP) that was down for FTTP in 2011 (if my information is correct) that BTO will loose out on if they don't do any more fibre installs for our exchange which they haven't in the last Month or so.

I know in our case that our PCP cabinet 24 is very old and is currently being upgraded to the new PCP cabinet installed next to it, I am hoping they also replace all the cables to and from the cabinet and the exchange due to they are very old as well and have loads of faults on them like when it rains etc, so I am hoping this upgrade to our PCP Cabinet and cables is what has halted our FTTP install, one can only hope.

Thanks
Paul

In reply to a post by warweezil:

It could be worse.. this cabinet could be yours !

LOL, that looks like our current PCP Cabinet shown in this image that's is currently being upgraded to the latest PCP Cabinet.
As you can see, the sorry old PCP Cabinet on the left and the nice brand new one on the right

Thanks
Paul

That one there looks positively space-age compared to the rotten through one they have stood my fibre cab next to. There is actually a rusted hole in the door of it!! Thought they'd have changed that to a newer one as part of the fibre install?!?!?

Well they normally just lift off the PCP Cabinet shell and place a new more up to date version which is slightly wider on to of the internal rack and wires.

Hmmm wonder why they didn't do it in this case then? I'll try and get a pic of it later but it's in a really awkward place on a junction as you drive onto the hill leading to my estate.

Yeah, maybe the rack and wiring inside was fine when they installed the fibre, ours is well [censored] so to put it, hence when it rains we loose speed down to a point where we have no connection at all, I was surprised they even did this due to our phone line was always fine, but saying that our phone line has been bad with a static screeching noise, but that could be BTO working on the line.

But on average our line syncs up at about 5.9Mbit giving us a down speed of about 5.1Mbits, it was about 3.9Mb (BT said that's all our line can handle due to the distance) but after moaning at BT and getting our MP involved it went up to 5.1Mbits.
Also all our neighbours sync up at around +8Mbits yet we was syncing at around 4.4Mbits and the wires are the same length and uses the same pole and cable, so something wasn't right and BT told us the line was fine, which is why we are so tempted to go with VM once they are here (hopefully in a few months time) just had enough of BT's excuse after excuse.

I am aware that there is loads of places that get way slower than us, but to see FTTP 5 doors from me, well.

If you look in my image, above the old PCP Cabinet (marked 24) across the road you will see the other PCP Cabinet (which is 39) this provides the upper half of my road and several side roads and they all have FTTP, I can see that a home 5 or so doors from me has FTTP, which makes me want to scream

Oh and to top that off, just noticed that we lost connection again at 02:26 this morning and we have lost some more speed.

Thanks
Paul