FTTP Roll out

Hi,

I've always been on an EO Line but I checked the openreach checker and it says I'm "In Scope" to be upgraded to FTTP. https://www.homeandbusiness.openreach.co.uk/fibre-br...

Your area is currently in our plans to be upgraded with Fibre to the Premises (FTTP), however we follow a different design and build process for FTTP so you won't see updates at each stage. Once the engineering work is completed there is a commissioning period of up to eight weeks before an order can be placed. When you are able to place an order you will see the Accepting Orders message.

Cabinet icon
Exchange name: Bishopsgate
Exchange status: Fibre enabled
Cabinet number: -
Technology: Pending - EO Line

Any idea of how I can track the ETA for this? Is it realistic to expect it in a few months or could it be years? Bare in mind I'm in Shoreditch Zone 1 Central London so assuming roadworks will be a bit trickier

Edited by deleted (Wed 09-May-18 14:48:31)

That site you used is the one to track progress, beyond spotting the physical roll-out actually happening.

Some parts of London have had this flagged for a year already, some have gone live and others waiting, but probably likely to happen before 2020

I am in a similar situation to yourself, albeit in rural N. Ireland so traffic control won`t be much of a problem ! The status of my line changed to the same as yours in Sept. last year but there is still no sign of anything happening so the wait continues. Trying to find out any further info. is just frustrating but I hope you have better luck with it than me. I would expect your wait to be in the months at least going by my experience.

In reply to a post by pipcoo:

I am in a similar situation to yourself, albeit in rural N. Ireland so traffic control won`t be much of a problem ! The status of my line changed to the same as yours in Sept. last year but there is still no sign of anything happening so the wait continues. Trying to find out any further info. is just frustrating but I hope you have better luck with it than me. I would expect your wait to be in the months at least going by my experience.

Similar here in Ballymoney area but they seem to be rolling out fibre all over the place now. It's along a lot of the rural roads, even some very isolated roads with not very many properties. I noticed the update on the availability checker around December and it became available to order a month ago. Not sure how long the change to the checker had been there before I noticed it though.

In reply to a post by DrSteve:

In reply to a post by pipcoo:

I am in a similar situation to yourself, albeit in rural N. Ireland so traffic control won`t be much of a problem ! The status of my line changed to the same as yours in Sept. last year but there is still no sign of anything happening so the wait continues. Trying to find out any further info. is just frustrating but I hope you have better luck with it than me. I would expect your wait to be in the months at least going by my experience.

Similar here in Ballymoney area but they seem to be rolling out fibre all over the place now. It's along a lot of the rural roads, even some very isolated roads with not very many properties. I noticed the update on the availability checker around December and it became available to order a month ago. Not sure how long the change to the checker had been there before I noticed it though.

I`m in the Omagh area,on the nidirectgov website it says improvements in my postcode are due to be finished by end of June but there is no sign of anything happening. Have you ordered FTTP ?

In reply to a post by pipcoo:

In reply to a post by DrSteve:

In reply to a post by pipcoo:

I am in a similar situation to yourself, albeit in rural N. Ireland so traffic control won`t be much of a problem ! The status of my line changed to the same as yours in Sept. last year but there is still no sign of anything happening so the wait continues. Trying to find out any further info. is just frustrating but I hope you have better luck with it than me. I would expect your wait to be in the months at least going by my experience.

Similar here in Ballymoney area but they seem to be rolling out fibre all over the place now. It's along a lot of the rural roads, even some very isolated roads with not very many properties. I noticed the update on the availability checker around December and it became available to order a month ago. Not sure how long the change to the checker had been there before I noticed it though.

I`m in the Omagh area,on the nidirectgov website it says improvements in my postcode are due to be finished by end of June but there is no sign of anything happening. Have you ordered FTTP ?

Interestingly my postcode says the same on the nidirect website. I ordered as soon as it went live but the order is stuck somewhere in the system.

I think that message on nidirect is a pretty generic one and shows the same for everyone,not a lot of use really. Would be very interested in how your order progresses,did you have much choice of provider or was it limited to BT ?

No progress on the order yet. I went with Zen as I have been with them for years on ADSL.

Ok,thanks Steve,would like to hear how this goes for you as hopefully I`ll be in the same position to order FTTP at some point in my lifetime !

Roadworks.org is showing this just outside my flat

https://roadworks.org/?105748673

BT "Install 13m of 1 way poly duct in Carriageway,Install 2m of 1 way poly duct in Footway"

Is this the sort of thing I should be looking for?

Its the sort of thing that may mean they are getting there, it may also be a bit needed for some other service e.g. a nearby business buying a leased line service

So a positive sign but not guaranteed

Hey, OP. I live in the same Bishopsgate Exchange. I also noticed that it shows up as a plan to be upgraded to FTTP. I have been discussing this also in ISPReview comment sections.

I was going to enquire about this. You may have seen this map on ISP Review. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/wp-content/gallery/2018-...

Anyway, the Bishopsgate Exchange is going to start work from September to December 2018. But I do not know if this will cover the entire area.

What is actually very interesting is that I asked BT Openreach via email about Bishopsgate exchange several weeks ago when I asked whether we would get FTTP or not. This was before the site updated the detail.

Hello Rahul,

Please accept our apologies for the delay in responding.

I've had a look into this for you and can see that your property is connected directly from the (BISHOPSGATE) exchange, without going through a green cabinet. This is called an �exchange only line'.

Sadly, Exchange only lines are one of the small numbers of properties we can't currently provide fibre to. However, the good news is that there is an ongoing project to divert your line through a traditional green cabinet, which will allow you to order fibre broadband once completed.

But, as I'm sure you'll appreciate, installing fibre is a technical complex civil engineering project. When we plan fibre jobs we have to take into account all aspects of the work required and give realistic timescales, so with this in mind we can't give you any completion dates just yet.

Once you've signed up we'll get in contact with them as soon as we have further information about the upgrade.

Best wishes

Pushpender
Fiber Enquires

Anyway I still insisted via email that we need FTTP and FTTC would not be a solution as it would carry the same old problems of copper cabling. I told them that Hyperoptic were very much interested to install FTTP in my Building. 5 weeks exactly later from that Tuesday 27th of March when I last emailed them, I saw the site reflected to say in a plan for FTTP. I am not sure if this is a coincidence or not. Whether BT got scared when I mentioned to them that Hyperoptic want to install their FTTP in my building.

Anyway, I was initially excited to see this being reflected. But now I am not so excited because of Wayleave.... I am a Hyperoptic Champion of my Building. For 3 years I have struggled to convince my Building Estate Managers to sign an agreement. 3 different Hyperoptic Representatives have tried to speak to the authority. But authority says they are busy with other more important matters like Cladding Fire Safety.

Unfortunately until we can't get this dreaded Wayleave sorting out. There's nothing to be excited about. I have managed to convince 30+ residents to register their interest for Hyperoptic and this has made zero difference in influencing the Estate Managers to sign an agreement. Obviously they are a bunch of selfish people who don't live as residents in my building so they don't care!

So the email was from �Pushpender� ?

Who�s name sounds suspiciously like a play on pen pusher, and who couldn�t spell fibre correctly ?

Yep, that sounds completely plausible.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

So the email was from �Pushpender� ?

Who�s name sounds suspiciously like a play on pen pusher, and who couldn�t spell fibre correctly ?

Yep, that sounds completely plausible.

The email is legit and comes from a genuine openreach email. http://oi64.tinypic.com/2nk6l9w.jpg Here's the screenshot of the email, I removed my email from the screenshot for my own safety.

Actually both Fiber and Fibre are accurate spellings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber But I guess here he chose the less popular spelling. Regardless, that doesn't make the email illegitimate.

I know sometimes there are people working in sectors that aren't always professional enough to deserve their positions, but that's life I guess....

I never got further email responses on whether there is a plan for FTTP or not. The point I wanted to make is that initially this guy Pushpender Rana said the fibre is going to go through a traditional green cabinet which indicated that it is FTTC.

I told him we don't want FTTC and then 5 weeks later I am seeing Bishopsgate Exchange is on a plan to be upgraded to FTTP. Now I do not know whether this is a coincidence or simply Bishopsgate is now under the Fibre First programme. The fact is we don't know if BT Openreach will expand the Bishopsgate Exchange coverage to residential blocks other than the office buildings. We will have to wait and see.

I very much doubt your email was enough to cause a planning turn around in that five week period, more likely someone just did a standard response on EO areas.

Chunks of London have been showing up as in the plan for FTTP since the talk of 2 million and subsequent change to 3 million full fibre premises across the UK and some have actually gone live.

NOTE: If you are having wayleave problems with Hyperoptic there is a real possibility of wayleave issues with Openreach FTTP as FTTP requires more work inside a premises.

That is exactly my concern, Andrew!
We've discussed this 3 years ago here via PM when I asked about FTTC support for Bishopsgate. Which in these 3 years there hasn't even been FTTC Support because Bishopsgate is an EO Line.

In essence we need an extra 2 new cabinets for FTTC which would be too costly. Thus BTs only option is to deploy FTTP. The problem of-course is wayleave. My Building Technical Manager is someone I have never managed to get hold of him in a face to face discussion or even speak to him on the phone. I've only emailed him but he has ignored my emails.

I've only spoken to the other Estate Housing Manager face to face as he's located in the office next to the residential block. The other Technical Manager does not seem to work in that office. He said he has no power to make a decision and that he will try speaking to the Technical Manager. Anyway a few days later (few months ago) I got a phone call from the Estate Housing Manager saying that they do not want to proceed with any Fibre at the moment and that if they were to proceed with Fibre they will not necessarily do it with Hyperoptic but try to do it through another provider.

Of-course that was a very disappointing response. Now I doubt they are even aware of the FTTP initiative by BT Openreach. But I suspect they'll make another excuse even with BT OR. Now of-course we have this issue where the authority have to make a decision on cladding fire safety following the Grenfell Fire incident last year.

Their minds don't seem to be focused on Fibre but more on cladding fire safety issues. First they are doing cladding fire safety checks it has been over a year now. They say if they get that sorted out then they can focus their attention more on Fibre. The problem is that they have ignored the Fibre issue even before the Grenfell fire incident. I feel they want to avoid the hassle of the internal Fibre works inside the premises. But we don't have any choice because we aren't even going to get FTTC if that is what they were thinking! They are probably thinking about FTTC so they can avoid the FTTP hassle!

Goodness knows how this country is going to achieve 50% FTTP coverage by 2025... I certainly think wayleave will delay roll out! I can�t even get the local Estate Building Managers to grant permission to Hyperoptic last 3 years! It makes me wonder how it's going to happen for hundreds of other buildings that will also need wayleave granted!

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

In essence we need an extra 2 new cabinets for FTTC which would be too costly. Thus BTs only option is to deploy FTTP.

"Too costly" against what measure? I don't understand the logic there.

I would have thought that installing a couple of cabinets is much cheaper than running FTTP into every premise - presumably why BT went with the FTTC rollout in the first place.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

In essence we need an extra 2 new cabinets for FTTC which would be too costly. Thus BTs only option is to deploy FTTP.

"Too costly" against what measure? I don't understand the logic there.

I would have thought that installing a couple of cabinets is much cheaper than running FTTP into every premise - presumably why BT went with the FTTC rollout in the first place.

https://www.scotlandsuperfast.com/where-when/how-we-...
Here's a quote from the above link "The problem is that for homes and businesses with EO lines, there is no copper cabinet already in place as their lines connect directly to the telephone exchange! So to enable these premises for fibre broadband, the engineers have to build not just one but TWO new cabinets � both a copper cabinet and a fibre cabinet, as well as connect up the two and re-arrange the lines. As you can imagine, this takes longer to sort out."

Cabinets are only economical in the short term. In the long term the government and BT Openreach will be spending more money because after they once spend money on cabinets for FTTC support, they then have to spend money again on upgrading people with FTTP!

As you can imagine this will cost a lot more money in the long term. If 2025 like Philip Hammond says if the UK is to jump from 4% to 50% FTTP coverage that will mean half of those FTTC cabinets will need to be removed as they'll be unnecessary.

Also my property is 800 meters away from Bishopsgate Exchange. That means the maximum speeds will be only 28Mbps. Not to mention other problems like disconnection issues due to noise margins again all caused due to the copper wires. I had to call on 2 occasions in the past for BT Openreach to clear out water damaged copper cables causing damp telephone lines. This has caused the entire telephone line to stop functioning. That was causing noise margins to be too low causing connection drop out. All caused due to rain.

FTTC carries all the same problems due to hybric fibre-copper cabling. Engineers need working more often to maintain these copper cables. BT Openreach spend more money in copper maintenance than Fibre cable maintenance since FTTP is immune to weather interference.
http://info.truespeed.com/faq
Copper or aluminium cables: Exposed to the elements and can get damaged; will corrode and degrade over time; performance is always limited by the distance from the cabinet to the home; this means FTTC can only achieve limited speeds.

Fibre optic cables: Can be buried under the ground or suspended from poles; is immune to weather or other interference; fibre lasts longer without any loss of quality and allows us to offer gigabit speeds for both upload and download; our customers will have access to exactly the same speeds, no matter how far away they are from the cabinet.

While 95% of the UK may have access to FTTC. Only 51% of the City of London where I live have access to FTTC. This is why BT Openreach have decided to put 8 City of London exchanges to FTTP plan as part of their Fibre First programme to complete by 2020. This includes Bishopsgate Exchange. The problem like I mentioned is Wayleave is more difficult to grant particularly in urban areas like City of London.

Edited by BLaZiNgSPEED (Sat 26-May-18 19:40:14)

The Scottish link is somewhat out of date...

All in One cabinets mean space for just one cabinet is needed - for larger areas a PCP and VDSL2 cab may be needed to cope with number of lines

Plenty of areas in London getting FTTC when were EO and it does not have to be outside the exchange, what works best and is most economical is a very varied picture

Also Bishopgate exchange is far from exchange only throughout a number of VDSL2 cabinets

On the wayleaves some builder owners get the importance of full fibre some don't, If yours does not.

have to build not just one but TWO new cabinets � both a copper cabinet and a fibre cabinet

I have to assume that the author of that article isn't aware of All In On (AIO) cabs. Such cabs can handle I believe 96 lines, it may by 128, but that may possibly be increased at some point with higher density cards. BT installed just such a cab for our 80 odd EO lines in SW9 (Vauxhall exchange). This was gap/community funded with our contribution being a little over £18½K.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Anyway, I was initially excited to see this being reflected. But now I am not so excited because of Wayleave.... I am a Hyperoptic Champion of my Building. For 3 years I have struggled to convince my Building Estate Managers to sign an agreement. 3 different Hyperoptic Representatives have tried to speak to the authority. But authority says they are busy with other more important matters like Cladding Fire Safety.

Unfortunately until we can't get this dreaded Wayleave sorting out. There's nothing to be excited about. I have managed to convince 30+ residents to register their interest for Hyperoptic and this has made zero difference in influencing the Estate Managers to sign an agreement. Obviously they are a bunch of selfish people who don't live as residents in my building so they don't care!

You know that if enough residents buy their freehold they can sack (or dictate to) the building managers? I don't know if this applies to council properties though.

If its council owned, then get the 30 plus residents to write to their MP, perhaps he'll have more clout.

In reply to a post by rogerh:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Anyway, I was initially excited to see this being reflected. But now I am not so excited because of Wayleave.... I am a Hyperoptic Champion of my Building. For 3 years I have struggled to convince my Building Estate Managers to sign an agreement. 3 different Hyperoptic Representatives have tried to speak to the authority. But authority says they are busy with other more important matters like Cladding Fire Safety.

Unfortunately until we can't get this dreaded Wayleave sorting out. There's nothing to be excited about. I have managed to convince 30+ residents to register their interest for Hyperoptic and this has made zero difference in influencing the Estate Managers to sign an agreement. Obviously they are a bunch of selfish people who don't live as residents in my building so they don't care!

You know that if enough residents buy their freehold they can sack (or dictate to) the building managers? I don't know if this applies to council properties though.

The building was once a council property but it is now privatised and owned by East End Homes for more than a decade. They are the freehold owners. They have many other buildings but none of them of-course have had agreements on Fibre Broadband. The Hyperoptic Representatives have expressed difficulty getting an agreement for any of their owned buildings.

There are 50 leaseholders including myself and 32 others are council tenants. There are a total of 82 flats.

But as you'll probably know most leaseholders do not permanently live in the flat, they use it for renting out business. I am probably one of very few leaseholders who live here in this block the rest are tenants and council tenants.

When it comes to buildings freeholders don't really apply. The freeholder is that private Building Estate owner the rest are leaseholders and council tenants.

Obviously as a Hyperoptic Champion I did manage to get 28+ residents to register their interest in 6 months. This registering of residents successfully completed in February 2015.

I think if this was a council owned block an agreement would've been made easier. But I can't get hold of the other leaseholders to give pressure on the authority. So far I was the only one alone trying to speak to the Managers after the Hyperoptic Representative told me via email to try and speak to them.

What I believe is that there is a lack of communication between the authority. The Technical Service Manager does not work in the office next to my residential block. He works in another office in Canary Wharf. There's no proper communication between the Housing Manager and the Technical Manager. This is what I believe is the source of this poor administration.

I am thinking to speak to my local MP but as a last resort. As I have also mentioned Fire Safety of the block is an issue. I am happy to give the authority time to sort this out and then see if they will concentrate more on Fibre. I do believe pressure every once in a while may help as they'll become fed-up eventually. But I don't want to have to annoy them for them to be motivated to take the matter more seriously.

OK. I think taking over the freehold and management can work for leaseholders in small blocks who can work together - but a bit ambitious for your circumstances!

With my County Councillor hat on, I would suggest that you persuade the 32 council tenants to complain through their local Councillor to the Local Authority to whom they are paying their rent to. Get the local press involved too. LAs and Councillors don't like bad press and this can be a way of getting something done.

Good Luck!

Freehold maybe but taking over management normally just needs a majority of the leaseholders to vote to self manage however I'm uncertain as to how having council tenants alters this.

Some details can be found at Right to Manage

Very similar story for us on the Whitehall exchange. EO line, now rolling out FTTP with other addresses on our road able to get FTTP. I can't get wayleave from our board or management company for either Hyperoptic or BT. There seem to be other priorities which leaves us with slow ADSL or flaky 4G from Relish

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

So the email was from �Pushpender� ?

Who�s name sounds suspiciously like a play on pen pusher, and who couldn�t spell fibre correctly ?

Yep, that sounds completely plausible.

The email is legit and comes from a genuine openreach email. http://oi64.tinypic.com/2nk6l9w.jpg Here's the screenshot of the email, I removed my email from the screenshot for my own safety.

Actually both Fiber and Fibre are accurate spellings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber But I guess here he chose the less popular spelling. Regardless, that doesn't make the email illegitimate.

I know sometimes there are people working in sectors that aren't always professional enough to deserve their positions, but that's life I guess....

I never got further email responses on whether there is a plan for FTTP or not. The point I wanted to make is that initially this guy Pushpender Rana said the fibre is going to go through a traditional green cabinet which indicated that it is FTTC.

I told him we don't want FTTC and then 5 weeks later I am seeing Bishopsgate Exchange is on a plan to be upgraded to FTTP. Now I do not know whether this is a coincidence or simply Bishopsgate is now under the Fibre First programme. The fact is we don't know if BT Openreach will expand the Bishopsgate Exchange coverage to residential blocks other than the office buildings. We will have to wait and see.

Fair enough. Maybe Openreach India are dealing with this mailbox also now? Fibre isn�t spelt like that in the company. It isn�t British English, I think the spelling �fibre� can be used in American English though but the common spelling there is fiber.

Regardless, Fibre should be spelt fibre in the UK! Some training is needed for Pushwander I think.

Edited by deleted (Thu 31-May-18 08:53:28)

In reply to a post by Icaras:

Regardless, Fibre should be spelt fibre in the UK! Some training is needed for Pushwander I think.

LOL

Paul

To update you on the latest progress. It appears that BT Openreach have betrayed us!

Guess what just happened?! Openreach apparently changed their minds on FTTP plans for Bishopsgate. Exchange name: Bishopsgate

�You�re in a plan to get Superfast fibre but we haven�t started work yet.� <�� Only until a few days ago for 4 months before that it said "Your area is currently in our plans to be upgraded with Fibre to the Premises (FTTP)."

I'm pretty angry about this but I was mentally and psychologically prepared for that to happen. I knew BT Openreach might betray and change their minds sooner or later.

BT Openreach are lying about their 3 million FTTP aspirations by 2020. Bishopsgate was meant to be in the radar list amongst the 8 exchanges in City of London to be upgraded with FTTP.

15 million premises by 2025 and 100% FTTP by 2033 is not going to happen when they constantly change their minds every once in a while. They have no concrete plan, no timetable action plan or even if they do, they don�t seem to adhere to it!

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

.... is not going to happen when they constantly change their minds every once in a while.

Lol, annoying that they always do that sometimes.

To be fair it doesn't actually say they have cancelled their plans.

Some people will have the FTTP coming message and then will switch to exploring solutions, which means nothing is coming at all.

That just points out the work hasn't started. They may have switched the project to FTTC. Better than getting the exploring solutions message though.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

.... is not going to happen when they constantly change their minds every once in a while.

Lol, annoying that they always do that sometimes.

To be fair it doesn't actually say they have cancelled their plans.

Some people will have the FTTP coming message and then will switch to exploring solutions, which means nothing is coming at all.

That just points out the work hasn't started. They may have switched the project to FTTC. Better than getting the exploring solutions message though.

The classic BT things I have seen is for them to install all the FTTP hardware (which is still there up the poles) and then install a fibre cabinet and give them that, to then also offer people FTTPod.

Paul

It is also the case that the checker does go throw some odd states in various areas.

So have seen FTTP areas drop to saying nothing and actual FTTP arrive, and in other cases the message situation the poster has seen happen.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

.... is not going to happen when they constantly change their minds every once in a while.

Lol, annoying that they always do that sometimes.

To be fair it doesn't actually say they have cancelled their plans.

Some people will have the FTTP coming message and then will switch to exploring solutions, which means nothing is coming at all.

That just points out the work hasn't started. They may have switched the project to FTTC. Better than getting the exploring solutions message though.

The problem is that I am seeing for another postcode E1 7RQ that is of Canon Barnett Primary School and that has been downgraded back to� �We�re working with government and industry to explore ways to bring Superfast fibre to as many people as possible but don�t have a plan for your area yet.� That is also under Bishopsgate Exchange when previously it said that it was in a plan to be upgraded with FTTP!

I am viewing this as a sign of negative trend. For years I was getting the �You�re in a plan to get Superfast fibre but we haven�t started work yet.� Superfast means FTTC and Ultrafast would be advertised as FTTP.

They have not upgraded my area with FTTC and it just makes no sense for them to now consider FTTC when Bishopsgate was meant to be 1 of the 8 City of London exchanges as part of the planned upgrades for FTTP as part of Fibre First Programme.

The impression I am getting is that BT Openreach will probably target main office buildings, new buildings and certain properties for Bishopsgate that is easier for them to deploy and obtain wayleave, but it will not cover the entire area or areas that are located in more difficult spots. Now I am less hopeful that by 2020 my postcode area will be upgraded with FTTP. Given how unpredictable BT Openreach are in their words, I don�t trust them.

If they can�t get urban areas sorted how will they convince us that they�ll invest FTTP in towns/rural areas of the UK? This is why I am pessimistic about the UK reaching 50% FTTP by 2025!

Has BT ever said it will cover the whole of Bishopgate?

I am in a similar situation to you. Over 500 flats connected to the Pimlico Exchange are on EO lines and i was quoted £4.7k for an FTTP Build. Back in 2016 the Openreach checker said that we were in plans for FTTP. After a few months, It went back to exploring solutions and it has been there ever since. Hyperoptic (will) connect over 4 buildings which are within 30 meters. One of them being the Private portion of my buidling which share the same basement, courtyard and has a similar layout to mine. They seem to ignore all my emails now for some reason. You should be happy that even with FTTC you will be able to get superfast speeds and the possibility of G.fast in the future.

Hi there, we'd love to check this for you in great detail, since it doesn't sound like us not to reply. Have you send those over to [email protected]? Please send us more details here via PM or to this email address, we'll gladly look into this for you. Thank you.

Outside of remote/rural areas, has an exchange area ever been covered 100% by Openreach FTTP whether commercial or BDUK? I thought it was always a mixture of FTTC/P depending on Openreach's bean counters sums.

Edited by deleted (Wed 25-Jul-18 13:52:06)

They have not upgraded my area with FTTC and it just makes no sense for them to now consider FTTC when Bishopsgate was meant to be 1 of the 8 City of London exchanges as part of the planned upgrades for FTTP as part of Fibre First Programme.

The impression I am getting is that BT Openreach will probably target main office buildings, new buildings and certain properties for Bishopsgate that is easier for them to deploy and obtain wayleave, but it will not cover the entire area or areas that are located in more difficult spots. Now I am less hopeful that by 2020 my postcode area will be upgraded with FTTP. Given how unpredictable BT Openreach are in their words, I don�t trust them.

Isn't it common sense to cover the easier/cheaper parts first?
I'd be surprised to hear OpenReach say they will give blanket FTTP coverage to ANY exchange.

Bishopsgate is probably still part of the Fibre First rollout. I doubt they ever claimed blanket coverage though.
Edinburgh is part of Fibre First. It doesn't mean they will cover every Edinburgh property though.

OpenReach are a commercial company aiming to make a profit.

Edited by j0hn83 (Wed 25-Jul-18 13:50:03)

In reply to a post by Sammm_:

I am in a similar situation to you. Over 500 flats connected to the Pimlico Exchange are on EO lines and i was quoted £4.7k for an FTTP Build. Back in 2016 the Openreach checker said that we were in plans for FTTP. After a few months, It went back to exploring solutions and it has been there ever since. Hyperoptic (will) connect over 4 buildings which are within 30 meters. One of them being the Private portion of my buidling which share the same basement, courtyard and has a similar layout to mine. They seem to ignore all my emails now for some reason. You should be happy that even with FTTC you will be able to get superfast speeds and the possibility of G.fast in the future.

I don't even mind contributing some of the money for FTTP. My building is 20 floors total 82 flats. I have been waiting for more than 5+ years just to get FTTC from BT which I have not had it. I was super excited when I saw the checker change to "In plan for FTTP" I thought I was hallucinating when I saw that 4 months ago!

But now I feel betrayed because it has been reverted back for a plan to get superfast fibre 4 months later after the initial plan. This is not fair because after waiting for so many years on EO line without FTTC. It would've been considered as justice if Openreach jumped on and installed FTTP. But now even if I get FTTC that would be an insult and disrespect when there are so many talks and articles promising that FTTP will come.

If BT Openreach can't cover the entire exchanges as part of their Fibre First Programme we will be looking for another possible 10-15 years before they cover 100% of the areas. Hence why I say this 50% FTTP coverage by 2025 is an absolute nonsense! It will never happen at this rate of speed! Just covering the entire 8 City of London exchanges will take years nevermind getting 100% coverage for the entire UK by 2033.

Btw Hyperoptic are interested to install in my building as I previously noted here. I'm a Hyperoptic Champion of my building where I managed to convince around 30 residents to register their interest within 6 months back in February 2015. Since then we have been stuck with wayleave. The Building Manager told me that his Technical Manager does not want to proceed with an agreement with Hyperoptic! They said if they want to make an agreement for Fibre they'll do it with another provider, not Hyperoptic. This is quite simply a pathetic excuse because I know my Building authority will not grant wayleave whichever provider offered to install their Fibre service. But I wanted to experiment and see if they would accept BT's FTTP offer which unfortunately doesn't seem to happen either.

I spoke to 3 Hyperoptic Representatives who tried to even offer to organise a meeting with the authority in an email correspondence. But the Building Managers didn't even respond to the emails. I have not tried to speak to the Technical Manager yet, but I am thinking about speaking to him directly to see if that would have any positive effect as the main Housing Estate Manager seems to be useless.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

In reply to a post by Sammm_:

I am in a similar situation to you. Over 500 flats connected to the Pimlico Exchange are on EO lines and i was quoted £4.7k for an FTTP Build. Back in 2016 the Openreach checker said that we were in plans for FTTP. After a few months, It went back to exploring solutions and it has been there ever since. Hyperoptic (will) connect over 4 buildings which are within 30 meters. One of them being the Private portion of my buidling which share the same basement, courtyard and has a similar layout to mine. They seem to ignore all my emails now for some reason. You should be happy that even with FTTC you will be able to get superfast speeds and the possibility of G.fast in the future.

I don't even mind contributing some of the money for FTTP. My building is 20 floors total 82 flats. I have been waiting for more than 5+ years just to get FTTC from BT which I have not had it. I was super excited when I saw the checker change to "In plan for FTTP" I thought I was hallucinating when I saw that 4 months ago!

But now I feel betrayed because it has been reverted back for a plan to get superfast fibre 4 months later after the initial plan. This is not fair because after waiting for so many years on EO line without FTTC. It would've been considered as justice if Openreach jumped on and installed FTTP. But now even if I get FTTC that would be an insult and disrespect when there are so many talks and articles promising that FTTP will come.

If BT Openreach can't cover the entire exchanges as part of their Fibre First Programme we will be looking for another possible 10-15 years before they cover 100% of the areas. Hence why I say this 50% FTTP coverage by 2025 is an absolute nonsense! It will never happen at this rate of speed! Just covering the entire 8 City of London exchanges will take years nevermind getting 100% coverage for the entire UK by 2033.

Btw Hyperoptic are interested to install in my building as I previously noted here. I'm a Hyperoptic Champion of my building where I managed to convince around 30 residents to register their interest within 6 months back in February 2015. Since then we have been stuck with wayleave. The Building Manager told me that his Technical Manager does not want to proceed with an agreement with Hyperoptic! They said if they want to make an agreement for Fibre they'll do it with another provider, not Hyperoptic. This is quite simply a pathetic excuse because I know my Building authority will not grant wayleave whichever provider offered to install their Fibre service. But I wanted to experiment and see if they would accept BT's FTTP offer which unfortunately doesn't seem to happen either.

I spoke to 3 Hyperoptic Representatives who tried to even offer to organise a meeting with the authority in an email correspondence. But the Building Managers didn't even respond to the emails. I have not tried to speak to the Technical Manager yet, but I am thinking about speaking to him directly to see if that would have any positive effect as the main Housing Estate Manager seems to be useless.

Who pays the building manager? Don't you leaseholders ultimately pay them to manage the building affairs on your behalf? They work for you surely, not the other way around.

Can you not get a signed petition together with the other lease-holders who want Hyperoptic and present it as a letter of demand to the building management.

Get a meeting organised with management and don't be fobbed off.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

But now even if I get FTTC that would be an insult and disrespect when there are so many talks and articles promising that FTTP will come.

Not sure why you think getting potentially 80/20 Mbps on FTTC is an "insult"? I think you've got to rein in your expectations. Just because Openreach have announced their nationwide commercial 'Fibre First' rollout doesn't mean its going to be rolled out to all and sundry overnight. It will take a lot of planning and decisions will be made and changed depending on variable factors such on budgets, wayleave permissions etc. Best thing to do, is to accept that Openreach are working on bringing faster broadband to your area whether its FTTP or FTTC, but its hardly the end of the world if its the latter and you are reasonably close to the cabinet.

Alternatively, if you're willing to pay then consider a leased line as being in central London, leased lines might be very competitively priced.

Edited by deleted (Wed 25-Jul-18 17:22:25)

No

Even in rural areas only 1 exchange, Sutton in West Sussex seems to be all FTTP.

Bishopgate has some 19 cabinets serving VDSL2 already, so was never likely to be all FTTP anyway. Also plenty of exchange only lines.

Generally every area is dealt with individually by the bean counters and planners and areas that hit a wayleave issue for FTTP can easily fall back to FTTC, or it could be due to nature of old network and EO lines, some are directly buried so ducting needed for FTTP i.e. increasing cost/disruption

This needs stating... the 50% by 2025 is not an Openreach goal, but a total from all the various FTTP operators.

Openreach is saying 3 million FTTP by end of 2020 and if regulatory environment and market is right another 10 million by 2025. Which is below 50%, so a 50% goal was always going to rely on what other providers do.

Flats needs permission from building owner, and it may be that this was a stumbling block.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Who pays the building manager? Don't you leaseholders ultimately pay them to manage the building affairs on your behalf? They work for you surely, not the other way around.

Can you not get a signed petition together with the other lease-holders who want Hyperoptic and present it as a letter of demand to the building management.

Get a meeting organised with management and don't be fobbed off.

This is the problem I have. There are 50 leaseholders but most of them live faraway and only use the Building to rent out for property business. There are very few leaseholders, I guess around 10-15 or so who permanently live in the building. Now I don't know precisely all of them.

The last time there was a leaseholder's meeting which only 3 leaseholders turned up. It was general sort of meeting about building maintenance works. Mostly a discussion relating to fire safety of cladding, etc. I did not mention Fibre at that meeting because the Technical Manager wasn't there and I thought well if their primary focus is now fire safety of the building maybe it's not the right time to discuss fibre.

We've got Fire Wardens patrolling the building 24/7 and this fire safety issue following Grenfell Tower incident has meant that the brains of the Managers are pre-occupied with Fire Safety obsession. They cannot think anything else, their minds simply aren't focused on Fibre as they view that as a luxury rather than a priority. I'm just trying to be patient and wait for the Fire Safety matter to be resolved as we can see just this itself is enough to delay wayleave permissions for many buildings with cladding where Managers are busy sorting out Fire Safety. This is another one of those poor administrations from the government. Because as the Tories are distracted with Brexit they can't even sort out Fire Safety as an issue. It is a chain-reaction.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

No

Even in rural areas only 1 exchange, Sutton in West Sussex seems to be all FTTP.

Bishopgate has some 19 cabinets serving VDSL2 already, so was never likely to be all FTTP anyway. Also plenty of exchange only lines.

Generally every area is dealt with individually by the bean counters and planners and areas that hit a wayleave issue for FTTP can easily fall back to FTTC, or it could be due to nature of old network and EO lines, some are directly buried so ducting needed for FTTP i.e. increasing cost/disruption

Yes, there are 19 cabinets and there are many who have FTTC under the Bishopsgate Exchange. But the fact remains that if 95% of the UK has FTTC supported and that I am one of the 5% of the people who have yet to get FTTC I would expect that BT Openreach would try to cover 5% of the Bishopsgate Exchange particularly those with EO lines with FTTP. If FTTP is their target plan I would think it would be sensible and rational to try and support those who don't even have FTTC to begin with. At least this is going to expand the overall footprint of people accessing superfast broadband speeds. It is also beneficial for the national broadband statistical rank.

To be honest I doubt BT Openreach will install FTTC in my area either. I've spoken to them via email 4 months ago and they said they have no exact date of completion but they need to install another 2 green cabinets which they say takes time and money. Because I am 800 meters from Bishopsgate Exchange. That would mean in theory I would only get maximum 28Mbps which is pointless.

I understand that it wouldn't make sense to upgrade FTTC customers to FTTP, but I would expect that people with no FTTC to get FTTP.
Otherwise who is going to be upgraded with FTTP from the Bishopsgate exchange? If it's only new builds then it is pointless for BT to even mention that as a Fibre First Programme. Naturally new builds are meant to be upgraded with FTTP directly.

What about Deddington in Oxfordshire ?

There was talk some years back of that exchange going FTTP only ...

... mind you, I expect regulatory compliance means Openreach have to maintain a copper network so as LLU types can flog their wares.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Because I am 800 meters from Bishopsgate Exchange. That would mean in theory I would only get maximum 28Mbps which is pointless.

Are you on an EO line? If so, then if you were to get FTTC, Openreach would most likely build a new AIO cabinet which would not be located inside your exchange. However as you are quite close to your exchange already, Openreach may decide to plonk the new cabinet directly outside the exchange - as they have done at some exchanges, eg NSIMD.

Last time I looked there was still some areas that needed the FTTP if I recall

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

It is also the case that the checker does go throw some odd states in various areas.

So have seen FTTP areas drop to saying nothing and actual FTTP arrive, and in other cases the message situation the poster has seen happen.

Oh I agree, but the FTTP is here due to I have it and our fibre daisy chains through the other hardware back to the Splitter, all engineers that have taken a look all say its all completed and its just waiting to be commissioned and then turned on.

Sadly BT on the phone and BTOR via Twitter have done checks on the system (i.e. software side of things) and have said there is no FTTP hardware here.

But when I pass on photos of all the FTTP hardware and the phone pole ID they then say that something isn't right and thanks me for the information and say they will pass this information on.

But nothing came of this so now everyone else (lower side of my road) apart from people on my phone pole were downgraded to FTTC, which is a lot better than the speeds we all got on ADSL2+.

Where as lines on our phone pole and the top half of our road all have FTTP.

TBH I think departments are not talking to each other which is causing all this miss information all over the place.

Paul

OK, thank you.

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Because I am 800 meters from Bishopsgate Exchange. That would mean in theory I would only get maximum 28Mbps which is pointless.

Are you on an EO line? If so, then if you were to get FTTC, Openreach would most likely build a new AIO cabinet which would not be located inside your exchange. However as you are quite close to your exchange already, Openreach may decide to plonk the new cabinet directly outside the exchange - as they have done at some exchanges, eg NSIMD.

Yes I am on EO Line as I have mentioned that previously. That's also what BT Openreach told me via email 4 months ago.
Here's the quote from the email below.

"Please accept our apologies for the delay in responding.

I've had a look into this for you and can see that your property is connected directly from the (BISHOPSGATE) exchange, without going through a green cabinet. This is called an �exchange only line'.

Sadly, Exchange only lines are one of the small numbers of properties we can't currently provide fibre to. However, the good news is that there is an ongoing project to divert your line through a traditional green cabinet, which will allow you to order fibre broadband once completed.

But, as I'm sure you'll appreciate, installing fibre is a technical complex civil engineering project. When we plan fibre jobs we have to take into account all aspects of the work required and give realistic timescales, so with this in mind we can't give you any completion dates just yet."

This doesn't make much sense to me. Because if they aren't going to install FTTC now, when? After another 5 years? Which would of-course deem FTTC useless by then because BT will have to focus their attention on revamping their FTTP project.

Furthermore I also don't see economical sense to install another green cabinet temporarily for FTTC and then few years later when FTTP comes to remove the green cabinet again as it will no longer be needed for FTTP.

That is why I am highly sceptical about FTTC coming either. It hasn't come for years. I have more hope for Hyperoptic if one day I manage to acquire wayleave consent from the building authority. There are several buildings around within 5 minutes off my property that have Hyperoptic but don't even have FTTC from BT OR.

I think BT OR are confused between whether to install FTTC or FTTP. They are probably still thinking. But thinking will only delay things further. Because the checker has been saying for years since 2012 if I can remember, area on a plan to be upgraded with Superfast fibre but works haven't been started. Then 4 months ago it was changed to plan for FTTP only for it to be reverted back to Superfast. That's just very unprofessional from a big corporate company like BT.

Because I am 800 meters from Bishopsgate Exchange. That would mean in theory I would only get maximum 28Mbps which is pointless.

Can you explain what theory you think means you will get 28Mbps maximum at 800m.

My 1022m long line currently synced at 44Mb would disagree with that. I had 55/11 at 1 point before crosstalk chipped away at my line.

FTTC is not a temporary solution, as once you have it, it means Openreach have installed a NGA fibre aggregation node in your area - usually not too far away from the FTTC cab. This makes it easier for Openreach to deploy faster G.Fast and/or FTTP services in the future and also FTTPoD if you're willing to pay.

There's a good chance you're going to get decent speeds (>30 Mbps) in the future through Openreach, but unless you're willing to pay (eg leased line or FTTPoD) you have no say in the type of technology Openreach will bring to your doorstep - it will be down to economics.

Edited by deleted (Thu 26-Jul-18 14:19:25)

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

Because I am 800 meters from Bishopsgate Exchange. That would mean in theory I would only get maximum 28Mbps which is pointless.

Can you explain what theory you think means you will get 28Mbps maximum at 800m.

My 1022m long line currently synced at 44Mb would disagree with that. I had 55/11 at 1 point before crosstalk chipped away at my line.

Yes, take a look at this link. https://www.thinkbroadband.com/guides/fibre-fttc-ftt...
Scroll down a bit to where it says. What speed can I expect from fibre broadband? (FTTC/VDSL2)

800m 28 Mbps 10 Mbps 80%

I'm going to say it's not just a question of getting a speed. It's a question of whether the line can cope with that speed. For example noise margin issues.

Here where I live in a high rise building for years I have had issues with drop-outs when the connection speed is higher. If I get a speed test of 15-16Mbps the router stats noise margin will dramatically drop to 3.0dB and if it drops to below 0.9dB the connection will disconnect. Within a couple of days or so the internet will drop out. When the internet speed is lowered to 11-12Mbps and the noise margin jumps to 9-10dB then my connection is stable and can go on for weeks without a single drop-out.

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

FTTC is not a temporary solution, as once you have it, it means Openreach have installed a NGA fibre aggregation node in your area - usually not too far away from the FTTC cab. This makes it easier for Openreach to deploy faster G.Fast and/or FTTP services in the future and also FTTPoD if you're willing to pay.

There's a good chance you're going to get decent speeds (>30 Mbps) in the future through Openreach, but unless you're willing to pay (eg leased line or FTTPoD) you have no say in the type of technology Openreach will bring to your doorstep - it will be down to economics.

But pure fibre optic promises to resolve uncertainties relating to speed and reliability. For example FTTP is unaffected by weather interference�s. Having and demanding fibre is not just about better internet speeds, it�s also about having a more reliable connection. FTTC is not something I wish for, it�s a bottleneck because A) you don�t get speeds higher than 80 Mbps, like with FTTP that delivers 1Gbps and B) The risks of connection drop-outs continue to carry through thanks to the copper wire.

BT Openreach have to spend more money on maintaining this copper network that will from time to time break down for whatever reasons such as water logged damaged cables, rats, noise margins, line problems, etc.

Also the problem is even if FTTC or GFast allow for 24+ to 300Mbps many lines cannot cope with the speed due to poor noise margins. The higher the speed, the lower the noise margin. If noise margin drops below 1db the internet will dropout. Along with heavy rain which also causes the internet to drop thanks to outdated copper wire.

So my question is what will happen to that FTTC cab in future once people with FTTC get upgraded to FTTP? From my understanding people with FTTP have their cable travelling directly to their doorstep without going through a green cabinet.

Those are incredibly low estimates and suggest you need to be 150m to get 80Mb sync. You can get 80Mb at double that distance.

Because I am 800 meters from Bishopsgate Exchange. That would mean in theory I would only get maximum 28Mbps which is pointless.

Distance to the exchange is irrelavent for FTTC. You should be worrying about the distance to the cabinet instead. I dont think they are that stupid to spend a ton of money just to get 28mbps.

You seem to be jumping the gun and automatically assuming the worst case scenario for FTTC. Yes, there are some people who are on long FTTC lines with poor quality copper. But for people like you living in central London, you will almost certainly get decent FTTC speeds as I can't imagine Openreach putting the cabinet 2 miles away when you are only 800m away from the exchange. Worst case scenario they will install your new FTTC cabinet outside the exchange so 800m away on FTTC will still give you respectable speeds. You really need to wait to see where OR install your FTTC cabinet before jumping to wild conclusions - that's assuming you are getting FTTC rather than FTTP.

Also, I would bet my house even if you were to get FTTC, Openreach would still bring FTTP to you sooner than many other people on FTTC purely due to you living in Central London which Openreach have prioritized along with other major city centres in their recently announced 'Fibre First' program.

Let's be honest here. They are never going to place a cabinet outside Bishopsgate exchange to serve properties 800m away. If anything, they are more likely to install an internal cabinet in a basement area.

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

Also, I would bet my house even if you were to get FTTC, Openreach would still bring FTTP to you sooner than many other people on FTTC purely due to you living in Central London which Openreach have prioritized along with other major city centres in their recently announced 'Fibre First' program.

Well going by areas covered by my Exchange which most of it had FTTP hardware installed but was just never enabled dating back 2011 - 2012 where most of those areas ended up getting FTTC, however they did leave all the FTTP hardware in place as far as I could see when I was last about.
You can still see this on Google Maps.

So if BTOR did the same back then in other areas of London, it probably wouldn't take them that long to get them to FTTP.

Paul

In reply to a post by Sammm_:

Because I am 800 meters from Bishopsgate Exchange. That would mean in theory I would only get maximum 28Mbps which is pointless.

Distance to the exchange is irrelavent for FTTC. You should be worrying about the distance to the cabinet instead. I dont think they are that stupid to spend a ton of money just to get 28mbps.

I'm well aware that it is the distance to the cabinet that I should be worried about. Perhaps I may have been mistaken or thought that the Bishopsgate Exchange is where the cabinet was located. Hence why I thought that was the 800m distance to cab. But I guess I am not fully informed of that.

Indeed OR won't be that stupid to install a new green cabinet that is too further away from my property or else it would just be futile.

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

You seem to be jumping the gun and automatically assuming the worst case scenario for FTTC. Yes, there are some people who are on long FTTC lines with poor quality copper. But for people like you living in central London, you will almost certainly get decent FTTC speeds as I can't imagine Openreach putting the cabinet 2 miles away when you are only 800m away from the exchange. Worst case scenario they will install your new FTTC cabinet outside the exchange so 800m away on FTTC will still give you respectable speeds. You really need to wait to see where OR install your FTTC cabinet before jumping to wild conclusions - that's assuming you are getting FTTC rather than FTTP.

Also, I would bet my house even if you were to get FTTC, Openreach would still bring FTTP to you sooner than many other people on FTTC purely due to you living in Central London which Openreach have prioritized along with other major city centres in their recently announced 'Fibre First' program.

I can only hope that living in Central London would mean me getting FTTP before the rest the country. But then again I still think it's going to take few to many years. Fibre First aims to get 3 million FTTP by end of 2020. There are other external factors such as wayleave that may delay the process much further than anticipated. 3 million by 2020 is actually still quite small if you were to add 100% of all premises from all 8 urban cities where BT OR will be investing. And there's no promise that I'll be one of those fortunate ones to be included in their area. Given that BT OP will not fully cover the entire Bishopsgate Exchange by 2020 it would suggest that there is a potentially longer delay awaiting.

My frustration with current building authority last 3 years not making an agreement with Hyperoptic shows how progress can be slowed down to such a halt. Under a different building authority I would've had Hyperoptic supported by now and wouldn't have cared less about BT's OR FTTC or FTTP.

So if wayleave doesn't get sorted out then BT OR will most likely settle with FTTC which of-course I am assuming worst case scenario because other than FTTP, FTTC/G.Fast would be the second best upgradeable choice.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

That is why I am highly sceptical about FTTC coming either. It hasn't come for years.

In the not-particularly-rural part of Kent I am in, FTTC only arrived at the end of 2014. There are still some EO lines on our exchange, and one EO cabinet is being installed right now - it was due to go live Dec 2017, but this has been pushed back to Oct 2018.

So these things *are* ongoing.

The areas you refer to often had lots of FTTP too, hence why you can get FTTP. Bishopgate is not one of those i.e. projecting a local scenario onto other areas only works if all the factors and history of the areas match

Other housing areas seeing EO infill in London are finding the VDSL2 cabinet is generally pretty close to the cluster it serves - not in all cases but way more than the majority.

If people want to play worst case scenario Bishopgate exchange could be closed and lines served from another further away

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

Isn't it common sense to cover the easier/cheaper parts first?
I'd be surprised to hear OpenReach say they will give blanket FTTP coverage to ANY exchange.

Bishopsgate is probably still part of the Fibre First rollout. I doubt they ever claimed blanket coverage though.
Edinburgh is part of Fibre First. It doesn't mean they will cover every Edinburgh property though.

OpenReach are a commercial company aiming to make a profit.

Another approach would be to target customers who would get the biggest speed improvement as they are more likely to take up an FTTC service. Paying more for FTTP is easier to justify if the alternative is 1.5Mbps ADSL rather that 40Mbps FTTC.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

I can only hope that living in Central London would mean me getting FTTP before the rest the country.

Has to be the occasional thing London doesn't get first, novel idea as that is.

As its the capital and the face of the whole of the UK, you would expect it to have at least decent broadband. Its a smack in the face when you see that rural areas get better broadband before a place that is populated by 8 million people.

In reply to a post by Sammm_:

As its the capital and the face of the whole of the UK, you would expect it to have at least decent broadband. Its a smack in the face when you see that rural areas get better broadband before a place that is populated by 8 million people.

A bunch of rural areas have better broadband than cities. Afraid you'll have to make do with 4k/year/person of transport funding and a 15 billion pound Crossrail while the city I moved to, from London, is the largest one in Western Europe that is still relying on buses as government refuse to fund better public transport, despite it having double the value for money of Crossrail.

Yes they are low for many, i.e. designed to reflect high cross talk impact.

In reply to a post by Sammm_:

As its the capital and the face of the whole of the UK, you would expect it to have at least decent broadband. Its a smack in the face when you see that rural areas get better broadband before a place that is populated by 8 million people.

Well I do have some sympathy for rural areas. They have worse ADSL broadband than those of us who live in urban cities. So if they get FTTP before me it doesn't upset me that much. Plus rural areas are more boring and depressing to live than urban cities so I guess they deserve better internet...

What does disappoint me is articles like these. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/07/first-...

"Hyperoptic and Community Fibre hold the exact same wayleave for the same buildings and are even building in the same places at the same time."
�Avondale Square� and �Southwark� will be having properties connected to both Hyperoptic and Community Fibre. Now that's what I find insane. When you consider only 4% of the UK has FTTP. Rather than one of the FTTP providers prioritising it for the more needy they are simultaneously building for properties where there is a clash of competition. And neither of them would dominate. Plus they have BT OR FTTC as well! That's what makes me so angry. There is a disproportionate expansion of Fibre in certain areas while being completely neglected in others!

Yeah thats reaslly infuriating. Im not saying that rural areas dont deserve fast broadband. I was just saying that why does the place that makes the country the most money have worse connections than the places that dont.
When i tell people what speeds I get they're shocked since no one expects it. Looks like i am gonna have to fork out £4.7k or pay £300 a month for a leased line.

Whilst I have some sympathies with your problems, I'm also in London (SW9) and formerly on an EO line but now have FTTC due to our development gap funding the installation of an AIO FTTC/PCP by BT Openreach, I feel that you have to understand that BT Openreach, Hyperoptic and Community Fibre are all commercial operations answerable to their shareholders and invest where their bean counters have determined that they are most likely to see a realistic return on their investment.

Your logic would suggest that no other Telco should invest where VM has a presence, or that VM should not install where BT or others have a presence. That simply is not how a commercial enterprise operates.

I know of one rural area that supplies around 35% of the natural gas for the UK via 2 deep water LNG terminals, has one fo the largest most complex oil refineries in Europe along with huge fuel storage facilities and a power generation plant (with one other planned and another being "discussed"). Thats without the 2 ferry terminals linking the UK to Eire. It also has facilities involved in the development of tidal power.

Hardly an area *not* making money - This area powers the economy to a great degree, despite its isolation from amenities and a lack of good transport links - Or decent roads/rail. With increasing centralisation of services and administration in major urban locations, a good communications service has become vital to rural areas.

In reply to a post by MCM:

Whilst I have some sympathies with your problems, I'm also in London (SW9) and formerly on an EO line but now have FTTC due to our development gap funding the installation of an AIO FTTC/PCP by BT Openreach, I feel that you have to understand that BT Openreach, Hyperoptic and Community Fibre are all commercial operations answerable to their shareholders and invest where their bean counters have determined that they are most likely to see a realistic return on their investment.

Your logic would suggest that no other Telco should invest where VM has a presence, or that VM should not install where BT or others have a presence. That simply is not how a commercial enterprise operates.

First of all that wouldn't apply in my case. There would be a realistic return on investment simply because the residents demand of my building is high. This thread was originally started by someone else also living in Bishopsgate Exchange. It's no secret that immediately when the BT Checker changed to FTTP plan many of us became excited.

Hyperoptic had strong interest in installing their fibre in my area as I've said previously. The problem is wayleave from the local building authority. The residents are demonstrating high interest and demand but the authority is simply not making the agreement happen.

This is a different situation to the returns of investment that you're talking about. 30+ residents registered their interest within less than 6 months. I only informed 15 of my residents/neighbours to register their interest with the rest of word of mouth spreading across all the other residents in the building. I couldn't believe how quickly the registering interest was completed as observed in the Progress of registered residents in Hyperoptic property page.

But authority does not appear to respect this demand. That doesn't mean there would be no return of investment. It's simply that the installation cannot be proceeded without permission being granted.

The case with Southwark and Avondale Square is not necessarily that they'll have better return of investment. It's simply because the the authority was more lenient to provide wayleave. Thus as we can see the result meant that both Fibre providers managed to have the opportunity to install their service to these areas.

I've never had any doubts about my area not having any return on investment. Because buildings and even more ordinary looking buildings just 5 minutes walk from my building have Hyperoptic supported and agreements being made. They are under a different authority that simply granted the wayleave more easily.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Plus rural areas are more boring and depressing to live than urban cities so I guess they deserve better internet...

You really must have led a sheltered life to make that statement, and just to clarify I live in an urban town area. I find rural areas far from boring, there's so much to do & see - walking, biking, exploring, fishing, canoeing, etc. Not to mention the peace and quiet, you can actually walk down a road in a village without fear of gangs and knife crime, you can't do that in a lot of city areas, now that's what I find depressing!

There's no way I'd want to live in a city, all that traffic, crime and tensions, I'll take rural any day over that, but I'd still want a decent broadband connection.

You really must have led a sheltered life

I guess they are feeling a little bitter and resentful at the moment

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Plus rural areas are more boring and depressing to live than urban cities so I guess they deserve better internet...

You really must have led a sheltered life to make that statement, and just to clarify I live in an urban town area. I find rural areas far from boring, there's so much to do & see - walking, biking, exploring, fishing, canoeing, etc. Not to mention the peace and quiet, you can actually walk down a road in a village without fear of gangs and knife crime, you can't do that in a lot of city areas, now that's what I find depressing!

There's no way I'd want to live in a city, all that traffic, crime and tensions, I'll take rural any day over that, but I'd still want a decent broadband connection.

So you say you also live in an urban area. You wish to experience village life because you think it is quiet and peaceful?

This statement I've made is not out of experience. In 2003 I lived in Rochdale for 6 months. 2002 in Grimsby for a couple of months. The same year I went to Ashford for a couple of months as well. In 2004 I lived in Newcastle Upon Tyne and in 2012 for a few months after graduating Uni I lived in Clacton-on-Sea again as part of stay as my dad worked in Hospital as a Locum Doctor.

In total I've lived briefly for more than 20 towns and rural areas in the UK. Nothing can replace for me urban cities. It was a sigh of relief when I left Rochdale after my dad had completed his 6 month contract as an NHS Hospital Doctor in Rochdale Infirmary Hospital.

Sure there are lots of these positives that you mention. I've also heard from one Clactonian nurse who told my dad she couldn't leave the sea for London. But when winter approaches that sea becomes depressing and useless.

Think again after you visit and live there for a more extensive period of time, you'll want to return to where you are! People wish things before they visit thinking they'll find happiness.

And in those years I had Dial-Up internet and we were discussing back then if only the internet speed had been a little bit faster than it would've made life a little bit less boring here. While the same discussion never arose while we lived in London even with Dial-Up.

My dad has worked in over 100 different hospitals in the UK including rural Lancashire where B4RN is available. He told me Lancashire is so depressive that he wouldn't want to go to live there even if he had access to Fibre Optic Broadband from B4RN. He would prefer Central London living even without Fibre. It's no wonder B4RN project initiative was taken. These villagers felt bored and so they had a motivation to lay the fibre optic cables themselves!

I'm guessing I'm about 25 years older than you, so I have a lot more experience of life, and yes we do get used to where we live (me included), that makes us blinkered, there is so much more. I wouldn't want to live in a small village, unless it was reasonably close to a bigger town with a good selection of shops - I'm used to having amenities close by. I'd never want to live in a city, full stop, too busy and to noisy for me.

What we do in our lives makes it exciting, our hobbies, friends, activities and holidays. Normal day to day life can be monotonous wherever we are, what we do with our free time makes the difference.

Having fast internet doesn't make for an exciting life, just ask my daughter who's on summer break from school, and constantly tells us she's been bored having spent most the day on her phone or tablet, instead of getting out and enjoying life or getting a job.

I honestly prefer living in the city. Everything is close to you i have got so many supermarkets and retailers just a 10 minute walk away and a massive train station. It just so convenient and saves me the money of having to buy a car and all its other expenses. I do agree about the peace and quiet part but when i visited rural areas it just seemed very outdated and boring. Each to their own i guess.

In reply to a post by Sammm_:

I honestly prefer living in the city. Everything is close to you i have got so many supermarkets and retailers just a 10 minute walk away and a massive train station. It just so convenient and saves me the money of having to buy a car and all its other expenses. I do agree about the peace and quiet part but when i visited rural areas it just seemed very outdated and boring. Each to their own i guess.

Exactly my feeling! I also have many shopping facilities and an underground station that is within 2 minutes near the city along with several bus stops. I also have River Thames, Tower Bridge, London Bridge, etc and regularly go for long walks there.

R0NSKI mentions about noise or knife crime. I live in a high rise building and there's no noise up here. No rats, insects, flooding problems, etc. I've never felt unsafe walking in Central London my whole entire life. Maybe it depends which part of London you live in. If it's places like Hackney or Plaistow then there tends to be higher crime rates. But here near City of London I've never seen youth gangs operate or read any crime incidents happening. It depends on the area. London is a big city and crime rates differ drastically from one area to another depending on factors such as employment figures, law and order, etc.

But for example in country side areas including towns like in Rochdale there's less CCTV camera and active police to protect you should you be attacked in the streets.

Rochdale has one of the highest levels of poverty in England along with levels of crime. It looks peaceful on the outside but inside is not so safe as it may look.

However, having said that our tastes do differ. I'm 29 years old and adapted more in an urban environment from childhood. It's not as easy for me to re-adapt to rural environments compared to others who have been brought up living there from childhood. These same people who once were brought up in rural areas will have difficulty adapting in urban cities. Also access to finding jobs and within short travelling distances is limited in rural areas compared to urban cities.

And for this reason I too don't need to drive a car or pass a drivers license. My working place as a designer is 20 minutes walk from home.

Of-course fast Internet speed won't make life suddenly a lot more exciting, but it will definitely improve quality of life even further. I remember dial-up days and it was not a good time with 56Kbps the internet would drop out every 2 hours and required waiting for over 2 minutes to connect. Technology was very primitive back in the days that I was even happy to use a Nokia phone just to play a snake game. But I'm sure modern kids nowadays won't be happy with that, they'll be demanding a lot better tech.

Having fast internet doesn't make for an exciting life, just ask my daughter who's on summer break from school, and constantly tells us she's been bored having spent most the day on her phone or tablet, instead of getting out and enjoying life or getting a job.

Bang on the money there RONSKI

Roadworks.org just posted this right next to the exchange

https://roadworks.org/?106539944

NEW DSLAM STREET CABINET & PCP CABINET & POWER INSTALLATION. Excavate to lay BT ducts, Lay concrete plinth, Stand new cab. Excavate to expose low voltage cable for Power Connection and lay duct. POWER engineer to carry out inspection prior to jointing. POWER jointing team to insert cable and execute jointing works. Reinstate, Check and clear site

Am I right in thinking you need both a DSLAM and PCP cabinet to convert an EO line to Fibre? Looks promising?

VDSL2 yes, not FTTP.

Does not always need two cabinets, a combined VDSL2 cabinet and PCP is available as an option.

FTTC needs either a PCP cabinet and associated VDSL cabinet or an AIO (All-in-One) cabinet. AIOs tend to be used for the small EO bundles as they are limited to a maximum of 128 lines. FTTP requires neither.

In reply to a post by dotmannn:

Roadworks.org just posted this right next to the exchange

https://roadworks.org/?106539944

NEW DSLAM STREET CABINET & PCP CABINET & POWER INSTALLATION. Excavate to lay BT ducts, Lay concrete plinth, Stand new cab. Excavate to expose low voltage cable for Power Connection and lay duct. POWER engineer to carry out inspection prior to jointing. POWER jointing team to insert cable and execute jointing works. Reinstate, Check and clear site

Am I right in thinking you need both a DSLAM and PCP cabinet to convert an EO line to Fibre? Looks promising?

Many thanks for this. If this is indeed the cabinet they'll be installing it looks like it will be FTTC. There is still quite a bit of distance from Hanbury Street to Commercial Street where I live. That means it's 0.4 miles. Which= 643.738 meters. I hope that will not be a problem for attaining decent speeds.

Something else I see 20 Aug - 24 Aug. That is the approximate time of works being started, right? How long will it take for a cabinet installation project like this to complete?

Also in the Fibre Journey it does not mention Design or Build box as the latest progress. It only says In Scope. So I am not too sure if this cabinet would apply for FTTC in Bishopsgate EO Line.

Too early to tell which premises will benefit from the cabinet mentioned, only once checkers start to show a new cabinet number will those affected be able to tell.

As for timescale, could be weeks or months or a year or more, depends on whether any snags crop up, worst case - a cabinet appears and subsequent objections get it removed

Also in the Fibre Journey it does not mention Design or Build box as the latest progress. It only says In Scope. So I am not too sure if this cabinet would apply for FTTC in Bishopsgate EO Line.

A brand new PCP and Fibre DSLAM.
It will 110% be for EO lines, it just might not be for your EO line.
Either that or the checker just doesn't reflect this yet.

I would guess this cabinet 19 will encompass most properties in a block around Hanbury St, Brick Lane, Fournier St and Commercial Road.

That's right. I also think this cabinet is more aimed at covering Hanbury St, Brick Lane, Fournier St. But I don't think it will be Commercial Road.

I am in Commercial Street and that is closer to the cabinet compared to Commercial Road. And that still further away from the cabinet. 0.4 miles away from my property thus I would not be happy with this kind of FTTC as speeds and reliability will not be good enough.

I've been searching other threads in this forum from people living 0.3 miles from their cabinets and their best results would be 30Mbps.

Now I don't think I would be entirely pleased to wait this long for FTTC just to get 30Mbps from the current 12-15 Mbps.

Bishopsgate exchange is a very big area to cover. If FTTP does not expand the area enough then we will need quite a few extra cabinets to be built to complete 100% coverage of Bishopsgate with FTTC. At the end of the day how worth economically this is going to be in ratio for the quality of service it will deliver, remains to be seen.

From Hanbury St to Commercial Rd is a distance of 1.2 miles. Well that is 1931 meters long. This is absolutely not going to be covering Commercial Road. Because as we can see at 1500m FTTC would deliver 15 Mbps Download and 4 Mbps Upload 98% https://www.thinkbroadband.com/guides/fibre-fttc-ftt...

This will deliver worse speeds from there than with ADSL 100% Copper. Either I'm going to have to wait for a cabinet to come near Commercial Street or wait for FTTP. It appears that in both case scenarios we will have to wait for quite a long while before it does get supported. I'm going to still try and chase my authority for Hyperoptic. Even that feels more realistic than waiting on the incompetent BT Openreach to do something about it..

So with a line length of 1.1km you'd be shocked to hear of people getting 29 Mbps sync speeds I guess

Sorry. Commercial St not Commercial road

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

So with a line length of 1.1km you'd be shocked to hear of people getting 29 Mbps sync speeds I guess

Then I don't understand this.

Distance to cabinet (metres) Estimated downstream connection speed Estimated upstream connection speed Cumulative %'age of premises at this distance
100m 100 Mbps 25 Mbps 5%
150m 80 Mbps 20 Mbps 10%
200m 65 Mbps 18 Mbps 20%
300m 45 Mbps 17 Mbps 30%
400m 42 Mbps 16 Mbps 45%
500m 38 Mbps 15 Mbps 60%
600m 35 Mbps 14 Mbps 70%
700m 32 Mbps 11 Mbps 75%
800m 28 Mbps 10 Mbps 80%
900m 25 Mbps 9 Mbps 85%
1000m 24 Mbps 8 Mbps 90%
1250m 17 Mbps 5 Mbps 95%
1500m 15 Mbps 4 Mbps 98%

How does one achieve 29 Mbps when 1.1km=1100 meters? Your website chart is showing between 17-24 Mbps at that distance.

If I am in Commercial Street and that new cabinet is 0.4 miles to property. Then I should be getting between 32-35Mbps at the very best. If I get higher than that I can see max around 40Mbps but I am still sceptical even at 0.4 miles. Because in other threads others are saying no chance for anything higher than 29Mbps at 0.3 miles!

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

I've been searching other threads in this forum from people living 0.3 miles from their cabinets and their best results would be 30Mbps.

Hi
Can you provide links to such threads pls? I'm really intrigued to know who's only getting 30 Mbps on a 482 metres (0.3 miles) long FTTC line.
Cheers

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

I've been searching other threads in this forum from people living 0.3 miles from their cabinets and their best results would be 30Mbps.

Hi
Can you provide links to such threads pls? I'm really intrigued to know who's only getting 30 Mbps on a 482 metres (0.3 miles) long FTTC line.
Cheers

Yes, here from 3 years ago. http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/fibre/4387046-roadw...

MHC
(sensei)
Mon 02-Feb-15 21:13:12

Re: Roadworks for DSLAM installation?

[re: Herstmonceux] [link to this post]

In reply to a post by Herstmonceux:
... According to google maps my cabinet is approx 0.3 miles following the pretty direct road route to the cabinet, which seems to be the way the phone lines run. Hopefully that indicates that I should get a speed hopefully in excess of 30MB, I get approx 14MB on my current ADSL2+ connection.

Happy Days!


30MB - no chance. 30Mbps probably, and potentially 40Mbps if it is .3 mile.

That's what he's saying 30Mb no chance. I'm a little confused. But then says potentially 40Mbps. At 0.3 miles 482 meters it should be realistic. But at 0.4 miles that's 643 meters which lowers the speed to around 30Mbps.

"The distance estimates are designed so that we expect the vast majority to exceed these guideline figures"
They are not the best expected connection rates

30MB is MegaByte/s rather than 30 Megabit/s. And that does not seem to be quoting an actual connection rate

You do know the difference between 30MB and 30 Mbps?

[edit: beaten to it by Witchunt!]

Can you actually provide proof of someone getting only 30 Mbps on a 482m long FTTC line? eg through line stats.

Edited by deleted (Thu 02-Aug-18 21:02:50)

Bingo

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

You do know the difference between 30MB and 30 Mbps?

[edit: beaten to it by Witchunt!]

Can you actually provide proof of someone getting only 30 Mbps on a 482m long FTTC line? eg through line stats.

I guess I misread that! I know the difference between MB and Mbps. Mbps is Mega bits per second rather than Mega Bytes.

I forgot that he mentions MB instead of Mbps, hence my wrong impression.

But anyway 0.4 Miles =643.7376 Meters. I will be getting lower speeds than 40Mbps. I can't find much information from others what speeds they get. But hopefully around 30Mbps should be realistic. If I get higher than that it would be amazing. But I have to also add several travelling meters up the building as well as I live in high rise flat which will also artificially increase the distance to the cabinet which might reduce the speeds a little bit further.

And gravity might decrease the data rate received but might atualy make the upload faster

Until you know for sure whether this cabinet is for you, I would stop giving yourself an ulcer trying to work it all out.

I already said further up the threat those estimates are very very pessimistic.

I get 46Mb at the moment and my line is 1022m.

I don't get your point about unreliability either. What is so unreliable about FTTC? I've been synced for 200+ days in the past.
My uptime has without any doubt been 99.9%+

It's understandable you're disappointed that you may now be getting FTTC rather than FTTP but you are underestimating both speed and reliability of FTTC.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

I already said further up the threat those estimates are very very pessimistic.

I get 46Mb at the moment and my line is 1022m.

I don't get your point about unreliability either. What is so unreliable about FTTC? I've been synced for 200+ days in the past.
My uptime has without any doubt been 99.9%+

It's understandable you're disappointed that you may now be getting FTTC rather than FTTP but you are underestimating both speed and reliability of FTTC.

Shall I tell you why I am afraid of FTTC? Because it still carries the old copper cabling that will still pose a vulnerability of dropping out!

Here's an example of my current connection.

Broadband Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 14066 kbps 1196 kbps
Line Attenuation 25.5 dB 16.1 dB
Noise Margin 10.9 dB 7.7 dB

When noise margin is above 10dB then my connection is stable for days. The max up time here was 56 days. And that is only when my connection drops out and the router re-syncs at a lower speed such as 14000 kbps. When the router re-syncs at a lower speed and my noise margins go up to 9-10dB then my connection is stable for days onwards.

But as soon as the connection tries to re-sync at a higher speed such as 17000-18000 kbps. Yes I do then get between 15-16 Mbps but my connection instantly drops out within a few days to a few hours and bam noise margins drop to 3.0dB. Guess what happens when my noise margins drop to 3.0dB? Upon heavy rain the connection also will drop-out. I've seen the noise margin as low at 0.9dB when I am lucky that my connection is still on. Sometimes it bounces back to 3.0dB. But most of the times it struggles to handle the higher speeds.

I've been struggling with this issue for years. I've tried connecting hidden test socket, changing filters, routers, called a BT Engineer. Nobody can identify a fault. Even changed ISP's. The engineer in fact said it could be something outside that they'll try to find out what's causing this.

Anyway if the connection drops out and my speed gets lowered and noise margin jumps from 3.0dB to 10dB then my connection is stable again. But even then it will drop out once every 20-50 days or so before connection speed re-syncs back to a higher speed. I don't know if this is DLM (Dynamic Line Management) that's doing this. But clearly it does me no favour to re-sync my speed to something higher when the line cannot cope.

Hence why I was so adamant for FTTP for the benefit of the doubt because then I would feel much, much more reassured that this issue will be solved for good. FTTC might somehow rectify the issue as there would be less copper cabling but still can't be 100% certain. As you may know high-rise buildings are notorious for connection stability. In another apartment of ours where we lived for 4 years and that is low rise there were no drop-outs.

As soon as we returned back to our old high rise building I've had problems with drop-outs. This is the building I've been living here since 1992 and there's always been issues with connection stability. In dial-up days the problem was even worse, drop out every 2 hours. In the past I've also had issues with drop-outs almost every day at least once. In recent time the situation has improved somewhat but the problem still persists from time to time.

It seems the (Sky?) DLM isn't working that well on your ADSL2+ line. Why not move to a different ISP such as Xilo or AAISP who can switch off DLM on ADSL2+ TalkTalk based lines? A fixed 6db SNR is a good balance between stability and speed and should easily give you > 15 Mbps on your line. TalkTalk Residential also used to offer the option to switch off DLM but that's no longer the case, hence your only option is moving to a smaller/niche ISP.

FWIW, on my 27db TT ADSL2+ line many moons ago, i used to get roughly 17 Mbps with a 6db SNR with DLM switched off.

Ok, it's confirmed this Cabinet in Hanbury Street is most probably the one connecting my EO Line to FTTC.

Today I just checked the checker.

Result

CONNECT
We're connecting power to the new fibre cabinet and joining the new fibre lines to the existing copper network.
You can't order a fibre service today but typically it'll be available to your premises within the next four months.
Find out more about the fibre journey.

Exchange name: Bishopsgate
Exchange status: Fibre enabled
Cabinet number: 5
Technology: -

That means the Bishopsgate Exchange Only lines will not be upgraded with FTTP, but will be upgraded to FTTC. Well, I guess this is at least better than no Fibre at all. Just hope the connection is reliable and won't suffer noise margin issues like before...

So you are presuming ALL exchange only lines on the Bishopsgate exchange are going to use this one cabinet?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

So you are presuming ALL exchange only lines on the Bishopsgate exchange are going to use this one cabinet?

Assuming that I am one of the few people on EO Lines who have yet to be upgraded to FTTC, then I'd think so yes.

The roadblocks that dotmannn posted a couple of weeks ago is the only green cabinet in Hanbury Street that is currently in development.

Now even if this cabinet does not apply for all EO Lines in Bishopsgate. It gives us strong indicators that BT Openreach have little ambition of upgrading EO Lines to FTTP.

The fact that after almost a decade waiting I am now going to get FTTC means that BT have no plans to upgrade my line to FTTP for the foreseeable future. This new cabinet is here to stay for quite a long while.

There is also a recently developed residential block just next to my building, it costs £1.1 million by JLL that property has no FTTP and no plans for FTTC either.

Result icon
We're working with government and industry to explore ways to bring Superfast fibre to as many people as possible but don't have a plan for your area yet.
You might consider co-funding fibre access in your community. Knowing there's a healthy demand in your area can also really help.

Cabinet icon
Exchange name: Bishopsgate
Exchange status: Fibre enabled
Cabinet number: 27
Technology: -

So it doesn't appear that that building will be covered with Fibre First Programme either. Seeing how the building owners did not give Hyperoptic Wayleave for them. I even spoke to the JLL agency where they happen to have no plans to agree with Hyperoptic. There's another property also to the left side of my building that only recently about a few months ago got upgraded to FTTC.

Given how almost all EO Lines are going to be upgraded to FTTC, this signals strong impressions that Fibre First is a weak ambition that will barely cover anyone other than a few office buildings and new residential buildings that are in development!

You are projecting your own scenario over a very wide area

In other city centre areas that are more advanced down the Fibre First path, you see a mixture of things e.g. I suggest you take some time looking at central Bristol.

NOTE: Bishopgate has too many EO premises for the one cabinet you have spotted going FTTC to EO lines to serve the whole exchange area.

With the way developers and building owners behave it should be no surprise that often FTTC is often the preferred solution since no problems with getting access into the building to connect every one to the fibre.

3 million FTTP premises and 1.7 million expected in the cities announced
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8062-fibre-first...

I suggest you read the article. Fibre First has never MEANT FTTP for every property on any exchange.

Ok, so I've just had a read on Bristol. http://news.openreach.co.uk/pressreleases/bristol-le...
"More than 97 per cent of Bristol households and businesses already have access to superfast broadband speeds of 24Mbps and above"

"It is expected that tens of thousands of Bristol homes and businesses will benefit from this latest multi million pound expansion."

That means what we are seeing here is that less than 3% of Bristol will be upgraded to FTTP, assuming they are one of the few who don't have access to FTTC yet?

Surely if 95% of the UK already has access to FTTC then I always question myself who will be the 3 million premises to be upgraded with FTTP initially by Openreach? Because if it is going to be existing FTTC customers upgraded to FTTP, I'll consider that somewhat unfair considering those such as myself who have waited for almost a decade to finally get FTTC now within the next 4 months.

As I have discussed with others on ISPReview news articles, many others are also in agreement with me that FTTP should be a priority for those who have suffered for long enough on EO Lines without any form of FTTC.

I know wayleave is always going to be a problem because like you've said developers and building owners are often going to be difficult to convince for granting permission. I have this problem last 3 years with my authority giving Hyperoptic wayleave and I'm a Hyperoptic Champion of my building having successfully persuaded 29 neighbours to register their interest more than 3 years ago along with further registered interests from word of mouth. Meanwhile I see buildings within 5 minutes walk from different authorities who easily granted Hyperoptic permissions to install their service. It's all about the authority, unfortunately my authority are hard to convince or are simply disorganised.

Of-course FTTC is a good backbone for now until FTTP does eventually come one day. But I am afraid that if FTTC comes, my building owners/managers may feel even more reluctant about making an agreement with Hyperoptic for FTTP in future. They may find FTTC as a great opportunity to make a lazy excuse for not making an agreement with any other Altnet FTTP provider.

It isn't as straight forward as you make it out to be.

Part of the reason lines like your own are getting upgraded so late is the complexity that comes with EO lines.

There's also the fact that City Centre EO lines get pretty reasonable ADSL.
Have you had to make do with 1.5Mb while waiting for FTTC? Probably not.

Because if it is going to be existing FTTC customers upgraded to FTTP, I'll consider that somewhat unfair considering those such as myself who have waited for almost a decade to finally get FTTC now within the next 4 months.

It just isn't possible (both financially and logistically) to upgrade 3 million premises to FTTP without some overlap with FTTC.

OpenReach have already done the easy pickings. Properties which are still to be covered by "SuperFast" are the most rural/expensive to reach.
It just isn't feasible that these all get FTTP first or we'll all be waiting forever for it to come.

There is also a recently developed residential block just next to my building, it costs £1.1 million by JLL that property has no FTTP and no plans for FTTC either.

That is entirely the developers responsibility. OpenReach would install FTTP for free to new developments when invited on board early on.
If the developer orders a copper only service then that's what OpenReach give them.
It isn't OpenReach's job to pay for an FTTC cabinet either. That again is the developers responsibility.

There will probably still be a considerable amount of FTTP on the Bishopsgate exchange.
It has a huge amount of EO bundles and I would be very surprised if they all got FTTC.

Edited by j0hn83 (Sat 18-Aug-18 13:46:50)

How many premises do you think there are in Bristol?

10,000 is around 5%, which is very different to your doom laden under 3%

In fact around 2.9% of Bristol already has access to FTTP, 1/3rd Openreach, most of the rest Hyperoptic, so if Openreach add at least 10,000 then looking at a result around 7 to 8% (some of the roll-out is already live)

The link I gave you to read, does point out that some of the FTTP is going to be overlay with VDSL2, something we have seen small amounts of in Bristol, but lots more in Northern Ireland

Your situation is totally down to those in control of your building, and it may be that places like this are waiting until 2030 or later.

@j0hn83: Yes, I had 1Mbps from Tiscali in 2004 lol. But at that time FTTC or Fibre didn't exist here in the UK so it didn't bother us. This was the best technological speed available back then.

While I get decent ADSL speeds at 16.60Mbps the noise margins are low so the connection drops. I can only get stable connection at 12Mbps currently and so far 19 days up time. That is the reliability I get roughly 20-50 days the connection is stable at a lower sync speed. And then suddenly DLM decides to kick in and resync my router speed again to 15-16Mbps which my line cannot cope and drops me back down to 12Mbps until again stable for a few weeks. That's how I live for the last 5-10 years. Internet connection has never been perfectly stable here for more than 56 days or so at a time.

I'm afraid that this problem might carry on with FTTC. So even like you previously said you get 46Mbps at 1022 meter line you might be lucky to have a stable line. I personally don't know how stable my line will be at 644 meters from the Hanbury Street Cabinet and whether my connection will need to be once again capped to lower before the connection is stable without drop-out. High rise buildings are a curse and may have problems which is why I wanted FTTP for the benefit of the doubt. I will have to wait and see whether this new FTTC will solve the problem.
----------------------------------------------
@MrSaffron: I mentioned 3% because the articles says that more than 97% of Bristol have access to FTTC. By this logic I was assuming that the less than 3% that do not have FTTC in Bristol will be upgraded with FTTP by Fibre First programme. My assumptions may be incorrect.

Regarding my building you're right, indeed I may have to wait many years if my building authority doesn't do anything about it. I spoke to my building estate manager about 8 months ago when he called me on the phone telling me no plans for Fibre at this stage while he spoke to his Technical Services Manager. I asked him "when, after another 10-15 years?" He laughed and told me "no it will be earlier than that, just give us some more time to finish other works in the building first like Fire Safety issues with cladding and then we will think about Fibre."

Anyway, it's most probably 2030 or later for Openreach to upgrade FTTC to FTTP. Until then in the meantime I can still try and chase my authority every once in a while to try and convince them to grant wayleave to Hyperoptic.

Your assumptions on Bristol are wrong, since already seeing some areas with FTTC gaining FTTP - small at present but it is happening

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

I'm afraid that this problem might carry on with FTTC.

What makes you think the Sky LLU DLM is used on FTTC services?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Your assumptions on Bristol are wrong, since already seeing some areas with FTTC gaining FTTP - small at present but it is happening

Ok, but that's not good to know. What most of us wanted was for BT OR to prioritise FTTP for people who do not have FTTC in the first place! That was what I was afraid of, I don't want to see people who already have FTTC last decade or so get an upgrade to FTTP before the rest. While people like me who have waited all these years just to get FTTC instead that's a little bit painful to swallow.

If we are talking about Fibre First with the initial 8 urban cities. FTTP should be prioritised for the first 3 million with no FTTC, this would have expanded access to Fibre coverage to a greater percentage in the UK and would've improved the UK broadband speed statistics.

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

I'm afraid that this problem might carry on with FTTC.

What makes you think the Sky LLU DLM is used on FTTC services?

I don't know... I thought DLM is also used on FTTC due to copper, or am I mistaken? If that's not the case then I might have some hope.

On ADSLx the BT Wholesale-based ISPs are subject to the BT Wholesale DLM. On Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone and any other LLU it is the DLM that each of those has.

On FTTC it is always Openreach DLM that controls the line, though the ISPs can request a few settings such as priority (Speed, Stable Superstable. Maybe that's Speed, Standard, Stable - comes to the same thing).

For BT Wholesale based ISPs on FTTC, the BT Wholesale IP Profile is also applied. The others must also apply some control as they are required not to allow traffic (including the packet overheads) to reach the DSLAM at above the sync rate.

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 18-Aug-18 19:59:02)

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Anyway, it's most probably 2030 or later for Openreach to upgrade FTTC to FTTP. Until then in the meantime I can still try and chase my authority every once in a while to try and convince them to grant wayleave to Hyperoptic.

As previously mentioned the FTTP overbuild is already happening, and G.fast is dependent on FTTC being present.

Just move - if you're in Central London you can probably buy half a town with the proceeds from whichever person is dumb enough to pay the insane prices for the property

Is Openreach FTTP for Apartment Buildings actually fibre to each flat ? I cant imagine them spending extra to route fibre to each flat. Do they just route ethernet cables from a node on a floor or the basement to the flats ?

Openreach FTTP in apartments is fibre actually to each flat

OpenReach don't have a FTTB product.
There's VDSL2/G.Fast with fibre as far as the cabinet or FTTP with fibre right to the property.
There's certainly no consumer product inbetween.

While it's technically possible for OpenReach to run multiple lines from a single fibre without degrading the service (you can purchase x4 separate FTTP orders on their older 4 port ONT's) I've never heard of them deploying FTTP in this way.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Anyway, it's most probably 2030 or later for Openreach to upgrade FTTC to FTTP. Until then in the meantime I can still try and chase my authority every once in a while to try and convince them to grant wayleave to Hyperoptic.

As previously mentioned the FTTP overbuild is already happening, and G.fast is dependent on FTTC being present.

Just move - if you're in Central London you can probably buy half a town with the proceeds from whichever person is dumb enough to pay the insane prices for the property

Right, but this FTTP overbuild will still require wayleave consent from building owners/managers. This is why I'm highly sceptical about the UK jumping to 50% FTTP by 2025 from current 4%. It seems quite ambitious even if you are to include all other FTTP Altnet providers.

Selling a property and moving elsewhere just for Fibre is also not rational. There are other very important factors to consider. Balcony, size of living room, bedroom, separate toilet and bathroom vs combined. Open plan kitchen vs Closed kitchen with doors.

E.g. JLL emailed me to try and convince me to buy Craig Tower, 1 Aqua Vista Square - E3 1 Bedroom for £350,000 in Westferry, London. It has Fibre to the Premises from both BT Openreach and Hyperoptic!

But the drawbacks are far greater. If you look at the photos of that property you'll see Living Room is small like a lift, it's open plan kitchen which is not good if you are cooking a smelly food I'd want it closed. The toilet and bathroom is combined an absolute NO, NO. One person wants to go to the toilet for example but the other one is taking a bath/shower. It's going to cause inconveniences.

Majority of the newly built buildings are also made out of glass. Now it may look good looking but it is prone to cold temperatures in the winter and also requires more cleaning. Oh and I'm not allowed to install an individual satellite dish due to safety matters so you are dependent on a communal one!

While on the other hand my flat has separate toilet and bathroom, closed kitchen with doors, large balcony, large living room, 2 large bedrooms. Cladding so it is warm in the winter and I can install my dish to catch European channels without requiring permission.

My job location as a Designer is within 20 minutes walk to Shoreditch. Move elsewhere and I'll have to pay transport such as bus/train and job opportunities outside Central London are limited.

So the bottom line is you may get FTTP naively elsewhere but factors in your property may be regarded far more important and the person who buys a new flat will realise this if he/she is emotionally trapped by FTTP as a means of buying that property which would be a big mistake.

Once you sell your present property and move elsewhere and if you're not happy with other factors in your new property, it is game over. You can't change your mind and come back.

Right, but this FTTP overbuild will still require wayleave consent from building owners/managers. This is why I'm highly sceptical about the UK jumping to 50% FTTP by 2025 from current 4%

About 50% of the population live in MDUs I think. The majority of the rest live in council adopted roads and thoroughfares so wayleaves are less of an issue. Now that a number of local authorities are openly inviting FTtP operators into their boroughs, Southwark was a recent one in London, the opportunity for large scale FTTP is increasing rapidly. Your problem seems to be with a private landlord/management company. The simple answer for FTTP operators here is just to move on to another site who are more willing to cooperate and leave the difficult sites until the residents demand the management deal with it. There are plenty of opportunities out there and the targets are not dependent on one small exchange area.

Is it really approx 50% living in MDU�s ? That seems somewhat high to me.

Then there�s older style places where the current copper DP�s are on external walls and the lead ins run from there.

I agree the OP�s issue lies firmly at the feet of the flats owners.

From reading through your posts it sounds to me that if OpenReach rolled out FTTP to your area then you would end up being stuck with ADSL anyway.

If your building management company refuse wayleaves for Hyperoptic as they have "more important issues like cladding" then those issues don't just disappear because it's OpenReach installing the fibre.

At least with FTTC you don't need to worry about any of that.
How frustrated would you be if they did roll out FTTP and skipped your building?

Old figures from 2008

"In 2008 there were around 22.4 million dwellings in England of which around four-fifths (81.5
per cent) were houses or bungalows and 19 per cent were flats or maisonettes"
linky

https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBrie...
"At the end of 2016, around 65% of UK households were owner-occupiers, 17% were renting from a private landlord and 18% were renting from a social landlord. Social renting has declined since 1996, while private renting has increased. The rate of owner-occupation is also slightly lower than it was ten years ago."

So while areas like London has seen a surge in new build apartments and many of these have FTTP by default now, I doubt it has skewed to be anything like the 50% of the poster.

Living in central London it is easy to miss the great sprawl of suburban streets that actually make up the bulk of the property in Greater London

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

From reading through your posts it sounds to me that if OpenReach rolled out FTTP to your area then you would end up being stuck with ADSL anyway.

If your building management company refuse wayleaves for Hyperoptic as they have "more important issues like cladding" then those issues don't just disappear because it's OpenReach installing the fibre.

At least with FTTC you don't need to worry about any of that.
How frustrated would you be if they did roll out FTTP and skipped your building?

That's exactly right. The building management team will most probably refuse wayleave for BT OR as well if it was FTTP. Last years Grenfell Tower fire was a curse because now the government are in talks about offering a safer cladding replacement such as A1/A2 that is safer.

Since existing cladding is not fully compliant with fire safety regulation tests. Anyway, this has come in the way of obstructing any talks on Fibre because every time I do speak about that the Estate Manager says they still need to sort out cladding fire safety issues first. They already installed sprinklers and even fire and smoke alarms to each flat in the building.

Now since I am still awaiting for that cladding to be replaced as there's ongoing fire wardens patrolling the building 24/7, the authority are not in a position to listen anything about Fibre at this stage as it is also not a legal obligation. Nor does the authority have any pecuniary interest in making the agreement happen.

At least I'll be getting FTTC and indeed that is better than nothing. It is definitely frustrating to see that FTTP is not happening. Even BT OR checker once showed that it was on a plan to be upgraded with FTTP only for it to downgrade back to FTTC. I mean I also took the initiative more than 3 years ago to convince 29 residents to register their interest for Hyperoptic as required in the website and then all the hard work went to waste because the final stage was wayleave consent. I printed 30 or so pages from my printer to pass on to the residents to direct them to the register interest link.

If I knew that after all that work an agreement wasn't going to be made, I wouldn't have put this effort. That's another thing I hate about Hyperoptics policy. They want that certain number of residents to all register their interest first and then they go on to request wayleave from the building managers. Imho Hyperoptic should first try and negotiate an agreement rather than leaving it to the last.

I was going to get 1 year free 1Gbps as a Hyperoptic Champion should an agreement have been made and I find that a little frustrating that now I won't have that opportunity. Maybe just one day it may happen if the technical service manager either gets fed-up or replaced with a more open minded personality who would do it without me having to nag every once in a while. Though I have to admit it is my fault that I haven't given enough pressure last 3 years.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

The building management team will most probably refuse wayleave for BT OR as well if it was FTTP.

One day, in maybe 15-20 years, OpenReach are going to turn up and say: "Hello, we're here to turn off our copper network and replace it with fibre". On that day, do you think the building management company will refuse access, and tell all their tenants that they will lose their phone and Internet service?

Maybe the people you've talked to at the management company don't realise that Hyperoptic aren't asking them to *pay* anything, or indeed *do* anything, other than give them permission to install something which increases the value of the building. If it doesn't actually increase the level of rent they can charge, at very least it will make the building more attractive to the sort of professional tenants they want to have.

However, complaining about it here won't help. I'd suggest you get as many other tenants on your side as you can, and politely arrange meetings with the right people, explain face-to-face. The management company works for you, not vice versa. If necessary, raise it directly with the property owner (i.e. whoever you have your lease with).

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Even BT OR checker once showed that it was on a plan to be upgraded with FTTP only for it to downgrade back to FTTC.

That suggests Openreach did originally plan FTTP for your building but when they approached your building management co for their permission they were told to sod off. So Openreach may have decided to 'downgrade' your building to FTTC whilst giving FTTP to others in your area where permissions were not an issue. You know who's to blame for potentially turning down FTTP for you....its not Openreach, TBB, MrSaffron or your pet budgie

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Even BT OR checker once showed that it was on a plan to be upgraded with FTTP only for it to downgrade back to FTTC.

That suggests Openreach did originally plan FTTP for your building but when they approached your building management co for their permission they were told to sod off. So Openreach may have decided to 'downgrade' your building to FTTC whilst giving FTTP to others in your area where permissions were not an issue. You know who's to blame for potentially turning down FTTP for you....its not Openreach, TBB, MrSaffron or your pet budgie

That's the impression that I also had! But paradoxically it appears that I am the only one around in my area with a Bishopsgate Exchange EO Line who is getting an FTTC upgrade!

I'm seeing several postcodes around my area that are connected with Bishopsgate Exchange on EO Lines. For 4 months these postcodes including my own said "Your area is currently in our plans to be upgraded with Fibre to the Premises (FTTP)" hence why the OP even opened this thread to ask the similar question back in May who also coincidentally appears to live in a similar area as me connected to Bishopsgate.

Those very same postcodes except my own have now been downgraded back to "We're working with government and industry to explore ways to bring Superfast fibre to as many people as possible but don't have a plan for your area yet."

And here's an example of the building I am seeing that isn't faraway from mine. Brody House, LONDON, E1 7LQ checker shows Exploring Solutions instead of plan for FTTP. But Hyperoptic shows "Great news, Hyperoptic will soon be live in your building!"

So I'm not quite sure if Openreach did try to contact the relevant authorities for that building. Because if they were happy to grant permission to Hyperoptic then I would've expected the same authority to happily grant permission to BT Openreach for FTTP as well.

You are not unique, stop thinking that.

Bishopsgate cabinet 23 a new one in the last few days serving some previously EO lines, so now 20 VDSL2 cabinets on the exchange

If a building has gone hyperoptic they may refuse Openreach permission for an FTTP upgrade, some do, some don't.

Your situation is this, until your building management wake up to full fibre you are stuck with services delivered over part copper. It is change them or sell and move to a building with full fibre in it already. Of course you may have trouble selling if broadband service is bad.

So far my openreach checker hasn't updated. Slightly annoying but what can you do!

Thanks for the clarification, Andrew. I guess that may have been the case for that building.

I am well aware the situation in my case is not unique. Only 59% of City of London have access just for FTTC. So the percentage for FTTP is even smaller. This wayleave issue that we talk about is not just a problem with my building management, but it is certainly a common issue amongst most buildings around the city and central London.

I've been observing last few years the Hyperoptic map https://hyperoptic.com/map/?residential
Mostly the entire City of London area has grey marks for the buildings where permissions have yet to be granted.

What I am going to do as suggested by others is to wait and see how FTTC performs when it becomes available soon. If it is not to satisfaction then I'll try and organise with the residents of my building and meet the team to discuss with them about why FTTP is important. I guess meeting with 3-5 other residents might be more helpful than me trying to fight alone speaking to the authority. Because it's easier for the management team to ignore me when I am the only one approaching them asking for Fibre.

I don't think I'd want to move elsewhere because that's only going to let the management team off the hook and relief them. They need to be put under pressure & me leaving will only make them happy. And considering all the other major positives I have where I live moving elsewhere just for Full Fibre may not be rational.

In reply to a post by dotmannn:

So far my openreach checker hasn't updated. Slightly annoying but what can you do!

I guess that cabinet in Hanbury Street that you posted a few weeks ago will not serve you, but will serve me instead. It is probably a capacity issue. You'll probably have to wait for another cabinet or hope that you'll get FTTP instead. Since my building has 82 flats I'd think that the cabinet will have to be prioritised for the entire building and may not have enough capacity for others that's why.

Why do you think VDSL2 cabinets can only support 82 lines? Maximum is 384 actual live VDSL2 connections.

If you are the only one wanting FTTP you might even be the only one who orders VDSL2 once available.

I am well informed about a single cabinet supporting a maximum of 384 lines.
However, there is a difference here. Bishopsgate is a very large area to cover with majority of the residential properties being part of high rise buildings.

If for example we talk about a small rural area with 384 individual houses all connected to 1 cabinet this wouldn't be an issue.

If we are to divide 384 lines to 80 flats on average per building that would be around 4-5 residential buildings to a single cabinet. But we know properties connected to the Bishopsgate Exchange has many, many more buildings than that. Individual houses are very few in the City and Central London thus requiring several cabinets for FTTC.

The fact that the postcode for dotmannn hasn't been updated to reflect this suggests that this postcode area will not be served by that cabinet. The remaining 300 or so lines will probably go towards other buildings. But we will only find out more information soon and only BT OR have more detailed info on this.

As for FTTP, I know I'm not the only one demanding this in the block. I started this initiative in August 2014 and in February 2015 for Hyperoptic and in roughly 6 months 30+ people registered their interest for my building in the "Progress of registered residents".

Of-course most people want faster internet, it's just most of us are busy and haven't been organised as a unit to meet with the management team to ask them to give wayleave consent. Also many people don't even register and participate on these forums or other community sites to share their views, that doesn't mean they aren't interested in FTTP or even FTTC.

And that is why for example the cabinet 23 was a fairly small area and likely that other cabinets are going to be.

In dense urban areas like yours it is very very rare for cabinets to have a footprint at the classic idea people of a 1km radius footprint.

As for the Bishopgate exchange footprint it covers an area around 1km wide by 1km high

9 cabinets without VDSL2 currently, 20 cabinets and around 68 different EO bundles.

Time to start leafleting your building and increasing the voices saying that they MUST have FTTP if you want to sway your building management

If your assertions on wayleaves being a massive problem are the case, then the result will be that residential suburban areas that are owner occupied are going to see more of the Fibre First, and that is not Openreach or Hyperoptics or any other FTTP operators fault but the owners of buildings being obstructive.

Remember that for firms dealing with building management the time of their staff and in particular time spent by the legal department is far from free.

Stop worrying about capacity.
They install AIO (all in one) cabinets less and less as they can only hold 128 lines max.

You will likely have a PCP and FTTC combo. No idea why you think this is limited to 384 lines also.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/wp-content/gallery/bt-op...

A possible 672 FTTC lines there.

If we are to divide 384 lines to 80 flats on average per building that would be around 4-5 residential buildings to a single cabinet.

Take up rates are not as high as you appear to think.
They will be even less with 12-16Mb ADSL available.

They don't install cabinets with the intention of every home taking the service. Far far from it.
If take up exceeds expectations they can increase capacity by adding larger line cards (to 384 lines) then they can drop a whole new cabinet.

Lots of 288 line Huawei cabinets that are installed in my area serve 600-900 properties. That's with 2-3Mb ADSL available in this area.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

Take up rates are not as high as you appear to think.
They will be even less with 12-16Mb ADSL available.

Take up definitely isn't very high. The cabinet I'm connected to took 4 years to reach capacity (256 lines) and that's on a PCP that serves around 1100 properties. ADSL speeds range from 2 Mbps to 12 Mbps.

Very area dependent. This 625-ish premises PCP filled a Huawei 288 in 7 months and was full enough that the second 288, delivered within a year of the first, was upgraded to 384 lines pretty early on in the high density rollout.

SFBB take up here is certainly in the 80s, if not 90s, percent.

I'm now seeing that the Cabinet that was meant to be installed between 20-24 August has changed to 22 Oct - 26 Oct

Hanbury Street, London, Tower Hamlets

I don't understand why that's the case when it says "Roadworks, delays unlikely".

Anyway, I am seeing another work 20 Aug - 22 Aug from BT.

Wentworth Street, London that is much closer to where I am.

1 ,Erect 1 cabinet and base (600mm x 300mm x 1000mm),Provide 1 core drill(s) into jointbox or building

Current status: Work in progress

Anyone know what that is?

I have emailed Openreach Fibre Enquiry to ask them where Cabinet number: 5 will be located. I still think it will be in Hanbury street as it coincides with the checker connect status. There's no other description with a DSLAM cabinet to be installed anywhere on the roadworks map around my area.

What I get from FTTC will be make or break. If I get decent speed/reliability from FTTC then of-course I'll be less reliant on getting wayleave for FTTP. But of-course if FTTC fails then I'm going to have to start leafleting and letting residents know that we need FTTP and get the management team to be more willing to accept our demand.

(600mm x 300mm x 1000mm) is a brand new shiny PCP.

BT Openreach never cease to amaze me! The checker has been reverted back to In Scope from Connect stage!

Just as it recently did from FTTP plan back to Superfast.

You're in a plan to get Superfast fibre but we haven't started work yet.
It'll be built either as part of our fibre programme or through a partnership with your local authority.

Exchange name: Bishopsgate
Exchange status: Fibre enabled
Cabinet number: -
Technology: Pending - EO Line

Ha, I'm not too surprised at that seeing how it has been a decade waiting without FTTC. I was hopeful that at least if finally FTTC would come I wouldn't be too worried about FTTP. But I guess I can't take BT OR seriously anymore...

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

BT Openreach never cease to amaze me! The checker has been reverted back to In Scope from Connect stage!

Could it possibly part of network rearrangement to route your EO line through a cabinet?

In reply to a post by olicuk:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

BT Openreach never cease to amaze me! The checker has been reverted back to In Scope from Connect stage!

Could it possibly part of network rearrangement to route your EO line through a cabinet?

I was also thinking this, the checker does sometimes have strange results before changes happen.

Paul

In reply to a post by olicuk:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

BT Openreach never cease to amaze me! The checker has been reverted back to In Scope from Connect stage!

Could it possibly part of network rearrangement to route your EO line through a cabinet?

That is what it was supposed to be. It was like this when it was in connect stage.
Cabinet number: 5
Technology: �

But then switched back at this to In Scope again.

Cabinet number: -
Technology: Pending - EO Line

Obviously there has been no network rearrangement yet as I can see my connection has been on for 27 days without disruption. If they do rearrange the line to a new cabinet the connection will disconnect and that will be the indicator that they are working on reconnecting my line to a new cabinet.

I've checked the cabinet in Wentworth Street and that is Cabinet Number 7. That would've been the best location for me as it's only 73 meters from my property compared to 644 meters to Hanbury Street. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like I'll be connected to that cabinet as the initial cabinet number was shown as 5.

This leads me to believe that the new Cabinet 5 will be Hanbury Street which will start works from 22-26 October. But this work was meant to start between 20-24 of August and has been pushed at a later date which of-course will make me sceptical once again whether they'll delay the works even further.

If they do rearrange the line to a new cabinet the connection will disconnect and that will be the indicator that they are working on reconnecting my line to a new cabinet.

That's not the case. When our EO lines were routed through our new AIO cab there was no disruption or break whatsoever. The only break occurring when a user subsequently chose to move to FTTC

https://roadworks.org/?106539944

So the installation of the new DSLAM and PCP cabinet finishes tomorrow. How long does it typically take to appear live and ready for new connections?

Probably weeks at least.

In reply to a post by dotmannn:

https://roadworks.org/?106539944

So the installation of the new DSLAM and PCP cabinet finishes tomorrow. How long does it typically take to appear live and ready for new connections?

Hey long time, I was going to post on this thread but was afraid to bump it as it was getting old.

I noticed the same thing. I kept a close eye on this roadworks link. Initially the roadwork was meant to happen in June. Apparently BT OR did not install the cabinet at all!!!

This was then subsequently extended to October from 22-26 which was expected to start. But it never happened. I knew it was never going to happen! BT OR did not start on any of their planned works. I sensed that this was going to happen from the day that this date was extended. Simply because the weather is getting cold now and these lazy BT engineers (good for nothing) decided to once again leave it without installing any new DSLAM cabinet. It even said "Delays Unlikely" "Planned work about to start" but obviously it never did, it remained that way even until last night. I was looking to see if it will change to "Work in progress" but it never did. They have no excuses why they extended it in June and now no explanation why it is not happening in October. Waiting 10 years for FTTC lmao.

Personally I do not think BT OR will install a new cabinet at all! We will most likely not get any FTTC and will probably have to wait for another decade for FTTP instead because they know they have to reconnect that Exchange Only Line to the new cabinet. This is a job, a job that requires getting out of the lazy mentality.

The roadwork has changed to "The item does not exist." last night when I checked past 12am. When you even look and search for Hanbury St, London E1, UK in the roadworks map there isn't even any green icon for any DSLAM cabinet in Hanbury Street or anywhere around the area for new DSLAM cabinet installation. So clearly it appears that BT Openreach have decided to abandon the project altogether. Unless they have plans for FTTP which is too difficult for me to believe when they can't even do the simpler DSLAM cabinet installation.

Contractors install the cabinets not the "lazy", "good for nothing" openreach engineers you refer to.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Hey long time, I was going to post on this thread but was afraid to bump it as it was getting old.

Maybe it would have been better if you had stayed afraid.

I sensed that this was going to happen from the day that this date was extended. Simply because the weather is getting cold now and these lazy BT engineers (good for nothing) decided to once again leave it without installing any new DSLAM cabinet.

As witchunt just said, the erection of new cabinets is not done by BT engineers, but if and when one appears I doubt if you will be volunteering to do the engineers' lousy job in all weathers. Armchair sneering from you about people who don't make the decisions and you know nothing about?

This is a job, a job that requires getting out of the lazy mentality.

More utterly charming abuse?

I'm sure nearly all Openreach engineers would be more pleasant company than yourself, judging by a large number of your posts.

Agreed, BT subcontract the work out to different companies, and I take my hat off to them, especially the ones that worked on the chamber down the road to me when they enlarged it to the now standard version, I did post pictures back when they did it.

But I also saw and smelt the muck that was down there which stunk like hell.

As to the poster moaning, sure jobs get cancelled all the time, it took 4 tires / jobs over several months to enlarge that chamber.
It can be anything that could cause the delay / cancellation of a job, like a safety issue, workers being delayed on another job.

Paul

Whoever is in charge of this installation whether the contractors, BT Engineers, etc. The ones who took initiative from (BT Openreach) obviously were not serious in starting their project.

I've already mentioned this in previous posts as I am the one keenly observing this project with interest from the last few months and not you, RobertoS as you will not be the one who would care about this as naturally it is of no interest to you.

I can see that this project has been extended on a number of occasions along with the other posters who have actively participated in this thread.

What I am expressing is merely frustration and nothing abusive. Referring the word "lazy" is not abuse at all, it is a criticism.

And yes, if I had the chance to volunteer myself like the B4RN project then I will do so from the second I leave my seat I will lay the fibre cables myself along with other neighbours. At least B4RN project e.g can take their own initiative to lay their own fibre cables in a rural village where digging soil is easier than digging asphalt. But in urban areas we will be arrested if we try to dig the street ducts ourselves without permission from authorities.

I'm a person who is very punctual always on time and serious when completing my project deadlines. Btw, I work as a Team Knowhow in PC World Full Time and I know judging by appreciation from colleagues how pleasant I am to work with, as I am always finishing repair works of customers laptops relieving the pressure of my other colleagues. I care about customers interest. When I say I will do it, I will generally mean it. I don't need your approval on a forum where you have no personal knowledge of who I am.

I may not have started work in winter either. But if I was in charge I would've definitely fulfilled my promise in June when the weather was warmer but I would not have extended it till October if I am not confident that I can work in colder temperatures outside. And if I was unable to do so, I would write a written explanation to say "because of this and that reason the project had to be cancelled, I'm sorry". BT Openreach have a poor customer service they will not inform us as to why the project was not started and when they will do so. Once again we have to do our searching on roadworks, etc to find clues which is not expected from the customers to do. It is the responsibility of BT Openreach to let us know.

You clearly don't have a clue as to what you're talking about, yes I know you are frustrated and just letting of steam, but calling them 'lazy BT engineers (good for nothing)' is just not on. There are a fair few engineers and other people that work for BT on here, and that attitude isn't going to get you their help, I know at least one who could of probably told you what the delay was, I'm sure they won't now.

I've been working outside all day today, it is not too cold to work, it was just 6 degree's when I started, and only 7 degree's now. I bet there are loads of contractors working all over the country in these colder conditions, work doesn't stop when it's cold, we just wrap up a bit more.

Edited by R0NSKI (Sat 27-Oct-18 18:07:02)

May I suggest engaging your brain first before posting your ridiculous and ignorant rants. You appear to not have a clue and would suggest you read and learn a little about the practicalities and difficulties of installing and running a network such as those of BT, VM etc before making any further posts.

Frustration can bring out the worst in people and is no justification for insults and rudeness.

Funny how cab 5 Bishopsgate (Hanbury St E1 5JR) is showing live in the wholesale dsl checker if the "lazy", "good for nothing" engineers haven't installed it.

Too funny!

Address xxxxxxxx, HANBURY STREET, LONDON, E1 5JR on Exchange BISHOPSGATE is served by Cabinet 5

VDSL Range A (Clean) 80 ... 78.9 ... 20 ... 19 ... 72.6 ... Available

VDSL Range B (Impacted) ... 80 ... 74.3 ... 20 ... 19 ... 67 ... Available

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

I noticed the same thing. I kept a close eye on this roadworks link. Initially the roadwork was meant to happen in June. Apparently BT OR did not install the cabinet at all!!!

This was then subsequently extended to October from 22-26 which was expected to start. But it never happened. I knew it was never going to happen! BT OR did not start on any of their planned works. I sensed that this was going to happen from the day that this date was extended. Simply because the weather is getting cold now and these lazy BT engineers (good for nothing) decided to once again leave it without installing any new DSLAM cabinet. It even said "Delays Unlikely" "Planned work about to start" but obviously it never did, it remained that way even until last night. I was looking to see if it will change to "Work in progress" but it never did. They have no excuses why they extended it in June and now no explanation why it is not happening in October. Waiting 10 years for FTTC lmao.

Personally I do not think BT OR will install a new cabinet at all! We will most likely not get any FTTC and will probably have to wait for another decade for FTTP instead because they know they have to reconnect that Exchange Only Line to the new cabinet. This is a job, a job that requires getting out of the lazy mentality.

From your two posts, as others have clearly said you haven't a clue on a delivery of a FTTC cab. Further what you said, it was an ignorant rant nothing more and nothing less.

The teams that stand, install, blow the fibre, and power the cab, all are doing multiple cabs a week, day in day out. Those sub contractors, and also BT engineers work in all conditions. Sometimes delays happen, because of way-leaves, blocked ducts etc.

if BT had just done work in "warm weather" nothing would get done.

In reply to a post by witchunt:

Funny how cab 5 Bishopsgate (Hanbury St E1 5JR) is showing live in the wholesale dsl checker if the "lazy", "good for nothing" engineers haven't installed it.

How do I find this info?

https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/adsl.htm?s...

If your phone number doesn't work you can use the address checker (link at the bottom of the above we page) , do not use the postcode checker as it only gives ADSL results.

In reply to a post by witchunt:

Funny how cab 5 Bishopsgate (Hanbury St E1 5JR) is showing live in the wholesale dsl checker if the "lazy", "good for nothing" engineers haven't installed it.

The problem is even if the cabinet was installed, this was not reflected in the roadworks link. It should've switched to "Work in progress" but this never happened, hence why I was angry thinking that this is yet another skip with no signs and clues as to whether the work was completed or started.

The fact of the matter is, on two separate occasions the Cabinet was not installed and was delayed and extended. I thought that this will happen once again hence for the rant. But if it is complete, for me that's very surprising after waiting 10 years for this to finally happen!

I did check the wholesale dsl checker later and it is showing live, but it is showing for Hanbury Street E1 5JR post code only.

This has not yet been reflected for my postcode on neither When can I get fibre? or the Wholesale DSL Checker.

It is still showing this...

IN SCOPE
Exchange name: Bishopsgate
Exchange status: Fibre enabled
Cabinet number: -
Technology: Pending - EO Line

Address ............................. on Exchange BISHOPSGATE

As I was aware from a few months ago this Fibre Journey checker temporarily changed to CONNECT and I remember well that the Cabinet number was indeed number 5 and that was also reflected in the wholesale dsl checker. But then 4 days later it was reverted back to IN SCOPE.

I do not know why it is not in the connect stage yet. I am assuming we'll have to wait a few weeks to months for them to connect the EO Lines to the new cabinet. But of-course I do not know if this will be this cabinet, I can only assume that since it was initially showing as Cabinet 5 on the checker that my EO Line will be connected to the one on Hanbury Street.

But if that will not be the one, I am even happy to wait another 6 months for them to install another cabinet even closer but I doubt that will happen but I am happy to remain patient as long as there is reassurance that it is going to happen.

Oh well, it's only been there 2-3 months. Easily missed.

See Rondski's post directly above yours.

The postcode checker only shows ADSL results, use the address checker with only your postcode in then pick your house number. You may see the correct results.

In reply to a post by kitcat:

See Rondski's post directly above yours.

The postcode checker only shows ADSL results, use the address checker with only your postcode in then pick your house number. You may see the correct results.

That is exactly what I did. It did not return any results on the cabinet it is connected to. It just shows Exchange BISHOPSGATE no cabinet number because my line is still on EO.

If you look at my post from 17th of August, it was like this.
CONNECT
We're connecting power to the new fibre cabinet and joining the new fibre lines to the existing copper network.
You can't order a fibre service today but typically it'll be available to your premises within the next four months.
Find out more about the fibre journey.

Exchange name: Bishopsgate
Exchange status: Fibre enabled
Cabinet number: 5
Technology: -

Obviously it was cabinet number 5 pointing to the one in Hanbury Street. This was also reflected in the Wholesale DSL checker when I did put in my address instead of the postcode.

But both of these search results have now reverted back to this few days later in August and has stayed that way.

BT BROADBAND AVAILABILITY CHECKER
Address ______________________ on Exchange BISHOPSGATE

You're in a plan to get Superfast fibre but we haven't started work yet.
It'll be built either as part of our fibre programme or through a partnership with your local authority.

Cabinet icon
Exchange name: Bishopsgate
Exchange status: Fibre enabled
Cabinet number: -
Technology: Pending - EO Line

That means they have not yet connected the EO Line to this new cabinet. I'm not sure if they have changed their minds or simply haven't re-updated the checker to let us know otherwise.

I just tried various addresses in Pauline House (E1 5NX), Davenant House (E1 5NT), The Brady Centre (E1 5HU) and they are live on cab 5. All others I checked were on different cabs, didn't find any EO lines.

Have you checked other addresses via the BT Wholesale Checker in your building to make sure it's not a database error?

I'm still on an EO line when I check my address

22 Wheler St, E16NP

That's because cab 5 is not in the area to serve E1 6NP

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

I just tried various addresses in Pauline House (E1 5NX), Davenant House (E1 5NT), The Brady Centre (E1 5HU) and they are live on cab 5. All others I checked were on different cabs, didn't find any EO lines.

Have you checked other addresses via the BT Wholesale Checker in your building to make sure it's not a database error?

Yes, that's what I have tried. I am in E1 6DJ and I tried E1 6DH as well they do not show any cabinets. It shows as Exchange BISHOPSGATE. In the other website When can I get fibre? It shows Pending EO Line where as before it was in the Connect stage.

Cab 5 was meant to serve my address. I'm not sure if this is a clerical error. But it either appears that BT OR have decided to change their minds and not connect that cabinet to my building or due to technical reasons.

Because as we can see from the other postcode addresses that you've posted they are much closer to the cabinet at 0.3 Miles to Hanbury street while I am 0.4 miles from where I live in Commercial Street.

As we've discussed before the Cabinet has enough capacity to connect at least over 300 lines. My building has 82 flats the capacity should be there for it to be connected to that cabinet.

The only thing I can assume is that BT indeed have changed their minds. If they have a plan to install another cabinet even closer to where I live that would be even better and I am happy to wait patiently for it. But obviously as I am still left without information that uncertainty makes the situation frustrating.

In the case of dotmannn E1 6NP does not show as a plan for Superfast but still as Exploring Solutions. But in my case E1 6DJ shows as a Plan and even was in the Connect stage initially showing Cab 5. Maybe I need to contact Openreach Support to find out more info.

There is no way you would be connected to cab 5 so that must have been an error.

In reply to a post by witchunt:

There is no way you would be connected to cab 5 so that must have been an error.

I don't know why you said that the cabinet was going to cover Commercial Street as well that would mean that it should've served my postcode by logic. You were the one coincidentally who posted this 3 months ago in response to my post.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

That's right. I also think this cabinet is more aimed at covering Hanbury St, Brick Lane, Fournier St. But I don't think it will be Commercial Road.

I am in Commercial Street and that is closer to the cabinet compared to Commercial Road. And that still further away from the cabinet. 0.4 miles away from my property thus I would not be happy with this kind of FTTC as speeds and reliability will not be good enough.

In reply to a post by witchunt:

Sorry. Commercial St not Commercial road

I have strong intuitions. I casted my scepticism when I said that with 0.4 miles the speed to be around 30Mbps according to the thinkbroadband chart estimation. Even though many others have said this was pessimistically underestimated. While j0hn83 insisted that he was able to get 46Mb with 1022m line. Again that depends on line and quality.

I mean seriously, until the reliability and speed cannot be guaranteed I shouldn't have to be relying on 'hope' that I'll get decent speeds living 643.7 meters from the cabinet. That's like building a low end PC and hoping it can run Crysis with 30 to 60 frames per second.

To tell you frankly I am not too unhappy for BT not to connect the Hanbury Street Cabinet to my Commercial Street postcode after waiting 10 years. I am even happy to wait another year if Openreach install a cabinet closer to Commercial Street that would give me proper satisfaction. Instead of settling for 30Mbps which would not be good enough of an upgrade.

There's a green cabinet in Wentworth street that serves a couple of new residential blocks next to my building that is around 89 meters for Sloane Apartments Old Castle St, London E1 7AJ. That cabinet does not connect to my building but if it did it would've probably given me over 70Mbps.

But if BT OR installed another one next to that Cabinet 27 location then that would've been awesome.

I have mixed feelings. I was going to settle for 30Mbps Hanbury St cabinet as I don't have much hope in Openreach doing any better as until they continue to monopolise they'll probably not bother to put any effort into it. It's going to be a snail pace. This is why at the same time I don't have regrets because if they were to connect a cabinet that isn't close enough it will remain connected for a long, long time potentially being even more frustrating of a wait before transitioning to FTTP.

So it is probably better that we wait either for FTTC cabinet to be closer or wait in future for G.Fast/FTTP.

G.Fast only comes where there is an FTTC cabinet.

I said it would cover a block around Hanbury St, Fournier St, Brick Lane and Commercial Road (corrected to Commercial St).
I never stated nor implied it would cover the whole of Commercial St.

I Think if you look at all the postcodes Cab5 covers it will be far more than 400.

The 82 flats in your building would be far more than the cab can cope with.

There are likely to be other cabs to be fitted on Bishopsgate ( Or FTTP where landlords and buildings are amenable) as it was nearly all EO so just keep watching and waiting but due to the size of the exchange there will be many cabs to be fitted and due to he size of each building a cab will only cover 5-8 buildings.

In reply to a post by kitcat:

I Think if you look at all the postcodes Cab5 covers it will be far more than 400.

The 82 flats in your building would be far more than the cab can cope with.

There are likely to be other cabs to be fitted on Bishopsgate ( Or FTTP where landlords and buildings are amenable) as it was nearly all EO so just keep watching and waiting but due to the size of the exchange there will be many cabs to be fitted and due to he size of each building a cab will only cover 5-8 buildings.

Ok so now this is what you're telling me! After arguing all this time last few months of this potential issue and MrSaffron was also asking me why I was thinking about cabinets supporting only 82 lines. I was concerned and I knew this was going to be an issue. Now reading this has just made me even more angry because my pessimism has once again proven to be correct.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Why do you think VDSL2 cabinets can only support 82 lines? Maximum is 384 actual live VDSL2 connections.

If you are the only one wanting FTTP you might even be the only one who orders VDSL2 once available.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

Stop worrying about capacity.
They install AIO (all in one) cabinets less and less as they can only hold 128 lines max.

You will likely have a PCP and FTTC combo. No idea why you think this is limited to 384 lines also.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/wp-content/gallery/bt-op...

A possible 672 FTTC lines there.

If we are to divide 384 lines to 80 flats on average per building that would be around 4-5 residential buildings to a single cabinet.

Take up rates are not as high as you appear to think.
They will be even less with 12-16Mb ADSL available.

They don't install cabinets with the intention of every home taking the service. Far far from it.
If take up exceeds expectations they can increase capacity by adding larger line cards (to 384 lines) then they can drop a whole new cabinet.

Lots of 288 line Huawei cabinets that are installed in my area serve 600-900 properties. That's with 2-3Mb ADSL available in this area.

I have strong intuitions. I knew capacity is an issue and it will remain that way. Until BT Openreach don't get their act together most people will be stuck without any form of Fibre for another decade. With this FTTC backward mentality that BT OR have we will be lagging behind the rest of Europe with the lowest levels of Fibre coverage from any G20 nation. The UK has only 5% FTTP. Some of us like myself have been waiting last 10+ years just to get FTTC because I have little hope in BT achieving their FTTP ambitions.

Hyperoptic and some other Altnet providers are our only hope. But as I have said on numerous occasions the Building Management team have no consideration whatsoever to listen to our complaints. They don't live in my building so they don't care about our internet service.

The only way we can sort out wayleave issues with Fibre Broadband is if the government implements a mandatory law where Fibre wayleave agreement must occur. There is a law where if our Satellite TV aerial signal goes down and it's not fixed we could take legal action against our management teams and take them to court. But such law does not exist for broadband internet yet and until this does not happen just hoping on the discretion of some ^kind^ management team will do little to help the UK achieve 100% FTTP coverage by 2033.

Now you understand why I was raging few days ago about the Hanbury Street cabinet! Even after it is finally installed it will not connect to my building and now I have to wait again in the dark to see when they'll install their next cabinet.

Until BT Openreach don't get their act together most people will be stuck without any form of Fibre for another decade.

BT have got their act together however I'm less sure about yourself.

Rather than rant about BT, read why the installation of FTTP has been so slow and you will discover the reason is not down to BT but rather political. BT is also a company answerable to its shareholders rather than a charity and where and what it installs is governed by the return it might expect to receive from its investment. The good news however is that the take up of VDSL is running above BT's earlier assumptions meaning that PCPs that previously might not have been thought to commercially viable to upgrade could now be considered viable. Likewise for installing PCPs or AIO cabs on EO clusters.