I got fed up when my exchange missed the September dead line, so cant imagine how fed up you must be.
The problem with our area was blocked ducts everywhere and trying to get the man hours to clear them.

yeah it almost certianly wont meet 30 dec, especially as BT staff likely will have a holiday period over the christmas period.

I am trying to remember the timescales for my own cabinet but cant remember clearly, but I know I didnt immediatly have a FTTC speed estimate it took time for that to appear, it appeared before they placed the new cabinets, once the new cabinets were in the ground the rest happened very quickly to live service.

As far as I know the cabinet across the road from me still has blocked ducts because I havent seen anyone working since they gave up some weeks ago, but it may have been fixed still. My cabinet went live very quickly after they first placed it in the ground within 1-2 months.

The impression I get is BT are doing this in blitz style, once the cabinet is in they will do the work as quick as possible as its money lost whilst the cabinet isnt live but paid for, but if they hit issues then thats when trouble starts with people getting long delays because BT seem to be choosing to do the low hassle work first and then coming back later for the tough stuff.

Edited by Chrysalis (Thu 13-Dec-12 13:52:01)

In my area they cleared the ducts then laid the tube for the fibre, then stuck the cab in and had power to it the next day. Two days later they was blowing fibre in my village, then two weeks later it was live for orders.
Got install date for 9th of January and then get an email saying i could get the 28th of December if i want.

I just emailed openreach there, hopefully they can shed some light on the situation in the next few days. In my entire exchange area I have only seen two relativley small cabinets that look like they are the new fibre cabinets. I have done some checks on the BT checker on the postcodes in the sorrounding streets and the ones on the other side of the main road (greenleas road) from me seem to have fibre status' showing for them (Cabinet P4,P5,P13,). Which leads me to believe that my cabinet will not be getting done, regarldess of my property being fairly close to those that are.Whatever cabinet I may be connected to, the houses that the map shows that are conected to it, are all relativley new high value builds 2006+ and are most likley in an area to take up premium broadband offerings. Hopefully my cabinet is in a planned rollout for some time next year.

In addition, I think openreach should consider allowing communities to raise thier own funding to subsidise the cost of bringing FTTC to thier cabinet quicker as I am sure people on my street would be willing to contribute towards any fund.

In reply to a post by jimbob5050:

In addition, I think openreach should consider allowing communities to raise thier own funding to subsidise the cost of bringing FTTC to thier cabinet quicker as I am sure people on my street would be willing to contribute towards any fund.

They do sir. Try contacting [email protected] about this with detalis of the exchange and cabinet in question and ask them to put you in touch with the relevant person for your area.

HI Jimbob

Just to let you know BT have pushed back the FTTC upgrade of the Cambuslang exchange to March which is pissh if you ask me this is the second time it's been pushed back.

The BT wholesale checker was just updated to show the new date.

I've been looking forward to this all year as for the last seven years we've had terrible broadband Cambuslang.

Sorry about the bad news.

N.

In reply to a post by numptyx:

HI Jimbob

Just to let you know BT have pushed back the FTTC upgrade of the Cambuslang exchange to March which is pissh if you ask me this is the second time it's been pushed back.

Be prepared for quite a few more delays - mine was originally Jun 11, then Dec 11, then Mar, Jun, Sep, Dec this year, now Mar 2013 ..... and still no sign on the local roadworks site of the cabinet, or doing any fibre work.

They are actually doing fibre work elsewhere near me for other exchanges, if you dig around the roadworks you can see which exchanges are being worked on. Seems they only have one team doing 6/7 exchanges though, as the roadworks dates don't overlap. Over the last 6 months I can see them slowly working their way towards me - maybe next June or September at the current rate.

Kinda wasteful - a lot of cabinets have been installed and sitting unconnected for 3 months so far, and look likely to be the same for at least another 3.

Edited by arfster (Thu 20-Dec-12 02:44:53)

Got a response from Openreach

Thank you for your enquiry. You are connected to the Cambuslang Exchange, cabinet 25.

Our systems indicate that the cabinet has recently been brought into the programme and at present the work is in its very early stages. Due to the complexity of the work involved we are hopeful the cabinet will be ready for service by the beginning of August 2013, barring any complications.

So it seems that my cabinet may be getting connected after all, showing that not all cabinets are listed in the BT checker. Getting 5mbps right now which isnt too awful, so not too bothered about the August 2013 date, gives some time for fibre prices to come down a bit. Sky seems to be the only viable option right now as their the only one offering a uncapped and unmanaged line.

Also, it does seem quite wasteful having only one team between a dozen exchanges. You would think they would want to be effecient as possible so they can offer fibre and charge more money. Ideally there should be multiple teams working on exchanges concurrently.

Edited by deleted (Sat 22-Dec-12 14:37:15)

In reply to a post by jimbob5050:

... so not too bothered about the August 2013 date, gives some time for fibre prices to come down a bit. Sky seems to be the only viable option right now as their the only one offering a uncapped and unmanaged line.

It depends how true the unmanaged is. Apparently completely unmanaged can be detrimental in some cases.

Plusnet now have uncapped at £19.99pm, no throttling, but traffic management in the form of prioritisation for things like gaming and VOIP. Have a read of this blog. If Sky haven't got similar then ....

By August we should know how the PN product is proving in practice.