Any Idea how long this might take ?

I am connected to Omagh exchange cabinet 18 on a very long line.I have just checked on the OR site and this status is now showing "The cabinet that serves your premises is live, but your speeds aren't as fast as we'd like them to be. Your area has been reviewed and there is a plan to do further work to increase speeds via FTTP technology.

We follow a different design and build process for FTTP so you won't see updates at each stage. As soon as we have built the network and made services available, you will see an 'Accepting Orders' message. " This has changed recently as I check quite often.
My question is, does anyone know how long this might take ? Is there an average time for works to be completed or does it vary area by area ? Are we looking at weeks,months or (please,no) years ? Also , would OR,BT or others inform me when services are available or is it just a question of keep checking Openreach/ ISP sites to see when an order can be placed ? Thanks for any info. I got quite excited when I saw the status update but realise it will probably be a while before anything happens but at least something (might) be done in the future.

Varies from postcode to postcode...

Might be weeks, probably months, but might be a year or more

Openreach don't inform you the service is available, retailers get updates so should if they want be in a position to contact customers but most don't and rely on your spotted the upgrade.

A follow up question(s), I know I`m jumping the gun but still a bit excited !

A BT engineer who was looking for a fault at the pole near my house said that it`s possible that the fibre will be strung overhead instead of buried making things a bit easier. My phone line is connected to cabinet 18 Omagh exchange,which I think is outside the exchange building, so does the fibre come from there or is it likely there is fibre running nearer my house somewhere and they could "join" onto that ? Postcode is BT78 5PQ if that helps.
My phone line comes from a pole approx. 70 metres from my house and comes in via ducting onto an internal wall so assuming the ducting is clear will the fibre be able to enter the house through it as well ?

The only bit of fibre that is dedicated to you, is from the pole to the home, the rest is shared using a system known as GPON, and this is a branching system where your home is the leaf and the handover exchange is the root.

So where the fibre will run from is a guess, it may be from a fibre point that serves an existing VDSL2 cabinet or further back towards the main exchange, only local planners know that.

Existing ducting or poles can be used.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

The only bit of fibre that is dedicated to you, is from the pole to the home, the rest is shared using a system known as GPON, and this is a branching system where your home is the leaf and the handover exchange is the root.

So where the fibre will run from is a guess, it may be from a fibre point that serves an existing VDSL2 cabinet or further back towards the main exchange, only local planners know that.

Existing ducting or poles can be used.

Ok thanks MrSaffron, suppose all I can do is wait now,hope it wont be too long.

Have just been on the NI Direct broadband improvement project website and putting in my postcode yields this.

"Work is planned in this area and scheduled to be completed by 30/06/2018 . You should check again after this date to see what improvement has taken place. The timescales shown are based on when the majority of premises in an area are expected to be served.

The deployment and timescale are estimated and may be subject to change over the lifetime of the project. It should not be assumed that when deployment is complete, improved services will be available for every premise in the postcode. "
This seems to be a pretty generic message but at least there is some sort of timescale mentioned so maybe by this time next year I might have FTTP !

Hmm,maybe my excitement was misplaced, OR checker is now showing "accepting superfast orders " and the BT checker now has FTTPoD as an option , so maybe fibre at an affordable price is not going to happen.

Fibre on Demand DOES NOT show up in the Openreach checker system ever...

So don't think this was FTTP deployed that is now suddenly FoD, but more likely just usual confusion that seems to happen as checkers go through various stages.

Remember FoD will usually show up even if you are 5km from a VDSL2 enabled cab, just by virtue your phone line goes via it.

There has been no sign of any work starting on this although the NI Direct website is still showing the same status and completion date of 30/06/18. Assuming the fibre will be strung on the existing poles,does anyone know how long it takes to run,say a 4 or 5 mile length ? I imagine running fibre along existing poles could be done relatively quickly but any further infrastructure needed could take longer. Just wondering is it still feasible for this to be done by the end of June ?

In reply to a post by pipcoo:

There has been no sign of any work starting on this although the NI Direct website is still showing the same status and completion date of 30/06/18. Assuming the fibre will be strung on the existing poles,does anyone know how long it takes to run,say a 4 or 5 mile length ? I imagine running fibre along existing poles could be done relatively quickly but any further infrastructure needed could take longer. Just wondering is it still feasible for this to be done by the end of June ?

Hi,

We were in the same boat with the same questions. The work that needs to be done takes no more than 4 week or so (for our 3 mile distance). In our case they used the same route the copper cable took, because it had to go back to the cabinet and fibre exchange (the FTTC box).

The thing is, they will survey it first, then draw up the things that needs to be done, and set a �sort of date�. So while the work can be (relatively) quick, Openreach seems to have a lot of projects going on (the guys laying our fibre were driving to all different places in the UK), so it is just waiting until �your� street/area is being assigned to be done.

There was at least 5 or more teams doing the fibre over the months here (some lay down fibre over poles, some do only the underground stuff, some only connects them up, some cut trees that are in the way, some changes the bad poles for better ones etc). Also, an area needed traffic control, so they needed to ask permission to �block� the road, which also took time. THEN someone needed to come and test it, and then waiting for another team to publish this correctly in the systems for you to order (we are now in this last phase! Just ordered... but need to see whether it actually works!)

So what I try to share is that it isn�t just slinging the fibre from a to b, but all these details require quite some attention. Perhaps better call the NI Direct and ask them what is happening exactly?

P.s. it is very much feasible that projects like this get delayed by weeks/months once they actually start laying the fibre (ours was delayed from x-mas until this weekend when we finished finally).

edit: ow.. it seems that this date June 2018 is set generally for all projects of NI, see their website

Edited by deleted (Mon 05-Mar-18 17:39:35)