BT infinity switchover woes

Friday (30th Oct) was our date for switching over to BT and connecting to FTTC.

At 9:20 the phone went off and by 9:40 it was back on - great I thought. I disconnected my old router and plugged in the homehub5 and shortly after that the broadband stared working again but only connecting at 4mbps - presumably ADSL.

Later in the morning the broadband went off and has never come back on. Worse, we discovered that incoming calls were not coming through (though outbound are fine) someone else in the village is getting our calls and getting very confused and upset. I have tried to call today to explain what is going on but they hung up before I could explain anything - obviously very stressed out by all the calls from BT they have been getting.

Anyway, I have been trying to find out what happened but the call centre staff kept giving different and contradictory responses. I finally used the online chat method today (as I am at work with internet access) and I eventually got put on to a UK person who seemed to have a clue. Apparently the engineer was unable to find a port on the 'fibre equipment' and they are going to be returning with more equipment at an indeterminate future date.

I have been promised an update by Wednesday (4th) but I guess the best I can hope for is the crossed line situation to be resolved and maybe be plugged back in to ADSL.

Does any of this sound familiar or plausible? I waited for over a year to be able to order FTTP so I assumed the fact they finally took the order would mean there would be ports available so I am rather confused.

Prior to this we had ADSL with TalkTalk so the switch involved moving the line over from TalkTalk to BT and from ADSL (exchange) to VDSL (cabinet). I presume the lack of port on the VDSL kit meant they connected our line back to the exchange. I am guessing this would be a different line as the old one went to TalkTalk (or is that purely done at the exchange?) This is presumably a bad line hence the strange crossing that is going on.

Sounds like the Openreach engineer had a pub lunch first.

But the main work seemed to all happen around 9:30 so it was more like a pub breakfast.

What number does dialling 17070 tell you? It should be other subscriber's.

Edited to correct the number !

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 02-Nov-15 14:10:21)

Post deleted by RobertoS

Similar to my experience.
Changed from TT to BT FTTC phone was switched mid morning on a Friday but no broadband. After many calls to the very poor help line, I also got conflicting information, broadband finally connected on the Tuesday.
Reason turned out to be an incorrect connection in the cabinet, perhaps it was the same man!!
At least my phone calls did not go to someone else but when the first bill came we were charged for a call that we did not make. It was for a small amount so didn't bother to chase that one in view of the problem we had resolving the connection problem.

I'd say that you need to ring BT and report crossed lines. Don't bother trying to explain the ins and outs of the issue with the FTTC jumpering, that will only cloud the problem.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

What number does dialling 07070 tell you? It should be other subscriber's.

Perhaps 17070 . . .

Yep, that's what I did once I realised there was a crossed line problem. Still going to be days before they come and fix it though.

As for 07070 I will try that tonight but I did try looking at the caller ID on my mobile when I called it and it reported our correct home phone line.

It sounds like BT tried calling me on Friday, presumably to tell me the phone was working but it went though to someone else who was rather confused. They then failed to try contacting me in any other way to let me know there was a problem. They have my mobile number as secondary contact and email address but the only email they sent was to say the phone had been transferred.

As for 07070

That's 17070. If this provide you with the incorrect directory number for line, make a note of it and pass it to your voice supplier, this will help the engineer in a quicker repair.

Fixed, thanks !

So, 17070 reported the correct number but ringback did not ring our line and calls to our number were being answered by another confused local resident.

I eventually managed to talk to the other person and our stories matched in that they were receiving our calls.

BT's 'contractor' (who I assume is Openreach) finally came and assessed the problem on Wednesday and by the evening the lines were no longer crossed so we were able to get our own calls. I was informed that the broadband issue required additional equipment and I will get a further update tomorrow. Unfortunately I missed this call so I was not able to ask why they didn't just put me on ADSL in the meantime.

The upshot is I have now been offline for a week (hence the few updates here) and had no incoming calls for most of that week. I have no idea if there is any chance I will get broadband back in the near future but if we are waiting for capacity on the DSLAM then I suspect it could be many weeks. It took years for them to take the order so if it is full again why should I expect it to be less than years? What I really can't understand is why they opened orders to take mine and then closed them again, did capacity really come free and if so why wasn't it assigned to the person whose order they took? If not, have they not carried out a fraud to get my business?

On the positive side it did force me into looking at other options and I have been able to find a weak BT-WiFi signal by placing a laptop on top of a wardrobe. This is on an old laptop running Ubuntu so I have been able to attached an old Fon hotspot box to re-radiate that signal through the house. It sort of works but the bandwidth is very poor and it keeps going off and needing to be reconnected.

Possibly the last port or ports were found to be faulty , either on the card or more likely on the tie pairs, and waiting rectification

In reply to a post by andyhurley:

Does any of this sound familiar

Very familiar. We reluctantly migrated a residential line to BT VDSL2, from TalkTalk LLU ADSL2+. From start to finish, the process was a complete pig's ear.

Migrating reluctantly because TalkTalk said it could not, for the foreseeable future, offer us FTTC. Due to the punitive cost of £2,000+vat which Openreach charges other telcos for every GEA CableLink. These trivial cables, worth just a quid or two and taking just 30 seconds to install, are yet another of BT's monopolistic cash cows. But pre-requisites for other telcos wanting to "provide access to the Fibre-enabled customer base".

Although promising to safeguard our cherished phone number in that migration, BT promptly 'slammed' the line; seizing the pair from TalkTalk. We were issued a completely new telephone number; the old cherished number now permanently and inexplicably "lost". We were then dumped on ADSL1(!) Where we waited for weeks to be eventually migrated to FTTC; a decidely mediocre service, as it turned out. In the meantime, TalkTalk grizzled about the 'slamming'; and continued to bill us for a service it could no longer provide.

That convoluted and nonsensical migration path allegedly being "easier" than moving us directly from ADSL2+ LLU to BTW VDSL2.

A quite pathetic and painful consumer experience. That was about 2 years ago. Don't suppose anything has improved. While there are no proper rules and regulations for basic migration processes, nothing will improve.

----

Edited by deleted (Fri 06-Nov-15 20:38:48)

Do you have any evidence for these cable being trivial, and only taking 30 seconds to install?

The £2000 is per exchange, and the Vat is completely irrelevant for Vat-registered B2B transactions. No big deal.

The rest of your tale I agree is shocking.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Do you have any evidence for these cable being trivial, and only taking 30 seconds to install?

Yup, they're just 1000Base-LX Single Mode Fibre patch cables. (source: Openreach Factsheet: GEA Cablelink; June 2011).

Optical patch cables linking an L2 switch on BT's Main Distribution Frame (MDF) to an L2 switch on the HDF; the Communication Provider's (CP's) Handover Distribution Frame in the co-location/co-mingling zone of the exchange.

Simple fibre optic patch cables costing a couple quid; maximum length a few tens of metres? No splicing or termination necessary. Pre-prepared cables, plugging effortlessly into the fibre transceivers on those L2 switches. Total installation time 30 seconds. Plus the time taken to run an automated script updating the routing tables. £2,000 a pop. Straight into the swelling coffers of BT Group.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

The £2000 is per exchange...No big deal.

Well it's £2000 per cablelink. But each cablelink only has a capacity of 1Gbps; and that's aggregate upstream and downstream combined. Even in the smaller exchanges with moderate take-up of FTTC, the cablelink will soon max out.

And that's what's happening. As take-up of FTTC gains pace, and traffic hammers that solitary cablelink, the CP has to provision another, and then another. With BT creaming off £2000 every time.

But that's only the half of it.

When take-up of FTTC appears low, CPs including TalkTalk are understandably reluctant to "invest". Shying away from expending such huge sums on GEA cablelinks, on the off-chance of attracting enough customers to recoup that expenditure.

Which is why we've witnessed waits of 10 months (in one example) before the CP takes the plunge; before it succumbs and pays BT that £2000 ransom, for that £2 fibre patch cable, just so that it can offer FTTC itself!

But you've been here a while Bob and must know this already?!

Edited by deleted (Sat 07-Nov-15 05:13:58)

I didn't know that amount of detail, (as if I had done I would obviously not have posted as I did - in reply to your snidey and unnecessary closing sentence), so thank you.

In particular the 1Gbps aggregate throughput of the GEA link amazes me.

Surprising then that this inflated cost has never been mentioned amongst the many thousands of works Sky and TalkTalk have expended to complain about Openreach though is it?

Of course the cost has nothing to do with recovery of some the price of the handover hardware, and its free for labour to run the fibre cable across the floor under a rug and break the lock on the LLU cage to drop the connector into the LLU providers.

How much do data centres charge to connect a 15m fibre from one side of a room to another?

They may be 'simple patch cables', but they may well need to run to a panel in a co-location area several floors away, not within a foot. Certainly not a '30 second job'.

Why do you think it's 1Gb aggregate? The peak capacity is in one direction.
GE Single - Mode interfaces are described in SIN 360

The SX and LX type interface is as specified in the Gigabit Ethernet IEEE 802.3z specifications.

A cablelink doesn't only consist of a patch cable, there are also other elements you have ignored.
There are contributions to the costs of the L2 switch (and any supporting licenses, OAM systems etc), rack systems etc.

Openreach spends the capital for much of the infrastructure and only recovers anything when a SP buys a link.

The £2,000 cost of a Cablelink is trivial compared to the investment the SP needs to make with installing their own equipment and backhaul capable of dealing with the higher bandwidths with FTTx.

Edited by deleted (Sat 07-Nov-15 10:31:48)

Sorry Bob, didn't mean to sound snidey. Just surprised this forum is still discussing the GEA Cablelink, and what it actually is, more than four years after FTTC was first rolled-out.

In reply to a post by panda:

They may be 'simple patch cables', but they may well need to run to a panel in a co-location area several floors away, not within a foot. Certainly not a '30 second job'.

Simple fibre optic patch cables, costing a few quid. And, yes, a 30 second job to install! In fact, they're so inexpensive, they were probably installed ready, but left dark, at the time the L2 switches were fitted. For the sake of argument, let's go for a patch cable that's plenty long enough to reach "several floors away" (!)

GEA CableLink:. 50 metres of single-mode simplex fibre, extra-thick jacket, LSZH, LC connectors:

Cost to BT? £4 max (retail price; fibrestore.com)
Cost to CP? £2000 (current BT Openreach pricelist)

In reply to a post by panda:

Why do you think it's 1Gb aggregate? The peak capacity is in one direction.

Nice bluff but no cigar. Of course the Cablelink throughput is 1Gbps aggregate. It's gigabit ethernet. The clue is in the name. Let's remember how ethernet works. It's a time-based protocol with a fixed number of ethernet frames of fixed size per second across the whole network. Hence the 1Gbps total throughput limitation on any segment of the network. Since you're familiar with the ethernet specification, you presumably knew that too, Panda?

In reply to a post by panda:

A cablelink doesn't only consist of a patch cable, there are also other elements you have ignored. There are contributions to the costs of the L2 switch (and any supporting licenses, OAM systems etc), rack systems etc.

That's not exactly true, is it? The CPs have already paid BT handsomely for access to the co-mingling zones. In fact, CPs must buy the (hugely-overpriced) racks from BT themselves, and the cabinets, the power units, and so on.

But BT, being BT, just has to gouge the competition that little bit more! £2000 in fact, for a cable costing just a couple quid. Tsk! Any wonder there's a "once-in-a-decade" (AKA long-overdue) Ofcom inquiry into all of this?

Enough!

The point in highlighting BT's extortionate charge for a GEA Cablelink (AKA 'inexpensive fibre patch cable') is to show how that prohibitive cost of £2000 for a £2 cable has helped wreck the competition. Delaying the roll-out of FTTC services by rival Communications Providers. Stifling consumer choice, and ultimately driving up costs for end-users. Back in 2012(?) when I asked TalkTalk why it wouldn't "for the foreseeable future" be offering FTTC in my district, the reply was: "With limited interest from potential customers, the cost of the GEA Cablelinks cannot be justified." And that's why we reluctantly switched providers from TalkTalk to BT.

Win-win for BT, but another slap in the face for consumers.

Edited by deleted (Sat 07-Nov-15 23:30:48)

In reply to a post by edwincluck:

Sorry Bob, didn't mean to sound snidey. Just surprised this forum is still discussing the GEA Cablelink, and what it actually as, more than four years after FTTC was first rolled-out.

Peace .

I'd never dreamt that they were only 1Gbps, and never looked into that level of detail.

Anyway, thanks for putting me right, and I accept you didn't mean it the way I took it. The rest of this post of yours explains a lot more as well . You do seem to have a point.

In reply to a post by edwincluck:

Simple fibre optic patch cables, costing a few quid. And, yes, a 30 second job to install! In fact, they're so inexpensive, they were probably installed ready, but left dark, at the time the L2 switches were fitted.

It makes no difference if they were pre-run or not. It still takes effort and cost to install. You may be willing to go to work for free, but most people expect to be paid. Like a shop stockroom, the assets are cost until somebody buys it.

In reply to a post by edwincluck:

In reply to a post by panda:

Why do you think it's 1Gb aggregate? The peak capacity is in one direction.

Nice bluff but no cigar.

You clearly don't understand what 'Full-Duplex' means.

In reply to a post by panda:

The CPs have already paid BT handsomely for access to the co-mingling zones.

They pay for the equipment they have exclusive use of. They also pay a contribution to use the infrastructure Openreach has paid to put in place to reach beyond their exclusive domain.

In reply to a post by edwincluck:

Enough!

You're a moderator?

In reply to a post by edwincluck:

The point in highlighting BT's extortionate charge for a GEA Cablelink (AKA 'inexpensive fibre patch cable') is to show how that prohibitive cost of £2000 for a £2 cable has helped wreck the competition.

Your clearly prefer to rant rather than discuss.

Optical patch cables linking an L2 switch on BT's Main Distribution Frame (MDF) to an L2 switch on the HDF; the Communication Provider's (CP's) Handover Distribution Frame in the co-location/co-mingling zone of the exchange.

The MDF and HDF are two separate rooms in the exchange. On top of physically routing between A and B there's firestopping and the like to be considered, this isn't a 5 minute job by anyones ('cept yours apparently) stretch of the imagination.

Ooh! Plugging in a patch cable pre-run through ducting to the "room next door". Gosh! Sounds complex, especially for Openreach! Imagine all the teeth sucking going on. Nudge nudge wink wink. Shall we chalk it up as a "six minute job", Phil? Yeah, why not, Dave! Just enough time to put the kettle on, and laugh at the £2,000 bill landing soon on some sucker's desk!

Interesting discussion guys. Meanwhile we are now 11 days in and still no broadband. We weren't even given an update on Saturday as promised.

I am waiting to see what the Live Assistance guys and gals can come up with today. It's like some kind of torture having to explain the whole story over and over but it beats trying to converse with the Indian helpdesk.

You can always try calling the BT Loyalty Team in the UK on 0800 587 7216 to see if they can help

This is interesting but I don't know what it means.

Previously we were on TalkTalk so I had to use the postcode/address search on the wholesale checker which reported 1-4mbps on the ADSL2 connection which tallied with our experience of just over 3mbps at our router.

Now that the line has transferred to BT I can search by number and I get a prediction of 0.5-2.5.

Address/Postcode:

FTTC Range A (Clean) 80 66.1 20 20 -- Waiting list
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 80 57.1 20 17.9 -- Waiting list
WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 2.5 -- 1 to 4 Available
ADSL Max Up to 2 -- 1 to 3.5 Available

BT number:

FTTC Range A (Clean) 80 66.1 20 20 -- Waiting list
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 80 57.1 20 17.9 -- Waiting list
WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 1.5 -- 0.5 to 2.5 Available
ADSL Max Up to 1.5 -- 0.5 to 2.5 Available

Any idea why it should differ so much? Both are reporting for the same cabinet and, judging by the FTTC speed, are assuming the same distance from the cabinet.

The estimates start out as a guesstimate but after you're connected, BT update them with what you actually get.

Hmm, but we actually get 0mbps so that doesn't make sense.

You're not connected.

Please excuse me Edwin, I had supposed, wrongly it would seem, that you were after informed opinion.

Maybe taking into account possible different e side cables between exchange and PCP

In reply to a post by edwincluck:

Just surprised this forum is still discussing the GEA Cablelink, and what it actually is, more than four years after FTTC was first rolled-out.

I guess things keep being discussed while misunderstandings persist.

On MrSaffron's page of photos from Cornwall, we can see some pictures of a couple of ECI OLT-L2S (F152-HB) shelves.

Here is the overview:
http://www.coolwebhome.co.uk/fibre-cornwall/images/f...

Here is a close-up of the main in-use shelf:
http://www.coolwebhome.co.uk/fibre-cornwall/images/f...

As best as I understand it, the 6 right-most, GPLT8, cards terminate GPON. Each card terminates 8 GPON fibres - one fibre per PON.

The two central cards that jut forward, HBNI-SF, are the switching fabric - the heart of the layer 2 switch.

The two cards either side of this, TENI-18U, terminate the PtP fibre to each FTTC cabinet. There is capacity for 18 connections, but the pictures suggest BT only want to use 12 of them

Each of the 18 connections looks like an SFP module, into which a single strand is plugged - perhaps 1000base-BX, bidirectional on different frequencies.

I guess a switch in an FTTC-oriented environment will have more of the TENI-18U cards populated.

On the far left hand side is a TENI-18N card, which provides the upstream connection from the switch. This is where the cablelink products come in.

Like the 18U cards, there is room for 18 connections. There appear to be SFP modules in places, but this time there are two fibres to each - suggesting a pair of unidirectional fibres (1Gb each way), 1000base-LX.

I'd say that is good confirmation that Cablelink has 1Gbps available each way, full duplex.

It also gives a good picture of what else the £2,000 might be buying: an SFP, a portion of the 18N card, and a portion of the capacity of the switching fabric.

If more CP's choose to connect a cablelink, a more complex solution would be needed.

In reply to a post by edwincluck:

Nice bluff but no cigar. Of course the Cablelink throughput is 1Gbps aggregate. It's gigabit ethernet. The clue is in the name. Let's remember how ethernet works. It's a time-based protocol with a fixed number of ethernet frames of fixed size per second across the whole network. Hence the 1Gbps total throughput limitation on any segment of the network. Since you're familiar with the ethernet specification, you presumably knew that too, Panda?

Oops. Two separate fibres, two separate ethernets. Two separate gigabits.

Or, in the case of 1000base-bx, two separate frequencies, two separate ethernets. ...

Hi WWWombat. Thanks for going to the trouble of researching that. My own investigations drew a blank. Except for a solitary and obsolete ECI Manual which somehow floated onto the public internet.

From those photographs you could well be right that the GEA CableLink has 1Gbps bandwidth in each direction. If so I stand corrected and apologies to Panda in particular.

The £2000 bill still sounds prohibitively expensive. Even if that charge, as you say, may be subsidising related equipment. The prohibitive cost was the reason given by TalkTalk for not immediately deploying FTTC services of its own in our Market 2 exchange; even though TalkTalk already had a co-loc presence as an LLU provider.

Any way, apologies for underestimating the GEA Cablelink's combined bandwidth, if that's the case.

edit: just to add as an on-topic cautionary note to others - that our switchover to BTw from TalkTalk also incurred a charge for "connection of a new line". Even though we were told by Plusnet, our new FTTC provider, that such a charge would not be applied. Despite requests, the charge never was refunded.

All of these troubles- the prohibitive cost of that GEA Cablelink which caused us to leave TalkTalk in the first place; the convoluted migration path from ADSL2+ LLU to BTW FTTC; the loss of our cherished number; the infuriating if temporary downgrade of our line from ADSL2+ to ADSL1; that unanticipated connection charge; and even a charge for an ADSL modem which we would only use only temporarily -- left a bad taste from the whole process. It was painful. In hindsight we should have stuck with TalkTalk who did eventually launch FTTC in this area. That the migration process still hasn't been formalised and refined, all these years after LLU providers came into being is frankly pathetic.

Edited by deleted (Tue 10-Nov-15 01:33:12)

For someone else to find costs as cannot say, but in data centres similar cable links between rooms carry an install cost and an annual fee maybe research the cost of that

In reply to a post by andyhurley:

Interesting discussion guys. Meanwhile we are now 11 days in and still no broadband. We weren't even given an update on Saturday as promised.

I am waiting to see what the Live Assistance guys and gals can come up with today. It's like some kind of torture having to explain the whole story over and over but it beats trying to converse with the Indian helpdesk.

I've got my Infinity Install Thursday. This thread fills me with dread :/

There are a few million that have gone through with no problem whatsoever . You may as well worry every day as to whether somebody else on your cabinet is getting FTTC that day and your line gets messed up in the process, as per the other user the OP's calls are going to.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 10-Nov-15 10:35:35)

In reply to a post by edwincluck:

Hi WWWombat. Thanks for going to the trouble of researching that. My own investigations drew a blank. Except for a solitary and obsolete ECI Manual which somehow floated onto the public internet.

They are extraordinarily difficult to find online, aren't they? Discovering the manufacturers (obscure) names for the cards normally leads to a wealth of background information, but not in this case.

The prices are equally difficult to find.

From those photographs you could well be right that the GEA CableLink has 1Gbps bandwidth in each direction. If so I stand corrected and apologies to Panda in particular.

I also found a description of various ethernet products, BT SIN 476, that mention a product named "Etherway Exchange Connect" for use within the BT exchange building, and that it is provisioned using Cablelink products ... but unfortunately notes that a SIN for cablelink doesn't exist.

It mentions that there are 1Gbps and 10Gbps options, which gives a hint that faster cablelinks exist.

Finally, the SIN for the G.fast trials, STIN 518, also mentions 10Gbps cablelinks, and talks of 1000base-LX and 10Gbase-LR as the connection options, with a further reference to SIN 360.

SIN 360, in turn, describes the connectors (which may be dual SC, dual LC, or FC). The ones in the photo look like dual LC type.

The £2000 bill still sounds prohibitively expensive. Even if that charge, as you say, may be subsidising related equipment.

Perhaps you are used to the cost, and capability, of consumer grade equipment, rather than serious telco kit. Dual power supplies, dual switching fabric, etc - none of it comes cheap.

I can't find prices of the ECI F152 hardware, but I do have something comparable ...

I've recently been playing with some Cisco Catalyst 6500 hardware, which is of a similar kind of size and specification to the ECI. It was high-end datacentre kit 10 years ago, and is still supported, but is now being cycled out.

- The ECI blurb reckons it has backplane capacity for 1.2Tbps (20Gbps from each line card, into each switch module).
- The Cisco 6500 started life around 2000 with basic capability of 32Gbps, but with switch fabric modules became capable of 256 Gbps. In the mid-2000's, an upgrade allowed 720Gbps switching.

At some point in its life, the 6500 would have had pricing from this undated document:
http://www.andovercg.com/datasheets/cisco%20price%20...

Making something close to an "empty" L2S, 256Gbps capability, with redundant power, redundant switching fabric, and a slot for something akin to cablelink connections, would cost:

- 6513 (13 slot) empty chassis: $16k (list)
- Redundant 2500W power supplies: $5k each
- Redundant switch fabric modules: $11k each
- Supervisor card: $24k
- Line card with 16 slots for 1000baseLX modules: $25k
- Each 1000baseLX module: $500

When you see prices of over $75k to build a virtually empty switch, with discounts down to around $60k, or £40k, suddenly the cost of £2k as a one-off payment for access to a portion of that capability isn't an instant absurdity.

It starts to make a little more sense if you think you are connecting to £40,000 worth of hardware, rather than thinking of a £4 cable, right?

Those are undoubtedly old prices for the 6500, and capabilities have come on since then, so it isn't a perfect comparison ... but it certainly gives you an idea of the scale of the cost, for a less capable piece of hardware. The ECI we are looking at right now will have been specified back in 2009-2010, so won't be too far away.

For up-to-date hardware, there are some figures on here for recent Cisco Nexus stuff:
http://www.networkworld.com/article/2459441/cisco-su...

A decent Nexus 9516 chassis, equipped ready for decent switching capacity, for $125k. Plus a decent linecard that would give access to plenty of cablelinks for an extra $15k. After discounts, that'd be £70k ... but you get serious switching performance there - tens of terrabits.

The prohibitive cost was the reason given by TalkTalk for not immediately deploying FTTC services of its own in our Market 2 exchange;

Of course it makes sense for TT to present it to you as a prohibitive cost, even if it is entirely reasonable - when the alternative would be to tell you "Sorry, we're penny-pinching ^&%**"

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

For someone else to find costs as cannot say, but in data centres similar cable links between rooms carry an install cost and an annual fee maybe research the cost of that

I recently ordered 70 Hadoop nodes which is totally unrelated but we had to order six Cisco Nexus 5000 series switches and they were £30,000 a pop plus the cabling which was another £15,000 on top of that.

So I can see why BT would be looking to charge £2,000 for a share of the equipment, cables and paying staff etc.

Finally got some movement on my Infinity yesterday. There was supposed to be an update on Friday which never happened so I called yesterday and the robot told me that it had been fixed yesterday morning. Later I got an email to say Infinity had been installed.

When I got home it seemed to be working - link speed of 39mbps, speed checker showed 15mbps but I haven't had time to check on a PC via a direct connection yet so some of that will be down to the wifi. Not too bothered as it beats the 2.5-3mbps I was getting on TalkTalk ADSL.

Part of the reason for the lack of time is I was dealing with a plumbing emergency (seriously yuck, I won't go into details) during which the BT complaints guy rang up to check it was all working and to close off the complaint. After a bit of too and fro he credited my account with all the cost of the line (including rental) from the original install date (28th) to yesterday and then a couple of extra months service (not including line rental) for 'goodwill'. This just about covers my commuting costs when I had to travel in to the big smoke as I couldn't work from home.

Let's just hope I don't have further problems.