Will they ever upgrade my cabinet? (Cabinet Info request)

Hi there,

when I moved to Hammersmith in February the OpenReach Status for my postcode was UR (Under Review) with no further information on a planned upgrade.

Recently (1-2 weeks ago) the status on the OpenReach Checker moved to Enabled Area, with the message specifying my cabinet is indeed planned to be upgraded.

Is anyone able to check if this is actually true? Here's the info from BT's Wholesale Checker:

Telephone Number xxxxxx on Exchange HAMMERSMITH is served by Cabinet 25
Featured Products

Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Downstream Range(Mbps)

Availability Date

WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 18 -- 16.5 to 20 Available
WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M Up to 18 Up to 1.5 16.5 to 20 Available
ADSL Max Up to 8 -- 7 to 8 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Other Offerings
Copper Multicast -- -- -- Available
FTTC is currently not available on this cabinet due to following reasons:- This cabinet is under review. We'll explore fibre broadband solutions & will update once done..

Cheers,
maui

Yes, it's true

I wonder if they finished their "review" of the cabinet and are planning to to the upgrade (unfortunately there are no dates, or date ranges in the message I get via the BT Wholesale Checker)

In the end I have the feeling they just changed the algorithm for the Openreach website and will now always report "Enabled Area" if the connected Exchange has been upgraded.

Oh well...

Who is your local authority?

Hammersmith & Fulham

My thoughts are not relevant in your case ...

Still can't believe they left out Cabinet 25 so far. It's in the center of Hammersmith, right across from the Townhall.

Picture of Cab 25
Map with Exchange (R) and Cab (O) Location

I take it you say Ribble's reply confirming that FTTC is coming.

As for why the cab was not enabled earlier that could be down to one of many reasons, one possibility being that it wasn't initially considered to be commercially viable due perhaps to not having that many lines connected to it. At least you now know FTTC is coming, there are plenty of other cabs in London that have yet to be upgraded together with thousands of EO lines None of which will see FTTC unless or until BT carries out a network rearrangement.

Yep, I'm hopeful they will enable it, just as Ribble said. Also I guess London is not an easy city for FTTC rollout. But then again one would think that most if not all Cabinets in an area as densely populated as London would be commercially viable.

Is there a particular reason why BT won't just deploy Exchange-based VDSL for EO lines? Maybe I'm ignorant, but that's what they did in Germany. Seemed to work out great within Cities.

Btw, odd to see the BT Wholesale Checker is still reporting "Under Review" for the cabinet. But I guess their database is just downstream from BTOR's data and just not updated as regularly?

I suspect it was in the commercial program but was on hold for a long time due to whatever technical/planning /cost issue, and has been re planned as part of Openreach recent announcements for London