Hampshire commercial SF programme found alive and well!

... at least if you get the Openreach Programme Manager and BT Partnership Director around for coffee!

With the focus on BDUK work (and maintaining the population of deployed cabinets), Openreach's commercial programme appears to have dried up in many areas; certainly in Hampshire we've been tracking the last 22 cabinets originally identified to be part of the commercial programme since around March, and none of them seem to have been delivered since then.

We've been campaigning (incl. conducting leafleting and getting people to register interest) for the enablement of several cabinets in Basingstoke which fell into the pot (or out of it if you believe Openreach's patter) supplying three new-build sites; with support of our local and county councillors, and repeated chasing by residents, we secured a meeting with BT's Regional Partnership Director, and the South West Openreach SF Programme Director in mid August, where they announced to us they'd secured commercial programme funding to enable our three cabinets in this financial year (many cabinets have now been moved into FY16-17, hence the updates some will have noticed on BT Wholesale with dates to Mar-17).

Information has been slower than promised since August, but the brilliant news (for us) is that the diggers turned up this morning, and have started groundworks on two of the cabinets!

So... persistence, pressing the right buttons, and getting local councillors engaged with the campaign can pay off.... really posting this for anyone else in a similar boat, do not give up! Obviously we're not done yet, and there are many flies that could spoil the ointment before we go live, but it's a great day!

http://fibre.everestpark.org.uk/2015/11/05/we-are-a-go/ for some photos, will take more as work progresses.

It's amazing what can be done in one day... bases prepped for FTTC twins for both PCP102 and PCP92, ducting to the nearby pavement chamber and power done for the former, underway for the other.

Photos:
PCP102 Photos/
PCP92 Photos

Assume the metal 'tray' is a template used to lay out the ducting and threaded bolts, and will be removed when the cabinet shell is fitted? Certainly doesn't look new!

As an update, work progressed swiftly, and the first cabinet went live just under a month after the cabinet install started, the second (mine) a week later.

The latter promptly 'sold out' in 63 hours, and is now reporting a 'waiting list' on the BT Wholesale DSL Tracker, and "High Demand" on the Superfast Openreach website! Presumably requires another line card or two to be added... would Openreach start the cabinet with 96 ports (it's a Huawei 288, supplying a completed new-build site with 405 occupied properties, max 4Mb ADSL speeds, and no Virgin, if they factor these things in), or could it have only been 48?

Does anyone know if any ISP supports the BT Wholesale "Waiting List" feature yet, BT Retail don't appear to, at least for online orders?

You probably started with 48 ports.

We did. Sold out in less than 12 hours. The second 48 lasted slightly longer at almost a day.

Great! How long did it take them to add your second card?

In reply to a post by olicuk:

Great! How long did it take them to add your second card?

It was done rapidly, and was followed fairly quickly by a third and fourth, however we were very much a non-standard install and the extra capacity was non-standard too.

http://www.southleedslife.com/partial-victory-south-...
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2013/12/strong-...