Sadly, no matter what I try, I don't hear anything from SFL. I had previously been in touch with Lancs County and Chorley councils and was getting some information, but even they seem to be playing catchup with BT's plans.
The last update I had was from one of the members of the team working on the supply and they suggested the end of summer - but as you say, if they aren't even around anymore, then I can't see that happening in reality. I've also noticed that there is no planning application for a new cabinet alongside cabinet 1, so that would also suggest it will be a while yet.
That's why I was hoping MrSaffron would know more - he's the only one who seems to know what is really going on.

I'll post more if I hear more.

Well - how weird is that? Little more than 10 minutes after I posted that last comment, I saw somebody lifting one of the BT 'manholes' - so I wandered over to see them. It turns out that they are from BTOpenworld and they were performing final checks of the system before the cabinet goes live. He reckoned that there were a couple of minor issues to resolve, so by the end of August the cabinet should be live. He also confirmed that everyone in the village would be FTTP.

So, happy days!

That's interesting. Not sure how they can be doing full testing when various parts of the village still aren't connected. For example behind Meadow street the BT pole in the field still has fibre dangling from the bottom and hasn't been connected.

I've seen three BT vans today on Whins lane but they didn't seem to be up to much.

The last contact I had with SFL was pointless as I was just told to be patient. I did hear that Openreach have already been fined for not delivering the infrastructure on time.

From my conversations with openreach engineers it still isn't clear who will be actually putting the fibre into each home. IE the FTTP engineers or the openreach home broadband team that come to enable the new service. I suppose with a village like this there are unique issues but I'm really tired of the lack of coherent information from SFL. I mean, the SFL website still says "under review" even now!

Fibres can do distinct different jobs so perfectly possible for an FTTC area to go live while still splicing in more fibre for FTTP.

The same with FTTP one cluster can go live, while another is still having work done.

On the FTTP installs, the install for a home takes two visits, one to install the fibre to termination box on the outside of the property, then another visit to do the short run to the inside and terminate it at the fibre ONT. This two steps are only done when you order, otherwise the work for the roll stops once the fibre manifold is in place (mainfold is the black pot that lives on the pole or in a pavement chamber) and relavant fibres are in place and lit.

Fibre is delicate so won't be dangling from a pole, but you will be seeing the fibre tubing that the fibre is subsequently blown throw

Thanks MrSaffron - I've definitely seen the the mainfold on our pole.

Just to clarify does all fibre always from from underground? Or could it in theory be carried over ground between poles? The reason I ask is that last week I saw BT putting a new over head cable between our pole and another further down the street.

Chimp

It can be overhead or underground

Hi Chris,

You heard anything else about the rollout? I've been away for a few weeks - come back and doesn't seem to be any progress.

Hi - yes, the good news is that cabinet 1 is now live for fibre via FTTP. I see this cabinet has also appeared on MrSaffron's list of go-live's for w/e 23rd August. It actually seemed to go live exactly two weeks ago - for BT customers. You can check the BT Wholesale website here.
The bad news is that I have recently changed to Sky, and it is not yet available through them (although I consistently get a 5MB download speed which is very surprisingly good compared to the 1.5-3MB speed I had previously). I checked with Sky customer services and they said it can take up to two weeks for BT to notify other providers - which I never knew or quite understand, but that is also clearly not true as it's still not available. Out of curiosity, I checked with PlusNet as they are owned by BT, and they aren't offering fibre yet either. Hopefully it will only be a few more days....

Edited by deleted (Wed 26-Aug-15 09:31:32)

I think it maybe a very long time as I understand sky don't offer services over Openreach FTTP

Still not available for me. Not sure whereabouts you live in Wheelton but I've seen at least four poles with fibre tubing/housing still dangling so fibre hasn't even been connected.

Seems to have been like this for about a month now with no further progress.