20CN and 21CN exchanges

If an exchange is upgraded to 21CN then ADSL2 and 2+ become available to get higher speeds,if that didn't prove stable for a long line then ADSL1 would be available but there wouldn't be an option to go back to 20CN for broadband like ADSL Max would there as some/all of that 20CN equipment would have been removed?

Mac

20CN equipment is NOT removed from the exchange, providers don't usually allow you to migrate back because the 21CN service is cheaper to provide.

ADSL Max can be configured on 21CN WBC hardware, i.e. an up to 8Meg ADSL profile is available to providers.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

20CN equipment is NOT removed from the exchange

Never?

I'm never, never sick at Sea!"
What, never?
No, never!
What, never?
Well, hardly ever...

Gilbert & Sullivan, HMS Pinafore.

I carefully did not say NEVER, at present it is NOT removed, but in the future it may well be.

Will all exchanges eventually become 21CN or will the smaller ones remain 20CN due to the cost of upgrading exchanges which only serve several hundred premises?

Mac

Define eventually?

I expect there to be less exchanges eventually, since fibre removes the length limits implicit in copper, even for telephone only lines.

Once 20CN kit becomes impossible to source, and spares are rare, then a final upgrade to 21CN for both voice and broadband will take place. The removal of old strowger to SystemX took many years to complete, no reason to suspect that 20CN to 21CN will not be a similar timescale.

FYI Here's a previous related TBB News item - it doesn't sound too rosy for those of us stuck on a 20CN exchange

Yes that's rather sad really but understandable if you leave it to a private sector company with a UK [cough] monopoly.

There's not many private companies (quite understandable) rushing to pick up the fallout from the public sector as the coalition thought there would be or was that just another load of porkies for the benefit of the populous

Mac

This means that exchanges that haven't been upgraded with 21CN will continue to receive IPStream services into 2014 and beyond. Unfortunately this does mean that some of the country may be stuck on 'up-to' 8meg ADSL for some years to come.

A VERY IMPORTANT BIT.

In short the ones that will be left, are probably the ones that got enabled back in 2004, i.e. were not commercially viable until the pressure of demand schemes kicked in, and BT is expecting the BDUK projects to effectively negate the need for them to be upgraded, i.e. not win in that area, or win and thus do a WBC upgrade for one exchange in an area, and run the fibre links to a larger town.

Once voice does go 21CN properly and FVA for FTTC appears (FTTP is on its way), then we can expect BT to give up leases on a good few exchanges.

In reply to a post by b4dger:

FYI Here's a previous related TBB News item - it doesn't sound too rosy for those of us stuck on a 20CN exchange

There's still the option of SMPF on these IPStream exchanges of which I am a customer.

LLU provision depends on how many premises the exchange supplies, small exchanges (less than 600 premises) will never get LLU ....... not even from TalkTalk or Sky

Mac

and BT is expecting the BDUK projects to effectively negate the need for them to be upgraded

That BDUK funding may be true for England but do you think there is enough funding left for the rest of the UK?

Mac

Wales and Scotland have been given their funding amounts, can always go to the EU to ask for more if they need it.

How far their funding goes all depends on how they use it, NI has pretty good coverage now.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

LLU provision depends on how many premises the exchange supplies, small exchanges (less than 600 premises) will never get LLU ....... not even from TalkTalk or Sky

Mac

I think you'd be surprised if you actually knew what you were talking about.

Wales are still talking about how they will consult to see what needs to be done... I think that means is they are looking for ways to justify them spending the money on even MORE speed for Cardiff and the M4 corridor while the rest of us rot on 20cn exchanges with hot VPs.... and they way infrastructure is being stripped out here in spending cuts - we may need telemedicine and distance learning etc soon..

Imagine the disgrace if the captal of the great nation of Wales had to endure speeds of less than 80Mbps!

Rght now my 7040 sync produces a BTw speedtest result of 676Kbps!

UK broadband is a bad joke

(edit) I just ran the Plus net exchange status check with the names of the 6 largest exchanges in this county, 2 yellow and 2 Red. the 2 smallest of the list were green. They cant even maintain a decent service (capacity) on 20cn.. what chance do we have of seeing any real upgrades!

Edited by deleted (Wed 22-Feb-12 20:17:29)

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

LLU provision depends on how many premises the exchange supplies, small exchanges (less than 600 premises) will never get LLU ....... not even from TalkTalk or Sky

Mac

I think you'd be surprised if you actually knew what you were talking about.

That maybe so I'm no expert but can you post a link to any small exchanges supplying less than 600 premises or to make it easier even 300 premise with LLU provision?

Mac

So you are expecting Wales to spend the money for the final third, in the first 2/3rds contrary to all reasons it was handed out?

soon find out with wales hopefully, the open market review phase 2 final submission is 23rd of February.

heres me hoping pontybodkin exchange is included for final third rollout!

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

LLU provision depends on how many premises the exchange supplies, small exchanges (less than 600 premises) will never get LLU ....... not even from TalkTalk or Sky

Mac

I think you'd be surprised if you actually knew what you were talking about.

That maybe so I'm no expert but can you post a link to any small exchanges supplying less than 600 premises or to make it easier even 300 premise with LLU provision?

Mac

I will: http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/WWHOLF (413 lines) . It had Orange LLU as well before they withdrew their LLU equipment.

Take a look at mine: http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/WWNETH - Over 3 times bigger and only BTw as a Provider (Oh and by the way, it has 21CN).

There are more aspects to LLU coverage than most people are aware of. A lot of it boils down to the LLU's Infrastructure in the Area (Their own backbone).

If they don't have their own infrastructure, they would have to rely on other LLU Wholesale Providers or BT Wholesale for an uncontended backhaul (Basically in the form of a high capacity site-to-site leased line) back to their (The LLU ISP's) closest POP. This is where the worthiness of how many properties it serves comes in.

Edited by chris6273 (Thu 23-Feb-12 02:02:17)

Strangely enough, Sky unbundled Saudersfoot (SWSDV)last year (a medium sized exchange for the county) - the only exchange in the county to be unbundled by anyone. Seemed to be a stange choice being an exchange with a wide spread of lines across a rural area, which is touristy and with many second homes/holiday lets

Talktalk published loads of RFS dates for all the larger exchanges in Pembrokeshire late last year but they seem to have disappeared - BTw did something similar with WBC a couple of years back - and again recently. Tenby was supposed to have Talktalk LLU by now, but I have not heard if it actually happened, but apparently WBC has arrived there - again a smallish exchange compared to others locally.

There seems to be no logic to it.. for ages people here dismissed my views saying my exchange was too small to be worth upgrading (8000 lines according to Sam Knows - 10k lines according to the openreach guys I have spoken to) but now I see lots of smaller exchanges being upgraded either by WBC or LLU and I wonder what the hell we have to do join everyone else in the 21st century!

We cant even get the yellow and red VPs sorted out so we are really felling some pain now - while paying through the nose for slow speeds and low allowances. You couldn't make this stuff up.

Edited by deleted (Thu 23-Feb-12 11:09:17)

Tell me about it mate. Tenby is currently Red and has been on Red or Yellow since last September and the fix dates come and go. I may be on 21CN here now with a sync of 16,281 but it's pointless when the exchange has no VPs left and is contended to hell! In the evening my speeds are around 500Kbps so actually worse than yours!

Spoke to BT Engineer friend again yesterday who said that there's still no date on sorting it and that SamKnows's ifo about lines numbers is a load of rubbish. He said ours has more than 6000 and the Dock (his main area) is about 9800.

Edited by WelshWArrior (Thu 23-Feb-12 11:30:22)

500Kbps? wow lightening speed! last night I recorded a Bt speedtest result of 101Kbps on a line that now syncs at 7040kbps.

Right now I am at sub 2Mbps according to my Jackdinn tester.

It makes me so angry that as well as not upgrading this area BTw seem content to leave us on a service that is not of an acceptable quality, while they throw mega bucks at other areas that get repeated upgrades

OFCOM have recorded a complaint about my exchange... I know it wont do anything practical but it makes them earn their keep... as Terry Scott said in the original St Trinians Train Robbery Movie "Right... I'll make a note of it".... OFCOM are about as useful as that.. but not at all funny

In reply to a post by chris6273:

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

... nested quotes trimmed ...

I think you'd be surprised if you actually knew what you were talking about.

That maybe so I'm no expert but can you post a link to any small exchanges supplying less than 600 premises or to make it easier even 300 premise with LLU provision?

Mac

I will: http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/WWHOLF (413 lines) . It had Orange LLU as well before they withdrew their LLU equipment.

Take a look at mine: http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/WWNETH - Over 3 times bigger and only BTw as a Provider (Oh and by the way, it has 21CN).

There are more aspects to LLU coverage than most people are aware of. A lot of it boils down to the LLU's Infrastructure in the Area (Their own backbone).

If they don't have their own infrastructure, they would have to rely on other LLU Wholesale Providers or BT Wholesale for an uncontended backhaul (Basically in the form of a high capacity site-to-site leased line) back to their (The LLU ISP's) closest POP. This is where the worthiness of how many properties it serves comes in.

Well it's a start and I'm a little surprised, you'd almost think that some VIPs had second homes in the area supplied by the exchange

Looking at a map it is on the likely route for TalkTalk and and other providers fibre backbones heading down towards Minehead and on into Cornwall

Sky extended its fibre network down into Cornwall in the last year or so

Exchange sizes of about 1500 have been done in my local area, though their are major fibre backbones that go through the county.
Only really been recently that theirs been a bigger push to enable the smaller exchanges to a point.

many second homes/holiday lets

There is your answer. A Sky director has a holiday home in Saundersfoot, thats my guess

IAn

Noticing the Jackdinn tester showing packet loss tonight and having issues browsing I ran another BT test...

1. Best Effort Test:

Download Speed : 0 Kbps

Your speed test has completed and the results are shown above, however during the test an error occurred while trying to retrieve additional details regarding your service. As a result we are unable to determine if the speed you received during the test is acceptable for your service. Please re-run the test if you require this additional information.

Well I can fill in the blank for them... it is NOT acceptable!

15 mins later I got a 795 Kbps test.. still not any good on a ine that is synced at 7104Kbps