See GFast cabinet, get GFast soon?

I saw what looks like - to my untrained eyes - one of those infamous GFast extensions being attached to a cabinet which I think is on the WESTERN exchange. It may have been Cabinet 65, I'll go look if you really want.

So, GFast very soon, soon or sometime for the nearby area?

[BTW the cabinet and another next to it are grey so I assumed Virgin's. The new extension is OR green and they're only a few meters from a fibre cabinet.]

In Glasgow lots of Openreach cabinets seem to get painted grey, this includes VDSL cabinets too, so that does not mean very much.

As for a G.Fast pod being added and able to order a service. There are loads and loads of them added to cabinets on the Bridgeton exchange in Glasgow many for more than six months and I don't think a single one is live. At least the BT Wholesale checker is not showing anything. They recently reskinned one that is marked 106 that I didn't realize was a Openreach cabinet because it was grey. I assume this is to allow it to take a G.Fast pod in the near future. It must be one of the very last cabinets on Bridgeton to be missing a G.Fast pod. Would be interesting to know what is holding BT back on these. Seems a massive waste of money to fit G.Fast pods and then leave them idle for many months.

Bridgeton was part of the trial, wasn't it? So you'd expect to see lots of cabinet extensions and it not to be 'available' to the general punters. I guess 'someone' was inviting people to join the pilot... But yes, odd that they don't now make it available if the pilot is over.

There are upgrades BT Wholesale is doing to its backhaul, so Openreach can be live and BT Wholesale not.

But yes lots of g.fast pods out there waiting on something from backhaul, to the cross link to the fibre or power, i.e. the physical put it in place is the quick bit.

Well I am in an area overlapped by different Exchanges, but I saw the other day coming back from a hospital appointment a G.FAST Pod on a PCP Cabinet, sadly its not on my Exchange or our cabinet, which would of been nice for the other people down my road.

So I can say G.FAST is being rolled out in East London.

Paul

In reply to a post by Woolwich:

Bridgeton was part of the trial, wasn't it? So you'd expect to see lots of cabinet extensions and it not to be 'available' to the general punters. I guess 'someone' was inviting people to join the pilot... But yes, odd that they don't now make it available if the pilot is over.

Bath was also part of trial, G Fast pods went in months ago here, & still nothing,have only found 1 G Fast pod, apparantly live.
Couldn't even get on the pilot.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

But yes lots of g.fast pods out there waiting on something from backhaul, to the cross link to the fibre or power, i.e. the physical put it in place is the quick bit.

I "saw" two G.Fast pods go in on the Bridgeton exchange. The first was the very first cabinet I saw go in (46 to be precise), done in a day and as I was walking past just gone 5pm the engineer was just finishing off, it was powered up and connected by the looks of it. Even have some photos of the inside. The second was cabinet 43, the one that got a PCP expansion about a month before the G.Fast pod was attached. On the day the G.Fast pod was added they pulled cable (mains and fibre) from the fibre twin through to the cabinet, because I watched them doing it. Happened very early on in the install of the G.Fast pod because they where doing it first thing in the morning.

From what I have seen a G.Fast pod takes one full day to fit to a cabinet, and that includes connecting the power and fibre backhaul. That said the cabinet may well need reskinning and/or a PCP expansion pod adding first from what I have observed.

Anyway I repeat dozens of G.Fast pod's have been added to the Bridgeton exchange and I can't find a single one that is active on the BT Wholesale checker. Some of these G.Fast pods went in last summer, so there is a fantastical waste of money going on by BT; aka they have millions of pounds of assets that are not earning any money, all the while they are depreciating in value.

Maybe if Openreach wasn�t doing it�s own thing and could liase properly with BT Wholesale then we wouldn�t be in this situation. But it can�t, has to act like an independent company.

I first saw a G.fast pod attached to my cabinet (LCROC 19) on 17th October and still nothing showing up on the DSL checker.

In reply to a post by IanBB:

I first saw a G.fast pod attached to my cabinet (LCROC 19) on 17th October and still nothing showing up on the DSL checker.

How far are you from your cabinet, you might be too far to be offered G.FAST.

But they might just be installing them in areas of the exchange and once all have been installed they will enable it.

But I might be wrong.

Paul