I'm quite sure I saw a van parked next to the cab & two guys lifting the duct slabs earlier this year, so a locked fence gate or access is not the problem.

Edited by deleted (Thu 27-Dec-12 22:34:44)

The email suggests they don't have access to the PCP behind the fence which is neccessary so that the tie-ins to the fibre cab, wherever it gets placed, can be installed.

Edited by simon194 (Fri 28-Dec-12 00:34:55)

They must have access to the PCP, otherwise no lines could be added to any premises served by it, and many faults would be un-fixable.

I asked Openreach if access was the problem;-
'We need the land owners permission to access the existing telephony cabinet so that we can interconnect it to a new fibre broadband cabinet.

Without this access, we cannot progress the upgrade further and therefore, we have deferred the upgrade out of our program.'

This was an accessible cabinet that had to be moved. I would have thought that BT would have ensured they would be able to access it at its new location befor they moved it...

Wierd.

So if you have a line fault that needs a pair swap, tough! No phone.

"Access" in the BT Openreach reply may mean a level of access above opening the PCP doors and work on the insides. It may be that the issue is that landowner permission is needed to dig a trench to lay ductwork between the PCP and FTTC twin, but that access to the PCP innards for routine work remains available.

Sounds feasible. Thanks .

In reply to a post by Als:

I asked Openreach if access was the problem;-
'We need the land owners permission to access the existing telephony cabinet so that we can interconnect it to a new fibre broadband cabinet.

Without this access, we cannot progress the upgrade further and therefore, we have deferred the upgrade out of our program.'

This was an accessible cabinet that had to be moved. I would have thought that BT would have ensured they would be able to access it at its new location befor they moved it...

A bit of a cop-out on Openreach's part really. I'm pretty sure Sea Space still owns that bit of land.

On a positive note, work is supposed to start on developing the site in 2015 so the fence will eventually be removed or replaced.

I phoned Seaspace this morning & explained the situation. They said that I'm not the first person to speak to them about this & they had never been asked for a key to access the cabinet.
The lady took my details and will get back to me when she has more information.

I've just received this email from Seaspace;-

'Further to your call to this office regarding the BT box on the land fenced off in the Ore Valley. We have contacted Open Reach and they confirm that the padlock on the pedestrian gate giving access to the site and the BT box is a BT Ingersoll padlock, it appears that this is a BT standard padlock. Our office has not been provided with a key to this padlock.

Open Reach have informed us that the engineer who attended on site and could not get access would log the call as such and his office would then provide him with a key so he can then access the site'

Frustrating