Possible cabinet move?

Hi guys,

Longtime lurker, mostly been keeping an eye out for developments on EO lines. I moved into my rented flat in October 2012, picking it in no small part because it was nice and close to the exchange (you can pretty much see it out the window). Of course, a year later, my old place had FTTC and I had ADSL at about 18mbit.

I emailed my BDUK types - Superfast Lancashire - a year or so ago, but was told there were no plans for me. Been keeping an eye on where and when, Codelook, news sites etc. hoping for an update (I briefly got excited when the exchanged was updated as they said FTTP available. Oh to be that naive again!)

Last week though, I changed from "Exploring Solutions" to "In Scope". I looked up my postcode (FY3 9JY) on Codelook and we (it's me and three shops, as well as two road traffic equipment cabs) are showing as 75% on Exchange 12, and 75% on cabinet P8. P8 is just up the road - about 250m away, roughly the distance to the exchange.

Am I getting my hopes up for nothing, or is there something going on? Other postcodes around me (eg FY1 6RL) are still Exploring Solutions and haven't got a dupe. My theories are that either I'm on a list to be moved from EO to P8 at an indeterminate time in the future, or there's a mistake on the database. I'm praying for the former, but how do i find out more? Superfast Lancs are a chocolate teapot of an organisation who took eight weeks to reply to my email last time.

Thanks for any advice you experts can offer!

I can see your exchange is FTTC and FTTP enabled.
So fibred lines on that exchange can be either FTTC or FTTP.

Also it seems that your EO Line "might" in fact be moved over to PCP Cabinet 8, there "might" also be a good chance in getting FTTC due to that cabinet has only passed about 283 properties.

If you "do" get moved over to PCP Cabinet 8 your ADSL "may" decrease a bit due to your line will be possibly twice as long as it was.

If you "were" to get FTTC on cabinet 8 your speed would depend on how far you are from the fibre cabinet.

And it seems that cabinet 8 is possibly the closest cabinet to your location.

But I wouldn't get any hopes up yet until you have been moved over to the PCP Cabinet and then and only then if they fibre stage changes from stage 2 (In Scope) to one of the other ones apart from "We are exploring solutions" you don't want it to go to that stage.

Also have you tried contacting either BDUK Lancs or SEP Lancashire due to they are the ones upgrading the lines on your exchange.

*** update ***
Here is Cabinet 8 and its Fibre Cabinet on Google Maps, if that helps work out your distance to it.

Paul

Edited by PaulKirby (Fri 19-Aug-16 20:04:06)

I wouldn't have thought they'd move OP's line to cabinet 8 as it appears to be the 128-line one currently in place from the street view link you provided, yet (again, as you mentioned) there are 283 properties currently connected to it.

Average cabinet takeup is only around 30-35%

Wow, really? That number seems incredibly small- I would've expected 50-70, but 35 seems stupendously low.

It might not even be as high as 35%.

Here's the takeup for BDUK cabs broken down into councils

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2016/03/q4-2015...

Cheers guys.

I'm closer to cabs 11 & 12 (corners of Beechfield Avenue and St Vincents Avenue moving towards the town centre down Whitegate Drive), which are bigger units so I assume have more lines, but presumably also have more takeup and/or would be a trickier move as they're further away from the exchange?

There are only 4 end users in my postcode - one residential, a mobile phone repair shop that might take fibre if they could, the sandwich shop that doesn't have broadband at the moment (I let the owner use mine since they're never open when I'm in anyway), and the now vacant Blockbuster that was briefly a My Local corner shop, so I would imagine they'll only be adding 1-3 fibre users to cab 8 if we all move.

I've emailed Superfast Lancs to see if they've got any update for me, I'll let you know if I hear anything. Thanks for the help!

In reply to a post by vinfromuk:

Cheers guys.

I'm closer to cabs 11 & 12 (corners of Beechfield Avenue and St Vincents Avenue moving towards the town centre down Whitegate Drive), which are bigger units so I assume have more lines, but presumably also have more takeup and/or would be a trickier move as they're further away from the exchange?

Well Cabinet 11 has 413 properties passed and cabinet 12 has had 451 properties passed, which is probably why you are possibly being moved to cabinet 8 along with several other postcodes.

Paul

Setting expectations...

Positive:
Lancashire has reached a high proportion of the area with superfast speeds in phase 1, so there isn't much left to go.

There is a report from earlier in the year:
http://council.lancashire.gov.uk/documents/s85453/Su...

The numbers suggest that, out of 655k premises, 485k were down commercially, and 136k were reached (at superfast speeds) as part of phase 1 (another 10k at sub-superfast speeds).

That leaves 33k premises without superfast speeds.

Phase 2, SEP, is targeting to add 12k premises to the "superfast" total,, so about 35% of those remaining.

As we're getting into the back end of coverage, cases like yours will be cropping up - EO lines that can be re-parented into existing cabinets.

Negative:
SFL also target a "step change" in speed, where they want to see premises getting below 15Mbps upgraded in preference to ones above that. If it only goes as far as "prefer", you might be included in SEP because BT think you are cheap enough; if SFL have gone as far as actively excluding your postcode, then you might not be lucky.

Remember that take-up percentages will be based on the number of lines (ie number of lines in the PCP) rather than the number of ports used in the FTTC cabinets.

In reply to a post by lee111s:

It might not even be as high as 35%.

Here's the takeup for BDUK cabs broken down into councils

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2016/03/q4-2015...

Lancashire have 20% takeup, give or take.

From their status report, phase 1 had ~900 "structures" (FTTC cabs and, presumably, some FTTP "stuff") and gave fibre-broadband to 146,000 premises (136,000 at superfast speeds).

That would make 29,000 subscribers, at an average of 32 per structure.