How long until my exchange is ready for orders?

DSLAMs have been installed in my village about 2 months ago, and I've heard from a local villager (and proof with photos!) that fibre cable has been blown successfully into the village. I have two questions I'm hoping someone can answer.

1. What's the average time I should expect before my ISP would be ready for orders for FTTC?

2. I'm currently on the Wilstead exchange and have been told that we will now be connected to the Bedford exchange. Is that a common thing when some villages are upgraded to fibre?

The best place to keep your eye on is this checker, using your phone number if on a "BT" line or your full address if on an "LLU" line. Do not use the pure postcode option.

It should give you the number of your cabinet above the estimates table. You can look for and check your cabinet for its FTTC cabinet being installed nearby. If it is part of the BT commercial rollout there should be some indication in the estimates for its go live date, but these tend to be very inaccurate if they are a quarter end. That just means "maybe".

If it is part of a BDUK project run by your council, normally nothing shows up until it goes live.

Yes, it is quite common for the fibre cabinet to be fed from a nearby exchange rather than yours. Your phone line will stay connected to your current exchange and the two connections are merged on the way to you and separated on the way back at the FTTC cabinet.

In reply to a post by keymoo:

DSLAMs have been installed in my village about 2 months ago, and I've heard from a local villager (and proof with photos!) that fibre cable has been blown successfully into the village. I have two questions I'm hoping someone can answer.

1. What's the average time I should expect before my ISP would be ready for orders for FTTC?

2. I'm currently on the Wilstead exchange and have been told that we will now be connected to the Bedford exchange. Is that a common thing when some villages are upgraded to fibre?

I would suggest having a look at the Bedford Borough council web site and find the Broadband page, there is a document there showing cabinet progress since mid-2014 that was uploaded just before the end of December.

Cabinet progress Dec 2014

I am on Wilstead cabinet 5, there are a few others in Wilstead, Wixams and Houghton Conquest although the latter has cabinets 1 and 9 and is actually part of the Central Beds BDUK scheme even though the exchange is in the Borough area.

There was work to clear ducts to Houghton Conquest that ended yesterday, power and cable ducts for cabinet 9 are being installed with a latest end date of 30th January.

The original intention had been for some Wilstead cabinets to go live in December but at least one duct blockage put paid to that as far as I know.

Fibre connections tend to go to the nearest sensible connection point, so yes having the fibre come from Bedford rather than Wilstead is just fine and nothing unusual.

Which village are you in BTW?

Edited by rippedcotton (Wed 21-Jan-15 17:26:32)

Thanks for the great replies. I am on Cabinet 1 in Houghton Conquest and is part of the Central Beds BDUK scheme. Any ideas when it may be available for orders? Am I looking at weeks or months?

In reply to a post by keymoo:

Thanks for the great replies. I am on Cabinet 1 in Houghton Conquest and is part of the Central Beds BDUK scheme. Any ideas when it may be available for orders? Am I looking at weeks or months?

Well, that's a good question.

Cabinet 9 (corner of Rectory Lane and High Street) is having its ducts and power feed installed now, the roadworks.org site shows that running until 30th January at the latest.

My feeling now is that Wilstead won't go active in January, but maybe early February. As far as I know all the work on Wilstead cabinets is nearly finished but I base that only on what I know from roadworks.org and what I've heard from the Beds Borough contact I have.

Houghton Conquest is covered by the Central Beds project even though the exchange is in the Bedford Borough area (the boundary runs across the A6 just north of the Chapel End Road junction) but I have not seen anything showing on their Broadband news page.

Central Bedforshire Broadband

Bedford Borough didn't include the Houghton Conquest cabinets in its news bulletin because they are in Central Beds.

These cabinets are part of the BDUK phase 3 roll out, this covers the period from January to June 2015 so contractually there seems to be some slack assuming that the contract actually matches up with the public phasing.

Frustrating isn't it? So near and yet so far. I am about 4.2km of copper length from the exchange and get around 5Mbps at present but once FTTC is available I am about 240m as the cables run from cabinet 5 which might mean a full 80Mbps if everything is perfect.

In reply to a post by rippedcotton:

Frustrating isn't it? So near and yet so far. I am about 4.2km of copper length from the exchange and get around 5Mbps at present but once FTTC is available I am about 240m as the cables run from cabinet 5 which might mean a full 80Mbps if everything is perfect.

I get 2.5 Mbps at the moment and am over 6km from the exchange. I'm about 880m from the new fibre cabinet 1. Any idea what speed I might get?

In reply to a post by keymoo:

In reply to a post by rippedcotton:

Frustrating isn't it? So near and yet so far. I am about 4.2km of copper length from the exchange and get around 5Mbps at present but once FTTC is available I am about 240m as the cables run from cabinet 5 which might mean a full 80Mbps if everything is perfect.

I get 2.5 Mbps at the moment and am over 6km from the exchange. I'm about 880m from the new fibre cabinet 1. Any idea what speed I might get?

It isn't any kind of guarantee, but looking at the graphs I would think somewhere in the high 20s to mid 30s Mbps is possible.

Speed vs distance graphs

The checker will (once it shows FTTC is available) show you the clean and impacted speed ranges, the impacted usually refers to non-ideal wiring in the house (but sometimes seems to take other external imperfections into consideration from what I've read).

In reply to a post by rippedcotton:

Houghton Conquest is covered by the Central Beds project even though the exchange is in the Bedford Borough area (the boundary runs across the A6 just north of the Chapel End Road junction) but I have not seen anything showing on their Broadband news page.

Central Bedfordshire Broadband

Wilstead cabinets 1 & 9 (Houghton Conquest) now listed as coming in the next few months on the Central Beds page.

Yesterday cabinet 9's FTTC twin was not yet stood but at least some of the ducting was in place I think.

In reply to a post by rippedcotton:

Wilstead cabinets 1 & 9 (Houghton Conquest) now listed as coming in the next few months on the Central Beds page.

Yesterday cabinet 9's FTTC twin was not yet stood but at least some of the ducting was in place I think.

Sorry I clicked on a few links on there but didn't find the information, which exact link shows it?

In reply to a post by keymoo:

In reply to a post by rippedcotton:

Wilstead cabinets 1 & 9 (Houghton Conquest) now listed as coming in the next few months on the Central Beds page.

Yesterday cabinet 9's FTTC twin was not yet stood but at least some of the ducting was in place I think.

Sorry I clicked on a few links on there but didn't find the information, which exact link shows it?

If you click on this link:

Central Bedfordshire Broadband

and then click on "Latest fibre broadband cabinet upgrades"

from the menu on the left below "Our Plans for Broadband" you will see the list.

Roadworks.org is now showing the end date for Wilstead cabinet 9 work has been extended to 5th Feb, I don't know if this will make any difference to other cabinets that are already complete being made live.

Over the weekend I also see that Wilstead cabinet 8 at Shortstown has been stood in the last few days. That must be about the end of Wilstead cabinets, I don't think there can be any more to go!

Edited by rippedcotton (Mon 26-Jan-15 13:29:55)