Fibre activation date keeps moving. Now 3 years waiting

Hi

I have been browsing these forums for the last couple of months, especially with regards to fibre activation dates.

The reason why I am posting this message is that I have learned last week that my fibre activation date has been moved yet again. The original estimate was late 2013/early 2014. This date passed and was then moved to end of 2014. This date also passed and moved to end of 2015. The activation date has now just been moved to end of 2016/ early 2017. What is going on here?

This is really frustrating for the following reasons:
1. The activation date estimate just keeps moving. It is now showing 3 years after the original estimate. Will I ever get fibre?
2. I have no option to go with Cable (Virgin). This means no competition so why the delay?
3. Ringing BT doesn't help (they only provide the information that I can get myself online).
4. I can't contact Openreach to find out what is going on (according to BT).
5. My cabinet (SSPOR 29) was installed a year ago and there has been activity at this cabinet several times over the last year.
6. Both my Father and Sister have had fibre for the last couple of years and they are in the same town (Portishead). Even some of nearby friends have it in the same area.

Is there anyway to find out what is going on with this cabinet?

Thanks in advance.

Steve

I think your delay is possibly down to it being a commercial project and are put on a less priority over BDUK work, this is due to BDUK work have a dead like on the contract that need to be reached, however Commercial work have no deadline so they seem to get put on hold in favour for the BDUK work.

*** Start Rage ***
We are in that same boat where as we was suppose to of got FTTP back end of 2011 where they installed all our hardware etc, they fibered up the top part of our road and half our side roads back then.

There is also FTTP available 4 doors down from us which is connected to our pole and hardware, yet I am told that its not ready, and we also keep getting pushed back from start of July where I was told we could order fibre, then was told due to loads of work still to do it was pushed back to end of July, was told the same thing again about loads of work still to be done and was then told end of August.

I was told by openreach themselves that they cannot tell me what work still needs to be done due to them not being technical enough, I think the reason why they cannot tell me is due to its all completed and has been for a while now, even all the engineers that was sent to work on it last month also says its all done and just waiting for the database to be updated.
Come on BTOR, it doesn't take a month to update your database.

And to top that off, liker I said there a home 4 doors from me that is on out pole that can get FTTP hence the fibre cable coming from our Fibre Manifold up our pole, so our fibre is live for them to get fibre.

TBH, I have a very bad feeling that us remaining commercial projects will end up being part of the last 5 to 7% or worse be put on the last 2% saying sorry no fibre.
*** End Rage ***

Just took a look and your cabinet was down to get fibre back in 2010 - 2011 as phase 4a, we was down for end of 2011 as phase 05b and we still not able to order fibre even though the work has been done.

We also have no access to VM and was told after several months of being told "Don't worry, your area is on their to-do list and are part of the east London project", that we are not part of that project and never was and won't be even 5 to 10 years time.

I can PM you a working openreach contact email if you want, I use the email, so it does work.

Paul

Hi Paul

Thanks for your reply.

I sometimes think that the reason that we do not have fibre yet is that we don't have someone of political importance connected to the cabinet!!! I agree that BDUK work could be causing the delay but how can we tell for sure? I still don't get it as Portishead is one of the largest towns (22k population) in the Bristol area and yet it still doesn't have full fibre coverage. No cable coverage either so no competition for BT.

If you could e-mail the working openreach contact e-mail that would be much appreciated.

Good luck in you finally getting your fibre at the end of this month.

Steve

think there were extensive additional costs with the copper cabinet probably requiring a deload/reload or major rebuild (there would have been no budget in the commercial case for that as part of the commercial build assessment (high cost commercial cabs likley to get stuck / or in some cases removed from programme -- data suggest cab should e live within the next month as all physical work now done -- suggest keep an eye using the BT Wholesale DSL checker on a weekly basis as that is most reliable source

Cities don't have full fibre coverage yet either

We are at nearly 85% fibre coverage in the UK and yet some cities do not have full fibre coverage? This is crazy.

Thanks for the information. If my cabinet is nearly ready, why did they add over another year to the estimated activation date!!!

In reply to a post by SCoomby:

If you could e-mail the working openreach contact e-mail that would be much appreciated.

PM Sent.

In reply to a post by SCoomby:

Good luck in you finally getting your fibre at the end of this month.

Don't know if it will happen yet, already been pushed back twice and there has been no major work done this month, So I am assuming another fob off, I mean delay.

Well if still no joy end of this month, I will be emailing and phoning my local MP again.

Paul

Because rural campaigners have made their case better than people in cities, where invariably business has options available for a fee, consumers likely to have reasonable 4G

If you actually look on http://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local you will find cities that are already past the 95% target

If Openreach is missing out on areas then there is a niche that offers should be able to fulfil, but talking to some problems like permission to cross junctions can mean waiting for a long time, and all the planning meetings just add to the costs, plus building landlords are not always receptive to things like hosting kit without seeing the big annual way leave fees

Because of previous cases where they tried to give shorter dates but in some cases things changed and dates moved and people complained, so result is work out how long it will take and then add a massive safety margin a lot of the time

That's precisely the situation I am in. The cabinets in our road are fibred up or at least the cabinets are in place and have been there for at least two years. I have been trying to order fibre since we moved in last summer and the story has always been 'high demand' with a date of some time later the same month.

Currently they are saying the 7th October but I fully expect that to move out to November next week as the date approaches. Frankly I would rather they were honest and gave a date a year or more away if that is the reality, it is painful to have hopes dashed every month.

Judging by speed check sites no-one actually has fibre in our road (everyone gets 2mb or lower) which would sort of imply that the fibre cabinets (one 100 metres one way and the other 200 metres the other) are empty which begs the question, why did they bother installing them two years ago if they weren't going to put any kit in them for so long?

I'm in a similar position, my estimated activation date has been pushed up from the end of 2012 and continues extending, leaving me stuck with unacceptable speeds of 0.5-4 Mbps. I believe they hit some kind of a problem (or totally forgot) about my cabinet (which is rather odd, as theres over 400 households served by it), and just left the whole project for another time. They even installed an FTTC cab mid-2013, and it's been untouched since. Whats even further annoying is that every cabinet (with exception to 2/3 that serve nearby farms) served by my exchange has had fibre available since 2010.
I believe the new government-funded BDUK projects are also going to be pushing back the progress of cabinets on the commercial roll-out, as they're most likely prioritised.

Edit: Appears you were lucky enough to have your cabinet enabled within a week of the post, congrats

Edited by thebigdolphin1 (Tue 29-Sep-15 02:00:23)

In reply to a post by andyhurley:

Currently they are saying the 7th October

Who/where did you manage to get a non-placeholder date from? I know Openreach used to respond to emails with one (or at least, did to me) but I've been unable to receive any actual "expected" dates since.

Edited by thebigdolphin1 (Tue 29-Sep-15 01:52:56)

there are a whole host of reasons why a stood cab might get stuck
the cost of providing power to it is excessive -- have see some that cost 25 - 30k t power
the fibre route to get to the cab might be blocked / need TMA or someother issue
standing the box is the easy bit (relatively assuming you have a site to stand whats the cab number ?

Yes, I am finally on fibre broadband. I think my message to Openreach helped as it was confirmed available to order a couple of days after I sent them an e-mail. If only Openreach can be a bit more transparent, especially when they keep putting the dates back.

Steve

Thanks for the info. Regards. Steve
PS. I have finally got fibre!

In reply to a post by thebigdolphin1:

In reply to a post by andyhurley:

Currently they are saying the 7th October

Who/where did you manage to get a non-placeholder date from? I know Openreach used to respond to emails with one (or at least, did to me) but I've been unable to receive any actual "expected" dates since.

That's from the ADSL checker at: https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/adsl.htm?s...

Much more useful than the normal BT site which just gives a vague 'between September and October' which is, of course, impossible. It also gives a cabinet number (Address XXX, CM22 XXX on Exchange STANSTED is served by Cabinet 13 ) which turned out not to be the one 100 yards to the left (the same way the overhead cables go) but the one 200 yards to the right which I had not even noticed as it is hidden by trees.

Edited by deleted (Tue 29-Sep-15 11:27:04)

I've heard of and used BT's adsl checker multiple times, but I didn't think it gave dates for when a fibre installation would be complete other than the generic "31-Mar-16" (which it gives me).

Well, I can't be sure how generic it is but mine shows:

Text

1 23 45 67 89 10

Featured Products      Downstream    Upstream     Downstream Range Availability Date                        High    Low   High    Low             FTTC Range A (Clean)    80      66    20      20           --      07-Oct-15 FTTC Range B (Impacted) 80      56.5  20      17.8         --      07-Oct-15WBC ADSL 2+             Up to 2.5          --            1 to 4    Available ADSL Max                Up to 2            --            1 to 3.5  AvailableWBC Fixed Rate          1                  --              --      Available Fixed Rate              1                  --              --      AvailableOther Offerings Fibre Multicast            --              --              --      07-Oct-15

I presume the 07-Oct-15 is just a vague 'early October' indication as a couple of weeks ago it was saying the 22-Sep-15 (or something like that) and in each case the regular BT checker was saying 'end of September' or 'between September and October' respectively.

The really odd thing is that during the change over between the two I got sent an email by BT to say that fibre was now available for me to order but it had gone by the time I tried to go online and order. I actually got an apology from their support when I complained but no explanation for how it had happened.

EDIT: Damn, took three attempts to make that table readable - why no html tags in this forum?

Edited by deleted (Tue 29-Sep-15 16:00:02)

I think they originally did enable it for fibre, but ran into issues when trying to set users up for fibre access. I know for issues with cabinets (broken or capacity issues) they tend to list an actual planned date rather than their generic ones. So I believe you will be receiving fibre within the week, I wouldn't imagine their planned dates are too far out.

Thanks, but I wish I could feel confident of that. As I said earlier the date has been moving out by a month every month for the last year and a bit.

Anyway, here's hoping.

The delay might be due to it was done as part of the FTTC Commercial Project back in 2011.
And we all know that the Commercial Projects whether its FTTC or FTTP (granted FTTP seems to have longer delays) they all seem to be delayed or being done at a slower rate due to the BDUK Projects taking preference because of its contractual dead lines.

But you could be lucky this time and get it the start of October.

Paul

In reply to a post by SCoomby:

Thanks for the info. Regards. Steve
PS. I have finally got fibre!

I was going to say its down as available.

• PORTISHEAD 19 � By October 2015 (BDUK CDS)
• PORTISHEAD 20 � By January 2016 (BDUK CDS)
• PORTISHEAD 23 � No Date Found (Commercial Project)
• PORTISHEAD 29 � Available (Commercial FTTC Project)
• PORTISHEAD 32 - Apr-16 and Mar-17 [TBC after survey] (Commercial FTTC Project)
• PORTISHEAD 33 - Apr-16 and Mar-17 [TBC after survey] (Commercial FTTC Project)

Glad you now have it

We are still waiting

Paul

Hi Paul

Sorry to hear that you still haven't got it.

I hope it's available very soon for you.

Steve

In reply to a post by SCoomby:

Hi Paul

Sorry to hear that you still haven't got it.

I hope it's available very soon for you.

Steve

Yeah me too, we have had all the work done since 2011 and all that they have done back in July was replace existing cables and re-splice the fibres to all the Fibre DP hardware, all the engineers say its all done and tested, however BTOR still haven't enabled it yet and keep saying is not ready.

But like I have said in other posts, I have been reassured that the rest of our road is down to be done as part of the FTTP Commercial Project, just no due date.
So at least I know its down to be done.

Paul

I think all of us who are waiting for FTTC or FTTP to arrive at times get frustrated with the constant date slips no matter if it's part of BDUK or commerical rollout out.

For example 2 out of the 3 cabinets in my village have been enabled for FTTC, unluckly for me I'm on the one that hasn't been enabled though I believe my part of the village is getting FTTP (one of the telephone poles near me has a coil of cable behind it that says FTTP on it) . Yet I have no confidence that superfast Lancashire will enable it by the end of the year given that there target date was 97% covergae by the end of the year and as work has been done i.e cables laid there is even a new BT manhole (since Nov 14) within a metre of the existing cabinet (and the fact that the rest of village has fibre) so it's not unreasonable to thing I'm covered under that 97%. And the local roadwrks site has BT done for work to clear bluct ducts but those dates keep slipping.

In the meantime have to make do with ASDLMax

Well like I said we have had all the FTTP hardware installed since end of 2011 when the top half of our road was installed FTTP as part of the original 66% rollout.

After getting my local MP involved (he was rather annoyed on the sate of the rollout, which looked like a patch work quilt) BT told me over the phone and via email along openreach via email that we are still sown for FTTP and are still part of the FTTP Commercial Project, but all the dates given to me via email gets pushed back month after month even though its all done and completed I know its completed due to there is a home on our pole connected to our fibre hardware that can and has got fibre, so our hardware is live, and when sending pictures to openreach to prove this they now no longer reply to me.

But yeah it can be frustrating where you see other areas on a longer distance as well as shorter ones all get FTTP within a few months.

The sad thing with our area is that we are located in Greater London so no change of any BDUK work.

But at least I have been reassured that we are still down for FTTP and are still part of the FTTP Commercial Project and are most defiantly viable, I chose my question very carefully when asking that LOL.

Also all the above information tally's up to whats in the *COUGH* Leaked *COUGH* 2011 NGA documents.

Not too sure if you got any info about your situation yet, but I will check your exchange Pilling (LCPIL) for your cabinet {LCPIL}{p2} later to see if I can see anything, currently checking ~4K addresses for somebody else.

Paul

Would love projects to miss their targets by a large margin would make the effort going into http://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/?area=E10000017... worthwhile.

Alas with 94.1% fibre based (30 Mbps coverage at 90.6%, 24 Mbps at 91.3%) the original target of 97% fibre based is looking achievable, or to within 0.5 to 1%, which is within what I consider my error margins when dealing with county sized areas.

The problem is that down at the individual cabinet/premise level some are waiting and may miss that date, but overall result looks like it will be delivered.

3% of Lancashire premises is something like 16,500 premises, it those 16,000 or so with no plans that are becoming increasingly vocal.

True, but it sucks if you are within that small percentage of areas where work has begun and that misses the target date. What I suspect is that if any areas that miss the target date will largely be those areas down for FTTP rather than FTTC. Given the longer time it takes to rollout FTTP to an area. And as indicated I'm fairly certain I'm a FTTP area, codelock says FTTP planned for my cabinet area, FTTP cable behind one of the telephone poles, I suppose if it is FTTP I'll be better off in the long term.

And as you say the smaller the percentage left the more vocal they become and of course Lancashire has extended it's contract with BT to go to 99% by 2017 I think.

No luck this time I'm afraid. Get to the day before it is due and now it has moved out to the 4th November. It's been following this pattern for at least 18 months (I wasn't checking before then as I didn't know we would be moving house here).

Ah well, no FTTC for me in time for my birthday

Well hopefully more resources (i.e manpower) will become available towards the end of the various rollout programmes.

I know the reasons why we aren't given dates, because they kept slipping and people complained, but it's equally frustrating to have little to no communication about when you are likely to recieve it.

Somewhat different situation for EASTA 13 which went live in 2012 but it currently full . A 2nd fibre cab is planned to be installed soon but in the meantime an existing port may becone available if someone stops their fibre connection.

Wonders will never cease!

I randomly decided to check the wholesale page today (no email from BT just a random check on my part) and it said FTTC was available.

Ten minutes later and I have ordered Infinity from BT. I did check my existing provider (TalkTalk) but they worked out about £10 per month more expensive, no idea why as it doesn't seem to be an offer price from BT. Connection cost is a little higher but that's ok.

So, the 4th November date was not correct either and in the end it was only a little after the 7th October date.

It remains to be see if they manage to connect it up ok and I have gone for self install as I am pretty comfortable fitting a new faceplate and configuring a homehub. Wiring inside the house is simple as we don't use any of the extensions in any case (if needs be I will just disconnect them), the master socket is on the wall of the study where I keep my router.

Connection is set for the 28th October.

Once the date changes from a quarter-end date you can be fairly sure it is going to happen by then or soon after. Only a major problem should stop it.

The change you saw would be reflecting some small issue, with a bit of uncertainty to the fix date.

Enjoy, once it is installed .

I guess a port became available i.e. someone else has ceased their connection . See my previous replys

I think Ribble may have it right. I have not had a quarter end date ever, always a date some time in the following month. Either a long delayed install of additional equipment finally happened or someone cancelled a line.

Once I have the order confirmed I will check to see what wholesale says then, it may have gone back to unavailable or it may still be available which should give a good indication of the reality.