Its the sort of thing that may mean they are getting there, it may also be a bit needed for some other service e.g. a nearby business buying a leased line service

So a positive sign but not guaranteed

Hey, OP. I live in the same Bishopsgate Exchange. I also noticed that it shows up as a plan to be upgraded to FTTP. I have been discussing this also in ISPReview comment sections.

I was going to enquire about this. You may have seen this map on ISP Review. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/wp-content/gallery/2018-...

Anyway, the Bishopsgate Exchange is going to start work from September to December 2018. But I do not know if this will cover the entire area.

What is actually very interesting is that I asked BT Openreach via email about Bishopsgate exchange several weeks ago when I asked whether we would get FTTP or not. This was before the site updated the detail.

Hello Rahul,

Please accept our apologies for the delay in responding.

I've had a look into this for you and can see that your property is connected directly from the (BISHOPSGATE) exchange, without going through a green cabinet. This is called an �exchange only line'.

Sadly, Exchange only lines are one of the small numbers of properties we can't currently provide fibre to. However, the good news is that there is an ongoing project to divert your line through a traditional green cabinet, which will allow you to order fibre broadband once completed.

But, as I'm sure you'll appreciate, installing fibre is a technical complex civil engineering project. When we plan fibre jobs we have to take into account all aspects of the work required and give realistic timescales, so with this in mind we can't give you any completion dates just yet.

Once you've signed up we'll get in contact with them as soon as we have further information about the upgrade.

Best wishes

Pushpender
Fiber Enquires

Anyway I still insisted via email that we need FTTP and FTTC would not be a solution as it would carry the same old problems of copper cabling. I told them that Hyperoptic were very much interested to install FTTP in my Building. 5 weeks exactly later from that Tuesday 27th of March when I last emailed them, I saw the site reflected to say in a plan for FTTP. I am not sure if this is a coincidence or not. Whether BT got scared when I mentioned to them that Hyperoptic want to install their FTTP in my building.

Anyway, I was initially excited to see this being reflected. But now I am not so excited because of Wayleave.... I am a Hyperoptic Champion of my Building. For 3 years I have struggled to convince my Building Estate Managers to sign an agreement. 3 different Hyperoptic Representatives have tried to speak to the authority. But authority says they are busy with other more important matters like Cladding Fire Safety.

Unfortunately until we can't get this dreaded Wayleave sorting out. There's nothing to be excited about. I have managed to convince 30+ residents to register their interest for Hyperoptic and this has made zero difference in influencing the Estate Managers to sign an agreement. Obviously they are a bunch of selfish people who don't live as residents in my building so they don't care!

So the email was from �Pushpender� ?

Who�s name sounds suspiciously like a play on pen pusher, and who couldn�t spell fibre correctly ?

Yep, that sounds completely plausible.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

So the email was from �Pushpender� ?

Who�s name sounds suspiciously like a play on pen pusher, and who couldn�t spell fibre correctly ?

Yep, that sounds completely plausible.

The email is legit and comes from a genuine openreach email. http://oi64.tinypic.com/2nk6l9w.jpg Here's the screenshot of the email, I removed my email from the screenshot for my own safety.

Actually both Fiber and Fibre are accurate spellings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber But I guess here he chose the less popular spelling. Regardless, that doesn't make the email illegitimate.

I know sometimes there are people working in sectors that aren't always professional enough to deserve their positions, but that's life I guess....

I never got further email responses on whether there is a plan for FTTP or not. The point I wanted to make is that initially this guy Pushpender Rana said the fibre is going to go through a traditional green cabinet which indicated that it is FTTC.

I told him we don't want FTTC and then 5 weeks later I am seeing Bishopsgate Exchange is on a plan to be upgraded to FTTP. Now I do not know whether this is a coincidence or simply Bishopsgate is now under the Fibre First programme. The fact is we don't know if BT Openreach will expand the Bishopsgate Exchange coverage to residential blocks other than the office buildings. We will have to wait and see.

I very much doubt your email was enough to cause a planning turn around in that five week period, more likely someone just did a standard response on EO areas.

Chunks of London have been showing up as in the plan for FTTP since the talk of 2 million and subsequent change to 3 million full fibre premises across the UK and some have actually gone live.

NOTE: If you are having wayleave problems with Hyperoptic there is a real possibility of wayleave issues with Openreach FTTP as FTTP requires more work inside a premises.

That is exactly my concern, Andrew!
We've discussed this 3 years ago here via PM when I asked about FTTC support for Bishopsgate. Which in these 3 years there hasn't even been FTTC Support because Bishopsgate is an EO Line.

In essence we need an extra 2 new cabinets for FTTC which would be too costly. Thus BTs only option is to deploy FTTP. The problem of-course is wayleave. My Building Technical Manager is someone I have never managed to get hold of him in a face to face discussion or even speak to him on the phone. I've only emailed him but he has ignored my emails.

I've only spoken to the other Estate Housing Manager face to face as he's located in the office next to the residential block. The other Technical Manager does not seem to work in that office. He said he has no power to make a decision and that he will try speaking to the Technical Manager. Anyway a few days later (few months ago) I got a phone call from the Estate Housing Manager saying that they do not want to proceed with any Fibre at the moment and that if they were to proceed with Fibre they will not necessarily do it with Hyperoptic but try to do it through another provider.

Of-course that was a very disappointing response. Now I doubt they are even aware of the FTTP initiative by BT Openreach. But I suspect they'll make another excuse even with BT OR. Now of-course we have this issue where the authority have to make a decision on cladding fire safety following the Grenfell Fire incident last year.

Their minds don't seem to be focused on Fibre but more on cladding fire safety issues. First they are doing cladding fire safety checks it has been over a year now. They say if they get that sorted out then they can focus their attention more on Fibre. The problem is that they have ignored the Fibre issue even before the Grenfell fire incident. I feel they want to avoid the hassle of the internal Fibre works inside the premises. But we don't have any choice because we aren't even going to get FTTC if that is what they were thinking! They are probably thinking about FTTC so they can avoid the FTTP hassle!

Goodness knows how this country is going to achieve 50% FTTP coverage by 2025... I certainly think wayleave will delay roll out! I can�t even get the local Estate Building Managers to grant permission to Hyperoptic last 3 years! It makes me wonder how it's going to happen for hundreds of other buildings that will also need wayleave granted!

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

In essence we need an extra 2 new cabinets for FTTC which would be too costly. Thus BTs only option is to deploy FTTP.

"Too costly" against what measure? I don't understand the logic there.

I would have thought that installing a couple of cabinets is much cheaper than running FTTP into every premise - presumably why BT went with the FTTC rollout in the first place.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

In essence we need an extra 2 new cabinets for FTTC which would be too costly. Thus BTs only option is to deploy FTTP.

"Too costly" against what measure? I don't understand the logic there.

I would have thought that installing a couple of cabinets is much cheaper than running FTTP into every premise - presumably why BT went with the FTTC rollout in the first place.

https://www.scotlandsuperfast.com/where-when/how-we-...
Here's a quote from the above link "The problem is that for homes and businesses with EO lines, there is no copper cabinet already in place as their lines connect directly to the telephone exchange! So to enable these premises for fibre broadband, the engineers have to build not just one but TWO new cabinets � both a copper cabinet and a fibre cabinet, as well as connect up the two and re-arrange the lines. As you can imagine, this takes longer to sort out."

Cabinets are only economical in the short term. In the long term the government and BT Openreach will be spending more money because after they once spend money on cabinets for FTTC support, they then have to spend money again on upgrading people with FTTP!

As you can imagine this will cost a lot more money in the long term. If 2025 like Philip Hammond says if the UK is to jump from 4% to 50% FTTP coverage that will mean half of those FTTC cabinets will need to be removed as they'll be unnecessary.

Also my property is 800 meters away from Bishopsgate Exchange. That means the maximum speeds will be only 28Mbps. Not to mention other problems like disconnection issues due to noise margins again all caused due to the copper wires. I had to call on 2 occasions in the past for BT Openreach to clear out water damaged copper cables causing damp telephone lines. This has caused the entire telephone line to stop functioning. That was causing noise margins to be too low causing connection drop out. All caused due to rain.

FTTC carries all the same problems due to hybric fibre-copper cabling. Engineers need working more often to maintain these copper cables. BT Openreach spend more money in copper maintenance than Fibre cable maintenance since FTTP is immune to weather interference.
http://info.truespeed.com/faq
Copper or aluminium cables: Exposed to the elements and can get damaged; will corrode and degrade over time; performance is always limited by the distance from the cabinet to the home; this means FTTC can only achieve limited speeds.

Fibre optic cables: Can be buried under the ground or suspended from poles; is immune to weather or other interference; fibre lasts longer without any loss of quality and allows us to offer gigabit speeds for both upload and download; our customers will have access to exactly the same speeds, no matter how far away they are from the cabinet.

While 95% of the UK may have access to FTTC. Only 51% of the City of London where I live have access to FTTC. This is why BT Openreach have decided to put 8 City of London exchanges to FTTP plan as part of their Fibre First programme to complete by 2020. This includes Bishopsgate Exchange. The problem like I mentioned is Wayleave is more difficult to grant particularly in urban areas like City of London.

Edited by BLaZiNgSPEED (Sat 26-May-18 19:40:14)

The Scottish link is somewhat out of date...

All in One cabinets mean space for just one cabinet is needed - for larger areas a PCP and VDSL2 cab may be needed to cope with number of lines

Plenty of areas in London getting FTTC when were EO and it does not have to be outside the exchange, what works best and is most economical is a very varied picture

Also Bishopgate exchange is far from exchange only throughout a number of VDSL2 cabinets

On the wayleaves some builder owners get the importance of full fibre some don't, If yours does not.

have to build not just one but TWO new cabinets � both a copper cabinet and a fibre cabinet

I have to assume that the author of that article isn't aware of All In On (AIO) cabs. Such cabs can handle I believe 96 lines, it may by 128, but that may possibly be increased at some point with higher density cards. BT installed just such a cab for our 80 odd EO lines in SW9 (Vauxhall exchange). This was gap/community funded with our contribution being a little over £18½K.