How long does it take to increase FTTC capacity?

Hi all,

I've recently bought a house where unfortunately the wholesale checker shows 'Waiters list' for FTTC.

Whilst I was waiting for the purchase to go through I was checking every few days and could see it occasionally show 'Available' then 'Waiters list' a couple of days later, however now I've moved in sods law it's been stuck at 'Waiters list' for ages.

I'm not even going to bother ordering ADSL as the village is 7km+ from the exchange so speeds are <500k.

I've been in touch with the Digital Durham programme who, whilst are no longer involved as they only had funding for the original cabinet, have managed to get in touch with Openreach who have said that an additional cabinet is needed and they are waiting for a wayleave signature to commence work.

Does anybody know how long this process of installing a new cabinet takes? Are we talking weeks/months? The original cabinet is one of the small single door cabs and has been full for 3-4 months at least.

If you tell us what cabinet number & exchange it is there are a number of very resourceful members who may be able to help.

They may add a High Density extension to the existing cabinet or if demand is high enough they may add a 2nd cabinet.

Roughly how long does it usually take is like asking how long a piece of string is. In some cases it can be done in weeks, in others many months. Needing wayleaves is likely to make it the latter.

Keep checking the availability checker though as those brief "available" times you see are likely individual ports becoming available.

I thought as much, I did sigh when I read the word wayleave!

Cabinet 26 on exchange BISHOP AUCKLAND

Strangely it's a single, small cabinet that covers a fairly large village so it's not surprising that it filled up extremely quickly. Why they didn't put a bigger cabinet in to start with is beyond me!

Edited by deleted (Wed 21-Feb-18 11:14:45)

Cabinet P26 FTTC Available from 12th June 2012, being expanded by July 2018

That's only a date from codelook. Others have access to more detailed info. July sounds about right though.

To add to that, the current cabinet is an ECI.
These can't be expanded so it will be a whole new cabinet needed.
The new cabinet will be a Huawei.
Huawei cabinets are much better.

Edited by j0hn83 (Wed 21-Feb-18 11:21:18)

My FTTC cab (NSICL 6) went live in April 2014 and by the end of that year was full. Only in Nov 2017 was a second FTTC cab installed and provisioned. If no more line cards can be installed in your FTTC cab then expect to wait months/years before a second cab is installed and made live.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

Cabinet P26 FTTC Available from 12th June 2012, being expanded by July 2018

That's only a date from codelook. Others have access to more detailed info. July sounds about right though.

Thanks for this! Stupid question, what is codelook? Is this a 'by July' that means it could be a lot sooner, or is it generally that it is scheduled to go live in July?

Have a look at this page:

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/cabinet-lookup.htm

Code Look is a service provided by Magenta Telecom

https://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/codelook.htm

Thanks all.

Does anybody know at what point the FTTC ports are allocated to the user? Is it near realtime after placing an order?

I haven't bothered activating my line nor ordering ADSL as I don't want a pending order and being unable to order FTTC if a slot becomes available. What I'm wondering though, is if a slot becomes available and I then order FTTC (and telephone activation) will the port immediately get assigned to me whilst my telephone line is pending activation?

I'm in a similar position as the OP when I moved to a new build in Nov 2016 but I was fortunate enough to get the last available port on the cabinet but need a second line for work. Codelook said it would be expanded by April 2018 back in October 2017 but then changed recently to May 2018. A new Huawei cabinet appeared just over two weeks ago but hasn't been commissioned yet.