Find out the reasoon for not providing fibre.

We are in Cirencester, and most of the town, and the surrounding estates, have fibre.

BT/Openreach/whoever have not provided it on our town-centre cabinet, despite it being surrounded by businesses who need it - in fact it's right outside a company that creates computer games!.

Is there any way to find out why this ( apparently perverse ) decision was made, and anyone to whom one can protest/appeal?

Thanks

David

I don't know specifically but if it is primarily businesses that have high data needs then that could be the reason they didn't do the cab. FTTC probably wouldn't provide their requirements and so the number of people who would move to it in a tech business heavy area could be very small.

Do you know that those businesses need FTTC or are they customers that already have lease lines and therefore would potentially not downgrade their services?

Well of course the games company has paid up for a leased lines, though they were pretty unhappy about it.
The rest off us are a bunch of pubs, estate agents, solicitors and so on, and in my world they don't spend that much on IT.
In any case, don't they have an obligation these days to provide a service, over and above their narrow P+L calculations? The government is rattling on about the need to provide high-speed connections to businesses in rural areas because connectivity is the life-blood of business.... and here we are in the middle of a town, and they choose not to bother.
I would just like to know why.

No decision was ever made to not supply the centre of Cirencester I am sure, but rather historical circumstances have gone against some premises.

Most Circencester areas that had a pre-existing cabinet were part of the commercial roll-out for FTTC, then another five via the FasterShire project.

But the EO lines in the historic core have missed out plus another 9 cabinets at a quick count.

A lot of the reason will be that the FasterShire project was seen by many as being a mainly rural project, so efforts were made to try and target the value for money areas that also mildly ticked a 'rural' issue.

Or put another way, once commercial roll-out went into pause as gap funded roll-outs took precendent then drivers such as value for money and speed of delivery were key drivers, so a cabinet service 200 premises in a rural village would beat one in a town serving 125 premises.

As for protesting and appealing you can try, you do have elected officials, but outcome will just be some platitudes.

If the people on the cabinet are serious and VDSL2 ticks all their boxes then http://www.communityfibre.bt.com/ allows you to skip waiting for council or commercial roll-outs and gap-fund the cabinet yourselves. If VDSL2 is not going to cut it and money available then gold plating and gap funding native FTTP is a possibility.

Gap funding for a VDSL2 cabinet varies wildly, and they may be a reason such as power to cabinet was going to be billed at £25,000 by the power company so not economic as a reason why you never got done. In fairly straight forward gap funding scenarios raising £20,000 to £30,000 seems to be the order of the day, but until you get a survey from Openreach you won't know.

Fill in the form here http://www.communityfibre.bt.com/#register and choose "I represent a business park".

You will get an individual contact at Openreach who can manage things for you and give you an idea about what can be done.

In reply to a post by myshkinuk:

Well of course the games company has paid up for a leased lines, though they were pretty unhappy about it.

Have you tried working with the games company to see if there are options to share their lease line?

In any case, don't they have an obligation these days to provide a service, over and above their narrow P+L calculations?

No, they don't. And as it is still in rollout then no matter how small a percentage are left there still have to be some unlucky people in that group that don't have access. Even with a universal service obligation there would still be a rollout plan that some people would be at the back of.

In reply to a post by myshkinuk:

The rest off us are a bunch of pubs, estate agents, solicitors and so on, and in my world they don't spend that much on IT.

In your world you don't have a decent internet connection either. This might not be a coincidence

Thanks for the help everyone.

I love the idea that the government put money into getting fast connections for people in farmhouses, but don't seem to care about businesses in small towns, where a smaller outlay would make a bigger difference!

I had a similar situation a few years ago. A small old near town centre cabinet served over 100 residential homes and around 20 businesses. It was missed out when the town was provided with FTTC... then got missed out again when Government money helped deliver some infill. We were an island within a sea of fibre 8/

At every stage I hassled and pestered County Council, MP, BT and CDS (The org that received government funds to develop broadband in the region), leafleted premises asking them to do the same, phoned, emailed and was a real pain in the neck.

After 3 years we were finally successful and got FTTC.

So the lesson would be, don't give up, just be a real pain!

But did your pestering cause the change?

Or did your cabinet just reach the front of the queue, ordered by "value for money", anyway?

Ironically, businesses can count for lower demand than residences - and cabinets of around 100 premises was a normal target for BDUK phase 1 projects (and BT's involvement in CDS has only been in phase 1)

BDUK projects are supposed to require upgrades to the greatest number of premises, which automatically requires choosing the cabs that cost the least-per-upgraded-premises.

Pestering works when decisions are arbitrary, and you manage to make someone feel sorry for you. Of course, it would also mean that another cabinet somewhere else gets left out instead. There would be 100+ premises livid with you for interfering.

I don't know for sure, ofc. CDS were only ever vague and apologetic. I had a contact at manager level within OR toward the end... don't ask me how, it was just offered. He did have influence or so he said; we were not in any queue, then we were, briefly, then that was cancelled, then suddenly it was all happening. I was never told if it was BDUK or BT.

So, without any evidence that suggests I helped, or didn't help get FTTC for the cab I couldn't be sure, but I would still advise anyone in a similar position to give it a try, what's to lose?

In reply to a post by radiomarko:

I don't know for sure, ofc. CDS were only ever vague and apologetic. I had a contact at manager level within OR toward the end... don't ask me how, it was just offered. He did have influence or so he said; we were not in any queue, then we were, briefly, then that was cancelled, then suddenly it was all happening. I was never told if it was BDUK or BT.

So, without any evidence that suggests I helped, or didn't help get FTTC for the cab I couldn't be sure, but I would still advise anyone in a similar position to give it a try, what's to lose?

You can check on the codelook site, that will tell you if it was BDUK or a commercially funded cab.

Aha forgot about that, thanks.. BDUK in fact.