ETA for FTTC GREAT DUNMOW Cabinet 12

Having spent the past 15 months trying to order FTTC for our current home (which is finally due to be installed this Friday) it now looks like we may have to move again and the new place has even poorer ADSL connectivity than where we are now:

Address *, CM6 2JJ on Exchange GREAT DUNMOW is served by Cabinet 12
WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 2 -- 1 to 3.5 Available
WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M Up to 2 Up to 0.5 1 to 3.5 Available
ADSL Max Up to 1.5 -- 1 to 2.5 Available

I looked up the address on superfast Essex and it seems that it is on the list for BDUK rollout between 2016 and 2019. If we go there it won't be until next Summer at the earliest.

Is there any way to find out when in that window it is likely to get the FTTC treatment? Also, any way to find out where cab 12 is? The address is a good few miles from Dunmow which would explain the slow speed but it is only a tiny hamlet so I am fearing that even FTTC will be pretty poor unless there is a cabinet actually in Little Easton.

Thanks.

If broadband is important then don't do it, or be prepared to wait till 2019.

Thanks Andrew, but if it happens we won't have much of a say and, at those quoted speeds it will mean I won't be able to work from home any more (tricky now at 3bmps, impossible at 1-2 I suspect.) I don't do that regularly but it is always good to have as an option.

According to codelook, the approx postcode for cab12 is CM6 2BD, but that seems to be on private land or something because google streetview hasn't been through there - around it but not by it.

If it makes you feel better, our predicted survey date was March 2016 let alone for installation, but I am writing this from out newly installed fibre line, so these dates mean nothing (we are a different county though), all you can really do is wait, I will say though that if that cab is where it seems to be then I can understand why it may take a while.

Superfast Essex are meant to be reporting more exactly when cabinets in Phase2 are getting upgraded in the next week or so.

https://goo.gl/maps/5LZigXt5Grp

Seriously? That's miles from the house and I can't see any sign of a cabinet there.

I did find one in the village via google here:

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.8922859,0.3346332,3a...

but I can't see any number on it. I guess I will have to go out and inspect it in the flesh.

Who knows what route the cables follow but if that's the one it could well be less than 1km.

If its anywhere near the spot Ribble mentions then it will be at least 4km.

On Ribble's link, look for the street sign saying Beaumont Hill, to the left is a rough track, and just to te left of that is a large tree. Sitting under the tree, is a BT cabinet.


the one you link to is a fibre cabinet and will not have a number, you need to find the PCP it is linked to - normally within a 50m radius. Someone there has been very kind in allow the cabinet in their garden - without that there may not have been a suitable location.

Edited by MHC (Tue 27-Oct-15 10:22:39)

The cabinet in Manor Road is not an Openreach cabinet. Probably an electricity supply cabinet. There is no Openreach cabinet in Little Easton

Maybe zooming in would help https://www.google.com/maps/@51.8816485,0.3577007,3a...

...and there are two BT manhole covers in front of it.

Ok, thanks everyone, spotted it now. That's got to be the best camouflaged cabinet I've seen in a while and pretty tiny too.

I make that just under 3km as the road goes so at least that far as the cable runs. Correct me if I'm wrong but would that not mean pretty appalling VDSL speeds, possibly no better than the ADSL quoted now.

Correction, I see that at that range VDSL is likely to be around 8mbps and the quoted ADSL is 1-3mbps so it should certainly be better but maybe not much.

So, the move to the rural rectory is going ahead in July and it seems that cab 12 on the Great Dunmow exchange is now listed on SuperfastEssex as covered by Phase 2a which is due 2016-2019.

As far as I can make out work on 2a begins in June, is there any way to find out any detail on which cabinets go when and what the plan actually is (the cabinet is about 3km from the house along the most obvious road route)? A 3km VDSL link is unlikely to produce 15mbps which is (I think) the target minimum.

Meanwhile I can expect 2.5mbps max via ADSL according to the FTTC availability checker which will make working from home almost impossible.

Probably looking at 12 months away, though at 3+km you could end up out of reach for FTTC entirely.

Yes, that is partly why I would like to know the plan - there are plenty of villages further from the cabinet than us and they are all listed as being covered in 2a so presumably they intend to build new cabinets in some places.

Of course, the presence of a nice tall church tower could inspire someone to install wireless hardware...

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2016/05/church-...

Which village's? Don't see any other plans for Little Easton (at present)

Edited by deleted (Thu 19-May-16 16:44:07)

The map on superfast Essex shows all the villages around Dunmow as green (i.e. Phase 2a). That includes Little Easton (main part and up near the church about a mile away) and Great Easton. There is a different cabinet for Gt Easton but not for the main part of Little Easton (we will be up near the church but I think we are closer as the cable runs than the main part of the village).

I'm not sure you should take the map colouring as a complete indication of full superfast capability being delivered to every property in the area.

Superfast North Yorkshire didn't follow a policy of trying to produce a map of the county where everything was coloured. Instead, they did something like this:
http://www.superfastnorthyorkshire.com/media/1146860...

It doesn't just show the area connected to an upgraded cabinet. Instead, it gives a far better idea of the property clusters that will benefit from an upgrade. The upgrades frequently appear as small circles, with radius of 1.2km (the limit of superfast speed).

From what you showed us, your new property is likely to need more than just the current cabinet upgrade ... it will depend upon a new cabinet sited closer to you, such as the "all in one". That certainly could happen - North Yorkshire have recently started to include them in their rollout. But it should fall into the "hope" category, rather than the "expect" one.

You have a small glimmer - that your line works better than the 3km distance suggests. This would need BT to have originally installed lines out to Little Easton (from the cab) using thicker copper cabling than the standard. But that's still "hope" rather than "expectation".

Thanks for that - a map of that sort for Essex would be great.

I do have at least a glimmer of hope as, when I was at the rectory a few months back I connected to the (BTWifi) from the ADSL router there at the moment and measured in excess of 4mbps which is well above the estimate given on the web site and above what the range would suggest. I discussed this with the current vicar at the time and was told they had been complaining to BT for a while about the appalling broadband and they 'did something' and got it to improve a bit.

I have no idea what the 'something' they did was but it must surely have included some analysis and optimising of the line. The vicar wasn't technical and could not elaborate.

Ah well, I'll have to wait and see what happens in July.

BTW, I am currently with BT on infinity (less than a year into the contract), does anyone know what the process is for moving from VDSL back to ADSL is in these circumstances? I plan to stay with BT for simplicity but I guess the account will have to be downgraded from infinity.