Exchange Confusion

Something that occurs to me is the potential confusion about exchanges, so hopefully someone has thought about this one.

If we search for our phone number on any of the checker sites out there we get told we are on the Seighford (WMSEI) exchange. This is correct as it stands today as we don't have fibre enabled just yet, although it is weeks possibly even days away (yay)

When we get FTTC we have been told that the fibre cable is a single cable that goes through the ducts past Seighford and Gnosall exchanges all the way back to Stafford.

So as I understand it we will have phone lines connected to Seighford but data connected to Stafford. Seighford will never be upgraded as it is basically a small shed !

So when we search we will never see the split of connections, Seighford exchange will remain as Market A so how do providers know that data is covered by a Market B exchange ?

Because providers are given a lot more information to allow them to plan their networks and where they pick up the data from.

Same situation with me. Brackley (small-ish) only provides ADSL and telephony. FTTC comes from Banbury. Eventually I'd expect the smaller exchanges will be decommissioned but only when the copper is finally all removed. I'm also not sure if they will ever be completely removed as I assume they are the location of a central cabling hub for the area they served so anything built on the site will have to provide access to that.

As for market ratings I don't know. I assume that BT's internal systems can resolve the issue of which exchange is providing a given service to a particular line based off the telephone number. But how and where that is exposed to CPs I don't know.

In reply to a post by zort70:

So when we search we will never see the split of connections, Seighford exchange will remain as Market A so how do providers know that data is covered by a Market B exchange ?

Do you care in a technical sense? Or a financial one?

You already have the technical answer: because the detail of the Openreach FTTx head-end handover point will be passed on to the CP (BT Wholesale, Sky or TT for example), who will then be able to arrange for the backhaul connection. This happens today all over the country - and isn't just a feature of market A exchanges. There are plenty of "child" exchanges without their own handover point in market B too.

But because you mention markets A and B, I suspect you really care about the finances, and whether you will find, amongst ISPs that distinguish, lower cost packages available to you.

The answer there is "it depends".

Your line will still be classified as market A, as Ofcom decided that, while a large proportion of market A would be covered by fibre by the end of their "review period", they couldn't tell what the effect would be on competition. Their conclusion was to sit tight, for now.

However, Ofcom have set charge controls on BT in market A, that are aimed at reducing wholesale prices each year. The impact of those wholesale reductions on retail prices is unknown.

The ISPs that choose to sell services at a higher price for market A are doing this of their own volition - presumably as a way to cut the cost of their market B service further. Because it is their own choice, they are free to alter the rules they use at any time ... and could change their rules to charge a unified price for fibre-based packages if they wished.

Thanks for the replies, it was a general question, but the financial side is definitely something I'm interested in as we will swap to a new package as soon as we are able to order a fibre product.

We will have to wait and see what we are offered when the negotiations start.

The Silver padlock of happiness just got attached to the cabinet so looks like it is nearly all systems go.

The cabinet got set to accepting orders the Wednesday after this, which is great news. Although the Openreach engineers aren't available until the 5th of May to do the actual connection.

Actually that might feed into this discussion about exchanges as we are now moving both broadband and phone to PlusNet, where it was split before between PlusNet and BT.

When we ordered PlusNet sent us messages saying the connection would be done on the 5th of May, however that only related to the phone line. When we contacted them they said they could only do one of the connections at a time, they can only request one type of swap at a time and have to wait for one to be complete before they order the other swap.

So we got them to swap it around so the broadband was done first then the phone, but it still happened that the date was the 5th of May.

So is that the same engineer doing broadband instead of phone now we have swapped, or a complete coincidence that the same day was only available for both ?

It involves doing different things I know, but is that because of the different exchanges involved or just simply a very rigid process from OR. I would have thought doing them both on the same day would be easier as it is one set of visits to the local area not two and two sets of paperwork.

After 18 months since the new cabinet was installed FTTC finally got enabled for our house last night !

PlusNet messed up our order slightly, we asked for the top package and they put us on the up to 40mb service. They also forgot to update our profile at their end so when first connected we only had 3mb speed.

All sorted out now and initial speed tests show we are currently at 38mb, so when they enable up to 80 we should get some more.

Now we have to wait for another few weeks until the phone switches over.

Andrue, you can definitely decommission exchanges. A few exchanges were closed round here in the 70s and 80s. Just needs some cable re-routing. You just end up with several large joint boxes and manholes in the pavement or road in front of where the exchange was.

Here's one next to the camper van in the car park https://goo.gl/maps/reRdaWTVzGt now public toilets

This exchange closed in the 70s I think. You can see the postbox outside. It's now a very nice house. https://goo.gl/maps/9DX8HLoNQ1P2

In reply to a post by zort70:

So is that the same engineer doing broadband instead of phone now we have swapped, or a complete coincidence that the same day was only available for both ?

It involves doing different things I know, but is that because of the different exchanges involved or just simply a very rigid process from OR. I would have thought doing them both on the same day would be easier as it is one set of visits to the local area not two and two sets of paperwork.

It's irrelevant. Most Openreach engineers have no clue that the FTTC often comes from a different exchange. They don't need to know this as it doesn't affect their job, and to be fair they are never told.

They can definitely do simultaneous provides, sketching the voice service and doing the FTTC connections on the same day.

If you have an existing working line then often it would be two engineers, a frames engineer would do the rewiring in the small exchange to remove you from the existing ADSL kit, and external engineer will do the cabinet jumpering to move your line onto the FTTC service.

Edited by deleted (Fri 06-May-16 10:00:44)

They enabled the up to 80 service yesterday and we now have 61mb download and around 15mb upload.

Probably the best we can expect with our distance from the cabinet.

I've spent 2 years checking all the websites like roadworks.org and when and where, now I'll have to find something else to obsess over.

When's the FTTP rollout