EO lines in Scotland

Hi,

I have had some help from PaulKirby back in March of last year regarding the outlook of my EO Line here in sunny Scotland being enabled for fibre.
My exchange ESIKG (Inverkeithing) has a number of EO lines and I am sadly connected to one of them,

Currently the exchange is enabled for FTTC
Most if not all non EO properties are capable of FTTC.

I was contacted by , or should I say received a response from Openreach at the beginning of this year stating they would be moving EO lines over to Cabinet 23 of ESIKG between Q3 2015 and Q3 2016.

I have noticed a substantial presence of Openreach vehicles in my area lately and was hoping someone could once again take a look at the situation for my post code KY111AX and the Inverkeithing exchange in general.

This is the response i received last year....

Exchange Name: Inverkeithing
Exchange Code: ESIKG

Cabinet: 23
Fibre Phase: Phase 07b 2011-2012
Fibre Information: FTTC Available from 24th April 2012
Result Count: 9

Cabinet: EO (Block 8)
Fibre Phase: None
Fibre Information: Not Available
Result Count: 25

[KY111AX]
� Has 9 result(s) connected to Cabinet 23 with FTTC with approximate speeds around the following:
� Range A: 74.0 -> 80.0 (downstream) 20.0 -> 20.0 (upstream)
� Range B: 61.9 -> 80.0 (downstream) 12.2 -> 20.0 (upstream)

� Has 25 result(s) connected to an EO (Exchange Only) line with ADSLx with approximate speeds around the following:
� ADSLx (Worst): Up to 14.0 (downstream rate) -- (upsrteam rate) 8.0 to 18.5 (downstream range)
� ADSLx (Best): Up to 17.0 (downstream rate) -- (upsrteam rate) 10.0 to 19.5 (downstream range)

Please note that these speeds are using BT's DSL Checker and uses the lowest and highest values for that postcode and cabinet.
� Had at least 1 issue retrieving information from the BT DSL Checker.

Hi Paul

Response from Openreach below:

��Inverkeithing exchange is in our deployment plan starting Q3 (2015-2016) and ending Q3 (2016-2017), Cabinet 23 is in Quarter 3 (2015-2016). I trust this will answer Mr Dee�s query��

It�s likely this will be between October 2015 and March 2016. I understand it is frustrating waiting on access but hopefully this give you some clarity.

Best regards

Edited by deleted (Thu 10-Dec-15 08:36:21)

A lot of EO lines have been dealt with in Scotland in the last few months, but the number of engineers available with the expertise to move peoples lines across from one bundle or wires to another in a live environment is small, so pace tends to be dictated by availability of these workers.

roadworksscotland website is a good one for spotting stuff going on in the street

Some properties in that postcode are already on Cab 23.

Go to the address checker http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/ADSLChecker.address and just enter the postcode - nothing else. It will then bring back a list of properties - work down the list and you will see some with Cab23 and 80Mbps FTTC.

Beyond that it will be down to OR staff doing the connection changeover and any groundwork required.

The checker does throw some curve balls up and can be wrong, so if the majority are connected but one or two are not and are geographically next door then may be time to pester me to pester Openreach

Thanks for the help guys,

What do you suggest from here? I have already nagged Fife Council about a week ago, who asked Openreach for information for me about a year ago and that was when I got the Q3 2015 - Q3 2016 response from them.

I did noticed openreach where out in the street with some very noisy van and the ground open doing something I have no idea what lol

I just want to get some kind of update from Openreach now that its a year later as to what is happening with the EO lines on this post code.

Thanks again.

I only did a sample - there appears to be one block - some flats and houses, possibly a newish development that have been connected and older houses that have not. It suggests the cabinet is there and new cables are routed there and older properties are waiting to staff availability.

Thanks for the information, you may have noticed I updated the original post in the thread with the information I received here and the information I received from Openreach around a year ago.

So from what your saying the physical equiptment is in place its just awaiting some engineers to actually carry out the work and move the older properties over?

I am in a flat block of 16 properties and it is an old tenement building. Directly across the street from me there are houses. basically numbers 1-16 of Roman road are flats and anything above is houses.

Yes, basically. Possibly a team to do some digging (if required), some to pull cables through and then finally to do a managed switch across with minimal loss of service - voice or data, which can normally be achieved rather than cut the cable and take three days to transfer (which should never happen).

Great thanks for the information, as MrSaffron previously mentioned it might be worthwhile to nag him to nag OR , is that probably the next step then?

This whole EO line business has been a great pain, I moved from a tiny little rural town that didnt even get ADSL2 until a couple years ago, and I mean its the town you would NEVER expect to get anything fast as far as broadband goes. I moved to somewhere bigger and more urban and the little rural town i moved from has Fibre! its just unbelievable it has it before i do.

JUst remember that providing FTTC (or any new service) is not an easy task. Most people do not realise how much work is going on in the background - managing resources, training up local staff, negotiating with local councils and land owners, applying for planning permission, roadworks permission and road closures. A couple of years back BT had planned a full roll out in one London Borough and after all their planning the LA refused permission for a significant number of cabinets - BT pulled back from the whole borough - so even local councillors who represent the population can derail everything.

Yeah your right, i totally understand that I think its all the not knowing that is tough, if I knew what was going on and that I was going to eventually get it Id be quite content haha

Thanks for the help

Just as i was finishing typing this message, I got a response from the EAB for my local council..

Hi Paul

No problem at all. I�ve been waiting to hear back from Openreach before responding but unfortunately don�t have anything to report yet. What I can tell you is Openreach (or their contractors) have been doing work around the high street in Inverkeithing not far from Roman Road to install a new cabinet, which is obviously a good sign. I haven�t received notification that they were working on Roman Road itself but that�s obviously the case if you�ve seen them there.

I�ll keep chasing and hopefully have a more definite answer for you soon.

Edited by deleted (Thu 10-Dec-15 09:16:17)

And unfortunately even the best plans get changed at the last minute!

Think about Cumbria - maybe there is some FTTC ground work and cabling planned for this week. Then they had the storms meaning lines could be down, network flooded, cables washed away &c. Staff then get diverted from new installs and network upgrades to repair work. The work they were diverted from is then rescheduled which could be weeks or months away ... planning is a very live and dynamic process.

Yeah we didn't get any flooding of that level up here thankfully. I totally get what you mean planning is everything and anything could go wrong.

Perhaps that response I received this morning ive mentioned in the previous post about the new cabinet being built is a good sign like the council EAB is saying.