In reply to a post by Andrue:

I'll wander over today and take a look. At least one has vent holes and the other looks the same.

Most definitely not. Never seen 2 G.Fast pods fitted to a single PCP and I don't expect it for at least years.
They plan on doubling the capacity on G.Fast so fitting 2 pods while waiting for this upgrade to be rolled out makes no sense.

At most 1 has vents. At least none have vents.
A few cabinets around me have a pair of wings (a pod on both sides of the cabinet).
Both "wings" in all these cases near me are unvented copper extensions.

You have 1 G.Fast pod or possibly even 0, definitely not 2.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

I'll wander over today and take a look. At least one has vent holes and the other looks the same.

If in doubt, take a picture and upload it somewhere.

In reply to a post by Andrue:

But yeah, adding two pods seems daft for an area that doesn't yet have the service. Also I'd question if that many properties would benefit anyway. The cabinet is on the edge of the area it serves :-/

Absolutely. It's why it is more likely a copper extension. Plus I am not sure how much of a difference it makes or what the logistics are of having two G.fast pods served by a single FTTC cabinet (is it even possible under current provisions?).

Still, I would say it would be foolish of Openreach to place two pods (assuming it is possible) since there are denser areas served by only one pod (48 ports, said to be 96 in the future) and there is no guarantee of demand exceeding that level in this area.

Its the same here in Ipswich.

No announcement for G.Fast yet just about all the cabinet in the town have had G Fast Posts installed.

The first one I noticed was around August time but still no announcement as to if / when they will go live.

j0el

witchunt has accurate info so it is not a guess. When he says this is happening believe him..

There are places that have pods enabled which have not [yet] been announced. Chepstow is one of those places.

In reference to the time it takes, you'd probably be interested to know that in the G.fast factsheet dated 16-10-2017 it says:

In reference to www.homeandbusiness.openreach.co.uk/docs/default-source/default-doc...:

It typically takes us about three months to plan and build Gfast services in a new location.

In reality, it seems builds that I have been watching have been taking longer than this. Some places, ignoring trial areas, have taken in excess of 4 months after the pod has been put in place. In my own area, according to plans revealed by the Project Manager of the area, it is expected to take a total of 7-8 months after the pod was put in place, ignoring any time prior that for initial planning.

In reply to a post by kitcat:

j0el

witchunt has accurate info so it is not a guess. When he says this is happening believe him..

kitcat, my intention was not to discredit. I just made a seemingly incorrect presumption since I do not know them.

I was going to go out and take a look and a picture this afternoon but the weather turned so now I'd rather not

But I'm certainly intrigued. I know there is at least one pod and I'm pretty sure there's two although due to road problems in the area I haven't driven past it as often since it appeared. But little about this makes sense at the moment. The cabinet is serving a mature part of Brackley (my house is over 20 years old) and the only new building that has been proposed is a large school a quarter of a mile away. There's supposed to eventually be a tranche of houses running up from there along the back of our estate but it seems highly unlikely they'd be attached to our cabinet.

But since Openreach went to the trouble of relocating our cabinet from its previous dangerous position next to the roundabout and replaced it with a larger one I can't understand why it would need extension pods.

Then again I wouldn't think it a great candidate for G.FAST anyway. It is right on the edge of the area it serves so most properties are going to struggle to benefit. Most of the lines probably circumnavigate the children's play area which won't help with distance.

I should get a chance to get a closer look tomorrow and then the mystery should be solved

Mystery solved. It is indeed one G.FAST pod and one 'other'. But now I'm left wondering why Openreach have felt the need to add an extension pod to an ~20 year old cabinet that was re-shelled 18 months ago in an area where no new properties are known to be planned. I've just checked the local planning site and there's nothing other than what I already know about. I can't believe OR would run cables half a mile alongside a footpath then past a school to reach a green field development. I'm pretty sure that would limit the new properties to sub-40Mb/s VDSL.

How many extra lines do these PCP extensions support?

Odd :-/

In reply to a post by gamesaregood:

Its the same here in Ipswich.

No announcement for G.Fast yet just about all the cabinet in the town have had G Fast Posts installed.

The first one I noticed was around August time but still no announcement as to if / when they will go live.

I'm also in Ipswich, I've noticed that my address now has g.fast available to order. I'm thinking of getting it when my current contract comes to an end in late February. Though as Plusnet are unlikely to support it, so it'll be a switch of ISP.

I wonder if the FTTC/G.Fast lines are almost/fully used, and there's still several lines on the older ADSL or with no broadband, so needing to add some more capacity for people wanting FTTC/G.Fast.