A second line inorder to get fttp

Hi All,

My situation is a little strange. Where I live, the cabinet in the next street has FTTP. That cabinet serves houses either side of the cabinet that i'm connected to. Therefore OpenReach pulled fibre bundles to the other cabinet (cable chamber) and to the cabinet(cable chamber) that serves me, in order to get a shorter run to the houses further from the fttp cabinet I presume. I know that they have been installing FTTP to the house furtherest from the other cabinet from the fibre bundle located at my cabinet(cable chamber).

So my question is, How can I find out if the cabinet I'm connected to is full for new telephone lines connections? Secondly work out if i ordered a second line it would come from the cabinet with fttp? Which i know has capacity given 70% of the houses connected to it are on Virgin Media.

Information about the exchange/cabinets: SMBF, my cab 49T, other cab 44T.

Thanks
Satpal

Both your phone number and your address should give the same results from this checker. (Ignore the pure postcode option).

Assuming that's the case, please can you copy and paste the table of estimates and the line above the table that specifies the cabinet number. (Edit out your number/address of course). Here's mine:-

Telephone Number xxxxxx on Exchange STEPPING HILL is served by Cabinet 19
FTTC Range A (Clean) 60 39.8 16.3 9.9 -- Available
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 50.6 30 15.8 7.2 -- Available
WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 3 -- 2.5 to 6.5 Available
WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M Up to 3 Up to 0.5 2.5 to 6.5 Available
ADSL Max Up to 3 -- 2 to 5.5 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 1 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 1 -- -- Available
Other Offerings
FTTP on Demand 330 30 -- Available
Fibre Multicast -- -- -- Available
Copper Multicast -- -- -- Available

Then using the Address option of the same checker look up the address of the house where you say they have been installing FTTP and do the same with those results.

What I'm looking for is whether either or both show FTTC or FTTP on the first two lines and what it says about FTTP on Demand. Note that FTTP on Demand (normally called FTTPoD) is not the same as FTTP in terms of supply or price.

The cabinet number given for your results will be the one your second line would be provided from unless it is FTTPoD that you buy.

Are you sure you want a second line anyway? Or do you just think you have to have one?

Cabinet 49T was down as part of the Commercial FTTP Project back in 2011, things can change, however Commercial FTTP projects have been delayed in favour of the BDUK Projects due to they have contractual deadlines that have to be met.

However, according to the BT Wholesale DSL Checker it says the following:

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..

So you are no longer down as FTTP but FTTC, now when this gets done I have no clue.

Now the BT Openreach Where and when page says its accepting orders but at the same time its saying "Your area is enabled for Superfast Fibre but your cabinet is not ready yet so you can't place an order today. It is in our plans to be upgraded and we update this info weekly, so please check back later." very strange.

Paul

RobertoS,
Here is the information requested:

Telephone Number xxxxx on Exchange BEDFORD is served by Cabinet 49T
FTTC Range A (Clean) 80 80 20 20 -- 31-Mar-16
FTTC Range B (Impacted) 80 76.7 20 19 -- 31-Mar-16
WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 2 -- 1 to 3.5 Available
ADSL Max Up to 1.5 -- 1 to 2.5 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 1 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 1 -- -- Available
Other Offerings
Fibre Multicast -- -- -- 31-Mar-16
Copper Multicast -- -- -- Available

And for a house that has FTTP:
Address xxxx, ELSTOW, BEDFORD, MK42 9GP on Exchange BEDFORD is served by Cabinet 44T
WBC FTTP Up to 330 Up to 30 -- Available
WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 2 -- 1 to 3.5 Available
ADSL Max Up to 1.5 -- 1 to 2.5 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 0.5 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 0.5 -- -- Available
Other Offerings
Fibre Multicast -- -- -- Available
Copper Multicast -- -- -- Available

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

The cabinet number given for your results will be the one your second line would be provided from unless it is FTTPoD that you buy.

However the council have been told by OpenReach/BDUK that there are no more copper lines available, from 49T as they would have used one to enable the FTTC cabinet that has been sat at the end of the road to the last 2.5 yrs!!!! We found out the other day that the chance of us getting fttc is pretty much nil because of some technical problem with connecting the cabinet, which I understand to be the running of a copper cable to handle to voice, well thats what the OpenReach engineer said when they were pulling the fibre. Apparently 49T is a secondary cross connection point from 44T.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Are you sure you want a second line anyway? Or do you just think you have to have one?

I'm only thinking about a second line if it would be supplied from cab 44T which would then enable me to get FTTP, even though they have been installing FTTP to houses and running the fibre past the front of my house.

Thanks
Satpal

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

Cabinet 49T was down as part of the Commercial FTTP Project back in 2011, things can change, however Commercial FTTP projects have been delayed in favour of the BDUK Projects due to they have contractual deadlines that have to be met.

However, according to the BT Wholesale DSL Checker it says the following:

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..

So you are no longer down as FTTP but FTTC, now when this gets done I have no clue.

Paul we have it on good authority, from OpenReach, that the fttc cabinet is very unlikely to be viable and that erecting the cabinet was a 'mistake'!!
BTW did you know that the team that updates the BT DSL checker only uses best guess, and don't have any solid information, which would explain why they have missed every deadline for the past 5 years!!!

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

Now the BT Openreach Where and when page says its accepting orders but at the same time its saying "Your area is enabled for Superfast Fibre but your cabinet is not ready yet so you can't place an order today. It is in our plans to be upgraded and we update this info weekly, so please check back later." very strange.

Paul

Commercial rollouts which your postcode is under is like a bucket full of water and the water being areas being upgraded by the commercial project.
Now make a pin hole in that bucket and that is how fast commercial projects are being done.

I am in a similar boat, we are still down as a Commercial FTTP Project and we have been put on hold since end of 2011 when they first started to do our rollout, then nothing, we have all the fibre cables and hardware in the chambers and up the poles and we have been reassured many times now that its due to be completed very soon, our local MP (which is not too happy with BT at the moment) was told it would be ready yesterday, but sadly no, so I am wondering what their excuses will be this time.

I say just wait, it will happen.

Paul

The BT DSL Checker uses the same info that BT Openreach give them, that's why when an error appears on the Where and when page its 9 /10 chances it will on the DSL Checker.
And what I said the BT Wholesale DSL Checker said is in fact correct, it is FTTC and is under review, so what is incorrect about that.

And it depends on who you spoke to at openreach, most of the time they just say random stuff especially when it involves dates.

As for missing deadlines I say the BT Wholesale checker can only change the dates doe to the lack of engineers doing the actual commercial rollouts.

But yeah I agree, it was probably a mistake moving over from FTTP to FTTC, also they should of had a rough idea that there would possibly be an issue when they did the survey for the fibre cabinet.

Paul

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

Commercial rollouts which your postcode is under is like a bucket full of water and the water being areas being upgraded by the commercial project.
Now make a pin hole in that bucket and that is how fast commercial projects are being done.

Get this the council asked BDUK to include us in the the second phase, which is supposed to cost between £400-£500 per premise and they were told that it was wasn't viable. However 44T which was done in phase one, £100-£200 per premise did the kicker here is that 70% of the houses connected to cabinet 44T have access to Virgin Media. I simply cannot see how OpenReach provided FTTP for 100-200 per premise and cannot provide it at 400-500 per premise and that was for a cabinet that already had 70% superfasts coverage.

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

I am in a similar boat, we are still down as a Commercial FTTP Project and we have been put on hold since end of 2011 when they first started to do our rollout, then nothing, we have all the fibre cables and hardware in the chambers and up the poles and we have been reassured many times now that its due to be completed very soon, our local MP (which is not too happy with BT at the moment) was told it would be ready yesterday, but sadly no, so I am wondering what their excuses will be this time.

I say just wait, it will happen.

Paul

At least you MP is doing something about it, my MP is Nadine Dorris (of I'm celebrity get me out of here, fame) and when i sent her an email I got a boiler plate answer, in letter form!! back from her.

Thanks
Satpal

In reply to a post by schander:

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

Commercial rollouts which your postcode is under is like a bucket full of water and the water being areas being upgraded by the commercial project.
Now make a pin hole in that bucket and that is how fast commercial projects are being done.

Get this the council asked BDUK to include us in the the second phase, which is supposed to cost between £400-£500 per premise and they were told that it was wasn't viable. However 44T which was done in phase one, £100-£200 per premise did the kicker here is that 70% of the houses connected to cabinet 44T have access to Virgin Media. I simply cannot see how OpenReach provided FTTP for 100-200 per premise and cannot provide it at 400-500 per premise and that was for a cabinet that already had 70% superfasts coverage.

Well I know that 44T either wasn't viable or wasn't part of the first phase of the Commercial rollout (i.e. the first 66%) according to the 2011 NGA Document, so I guess BDUK Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes took that project, you are aware that its your council that is doing the BDUK Project don't you?

Yeah I have seen some very strange stuff where BT Openreach would go out and install 36km of fibre cable for a small vilage to support 110 homes and refuse to install fibre to another location on a 4km length for about +750 homes, just makes me laugh.

Yeah, we cannot get Virgin Media due to being located in a conservation area do no digging up and installing cabinets down our roads, also being located in Greater London we are not elegable for the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) projects.

In reply to a post by schander:

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

I am in a similar boat, we are still down as a Commercial FTTP Project and we have been put on hold since end of 2011 when they first started to do our rollout, then nothing, we have all the fibre cables and hardware in the chambers and up the poles and we have been reassured many times now that its due to be completed very soon, our local MP (which is not too happy with BT at the moment) was told it would be ready yesterday, but sadly no, so I am wondering what their excuses will be this time.

I say just wait, it will happen.

Paul

At least you MP is doing something about it, my MP is Nadine Dorris (of I'm celebrity get me out of here, fame) and when i sent her an email I got a boiler plate answer, in letter form!! back from her.

Thanks
Satpal

Yeah our MP seems to be doing stuff, and when he got ignored by BT by not responding to his email in a resonable time, he sent another email basically demanding answers, which we got, which wasn't that good if I say so myself, but this time round we seem to be getting somewhere, due to he was told its nearing completion and was given yesterdays date, and I was told that he asked for an update where he was told they will get back to him in a few days, so in a few days time I should know whats going on.

But yeah, our MP has been very helpfull to us over the years that we have know him.

What's the bet us two will end up being the last ones that end up getting the stupid Satellite broadband
Which will really suck.

Paul

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

What's the bet us two will end up being the last ones that end up getting the stupid Satellite broadband
Which will really suck.
Paul

Having said that satellite broadband offer 6meg up now and some offer unlimited download overnight, still more expensive than normal broadband, but not bad. I might be tempted given that the council are offering a grant for the setup costs. Then I could just take a monthly plan until we get wire broadband.

Thanks
Satpal

In reply to a post by schander:

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

What's the bet us two will end up being the last ones that end up getting the stupid Satellite broadband
Which will really suck.
Paul

Having said that satellite broadband offer 6meg up now and some offer unlimited download overnight, still more expensive than normal broadband, but not bad. I might be tempted given that the council are offering a grant for the setup costs. Then I could just take a monthly plan until we get wire broadband.

Thanks
Satpal

You also have to think about bad weather, show, and heavy raid affects satellite signals, which is why Sky TV looses signal when it rains heavy of snows heavy.

Paul

I'd take a look at the latest speed test results, satellite talks a good fight but you know things are not good when the mean is lower than the median and upload looks seriously impacted compared to the adverts.

1 Mbps versus satellite - I'd pick the ADSL

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

I'd take a look at the latest speed test results, satellite talks a good fight but you know things are not good when the mean is lower than the median and upload looks seriously impacted compared to the adverts.

1 Mbps versus satellite - I'd pick the ADSL

Agreed, I would also pick ADSL, the latency of satellite broadband sucks big time, and for a software developer currently working on game development low latency is a must and having a 1 to 2 second delay between packet requests is a no no.

Paul

In reply to a post by schander:

Get this the council asked BDUK to include us in the the second phase, which is supposed to cost between £400-£500 per premise and they were told that it was wasn't viable. However 44T which was done in phase one, £100-£200 per premise did the kicker here is that 70% of the houses connected to cabinet 44T have access to Virgin Media.

The £££ per premise calculation is done using only the count of premises that can't already get superfast speeds - so the cabinet will have met the funding threshold using just the 30% of premises that cannot receive VM.

Presumably, having already run fibre ready for 44T, it wasn't hard to extend the fibre to the 49T, which (if it is an SCP) will have cable and ducting running from 44T.

And those 30% premises are enough for them to hit take-up targets too.

In reply to a post by schander:

I simply cannot see how OpenReach provided FTTP for 100-200 per premise and cannot provide it at 400-500 per premise and that was for a cabinet that already had 70% superfasts coverage.

Presumably BT *can* see the numbers, and can justify those numbers in the face of being explicitly asked to consider it for inclusion.

I think one problem for FTTP decisions is that, for FTTP to be viable, every single property needs to be viable (PK's situation being somewhat odd). A few odd premises can send the average sky-high.

Your FTTC cabinet is a great example ... where viability is not determined by there being physical space to site the new cabinet, but determined by more intangible factors. The same can be true of FTTP - such as a proportion of unducted properties.

In reply to a post by schander:

My situation is a little strange.

So my question is, How can I find out if the cabinet I'm connected to is full for new telephone lines connections? Secondly work out if i ordered a second line it would come from the cabinet with fttp?

IMHO, your situation is *so* strange, perhaps almost unique, that I'm not sure anyone can give you proper, sound advice.

As far as I can see, you'd not be able to order phone line + FTTP in one single order; you'd be relying on the first order (for a phone line) to create a database connection between your property and an FTTP-oriented cabinet.

However...
a) You might get charged excess construction costs for a phone line that did this, with no recourse to the rules on USO (this is a second line, after all) to limit the cost.
b) Once the phone line is in, you might get refused FTTP anyway (like PaulKirby) as there is no FTTP infrastructure already prepared for your home. Or, even if they accepted it, you might get passed the excess construction costs for them to put that infrastructure in place.

This seems like such a unique punt that the only way to answer will be to order.

Just a warning when I had my second lne installed, it came from the same cabinet down the same wire, using a spare pair. I gather that this is the normal procedure and the spare pair is present in almost all current connections for built in redundancy. So you might just end up with double your current situation.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

Presumably, having already run fibre ready for 44T, it wasn't hard to extend the fibre to the 49T, which (if it is an SCP) will have cable and ducting running from 44T.

Who said it was an SCP? 49T is (or was) a TPON cabinet. There's not necessarily ducting in place between it and 44T

There will by definition already be Fibre to it if it is a TPON cab. The fibre may also be closer to the customer than that depending on where the last splitter was.

This may be a perfect situation for Gfast as the last TPON splitters appear to have been powered and only served about 24-32 premises. BUT it does depend on OR spotting the potential and then doiing something about it.

In reply to a post by Icaras:

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

Presumably, having already run fibre ready for 44T, it wasn't hard to extend the fibre to the 49T, which (if it is an SCP) will have cable and ducting running from 44T.

Who said it was an SCP? 49T is (or was) a TPON cabinet. There's not necessarily ducting in place between it and 44T

OpenReach told the BDUK guy at the council that is was a SCP. There is definitely ducting in place as an OpenReach engineer was installing FTTP from the cable chamber at 49T to a house that was closer to 44T!!

Thanks
Satpal

Edited by deleted (Wed 02-Dec-15 17:17:30)

In reply to a post by kitcat:

There will by definition already be Fibre to it if it is a TPON cab. The fibre may also be closer to the customer than that depending on where the last splitter was.

It was TPON cab however no one is connected via TPON now, everyone is on copper, which has a run of approx 4.5km to the exchange, hence the really poor ADSL connection speeds (<2mbps).

In reply to a post by kitcat:

This may be a perfect situation for Gfast as the last TPON splitters appear to have been powered and only served about 24-32 premises. BUT it does depend on OR spotting the potential and then doiing something about it.

As I understand it Gfast is only available if you have FTTC, which we were told is mostly likely not going to happen, besides there is length limit on Gfast, 350m I think?

Thanks
Satpal.

Edited by deleted (Wed 02-Dec-15 17:18:25)

In reply to a post by schander:

As I understand it Gfast is only available if you have FTTC, which we were told is mostly likely not going to happen, besides there is length limit on Gfast, 350m I think?

There's no definition for where or when G.fast will be deployed (as part of NGA2), and certainly nothing (yet) about how it relates to the NGA-1 deployment choices of FTTC or FTTP.

The trials, in Huntingdon and Gosforth, are meant to tell BT some of the parameters they need to know to set the rules, but even that won't be enough - G.fast, as it stands right now, is still targeted as small DPUs and short line lengths. BT are awaiting more standardisation work, and updated chipsets, to be able to try out the longer line lengths - the 350m target.

Glad someone is talking sense, I know of various ways they can deploy G.fast and have talked about them but until they decide and productise the trials G.fast is just a trial.

There is fibre and their is fibre, i.e. it is not all created equally and by attempting to reuse what is there might make for longer term problems, i.e. you end up with a custom build. i.e. continue the confusion that TPON introduced years ago.

If people could live without phone and broadband for a few months, ripping out all the TPON kit and redoing the local network would be a better option, but given the need to maintain existing services things get more complex.

In reply to a post by schander:

Secondly work out if i ordered a second line it would come from the cabinet with fttp?

Information about the exchange/cabinets: SMBF, my cab 49T, other cab 44T.

These sorts of issues used to come up in the early days of ADSL with some people on the boundary between two telephone exchanges - one enabled and one not - wanting to be changed to ADSL enabled one (or have a new line fitted)

As someone has said there are no guarantees and most second lines are installed using the spare cables in existing telephone lines but if you're willing to take a gamble, you could try ordering a new line on the condition that it should only he installed if it comes from cab 44T in the order notes.

Thats what some tried to do then - order a new line on condition it came from the other exchange.

You would need to find a provider willing to let you order a new line on this basis, confirm (and reconfirm) that such a condition is properly stated in the order notes and that the engineer also knows about it on the day of the install.. - and if they are not going to do that than refuse/cancel the installation on the day..

Regards
Sunil