Only cabinet in the area not upgraded - help!

Hi!

I am moving to a new house and we have just found out that fibre is not available to me. This is kind of disastrous given that both myself and my partner frequently work from home and really need a decent internet connection.

I don't have the phone number yet but have done an address search here www.dslchecker.bt.com/ and on the OpenReach Where and When checker, which tells me the cabinet is under review.

The house is on Brixton Cabinet 33. I have looked in to addresses around my road and every one is upgraded with FTTC available. There is even an upgraded cabinet on my road - a cabinet to Dulwich Exchange. Roughly speaking, everything to the west is on the Brixton exchange and everything to the east is on the Dulwich exchange. I have read elsewhere that being on the border between exchanges might be the cause of the hold up.

So, my questions:

Has anyone had any success getting them to upgrade?
Does anyone have any tips for getting any real information on when it will actually be upgraded?
Is it possible that this is a database error and actually we are able to get fibre?

THANK YOU!

Edited by deleted (Sun 18-Jan-15 17:35:41)

Are any of the ones who are on FTTC connected to Brixton Cab 33 or were they all on Dulwich?

What was your WBC estimate?

No they are all on other cabs - Brixton and Dulwich. It looks like 33 is the only one which is not showing up as upgraded for fibre

I'm sorry, I don't know what WBC means!

WBC is BT Wholesale ADSL2+. See the table for my line:-

Featured Products Downstream Line Rate(Mbps) Upstream Line Rate(Mbps) Downstream Range(Mbps) Availability Date

High Low High Low

FTTC Range A (Clean) 59.6 39.3 16.1 10 -- Available
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 50.8 28.2 15.9 7 -- Available

WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 4 -- 2.5 to 6.5 Available
WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M Up to 4 Up to 0.5 2.5 to 6.5 Available
ADSL Max Up to 3 -- 2 to 6 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 1 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 1 -- -- Available

Other Offerings
FTTP on Demand 330 30 -- Available
Fibre Multicast -- -- -- Available
Copper Multicast -- -- -- Available

Thanks, this is all the information I can get:

Featured Products Downstream Line Rate(Mbps) Upstream Line Rate(Mbps) Downstream Range(Mbps) Availability Date

WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 4 -- 3 to 7 Available
WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M Up to 4 Up to 0.5 3 to 7 Available
ADSL Max Up to 3.5 -- 2.5 to 6.5 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 1 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 1 -- -- Available
Other Offerings
Copper Multicast -- -- -- Available
FTTC is currently not available on this cabinet due to following reasons:- At this time we cant provide a delivery date for this cabinet..

For all ADSL and WBC Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) services, the stable line rate will be determined during the first 10 days of service usage.

Throughput/download speeds will be less than line rates and can be affected by a number of factors within and external to BT's network, Communication Providers' networks and within customer premises.

The Stop Sale date for Datastream is from 30-Jun-2012; the Formal Retirement date for Datastream is from 30-Jun-2014. The Stop Sale date for IPstream is from 31-Jan-2013; the Formal Retirement date for IPstream is from 30-Jun-2014.

Edited by deleted (Sun 18-Jan-15 23:07:02)

Hi there!

I'm on cabinet 33 as well! I've been living here for 6 months now and have been tearing my hair out trying to find out why fibre isn't available.

I finally received an email from BT Openreach today, which said that our cabinet hasn't been upgraded due to it serving 'too few premises to be commercially viable for Openreach to upgrade'.

Frankly, I find that hard to believe. It's a residential area with numerous properties, and every other cabinet around has been upgraded, so I can't see why this one wouldn't be commercially viable.

I have also emailed our local councilor to see if there's anything he can do to help.

Could you tell me by private message what street you're on, just so I can have an idea of how large the area served by the cabinet is?

bridgie

Well with my quick search I have found the following:

If your connected to DULWICH Exchange (LSDUL) Cabinet 33 then this may be the case, that cabinet only supports about 8 postcodes, where as BRIXTON Exchange (WRBRIX) Cabinet 33 supports 30 odd postcodes.

Granted those 8 post codes may or may not be long roads and the other cabinet that handles 30 odd postcodes may be short roads, would take me ages to check each postcode to count each address.

Might be better to wait for somebody else that has more information.

Paul

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

Well with my quick search I have found the following:

If your connected to DULWICH Exchange (LSDUL) Cabinet 33 then this may be the case, that cabinet only supports about 8 postcodes, where as BRIXTON Exchange (WRBRIX) Cabinet 33 supports 30 odd postcodes.

Granted those 8 post codes may or may not be long roads and the other cabinet that handles 30 odd postcodes may be short roads, would take me ages to check each postcode to count each address.

Might be better to wait for somebody else that has more information.

Paul

Thanks for the reply!

30 odd postcodes for Brixton cabinet 33 you say? Doesn't sound like it's not commercially viable to me then. Just out of interest, how did you find that out?

It's so frustrating that there's no transparency with the fibre roll-out. I wish Openreach would be, well, open about the whole thing. It's just so hard to get any sort of information.

Edited by deleted (Mon 26-Jan-15 15:46:47)

Well its long winded but I did an Exchange search to look up the location and then lookup any postcodes that popup for roads in its support radius from Google Maps and then do a look up on BT's DSL Checker of the postcodes.

I may miss some postcode and my lookups are not perfect, but its normally good enough for a rough guess.

Like I said those 30 postcodes maybe used on loads of long roads, but the way I see it the more homes that's handled by a single PCP Cabinet would be more viable for fibre roll out than ones with only a few, but like I always say I could be wrong, and its always best to wait for somebody that has more information.

Also SamKnows Site says the following:

Brixton Exchange
(Serves 30,720 residential premises, 1,173 non-residential premises)

Dulwich Exchange
(13,953 residential premises, 547 non-residential premises)

So not sure why they say its not viable, maybe planning permission etc.

As for it being frustrating, I agree, I've been waiting for our FTTP to be completed since 2011, just found out that I may have to wait for the BDUK installs to be completed before they may come back to our install, so we are now currently as "Under Review".

Well BTO Where and when page is more open than what it used to be.

Paul

If too open, then they end up spending their time answering these questions, remember Openreach was setup to be a wholesale operation with the broadband providers aggregating demand etc and answering questions like this.

As for Brixton cabinet 33, a chunk of the lines may be the halls of residence and there is Virgin Media cable in the area, so they might have just skipped it before because it was at the smaller end size for commercial roll-out, or estimated power cost was higher than average.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

If too open, then they end up spending their time answering these questions, remember Openreach was setup to be a wholesale operation with the broadband providers aggregating demand etc and answering questions like this.

Well they could be more open with the info, like say a delay in the switching on a fibre cabinet, they could have a rough reason why the delay instead of just pushing back the date etc, at the moment there is no way for us to even contact them, so that wouldn't take up any of their time

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

As for Brixton cabinet 33, a chunk of the lines may be the halls of residence and there is Virgin Media cable in the area, so they might have just skipped it before because it was at the smaller end size for commercial roll-out, or estimated power cost was higher than average.

True, I didn't do a check in their area for VM Coverage, didn't even know there was a Uni there LOL.

Paul

Unfortunately Virgin isn't available where I am!

Does anyone have any tips on how to press for a cabinet upgrade, or is it simply a case of wait and see?

Does anyone have any tips on how to press for a cabinet upgrade, or is it simply a case of wait and see?

Being in an area where there is no BDUK funding you could try what others in a similar position have done and that is with other users on that cabinet consider paying BT the gap funding amount to allow the cabinet to be upgraded. Incidentally the Mayor and his broadband advisor aren't interested in helping domestic broadband users, concentrating instead on businesses and the travelling public/visitors.

I'm in a similar position, also in Brixton but on the Vauxhall exchange. In our case we are a cluster of 75 properties all on 2Km EO lines and are in the process of agreeing a contract with BT to provide us with FTTC at a cost of £15.5K +VAT. Virgin cable is in the street and all adjacent properties have FTTC but for the present we're stuck with ADSL.

If a cabinet is under review, suspect the worst you can do is suggest you have money to pay for it - just suggesting.

Tendency would be for a commercial operator to leave the borderline cab and let someone pay a chunk. How long has the Brixton cab 33 being in the under review phase?

If a cabinet is under review, suspect the worst you can do is suggest you have money to pay for it

Agreed, especially if you're prepared to wait perhaps until 2016 or even 2020. Meanwhile the affected property owners might be seeing the market value of their property slipping relative to neighbouring properties with faster broadband access, likewise those renting out their property might be finding their properties are not fetching quite the same rent as others nearby.

Incidentally is "Under Review" what BT are saying for any cab or EO line for which they don't currently have plans?

Hi! I got that same email the other day! I don't see how it is any less commercially viable than any other cab.

I'm really wound up by this. Apparently privately funding the upgrade could cost over £15k.

We are now looking at bonded ADSL as the only option.

Sent you a pm Becca. I think they might have made a mistake saying you're on cab 33, as you live a fair distance away from any other road served by it.