still the phone lines should be sorted out at the start so multi cabs do not get used or EO lines do not get used (quite sure they stopped doing the EO lines now on long lines unless your really close to the exchange)

I guess there's a fragile relationship between Openreach & developers, over the infrastructure provided. To the developer, it is a cost that they are trying to minimise. To Openreach it is national infrastructure that needs to survive a century or more... so they pay the developer *something*... but also want to minimise costs.

However, the physical location (and number) of cabinets, and the routing of cables back to an exchange has (almost) never been governed by a desire to minimise the E-side length. It is all about getting lines back to a nearby duct that has capacity, that leads to a cabinet that has capacity, that leads to an exchange that has capacity.

The economic and political choices about cables, ducts & poles have changed over the years, but those capacity questions have always been the foremost concern, not the length.

However, it is only the last 15 years that has seen any focus on total line length for broadband, and less than 5 years for the line length of the D-side for FTTC.

But whose focus? Certainly we (the technical geeks) focus on it, but the developers don't... they focus on their profit.

Frankly, it is the developers who could have been working to ensure that their houses had the best infrastructure for broadband - whether copper or fibre - and they could have been doing this (and using it as a selling point) for a decade. However, they have barely bothered doing that, and still don't today.

Why? Because there isn't enough demand from the people buying from the developer. The buyers want something cheap, not something of quality. The same people who prefer to get a [censored] £3 from talk-talk *also* don't care that it is slow.

I got some coax ethernet cable installed in my last house as it was being built (18 years ago), and retro-fitted cat-5 cable myself later. You'd think more developers, by now, would be installing structured wiring by default now, but it still doesn't happen even from the more luxurious builders.

So the thing missing is the demand from the (new) house buyers themselves.

Hi carlos_uk,
I live on the same estate as you. About 4 weeks ago there were 4 openreach engineers walking around looking at all the boxes etc.. I asked if they were going to put infinity(weel superfast as openreach all it) and they said yes we were going to get it.
Just today there has been some work going to create a new manhole and laying in the fibre cable, I asked the guys doing the work. My number comes up with FTTC and speed of 77.5 as I'm probably the closet to local cabinet. I'm not sure if they are going to reuse/replace the tpon cabinets.

Satpal

In reply to a post by carlos_uk:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

That pretty much shows it is an Exchange Only line, so probably will need to wait and see whether the BDUK project for your area helps

That's what I was worried about, but I thought that exchange only lines were normally only found where you are really close to the exchange, where in fact I am really far away from it hence only getting about 2.5mbps.

I wonder if its anything to do with the copper overlay that was done as originally this estate was on TPON!

Hi Schander,

At least its coming, hopefully it turns out that I am connected via a cabinet, but am not very hopeful as we had an openreach engineer out at work a few weeks ago and I spoke to him about it and he said that it sounds like I have an exchange only line .

I have e-mailed openreach and so am now awaiting their response!

In reply to a post by schander:

Hi carlos_uk,
I live on the same estate as you. About 4 weeks ago there were 4 openreach engineers walking around looking at all the boxes etc.. I asked if they were going to put infinity(weel superfast as openreach all it) and they said yes we were going to get it.
Just today there has been some work going to create a new manhole and laying in the fibre cable, I asked the guys doing the work. My number comes up with FTTC and speed of 77.5 as I'm probably the closet to local cabinet. I'm not sure if they are going to reuse/replace the tpon cabinets.

Satpal

In reply to a post by carlos_uk:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

That pretty much shows it is an Exchange Only line, so probably will need to wait and see whether the BDUK project for your area helps

That's what I was worried about, but I thought that exchange only lines were normally only found where you are really close to the exchange, where in fact I am really far away from it hence only getting about 2.5mbps.

I wonder if its anything to do with the copper overlay that was done as originally this estate was on TPON!

carlos_uk
I think everyone on our estate is connected directly to the exchange, as the tpon cabinets, which is what everyone was on before they were decommission.
Most likely openreach will replace them with the standard FTTC/FTTH ones.
The new mini estate that was built near the medical centre has FTTC, so i guess they will pull the fibre from there to tweaksbury, which is the main/central cabinet for the estate, at least according to the openreach engineer that came out 3-4 weeks ago.

Satpal

In reply to a post by carlos_uk:

Hi Schander,

At least its coming, hopefully it turns out that I am connected via a cabinet, but am not very hopeful as we had an openreach engineer out at work a few weeks ago and I spoke to him about it and he said that it sounds like I have an exchange only line .

I have e-mailed openreach and so am now awaiting their response!

Hi carlos_uk,
Came back from work today to find that there is now new green cabinet at the opposite end of the street to the old tpon one.

Other strange thing is that over the last week I have been getting a lot of bt whoesale circuit down messages.

Satpal

In reply to a post by carlos_uk:

Hi Schander,

At least its coming, hopefully it turns out that I am connected via a cabinet, but am not very hopeful as we had an openreach engineer out at work a few weeks ago and I spoke to him about it and he said that it sounds like I have an exchange only line .

I have e-mailed openreach and so am now awaiting their response!

In reply to a post by schander:

... there is now new green cabinet at the opposite end of the street ....

Which of these?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by schander:

... there is now new green cabinet at the opposite end of the street ....

Which of these?

It looks like a Huawei FTTC cab - 288 max, I will confirm when i get home.

The checker on BT's infinity site, is saying that fttc will be active October 2013-March 2014.
Strange thing is that no other streets are getting cabinets, maybe they are starting from the end and working back, or could it be that they will only do our part of the estate as it doesn't have Virgin...

Thanks
satpal

Edited by deleted (Mon 15-Apr-13 09:17:51)

Hi,

I received the below e-mail from Openreach today

Thank you for your enquiry about fibre broadband. Unfortunately, I can confirm that you are connected directly to the telephone exchange and therefore, are unable to get fibre broadband.

We are working on a solution to overcome this problem, however, I do not know when this may be commercially available.

This would be the only fibre broadband service available, we do not have plans to deploy FTTP in your area.

Bad news on the commercial front.

You now need to rely on the BDUK process somewhat - and in particular you need to let your council's BDUK department know that your postcode has a mixture of properties - where some will get service from a cabinet, and some will not get service because they don't go through a cabinet at all.

Council page appears to be:
Bedford Council

You can confirm whether your postcode is being judged to be NGA "black, grey or white" using this Milton Keynes page. I suspect, because you said previously that a portion were supplied via a cabinet, that your postcode will be grey or black for NGA.

If I'm right, it is important to let them know that your postcode isn't being classified correctly.