Outofreach

On going saga!

My telephone line is exchange only. I am about 3km from my exchange, Tetford, Lincolnshire.

Two years ago a fibre cabinet was installed just 1km from me and I have been trying, for over two years, to get my line diverted using an organisation called 'OnLincolnshire'. They appear to not be able to help and tell me that my line was overlooked many years ago when this area was upgraded by BT, or whoever!

The line from my home is overhead across my land then descends into an underground duct alongside the highway. From this point it is about 500 metres to the new cabinet. I have established that this same duct also connects with this new FTTC cabinet so essentially it would simply be a matter of re-routing my copper wire. Ironically, this same duct carries fibre cable to a neighbouring village and my exchange, past my home and there is an appropriate manhole nearby!

I managed to contact, via email, the 'Openreach enquiry team'. Their confusing response was as follows:

"Unfortunately, we can't action your request to move cabinets. It�s not Openreach policy to do this. Our network was set up historically to deliver telephone service. So to re-arrange the network now to connect premises to nearby fibre broadband cabinets would involve considerable infrastructure work. As a company we are trying our best to get the whole country connected and are always trying new things to improve speeds for the end user. We have left exchange only lines till last. You can try our fibre team to see when your cabinet will be done"

The OE Team provided a link to their 'fibre team'. I wrote, providing all the information I have outlined above regarding my phone line and their response was thus:

"Thank you for writing in to us. I�ve spent some time looking into your query and found that your property is connected directly to the TETFORD exchange, without going through a green cabinet. This is called an �exchange only line�. Unfortunately exchange only lines are one of the small number of properties we can�t currently provide fibre to. We�re working hard on various solutions to exchange only lines, however for the moment I�m afraid fibre isn�t available at your location. Sorry I�m not able to give you any further details right now, however you can visit the following site and register your interest in fibre"

I registered my interest in fibre, two years ago!

In order to ameliorate the "considerable infrastructure work" involved I suggested they send me the wire, a hard hat and a hi-viz jacket and I would do it myself. I am very handy with a soldering iron and a wire-wrap tool

Is there any way of getting Outofreach to fulfil my minor request? Wireless is an optional alternative but very expensive around here.

Can you post the results of www.dslchecker.bt.com ?

Have you offered to pay their costs for a network rearrangement.

What makes things more complex is that what you want to do can impact on others, so what seems easy for one line, gets more complex once others are involved.

Lincolnshire as a project has generally been big on fixed wireless but AB Internet is in the hands of administrators at present, so might be something to keep an eye on.

At the moment Openreach's commercial rollout is not including EO lines due to cost, and as they said, are leaving them until very last.

The BDUK rollout does include many EO lines however and really that is your only hope that you are apart of that. Otherwise no matter what email you send to who, nothing's gonna happen.

Also I think it's unfair to assume "simply a matter of re-routing my copper wire" is very naive, you do not actually know for sure whether the copper line goes through the ducting you stated. You are just assuming.

That's a stock reply from the Fibre Team. I got the same word for word.

Well Mr. Tomse43, I am impressed by how much you know about me!!

While OR were busy laying the new fibre cable outside my gate I spent some time talking to their engineers who showed me this duct with my copper pair (and others) in it alongside the new fibre under an inspection cover. They also pointed out the other inspection covers all the way to the new FTTC.

I am 74 years young, well versed in telecommunication matters and gave up assuming soon after birth!!!

DSL checker tells me no more than I already know: ADSL up to 5Mbps (actually get 6.5 when the wind is in the east)

Mr Saffron, never thought of offering to pay for it! Just DIY And had heard about AB Internet demise.

Edited by Andrew_W (Fri 18-Aug-17 11:51:37)

2nd thoughts. Ignore.

Edited by deleted (Fri 18-Aug-17 11:20:35)

In reply to a post by Andrew_W:

Well Mr. Tomse43, I am impressed by how much you know about me!!

While OR were busy laying the new fibre cable outside my gate I spent some time talking to their engineers who showed me this duct with my copper pair (and others) in it alongside the new fibre under an inspection cover. They also pointed out the other inspection covers all the way to the new FTTC.

I am 74 years young, well versed in telecommunication matters and gave up assuming soon after birth!!!

DSL checker tells me no more than I already know: ADSL up to 5Mbps (actually get 6.5 when the wind is in the east)

Mr Saffron, never thought of offering to pay for it! Just DIY And had heard about AB Internet demise.

If you had specified that in the original post then I wouldn't of said it.

However, complications could still arise whether or not the ducting is definitely the same. From what I gather copper rearrangement is a rather skilled task.

The best information about EO lines I found was on the Scotland Superfast website here

And to pull one of the questions from there which is the exact issue you face. Obviously this is referring to the Scottish BDUK rollout but it's similar across the UK.

I am on an EO line and there is a new fibre cabinet close to my house. Can I ask for my line to be re-arranged to the new cabinet?

No. Planning, building and maintaining the telephony and broadband network is a complex operation and changes that can appear simple on the surface can have many knock on effects. So unfortunately, it is not possible for us to re-arrange the network by request, one line at a time.

Edited by deleted (Fri 18-Aug-17 15:55:56)

Thank you!

My copper rearrangement skills are quite good as I have installed central heating in at least four homes, so far

That is impressive actually. We had ours changed last year and it's a big job!