FTTC Self-Install

Coming back from work this evening I noticed that BT have just installed a new fibre cabinet outside the village. There are still some question marks over speed (the cabinet is 1.5km from the village) although there is a possibility that the line from the cabinet to the village is actually 0.9mm copper meaning it would effectively act as a 500m line (from what I've heard).

Now the cabinet is stood up, I've noticed the following on roadworks.org:

ACCESS TO VARIOUS CARRAIGEWAY BOXES OFF PEAK WITH NO EXCAVATIONS. INSTALLATION OF NEW FIBRE CABLE. TM 2 WAY PLUS 1 DAY AT JUNCTION AS PER APLANT SURVEY ATTACHED

This is about 100m down the road from the cabinet so I can only assume this is to connect up the fibre cable to the cabinet. This is due to be completed on the 20th March so hopefully (if they haven't already) the power can get connected shortly too.

I heard the other month that BT were now offering self-install, at the minute we have actually replaced the standard BT faceplate with an ADSLNation XTE-2005. Would this be suitable for VDSL or would we need to get a VSDL2 specific faceplate?

Has anyone had any experience with self-install? Is it worth it versus a standard installation?

Thanks

Adslnation faceplate should be fine and most installs are self install. By having faceplate already you have done the job the engineer would of

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Adslnation faceplate should be fine and most installs are self install. By having faceplate already you have done the job the engineer would of

Thanks Andrew,

I'm currently with XILO at the minute, I imagine they still operate managed installs? I don't currently have a VDSL2 modem and I'm quite fond of my Ubiquiti EdgeRouter so AIO modem/routers don't really appeal to me. A managed install would mean the engineer would provide a BTOR modem (i.e. HG612) is that right? Cheers.

HG612 or ECI something. The ECI is a pig to unlock (requires opening plus a soldering iron) but can give a bit higher sync than the HG612 even on Huawei cabinets.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

HG612 or ECI something. The ECI is a pig to unlock (requires opening plus a soldering iron) but can give a bit higher sync than the HG612 even on Huawei cabinets.

Thanks,

Cabinet is a Huawei 288 from what I can tell, if that matters at all.

Ultimately it'll all come down the estimated speeds in the end anyway, being 1.5km away from the cabinet means it's really going to depend on the quality and gauge of the copper. 90% of cabinet is probably over 1.3km away so I can't imagine they'd install it without being confident that the speeds would be decent. Why spend all that money if half the village struggle to sync and the others don't even get 20Mb/s?

I guess we'll see once it all goes live.

Out of interest, if you order FTTC and the engineer comes to install but the speeds are poor (i.e. under 12Mbps) or the line struggles to (hold or attain) sync, are you able to cancel the order and return to ADSL2+?

Right now my 7/1 ADSL2+ line isn't fast, but it's at least fairly cheap and stable. I'm not too keen on paying another £10-15 a month + installation for a fibre connection which is marginally faster and/or not as stable.