Presumably operators with their own backhaul won't have to rely on BTW.

Correct, but never thought that the product would appeal to TalkTalk or Sky.

Zen maybe, but unlikely.

Thanks all for excellent response. I, and our community, needed the clarification as many believed (me included!) that ALL lines would automatically go thro the fibre cabinet!. Now appreciate that it runs in parallel with existing copper and is effectively an option.

The issue over "power" to Ellastone Cab3 seems to be typical of Openreach, It was installed three months ago.......next to a street light!

Openreach depend on the local power distribution companies to get power to the cabinet. Just how fast it takes depends on them, their priorities, workloads, contractors and so on. Getting power to cabinets is one of the more expensive aspects of the rollout.

The cabinet in my village in Staffordshire (which only supplies half of the houses and not mine!) was placed and powered 9 months ago but only went live 1 month ago.

Superfast Staffs, like many BDUK funded projects seem to have little input or leverage with BT despite the amount of Taxpayers money involved.

Last weeks Parliamentary group session was very revealing about just how little information they can get.

Incredible! And I thought our delay was unique.

Our MP, Andrew Griffiths, has taken an interest and has a Meeting with "Mr Binks" BT's Regional Partnership Director on Friday, tomorrow.....and is then coming to our Parish Council Meeting in the evening to update us. Should be interesting!

In reply to a post by Ellastonepaul:

The issue over "power" to Ellastone Cab3 seems to be typical of Openreach, It was installed three months ago.......next to a street light!

Power: not a simple subject.

My first cabinet took around 5 months longer than surrounding ones to have power activated. It ended up with 3 different roadworks, spread out at around 6-week intervals, resulting in new tarmac in 3 different directions, in the search for suitable power. This was a suburban street junction, next to a lit traffic sign, with street lights on both sides of the road in all 3 directions.

I've since been told, by a totally different council, that BT need a more dependable power supply than the one "just" for street lights. As I understand it, some lighting is fed directly off proper DNO mains supplies, while some lighting is fed off "private" cabling designed for just the lighting. I suspect that FTTC cabs cannot be tied into the latter.

We've also seen problems with some cabinets because of the cost of a new electricity supply. This generally costs around £1,000 ... but if the 100 Amps they allocate to your supply takes the local system out of spec, then you have to pay for all the upgrades. Upgrading a transformer can be a tad expensive.

In North Yorkshire, they had an example of 3 cabinets in Skipton that were going to be left out - because the cost of connecting power was £90,000.

In reply to a post by Ellastonepaul:

Incredible! And I thought our delay was unique.

Not even close. Plenty of cabinets hit a problem that triggers a delay, and delays are amplified - they are never "just a day or two".

Requirements to notify councils for roadworks means that every single underground problem that is encountered causes month-long+ delays. Duct blockages that need digging out seem to be common, and more common in rural areas.

Councils can put a veto on roadworks too - preventing road problems. For example, limiting roadworks during term-time, or requiring coordination with other works. There were even problems in various UK locations in 2012, because the Olympics caused a lot of roadworks to be stayed.

Problems that then need this kind of month-long delay cause the relevant cabinets/fibre/power work to have to be replanned - into teams that are permanently busy on a long list of tasks anyway.

BT's main concern isn't getting any one individual cabinet live as fast as possible. It is about keep those teams of people busy 100% of the time, in an environment where problems and delays are plentiful.

BT have to accept the delay at X, and move the people to Y instead. Work will return to X eventually - it leaves the cabinet at X looking lost and forgotten, but the people are busy working somewhere else, and the planners will get them back when they've brought in a different team to solve the problem.

Edit:
The reason is that the phenomenal cost of this project is mostly on labour. If you don't keep the people busy, your project costs spiral out of control.

The scale helps them do this. They are installing 200+ cabinets a week. If 10 of them have problems, it is better for them to move onto the 200 for next week than to spend hours waiting to fix 10 from this week.

Edited by deleted (Thu 11-Feb-16 12:08:09)

A month ... my local council tried to force BT to wait 3 months for what was less than 2 hours work that required a 1 hour closure!

And my local authority will not approve any works, unless an emergency, for December!

Some newly adopted roads can have blocks in place for a year or more