Why, I belive there is no longer a requirement for line power as long as there is battery backup in the home phone. Current requirement is for 4 hours but they are consulting on reducing it to 1 Hour

You mean in the kit on the end of the fibre that a phone can plug into.

In reply to a post by yarwell:

which exchanges would be more saleable in a rationalisation ? may make it clearer why the choice of serving exchange is being made.

That was my thought, too.
I'm guessing there are some exchanges which form critical parts of the BT network, so need to stay).
They are going to need fibre hubs and switching centres (or whatever they're likely to be called when we go full fibre for voice and internet). Might as well arrange these so there's a very large exchange every 20 to 30 miles (or however far they can get with the attenuation of modern fibre-optics) and sell off the ones in between as prime residential building land (which they'll tend to be; given the siting of most exchanges).

I'd have thought, in a full fibre World, BT would want to do some serious rationalisation and go with very large "hub" exchanges in the larger towns & cities, and serve the villages and most small towns from those.
Not to mention it's likely to be very easy to sell smaller village (and small town exchanges) rather than the very large sites which are common in larger population centres and medium to large towns served by a single exchange (such as ours - a population of around 50,000 isn't massive, but makes for a very large exchange when there's only one in town).

In reply to a post by adebov:

Not to mention it's likely to be very easy to sell smaller village (and small town exchanges) rather than the very large sites which are common in larger population centres and medium to large towns served by a single exchange (such as ours - a population of around 50,000 isn't massive, but makes for a very large exchange when there's only one in town).

Interesting thoughts. I'd assume lots of BT exchanges act as communication hubs for multiple providers, even those who don't do consumer LLU provision. Corporate lines etc.

Many will provide services for critical national infrastructure (e.g. civil government / police / fire / ambulance) communications - though I guess that's probably quite regionalised too.

If FTTP was commonplace with voice over fibre, then I'd understand, but FTTC doesn't bother with voice over the VDSL; so most places will need the SystemX voice exchange alongside all the new 'stuff' for years.

The fibre can be served from any exchange to cabinets outside it's own footprint, as it doesn't have to go via the PCP's on that said exchange - it can just go straight to a new FTTC cab wherever that is. The exchange itself doesn't really require any upgrading to support FTTC, all the work is done in the new cabs. So, you could quite easily have an area (like Cherry Hinton) that isnt FTTC enabled yet cabs on a nearby exchange can be fed from Cherry Hinton.

Make sense?

BT have already announced a few full-fibre exchanges (which I take to mean voice as well, whether you like it or not).
One such exchange is Deddington (about half-way between Oxford and Banbury).
I drove through there today and noticed a good many homes & businesses are fed from poles (so much for the "can't put fibre on poles" idea - I can't see BT retro-fitting ducting for the whole village, given it's got a population of just over 2,000).

This, AIUI, means fibre only (no copper) and BT must be doing trials for a reason.

I see this (and the others) as BT testing the water (to get an idea of the complexity of a full fibre phone system).

As we've seen (with ADSL in the late 1990s and, more recently, with FTTC/FTTP trials in South Wales) many trials eventually lead to partial (or full) national roll-out within a few years, so watch this space (there may be an awful lot of old copper voice and ADSL exchange equipment appearing on ebay).

PM me your postcode and I'll cehck your cab

In reply to a post by Adsl24:

PM me your postcode and I'll cehck your cab

Thanks - PM sent

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=newbury&hl=en&ll=51....

This is the newbury exchange, a very popular building in the town, as it stands over everything bar a industrial tower nearby.