Most BDUK schemes go down to full post code level. Although most council have not yet got their online Postcode search operational yet. What is does mean is it is now silly for BT to continue to not show the exchanges and cabinets it will upgrade commercial as it is now becoming public knowledge as the BDUK online checkers go live. They are not showing commercial rollout but if you are not in the BDUK rollout it�s about 99% certain you are in the commercial rollout.

The first thing is to identify how many lines are on that cabinet. If you have the postcodes for that cabinet a check on the Royal Mail Web site will give a pretty accurate number (Some Postcodes will be split across cabinets) Depending on exact circumxtances you are probably looking at about 200 lines minimum to make the figures add up. If power is difficult to supply that can push up costs although in 98% of cases power will be nearby. THe power cables normally run along the road.
Conservation area can add to costs as well

The other think to do is to concact whover is doing your BDUK rollout to see if you are inluded in that. If you give them your Phone number and House number and full postcode should be able to tell you from that. In most casse it is the local council to contact for BDUK in your area

Edited by deleted (Tue 13-Nov-12 15:10:15)

OK I have had this reply from BT care
As discussed here is the reply from Openreach.

As you read below, I�ve already had involvement in this.
Historically, the cables feeding this area were moved to be fed from two cabinets. This was probably done to ensure that there were enough spares to meet demand.
However, as you have no doubt read, one of these cabs isn�t getting an upgrade.
I�ve spoken to the local �copper� planner whether its� possible to re-arrange, however, this can�t be done as a scheme would need to be funded and it is Openreach policy not to rearrange the network to enable services where they aren�t currently available.
The best move forward that this gentleman has is to go to his local and county council and try to get funding via BDUK to upgrade the cab.

I hope that the council are able to aid you in some kind of way, good luck.

Om what I get from this is that BT are not willing to look at possibly connecting us to the upgraded cab as "Openreach policy not to rearrange the network to enable services where they aren�t currently available."

So even though the cable runs outside my house they are not willing to consider!

Contact you local council about the BDUK rollout in your area. If you are not in the commercial rollout you should be in the BDUK rollout. I am assuming you cannot get VM as if you can BDUK would not rollout to it

I am not sure quite what will happen where some properties can get VM and some cannot> I guess they will have to work with BT on that one as BDUK funding can only be used where there is no commercial supplier

I have to say I think BT are been incredibly pety when your neighbour is getting the service, suurely the cost wouldnt be that bad when your neighbour can get it already.

As for the maths, BT probably see it as more viable to try and steal customers of VM because those customers currently pay BT nothing whilst people like you on a soggy 1mbit service pay BT and already give them revenue. BT know you have nowhere else to go.

You assume that it is only BT data in the open market review. If that were the case then no where would be black for NGA.

Thus there may be other commercial operators planning to serve a postcode who do not want exact service details made available yet.

While you have 99% confidence, if people are unsure they SHOULD contact the local authority to ensure the issue is looked into, imagine if you missed out because a desk bound person made a mistake in a spreadsheet.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

First let me say you are doing a good job. Don't get disheartened, because this effort will get rewarded in the end.

However, I don't think *any* of your actions will make BT change their mind over the commercial rollout - they will still look at the spreadsheet & use that to make a yes/no decision.

Why do I say it that bluntly? I believe that the BDUK process now binds BT in this way. To show that some places deserve BDUK funding, BT have to show the commercial reasoning - and then *act like they believe it* across the board. The knock-on effect is that there can no longer be any grey areas, and no extra human judgement ("gut feeling") - because to do so will invalidate *all* of the BDUK process. It also means that MP's can't override the spreadsheet by dint of persuasion, nor can media campaigns embarrass BT into changing tack.

Of course this is nothing to do with Openreach not having to supply councils with per-cabinet nor indeed per-exchange costs for the BDUK bids so pretty much able to pull figures out of the air.

Where private subsidy is being offered the BDUK process isn't threatened in any way.

Until procurement has begun there is nothing binding on Openreach.

Openreach closed the door on private funding to us months ago.

Debatable as to whether it makes economic sense but BT do tend to be keener to rollout in VM areas than non VM areas

If you look at it logically the demand on a Cabinet in a VM area is going to be considerable less than in a non VM area. Let�s say VM typically have a 40% take up of homes past that means only 60% of the people on that Cabinet are taking BT even if FTTC takes 10% of the VM customers
So say the cabinet is 400 lines and VM is serving 40% of those homes BT have 240 potential FTTC customers and say they gain 10% of the existing VM customers that�s 40.
Typical FTTC take up is about 20% so 48 plus the 40 ex VM ones so 84.
If the same size cabinet was in a non VM area they get 80. Could be more as a lot tend to have long lines so poor ADSL speeds so at best it is marginal

In theroy BT should be declaring their cost to BDUK but as we can see from Starbucks and Amazon etc there are all sorts of ways to manipulate your costs etc and the councils would not understand it. so would not be able to tell the true costs

It would probably better to reverse engineer it and for BDUK to cost it on that basis.

So even though the cable runs outside my house they are not willing to consider!

It seems daft, but you are not alone in that boat - I've not seen a single case where BT are willing to rearrange a network to make it viable for a single house.

We have recently seen a case where a whole new cabinet has been inserted, splitting an old one (presumably like was done for your two cabinets). In fact, the cabinet numbering near me suggests exactly the same happened here years ago, though both cabinets have been converted. But that is what a network re-arrangement requires - whole new cabinets.

One problem of handling you individually is that, if they did this for you, then the set an expectation for your neighbour. And then for his neighbour, and so on.

From their perspective it is better for the entire cabinet to be done... and right now, the best prospect of that is to harness some BDUK funds.

Note: Just because the cable goes past your house doesn't mean that they're capable of diving into it to extract 1 pair for use with you. The cable carries tens or hundreds of pairs, and can only realistically be broken into at the cabinets. Then smaller cables (but still with many pairs) distribute out to the DPs. It is only here where you can make use of a pair to a property - but of course there must be a spare one around.