Thanks BT OR

You may think this could be a negative post about BT OR but I seriously wanted to share praise on them in this case.

Been working with them to install a new AIO Cab in Kempston Bedford, and ended up speaking to a few really good eggs within OR who have communicated really well and always given updates and not just reactively.

They managed to book in engineering works for today to switch over the circuits from our old PCP to the new AIO. I was worried that this would keep getting pushed back etc but the change over happened today, I managed to say thanks to the nice BT Engineer who was doing it. (sorry I didn't have any Hob Nobs with me at the time!)

The development speeds are up to 4x what we had before and I will be regarding to the 80/20 service when the DB's have updated.

So, some good news for a change.

Mr S, if you do speak to anyone senior in BT in the near future please feel free to mention my thanks.

I would also like to say a big thank you to OR

According to that other site that we aren't supposed to draw public attention to - the ESGRE exchange is not due to have Fibre until April 2017. The PCP and Fibre cabs were installed outside the exchange in November.

Digital Scotland was saying July - December 2017.

Suddenly on 30th December 2016 - all the BT checkers were saying we could order FTTC (even though on the BT site - it also said the exchange was "Planned Area" and on Digital Scotland it still said July - December 2017, while saying I could order and providing an estimated line speed).

I'm supposed to be enabled by midnight on the 12th so we will see, but all the checkers have had a further update since then, BT says the area is Fibre enabled. Digital Scotland now says the area was enabled between January and June 2017.

So if I actually get enabled tomorrow - 4 months ahead of Schedule - I just want to give BT a big thank you. Especially since all the checkers say I am connected to Cabinet 1 - which I know is a lie - because I've never lost broadband sync or phone service so I can't see how I could possibly have been disconnected from the exchange (EO line) and re-connected to the PCP (I assume this is what will happen tomorrow?)

Anyway - fantastic Christmas present!

all the checkers say I am connected to Cabinet 1 - which I know is a lie - because I've never lost broadband sync or phone service so I can't see how I could possibly have been disconnected from the exchange (EO line) and re-connected to the PCP (I assume this is what will happen tomorrow?)

No reason why it should be a lie. There was no break in service for anyone on our development of 75 properties when our EO bundle was routed through the new AIO cab serving the development (WRVAUX 54). I admit to having been both impressed and pleasantly surprised at how smoothly that part of our upgrade went.

Edit: The re-routing of the EO lines will have been completed before the cab is able to accept orders and the work is carried out by a different team from that which enables individual customers when they order an FTTC service.

Edited by deleted (Thu 12-Jan-17 01:08:45)

We'll I'll come back and let you know if I was enabled (can't see why I wouldn't be though).

Are you absolutely sure - because there are some 480 ish lines in the village - but the Fibre cabinet is either a 96 or 128 line cabinet (A tiny one with a single small vent at the lower left on the front) - seems like it would be less overall work for the engineers to re-route each line as service is actually requested?

In any case I graph our Broadband data and apart from installing a Draytek 130 it's never dropped since we got swapped on to the new phone line in the summer.

The cabinet(s) were installed in November and the roadworks only lasted 6 days.

I'm on a BT Business line - I'd expect if they were doing work that might interrupt my service during working hours - I'd get an email or letter to advise me of it?

It's physically impossible to disconnect an electrical circuit from one location and connect it to another location without interrupting the flow of electrons. I would 100% know if they had disconnected the line at the exchange and connected it to the cab - apart from anything else - the total length of line would be changed and thus the sync speed, attenuation and other line stats would be changed too?

I therefore assumed they would do one of these "live to live" migrations?

http://www.nptohc.co.uk/img-cache/rrd_dsync_1y.png

Edited by deleted (Thu 12-Jan-17 03:35:57)

Are you absolutely sure -

I am. For one, engineers are not skilled and trained to do both activities and 2) it would be far more time consuming to have to break into the network and divert a single pair each time an activation is requested.

It's physically impossible to disconnect an electrical circuit from one location and connect it to another location without interrupting the flow of electrons

They can use a temporary bridge or jumper to maintain the connection while they are doing the changeover

- the total length of line would be changed and thus the sync speed, attenuation and other line stats would be changed too?

Only a tiny bit though. It's not adding hundreds of metres of cable to the route.

Edited by witchunt (Thu 12-Jan-17 08:10:57)

Just checking, but there are a couple of points in your post that give the impression that you may have misunderstood the process.

You have actually ordered an FTTC service from someone haven't you ? And today is the date you have been told it will be connected ? Have you been sent a new router to use, or told that your existing can operate both ?

I ask, as have seen folk on here before labouring under the misapprehension that just because the equipment is there, their line will be mysteriously upgraded without them ordering.

I think it's an ordered upgrade as the poster said they had been told 'enabled by midnight' which is the usual spiel.

If they had said the cabinet had been enabled but their speed hadn't increased then I'd think it was someone expecting an auto-upgrade.

Fair points, it was the reference they made 'only a small DSLAM can for so many lines', implying they thought ALL lines were routed through the DSLAM and just automatically switched on as and when.

As well as the more technical switching of circuits mentioned by others, such a change occurs twice per day in my house and many others moving between Day metering and Off-Peak Metering, without any interruptions/breaks.

And as there are three types of circuits, through two meters, it is slightly more complex than might be expected.

If you check even simple two-way switches, there are two varieties -

Break before Make, causing a brief interruption

Make before Break, so no interruption.

--------------

Also look for photos of the many change-overs from Strowger exchanges to generally Cross-Bar in the 1960s and 1970s.

In our particular case, this involved also switching about 2 to 3 thousand lines, from the small Strowger building to a much larger building about 400 yards away, so needing a lot of new wiring.

I just got confirmation of the time and date two days back from BT Archives - it occurred at 09:30, 18th November 1972.

Post Office Telephones/BT OR have over 100 years experience of such "mass migrations", with no or minimal interruption of service.

------------------

I actually was watching it being done on my line in 2014, when I upgraded from ADSL to VDSL.

There was basically no interruption to the Phone service - if I had been making a phone call, I would have been unaware of it, whilst there was an instantaneous cease of the ADSL going "instantaneously on to VDSL.

In practice on the BB side, there was a much longer delay, whilst I walked back to my house, swapped modems and waited for the new VDSL modem to "hand-shake etc.

There was basically no interruption to the Phone service - if I had been making a phone call, I would have been unaware of it, whilst there was an instantaneous cease of the ADSL going "instantaneously on to VDSL.

I assure you this is NOT the case in 99.9% of FTTC connections.

I have never once made an FTTC connection in a cab without breaking the metallic path of the circuit I am working on ........ for most cab termination types to do this would be a physical impossibility anyway.

Hi there,

Thanks for all the replies everyone. I can't tell you what happened because according the graphs it was around 9:50am that I suddenly jumped to 79995 kbps down and 19999 kbps up! Woohoo.

Anyway there we go - the village has FTTC 4 months ahead of schedule - and more importantly... I finally have a decent upload speed (I was always happy with my download speed, but 1260k upload was horrendous!)

https://s29.postimg.org/djqfn4qiv/rrd_dsync_6h.png

It's physically impossible to disconnect an electrical circuit from one location and connect it to another location without interrupting the flow of electrons.

That is incorrect. You've clearly never come across jumpering. The new cable is added to the existing and then the original cable cut and the current flows through the new cables to the new cab and then back again. The only point at which your service is likely to be cut is when the line is rerouted by the DSLAM in the AIO cab and even then should only be a momentary break.

Sorry but its you who is wrong !

Zarjaz (who i know) has done lots of jumpering (as i have) and he is 100% right when he says

"for most cab termination types to do this would be a physical impossibility anyway"

And the line will only be down for about 2 minutes anyway.

Seen mention of AIO cab a few times in this thread now - there is NO AIO cab here.
As per original post - a Fibre cabinet and a PCP cabinet were installed in November. Not a single AIO cab.

In any case - whether people are right or wrong - BT still deserve a huge amount of thanks - so anyone who works for them - reading this thread - Thanks! You guys are stars! (from everyone connected to ESGRE)

Both cabs: https://goo.gl/photos/YwDrAsoQxVTzhss96

Edited by deleted (Thu 12-Jan-17 21:34:00)

Nah, MCM is right. The jointers will cut in the AIO cab with 3M MS2 half tap modules so there will be no break in service.

The installer will cause a break when they connect the service up to the VDSL. Not because they have to, but because they haven't been trained how to.

They haven't been trained how to because of the tests they are obliged to do.

Edited by deleted (Thu 12-Jan-17 21:42:49)

In reply to a post by MC31:

Sorry but its you who is wrong !

Zarjaz (who i know) has done lots of jumpering (as i have) and he is 100% right when he says

"for most cab termination types to do this would be a physical impossibility anyway"

And the line will only be down for about 2 minutes anyway.

In which case you need to speak to the two guys who carried out the network rearrangement here when they wired/inserted the WRVAUX54 AIO cab into the EO bundle serving this development in July 2016 since they did this WITHOUT breaking a single one of the connections. Something that caused comment from several of the residents none of whom saw any down time on their router stats. Due to this being a community funded upgrade many of the residents took particular and close interest in the upgrade, hence their comments.

When the strowgers were updated it involved the new exchange wiring to be 'wedged' out on the internal side of the MDF and all circuits jumpered. When D Day came all the wedges had a piece of string on them and an almighty heave hoe ensued.

When the exchanges were going to be updated to 21cn the thinking was to wire everything to a plug and socket and literally unplug and plug in the new kit. They don't talk about 21cn much now.

As I said. they use half tap modules. No break ( apart from tea and lunch breaks )

Thank you. I'm not the one saying the links would have been broken since I know that in our case they were not as was confirmed to me at the time by the two guys that did the work and by a number of residents' router/modem logs that showed no breaks in service, not even just the two minutes mentioned elsewhere.

As I have already mentioned I'm referring to the "block" network rearrangement as part of the cab build stage rather than when individual users subsequently moved to an FTTC connection when breaks did occur.

I was the original poster and mentioned AIO, since thats what we have.. thats why perhaps AIO has been mentioned.

I and i think Zarjaz are talking about when the VDSL is connect up to give a end user service.

I agree that when putting in a new cab on a EO line it will be done as a no break.

Ref The installer will cause a break when they connect the service up to the VDSL. Not because they have to, but because they haven't been trained how to.

True they are not trained to do but as i and Zarjaz say in most if not all cabs you could not do it as a no break , now could you on PCP 100 - Krone or Quante ?

Yes, you have mentioned that aspect before.

Interesting that nobody else has come forth on either method - cutting the original direct PCP link at the start of the job, after identifying the pair, thus breaking the basic phone service for a minute or two - or as the last step, apart from tidying up, thus maintaining the basic phone service throughout.

----------------------

Certainly has not upset the Broadband performance, 40/10 contract, about 300 Metres, compared to several of the others on this thread.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

Edited by deleted (Sat 14-Jan-17 03:57:05)

And it should have been clear from my post that I was referring to the network rearrangement of our EO bundle that took places as part of the installation of our AIO rather than when individual customers have VDSL enabled. Nevertheless I was told in no uncertain terms that I was incorrect and that a break in service occurred. I reiterate no such break occurred.

AIO or PCP cab is irrelevant here since I was clearly referring to there being no break whatsoever in the service when our EO line bundle was diverted to run via the PCP component of our AIO (All-In-One) cab. The only difference in our cases being that we have an AIO cab which combines PCP and VDSL capability and in your case, perhaps due to the number of lines involved, have separate PCP and VDSL/FTTC cabinets. Nevertheless the work and methodology by which the network rearrangement was performed would have been identical and there would have been no break in service experienced by the end user.

Thanks for your reply - you were indeed correct. I've never seen how this step of the process works - so I had just assumed that lines had to be physically disconnected and then connected to the cab.

Clearly the connection to the cab was indeed done with no break in service - since nothing complained about it on our end.

Thanks everyone for your replies - I've learned quite a bit about an aspect of the process that I previously only had assumptions for.

In conclusion I'm pleased that you now have a service delivered by FTTC/VDSL and that we are both able to enjoy the resulting benefits and improvements in the delivery of our broadband.

No worries.. I had originally just wanted to post my thanks to BT OR We did have a break in service but wasn't a big deal.

Regarding the "Release For Service" being early, this also happened with the local PCP & FTTC, being about the middle of March 2014, rather than the long-standing "30 May 2014", which first appeared about August 2013.

I ordered the upgrade about the start of May 2014; and it was actually carried out immediately after Noon, on 4th June 2014.

If there is a break in the basic phone service by cutting the existing connections in and through the PCP, say a couple of minutes, any idea of what the effects are on the various types of alarms, monitors etc, particularly for the disabled and also general security?

Edited by deleted (Mon 16-Jan-17 07:03:19)