Your place on an FTTC enabled cab

I've been trawling through the TalkTalk community forum reading various posts on falling speeds, crosstalk etc and I came across a post by someone who wanted to move to TT fibre from the fibre provider he was now out of contract with. His problem was that TT could not accept him because there was no space left on the FTTC cab he was already on. Is the space he currently occupies (with his now out of contract fibre supplier) his or does it belong to his current supplier? And, therefore, not transferable to TalkTalk ?

Edited by deleted (Wed 05-Oct-16 16:21:18)

It seems to be a common issue when cabs are full. The processes don't seem to really account for this and so what seems to happen when you order a migration on a full cab is that the connection gets released from the current provider and goes back into the pool at which point the next person on the waiting list gets the freed up connection.

It isn't held by either the customer or the ISP but by Openreach and Openreach control the "wait list". The problem is that by doing a migration you seem to go to the end of that wait list - despite the fact you are migrating rather than cancelling.

Messed up process from what I've seen.

As Ian says really. the post you read though I think was lucky, I have read of people moving provider to only have their order cancelled due to lack of space on the cabinet they are already on so at least TalkTalk didnt take it any further, the slot will go to the next person on the waiting list, I think you would be unlucky but before moving providers I think I would be checking availability.

You would think that BT/Openreach could set it up so that the customer wanting to move from one fibre provider to another has a "space reserved" period of say 14 days - starting when the migration has been triggered.

That's too sensible for OR!

Not exactly migrating from one provider to another, but very recently I decided to upgrade from adsl to fibre.

I initially contacted TalkTalk (my current provider) who informed me after doing the necessary checks, that fibre was not yet available in my location, but I'd soon know when it was available as everyone in the area would be talking about it ! LOL ( I knew it was however as I'd previously checked various BT sites).

I then contacted Plusnet, and once again checks were made and I was informed that I could indeed get fibre although my cabinet was FULL, after being informed of this fact I enquired as to how long a wait I might expect, I was told that it could be anything from 7 days up to 3 months to wait.

Two days later( 24th Sept) I went online at the TalkTalk website and found that an offer was being shown offering me an upgrade to fibre, which obviously I took up, Go live date set for 14th October.

Edited by deleted (Thu 06-Oct-16 17:02:53)

TalkTalk have to have a cablelink installed before they can offer FTTC.

And how do you know that one was not already in place at the handover exchange for that users cabinet?

Because "TalkTalk informed me after doing the necessary checks, that fibre was not yet available in my location"

I live in Blofield Heath and the exchange is located in Brundall (EABRU), the supplying fibre cabinet will be No4 which is situated on Woodbastwick Rd which is a good way from the exchange.

I have a friend who lives close to the cabinet in question and has been on fibre somewhile now with Plusnet, batboy's reply leads me to surmise that when an area goes over to being fibre enabled, it doesn't necessarily mean that all the ISP's who have a presence in the exchange can take orders for fibre ?

Not the LLU ISPs anyway, until the cablelink is installed.

Yup I had to wait an extra 10 days on my TalkTalk order for the link to be installed, the order was accepted and a date arranged, only to then be told that the installation was delayed by 10 days, this was a brand new cabinet and I ordered within 10 minutes of it showing on the BT ADSL Checker.

I suppose it's nit-picking slightly, but as we're discussing it, could Ofcom rule that this is unfair of Openreach and/or BT Wholesale? i.e. LLU providers have a 10-day wait. Thinking about it, it would depend if OR or whoever else notifies LLU providers in advance about every cabinet/exchange or not, wouldn't it? i.e. if LLU providers CAN have the link installed and make their services available at the same time as non-LLU providers, then fine. But if they can't, surely it's putting them at a disadvantage? Again, not the biggest issue in the world, but Ofcom certainly don't seem to take this sort of thing lightly.

Edited by deleted (Fri 07-Oct-16 11:41:15)

Pretty sure BT Wholesale gets told at the same time as other communication providers i.e. LLU equivalency

Cab 4 was a commercial cab on this exchange way back in 2012 and can see Sky users on the cabinet with VDSL2 http://tbb.st/1462092958437675455 so if TalkTalk has not got a handover (and believe EABRU is the handover too) at the exchange by now probably never going to.

But the reality is that do appear to have a handover since there are people on TalkTalk on that exchange with FTTC e.g. http://tbb.st/1456600459151118755

So maybe issue is nothing to do with handovers and all to do with cabinet 4 being at capacity and on the waiting list category.

The GEA Cable Link is nothing to do with the cabinet. It's a cable at the fibre head-end exchange to link the Openreach fibre termination equipment to the provider's backhaul. All the active cabinets are available through every installed cable link.

The main providers in this respect being BT Wholesale, Sky, TalkTalk and Vodafone.

Most ISPs use BT Wholesale of course - they don't need their own cable link.

Right, I was just wondering if LLU operators got notified of an exchange upgrade (or RFS date, etc.) so they can make their packages available at the same time as non-LLU operators. MrSaffron seems to have answered that, though.

Cab 4 is full. A new cab is due probably in the new year

As MrSaffron says really.

In the early days both Sky and TalkTalk seemed to be weeks later than BT Wholesale - maybe they wanted to see how popular FTTC was going to be as it is likely to need them also to upgrade their backhaul from each particular exchange. Backhaul capacity also being involved of course.

These days I don't recall Sky ever being behind BTW, and rarely TalkTalk either.