It will very soon sink into deserved obscurity. And in geological time so will we all, with all our deeds, thoughts and words.

In reply to a post by WrathOfKain:

Clearly you have been doing your homework on the topic. Might I ask if you are in an enabled exchange and your cabinet has been upgraded?

I've been through my share of hassles... which is how I learnt half of what I know.

When I first followed the fibre rollout, my exchange wasn't in the plan. It was added fairly early, and was due to be live in October 2010. The cabinets were all in place in September.

The exchange went live in November, and people could order in mid December for an end-December installation date... except for my cabinet. I went through a 2 week period where my predicted date changed 7 times to different placeholders spread everywhere over the coming year. That's on top of the standard rollover of placeholder dates at the end of each quarter.Eventually, after 2 different roadworks that appeared to be related to power supply, the cabinet went live in March (2 days after the placeholder rolled over to say June), and I ordered straight away. Then I endured a set of BT system problems, so installation only happened in June anyway.

It taught me patience, and gave me a feel for how things go wrong - but that it doesn't apply to everyone. The national plan rolls on, even if some cabinets suffer problems, or some subscribers suffer problems.

From the way that line behaved, I learnt about how DLM affects the line because of crosstalk. I learnt about how regrades affect DLM. I learnt about the effect of the 17a profile on lines that sync'ed just below 40Mbps.

Then we moved, which taught me something else. We went to North Yorkshire, and so chose to live in the area of the one exchange that had been converted at the time.

Also at this time, BT inadvertently made a postcode file available, which showed all the covered postcodes at the time. Using data from this, and the "batchgeo.com" website, I learnt how to plot maps that showed how an exchange area was covered. I then wrote a script to suck the speed predictions for each postcode from the BTw DSL checker... and added that information to the maps.

The place we're now living in has an 80/20 sync, but with the speed gradually dropping due to crosstalk effects. That happened largely because I knew how to check.

I've learnt about the likely impact of vectoring to counter the effects of crosstalk. I've unlocked the modem, and learnt what is going on with the statistics. I'm trying to learn how they change on problem lines, in order to help people on here.

So you can take my input as a little of an "I'm alright Jack" style, or as a "Been there, got the T-shirt" deal.

I suppose I should have broadened my statement on the "fortune" but you clearly have an appreciation of what I would have covered anyway. Yes BT will be investing alot but there is a reason for the investment and BT will make "alot" of money from a pot investment which is not 100% BT's.

The viability check that BT applies ensures that they get a return on their investment in "a low double-digit number of years" (their quote), but I've seen this as meaning 12 years somewhere.

I suspect that the way they make use of BDUK funding is to apply just enough extra money (on top of their own) until the cabinet can make a similar rate of return. Or ought to, if the take-up rate is as predicted.

In other words, BT spend the same amount as viable cabinets, and make the same level of profit as viable cabinets.

I do find the reporting of % complete highly misleading and imho a deliberate smoke and mirrors approach. I have asked BT Outreach to provide me with the % enabled purely on my exchange. I doubt they will give me a clear and honest answer but I will come back with their resonse .... assuming I get one.

I doubt you will get a response either, but what "reporting of %" are you talking about? I don't think I've seen BT report in this way, save as the 66% target.

Please advise how you determined the 80-90% figure. Certainly from my experience there isnt a single person I know in the area that can get FTTS. Of course I dont know "everyone" but I am reasonably well networked in the community and have also tried various postcodes and addresses through infinity line checker etc

It is a number that is often reported on here by people who know more than I do.

However, the postcode & cabinet files released by BT (as I mentioned above) help show the coverage (or not) of postcodes, and so help give a feel. They can't tell you density... so you have to apply personal knowledge of a place on top of the raw data.

They feel like reasonable estimates to me. Closer to 80% in some places in Yorkshire, and more likely to be over 90% in places in Surrey, but well over 50% in all the places I tried looking... except not very good coverage in the centre of town (mostly business, I guess).

On top of this, I've seen "local" press releases from BT where they focus on a region or county when exchanges go live, or get added to the plan. In those press releases, the number of properties mentioned are usually of the order of 80% of the total known to be covered by the exchanges (using data from SamKnows).

But remember that the 80-90% isn't a day 1 number. It might take 6-9-12 months to get there.

In reply to a post by David_W:

Ultimately, BT Group are a business who are entitled to make commercial investments. Without the money invested in the commercial roll-out by BT Group and their City investors, there would be almost no FTTx availability.

This is an important factor...

BT's ability to rollout FTTx depends on being able to secure funding from investors, which depends on their confidence to extract a return.

BT extended the original rollout (40% by 2012) to the 66% by 2015 was not just an engineering statement, but one that shows financial confidence too.

That BT were able to cut the rollout time twice doesn't just show that they have the engineering workforce for the job, but also shows that they have been able to pull in the investment funds in a quicker time too.

Some rich people believe in the business plan...

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Its very like Usenet of old (NNTP) and very unlike any other internet web forum.

Actually, this is incorrect.
Usenet of old was completely unthreaded. Threaded newsreader were introduced about 20 years ago.

In reply to a post by Uilebheist:

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Its very like Usenet of old (NNTP) and very unlike any other internet web forum.

Actually, this is incorrect.
Usenet of old was completely unthreaded. Threaded newsreader were introduced about 20 years ago.

That is interesting. I only discovered usenet around 19 years ago with Forte Agent which was always threaded, I never looked into it when using PINE at uni

Well, don't take the "20 years" as an exact number but certainly when "the" newsreader was "rn" there wasn't even any sorting - articles were shown in the order they arrived at the server, which was often the wrong order, i.e. replies arrived before whatever it was being replied to .

Do try to read my post and not try to read Roberts and others BT spin. I have made bno such claim with regard to cabinetts as BT keeps that information largely to them selves. Roberts and others try to divert attention away from BT sailing to met its published schedule by try to deflect it by goiung on aboubt cabinets and homes passsed

I am refereing only to Exachanges. In fact orginally and I have this from BT if they published an Exchange as accepting orders it was there intention that all planned cabinets would also be live by the xcheduled date. Note this did not mean all cabinets would be live by thactual date but by the end of the scheduled date. BT have never as far as I am aware done this though

BT published a list of exchanges for Dec which amounted to a 192. They actually completre a 104.. How many cabinets they enbled I have not a clue. All swe really no is it has to be at least 1. Typically it seems to be around the 50% to 60% of the cabinets included tn the commercial rollout


Now standvy for Robort and othesr BT spin on this failure to meet the date

we all know BT are missing lots of target date's but where this debate has come up is the inaccurate data been posted.

Can I suggest people take a break and consider reading what they are saying to others before pressing the Post button.

Debate is OK, but attacks on each other is not.