ESPOL rollout

We've been waiting for a while now for our exchange (ESPOL) to finally be enabled for FTTC services, and naively assumed that we'd have fibre soon after it was enabled.

As far as I can tell from putting random postcodes into the availability checker, only one cabinet that I can find is enabled. We're cabinet 26, and can see markings on the pavement at the end of the road showing (I assume) markings leading from the current cabinet to where I assume the new fibre cabinet will be installed. I had assumed this would mean it would be here shortly.

Does anyone have any information on this, or is there a list of all cabinets in an exchange area with current availability status. I'd love to be able to check on how the rollout in our exchange is progressing (if at all) but this information doesn't appear to be easily accessible.

Why does it take them so long - it's incredibly frustrating, and after FTTC is enabled we STILL won't have speeds equivalent to what we used to get when we lived in a Virgin Media house... 5 years ago!! Seems like the UK will be left in the dust with this rollout of technology that already seems redundant.

/rant

FTTC never arrives on an exchange wide basis, it is done cabinet by cabinet.
So from first cab to last cab might be five years, i.e. depends on the position of a cabinet in any planning list.

As far as am aware cabs

3, 4, 11, 27 have plans under the first rollout phase of Digital Scotland.

Cabinet 26 is live and its old PCP is at https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@55.9849291,-3.7408845...

https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/main.html is the place to check your address, example output for an address on the cabinet is

Address XX ALLISON CRESCENT, REDDING, FALKIRK, FK2 9FB on Exchange POLMONT is served by Cabinet 26

FTTC Range A (Clean) 69.7 50.9 20 13.9 -- Available
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 59.5 35 19.9 9.6 -- Available

Oops. I meant to say that we're 24. 26 is the cabinet that we found that was enabled.

I'm amazed that ours isn't in the plans, given the markings etc. on the pavement. Seems like they're just about to install the new cabinet and we've had loads of instances where Openreach vans with massive coils of cable have been parked right outside the existing cabinet. I don't know what that means.

It seems to be in plans for a later stage. Is this on a new build estate?

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

It seems to be in plans for a later stage. Is this on a new build estate?

What does? Cabinet 24? We're in a new build estate, but so is 26 which is the active one. Both developments are still being built.

What baffles me is that any housing company is allowed to build these days without fibre to the premises. Cost of installation during a new development must surely be trivial.

Annoyingly the houses just before the start of our development have Virgin Media cable. Why Kier Homes didn't have them install their service I've no idea. So frustrating!

Also seems that cabinet 27 has 2 DSLAM's unless the BT DSL Checker has an error.
Also the second one cannot be fully checked due to the classic "Your address has been successfully matched; however we cannot determine ADSL availability at this address. Please try the Telephone Number or Postcode Checker. " but by entering postcode FK2 9TL into the BT DSL Checker you can see two DSLAM's listed.
They do also have different NADKeys and what I presume a UPRN.

[DSLAM 27] (postcode FK2 9TL)
Address STREET SIDE DSLAM CAB NNCOLG, JENKINSON DRIVE, REDDING, FALKIRK, FK2 9TL on Exchange POLMONT is served by Cabinet 27

Address STREET SIDE DSLAM CAB NNCOLG, JENKINSON DRIVE, FALKIRK, FK2 9TL on Exchange POLMONT is served by Cabinet 27

The BTOR Where and when page says the same.

I can also confirm cabinet 26:

[DSLAM 26] (postcode FK2 9FD)
Address STREET SIDE DSLAM CAB NNCOJP, JARVIE ROAD, REDDING, FALKIRK, FK2 9FD on Exchange POLMONT is served by Cabinet 26

That's all I found on a very quick check.

Paul

Cab 24 is planned. Probably start work by the end of this year

Edited by deleted (Mon 05-Oct-15 09:14:49)

Ive moved into the Polmont area and shocked at the lack of High Speed BB. Im served by Cabinet 22 but cannot find any info despite seeing vans at the cabinet over the last 3 weeks and the whole area barriered off for a time as they were excavating. Is that progress?

Edited by deleted (Mon 30-Nov-15 13:46:07)

Yes, cab 22 is at an advanced stage . still work to do though

Interesting to see the developments. We're cabinet 24 (as I mentioned above) and we've now got serious work happening at the end of our street with diggers and workers. I'm not there at the moment, but one of my neighbours said they spoke to an engineer and was told that everything is now connected so hopefully it should go live soon?

Any idea how long it should take from this point? I'm checking the DigitalScotland website, the Sky availability checker (my current provider) and the BT checker on a daily basis!

Thank you. Just a wait and see then? I guess same ? as Ribble. What sort of time to go live do you think?

In reply to a post by Steuart64:

Ive moved into the Polmont area and shocked at the lack of High Speed BB. Im served by Cabinet 22 but cannot find any info despite seeing vans at the cabinet over the last 3 weeks and the whole area barriered off for a time as they were excavating. Is that progress?

I am seeing that they are still connecting it up and that a default date of 4 Months is showing, this date my just be a default place holder, so it might be sooner or later, most probably later.

Paul

In reply to a post by dst87:

Interesting to see the developments. We're cabinet 24 (as I mentioned above) and we've now got serious work happening at the end of our street with diggers and workers. I'm not there at the moment, but one of my neighbours said they spoke to an engineer and was told that everything is now connected so hopefully it should go live soon?

Any idea how long it should take from this point? I'm checking the DigitalScotland website, the Sky availability checker (my current provider) and the BT checker on a daily basis!

Well I am seeing it still down as being built and with a default place holder date of 5 Months, like I said in the other post, this date my just be a default date and it will probably be either longer or shorter, and only time will tell.

Paul

It's crazy how long this all takes.

Cabinet fully installed now for about 3 weeks, yet still no availability.

Neighbour spoke to an engineer at the time of completion who said that all of the work had been completed and we should 'go live' any day now... but 3 weeks on and nothing.

So frustrating! I feel like we're just waiting for someone to flip a switch somewhere now. It feels like we've been forgotten about, and nobody can provide any information at all. I spoke to Sky and they said that they tend to get new cabinet information on the 24th of the month... it sounded unbelievable to me that they would update only monthly, but does that mean we could be waiting until the 24th January? Insanity.

In reply to a post by dst87:

It's crazy how long this all takes.

Cabinet fully installed now for about 3 weeks, yet still no availability.

Took about 3 months from installing cabinet to be able to order here.

Ouch. The incompetence at Openreach is almost unbelievable.

"Also seems that cabinet 27 has 2 DSLAM's"

Out of interest, how do you determine that?

In reply to a post by dst87:

Cabinet fully installed now for about 3 weeks, yet still no availability.

I've had my cabinet installed for almost 3 years now, and I'm still on a terrible ADSL connection.

Edited by thebigdolphin1 (Mon 28-Dec-15 22:39:26)

In reply to a post by thebigdolphin1:

I've had my cabinet installed for almost 3 years now, and I'm still on a terrible ADSL connection.

Seriously?? Oh my... I'll stop complaining! One surely must start to assume that something has gone terribly wrong for a three+ year wait from fibre cabinet installation to product availability. I mean if they've invested in the hardware it's surely in their best interests to have people paying for the fibre product as soon as possible?

Or is this line of logic a bit too much for the likes of Openreach?

Nope. Impeccable logic.

But you have to assume that, when installing 40 cabinets a day, with an expectation that *some* will go wrong, those "best interests" can end up focussed on places where there are few issues, or are easily solved.

Some of the problems can be intractable, making it impossible to commission. Then the problem becomes scheduling the removal of a cabinet, when the civils teams are fully busy deploying other cabinets.

Took about a month here from cabinet arrival to service ready for order, I think often power is the biggest issue, once a cabinet has power it is quite likely to go live within a few weeks, so if you see digging around a power source near to the cabinet this might give some hope, otherwise the wait might be a while , pretty sure our cabinet would have been done in February if not for having to wait for the power company to allow access to its network, i.e. they didn't install the cab until this was scheduled, went live in December only about 2 weeks after they laid power cable to the cabinet I think.

Yeah. Back in 2010-2011, my cabinet was delayed by 3 months compared to the surrounding ones. The delay was purely about power - with 3 sets of roadworks, leaving 3 trails of tarmac in different directions.

At that time, the power work tended to be scheduled after the cabinet was sited, so delays ended up down to queues in the local supply connection process. Nowadays, the two tend to be synchronised in a much better fashion.

I've also recounted the tale where 3 cabinets were being left out of the commercial deployment near here, because the cost of powering them would cost £90,000+, some 30x the norm. It can be a very critical aspect.

If you see one of the Openreach engineers ask them if the cabinet has power yet, if so likely it will be ready quite soon, mine had the default '4 months' about 3 weeks ago but once powered was available to order about 2 weeks later (last week).

it may be that your ISP has not chosen not to supply service or their own connections may not be ready.

It's most likely that the cabinet build has not been completed yet.

From our local cabinet being stood to going live and being able to order on 7th November it was only 19 calendar days. This was a Digital Scotland / BDUK funded cabinet.

It would appear that this is unusually quick so can only guess everything went as planned!

Del

In reply to a post by delone:

From our local cabinet being stood to going live and being able to order on 7th November it was only 19 calendar days. This was a Digital Scotland / BDUK funded cabinet.

It would appear that this is unusually quick so can only guess everything went as planned!

Del

Wow - I wish!

I actually emailed Digital Scotland a few days ago and I got a reply today... saying that our postcode is targeted for Spring 2017!!

I hope this is a mistake.

I had a number of e-mails from Digital Scotland, the last one of which I got in October and I think it said Summer 2016 which was obviously wrong!

If you haven't already, try asking your local council / councillors as they may be aware of any issues likely to delay your cabinet.

Good luck!

Del

In reply to a post by delone:

I had a number of e-mails from Digital Scotland, the last one of which I got in October and I think it said Summer 2016 which was obviously wrong!

If you haven't already, try asking your local council / councillors as they may be aware of any issues likely to delay your cabinet.

Good luck!

Del

I may well do that, thanks Del!

It's reassuring to know just how useless those time estimates actually are!

In reply to a post by dst87:

In reply to a post by delone:

From our local cabinet being stood to going live and being able to order on 7th November it was only 19 calendar days. This was a Digital Scotland / BDUK funded cabinet.

It would appear that this is unusually quick so can only guess everything went as planned!

Del

Wow - I wish!

I actually emailed Digital Scotland a few days ago and I got a reply today... saying that our postcode is targeted for Spring 2017!!

I hope this is a mistake.

due to people complaining about slipping targets installs Openreach no longer provides times when cabs are going to go live (they just add on 2 years even if the cab is live next week-3 months) you can blame ofcom and the people who had lodged official complaints about slipping times (so openreach don't get fined now they just say its 2 years later)

you can also blame people who don't want the extra green box installing as well in some areas

In reply to a post by leexgx:

In reply to a post by dst87:

In reply to a post by delone:

From our local cabinet being stood to going live and being able to order on 7th November it was only 19 calendar days. This was a Digital Scotland / BDUK funded cabinet.

It would appear that this is unusually quick so can only guess everything went as planned!

Del

Wow - I wish!

I actually emailed Digital Scotland a few days ago and I got a reply today... saying that our postcode is targeted for Spring 2017!!

I hope this is a mistake.

due to people complaining about slipping targets installs Openreach no longer provides times when cabs are going to go live (they just add on 2 years even if the cab is live next week-3 months) you can blame ofcom and the people who had lodged official complaints about slipping times (so openreach don't get fined now they just say its 2 years later)

you can also blame people who don't want the extra green box installing as well in some areas

Of course all this does instead of people complaining about dates slipping, people complain about the lack of information about what's going on in there area. Thugh some Local Authorities give out more information than others.

it is annoying still

i nearly had a lease line installed (fiber 100/100 set to 10/10) due to lack of information about it (thats £510 ish with Vat A Month for a 10/10) i was trying to get the other 3 companies at the big unit to pitch in (as one of them went down the route of using a 4xADSL lines in bonding mode, daft thing is it properly costing them as much as a 10/10 leaseline)

3 months later i noticed that the FTTC cab was installed at the other end of the road and i rechecked and it was now available 4 months before it was not available, they had actually connected the lease line fiber up as they had the big head end fiber out of the 4 BT man holes covers to blow the fiber down from the tube form the exchange i assume (even though we had not agreed to it yet, we never plugged in the cisco router as i assumed that would of been accepting the contract, nothing ever came from it and BT need to to pick up the cisco router as Probably costs more then my car)

the business team would not even tell me when the area was going to get it and even said it was unlikely to get it due to been on the other side of the dual carriageway to this industrial estate (most the units had dark fiber cables in them mostly for ISDN50 or lease lines 100/100)

they now got 40/10 service on FTTC, 70-80 is likely possible as its not far away but they just went form 0.7/1 to flat 40/10 (Yes the download was slower then upload) and they are now happy

Edited by leexgx (Thu 31-Dec-15 23:46:40)