BDUK Black Country Project No information

BDUK Black Country Project No information

In 2014 a phase two BDUK project was announced for the Black Country The project promised a rollout plan at postcode level would be coming soon. We are now half way through the project but no rollout plan was ever produced. Detailed information is available for other BDUK projects and I thought it was a requirement for all new BDUK projects to give postcode level information?

I can only get a maximum of 2.5 meg from the Dudley exchange so would like to upgrade to FTTC as soon as I can. My PCP ( 53 ) had a fibre cabinet installed last December but has been stuck at the connect stage on the openreach checker ever since. The new cabinet was linked to the PCP cabinet in February and there have been no roadworks since then. I have discovered two other Dudley cabinets ( 52 and 73 ) close to mine that were installed at the same time and are also stuck at the connect stage. The Code Lookup site still has all three cabinets due to go live by the end of May 16.

The lack of information is very frustrating. Are there any other sources for more information on BDUK projects or is it just a case of waiting and hoping my cabinet will go live at some point?

You can try contacting Openreach.

They have a webform on their site.

With BDUK activities, it usually is up to the council project to report progress. BT stay quiet, and leave it to them.

Have you tried calling?

The codelook website says that the Dudley exchange has zero cabinets upgraded prior to the BDUK project, and every cabinet that is currently planned was added in a single phase. That's quite unusual.

There are 56 cabinets due to be upgraded on the exchange:
- 30 have become available over November-April
- 15 are being connected
- 11 are being built

40 cabinets aren't included at all. VM areas, perhaps?

With nearly half of the cabinets still to be completed, when all started in the plan at the same time, I wouldn't be too concerned.

or is it just a case of waiting and hoping my cabinet will go live at some point?

It always is a case of waiting.

Most of dudley is covered by virgin media so caninets in areas where all or most homes can access virgin media are probably being excluded.

I guess BT are doing the easier cabinets first so mine will be later but hopefully get done before the project is completed next year. Will just keep checking daily.

You must live near me. I'm on cabinet 46 which is the opposite end of Darbys Hill Road from cabinet 52 that you mentioned. I've also got no access to Virgin Media and get around 5.5 Mbit ADSL on Sky.

FTTC in Dudley has been a long time coming as it was the largest exchange in the country that hadn't been fibre activated and has had to wait for the Black Country BDUK process (last area of the country to so I read somewhere) before BT would do any fibre work. Pretty appalling for a large urban exchange. Apparently Dudley has one of the fastest average broadband speeds in the country, but that's only from VM users so those of us in VM-notspots have been left out in the cold for a long time.

The first indication that we were due to have cabinet 46 upgraded was back in January. The fibre cab next to 52 went in soon after with little indication of when it'll go live. My cabinet 46 had it fibre partner installed around the end of May and since then there have been various jobs registered with Sandwell council for things such as laying ducting (viewable at http://register.streetworks.sandwell.gov.uk/WebSwr/), some jobs completed, some cancelled. Interestingly there seems to be more work being done for cab 46 than for 52.

Last Wednesday morning I saw two vans from a company called CASS (a fibre/telecoms firm) by cab 46 with big reels of fibre, presumably connecting up the fibre cab. On Friday afternoon I saw the vans again. The fibre cab that had a work tent over it and the phone cab had a guy working in it. I'm hopeful that it will go live at some point soon as it feels like I'm connected to one of the last cabinets on one of the last exchanges in one of the last areas to be activated for FTTC.

The cabinets activated under the Black Country BDUK project up to the end of June are listed at http://www.blackcountrylep.co.uk/place/black-country...

When I drove past cabinet 46 last night, I noticed a silver lock had appeared on the fibre cabinet (wasn't there in the morning). Hopefully a sign that we're now close to going live.

I don't know about cabinet 52 though. Unfortunately that cabinet was installed facing away from the road, so you can't see the front with the lock when driving past it (and I don't go that way anywhere near as often).

I've just checked the homeandwork.openreach.co.uk and dslchecker.bt.com sites and both now say that cabinet 52 is ready and accepting orders.

I hope that 46 isn't far behind.

Cabinet 46 went to Accepting Orders status this morning.

I rang Sky, not expecting them to have the information available from BT, but I was pleasantly surprised and able to place my order for Sky Fibre Max.