Simple,it was incorrect advise. Nothing to do with cable link. They tried 2 different LLU suppliers as well. The problem is with the expansion of the DSLAM cabinet.

In reply to a post by Fastman3:

or there is a problem with cablelink from your chosen ISP - iy you pay all your money to an ISP and dont play your line rental seperately you are LLU's that means you are unbundled at the exchnager and on sperate rack on exchange - you need a link from your rack to the BT wholesale rack to enable the FTTC to work (that called cablelink and has a certain amount of capacity (if there is none or not enough or your provider needs to buy some more it will show as you can order ftttc (but you wont be able to fulfill it as the issue is not at the cab , its in the exchange between the BTW rack and your service provider unbundled kit) if you pay your line rental to BT still then the above is not relevant

That is almost all complete bunkum!

1) There is no such thing as LLU on FTTC. There is VULA, an Ofcom specification, and GEA used by all Openreach-based FTTC and FTTP providers is Openreach's product that implements VULA.

2) LLU (Local Loop Unbundling) is "unbundling" of the copper local loop to allow providers other than BT Wholesale to rent from Openreach the copper link to the user. This is not the same thing as the bundling of the phone and broadband services by the CP (Communications Provider). You are confused. A bundle of line rental and broadband from the same LLU supplier still uses the unbundled local loop.

3) The FTTC and FTTP broadband fibre services do indeed terminate on a distribution system at the fibre headend exchange, which is frequently not the same exchange as the PSTN phone service whether or not that phone service is the same CP as the ISP. That termination equipment belongs to Openreach, not BT Wholesale. BT Wholesale have to buy cablelink provision from Openreach in exactly the same way as Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone, Zen and perhaps a few others these days.

4) The payment or not of line rental to BT (Retail/Consumer or Business) is completely irrelevant.

5) The one place you are nearly right, but in fact wrong in what you say, is that the ISP needs to buy sufficient cablelink capacity at each GEA headend exchange. If they don't, their customers will experience periods of congestion. This is nothing at all to do with the availability of ports at the FTTC cabinet or the provision of a connection to the customer. Congestion can of course occur at other pinch-points within any ISPs backhaul.

I'm unable to search by tel number as I haven't been given one yet - it is a new broadband order. I have tried both talk talk and sky, I'm reluctant to try another as it may put me back to the end of the queue, unless someone can advise the benefits of trying another ISP?

All ISP's that use open reach say broadband is available at my property, but the issue starts when they try to activate it after i have signed up.

I rang sky again today who were in contact with open reach who advised there is still a capacity issue (either not enough space on the exchange or not enough room underground where the cables go through)

Order is on the "waiters" list with Openreach and has been escalated.

ASDL or any other version of broadband will need to go through the exchange, so they can not provide an alternative as it will be the same issue.

So basically still the same rubbish they told me last month.

I appreciate everyone comments so far. I'm really not sure what to do with this. Does anyone have any other suggestions or questions I should ask Sky?

Using this checker, select the Address option. That should work. Also, if you enter just the postcode in that option it will give you a drop-down list of all addresses in that postcode, so you can see what others can get.

Note that the cabinet number just above the table will not necessarily be the same for all.

Regarding FTTC (VDSL in the table), the DSLAM is in the FTTC cabinet near to the phone cabinet. Not in the exchange.

(I assume you just replied to the latest post. My reply about bunkum was of course to Fastman).

Finally - you can rely on anything witchunt posts.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 01-Sep-20 12:01:18)

Hi, thanks for your reply.

VDSL/FTTC is still showing available using the checker. I'll keep checking over the next few days.

Featured Products Downstream Line Rate(Mbps) Upstream Line Rate (Mbps) Downstream Handback
Threshold(Mbps) WBC FTTC Availability Date WBC SOGEA Availability Date
High Low High Low
VDSL Range A (Clean) 80 77 20 19 71.7 Available Available
VDSL Range B (Impacted) 80 74.1 20 19 67 Available Available
Featured Products Downstream Line Rate(Mbps) Upstream Line Rate (Mbps) Downstream Range (Mbps) Availability Date FTTP Install Process
FTTP on Demand 330 30 -- Available --
ADSL Products Downstream Line Rate (Mbps) Upstream Line Rate (Mbps) Downstream Range(Mbps) Availability Date
WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 17 -- 10 to 19.5 Available
WBC ADSL2+ Annex M Up to 17 Up to 1.5 10 to 19.5 Available
ADSL Max Up to 7.5 -- 6.5 to 8 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Other Offerings Availability Date
VDSL Multicast Available
ADSL Multicast Available

Like I said there is an issue in the DSLAM, possibly due to an expansion which isn't working. Waiting for openreach to get someone out to look into it. Nothing to do with the exchange so ADSL should be available but unless desperate probably worth waiting a bit.

Thank you Witch, you've been very helpful.
It was actually Talk Talk who advised there was an issue with DSLAM, SKY haven't provided much info on what the issue is.

I spoke to them again today, its been delayed for another two weeks.

Sky said, Open reach can not process my order "because there is no where to make me go active. This order will sit on the waiting list until room in the cabinet becomes available for a fibre port."

VOIP (voice over internet protocol) service is what they are trying to provide. Because I haven't been allocated a port, they cant give me a landline number.

Does this additional info help or is it basically the same as what you said previously?

Many Thanks for your help!

Edited by deleted (Fri 04-Sep-20 11:15:36)

Basically it's still at the same position, you are being given review dates until openreach can get it looked at. It will slowly work it's way up the work stack until the job is allocated , hopefully some progress next week.

I'm not sure it's the DSLAM at all if they say they can't provide ADSL either, wonder if it's not the broadband that's a problem but rather a lack of spare pairs into the building the op is in preventing them installing a line.

Sky may have a problem with ADSL availability but that would be a separate issue.