In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

You don't pay for it being enabled; they either do it or they don't. You won't have any influence on it.

Unless he gets together a petition signed by most residents.

In reply to a post by DM3554:

"SamKnows" advises under BT Wholesale list 'Not available' against SDSL, 21CN, and FTTC, together with 'There is currently no 21CN migration date for your PSTN service'.

Samknows isn't as frequently updated as it used to be, and 21CN PSTN service seems to be in permanent hiding nationally. Just in case you don't know, PSTN is the phone service, not broadband. Years ago they were trialling it, then silence.

I believe there are some greenfield FTTP sites with phone delivered over the fibre, but what happens to it at the exchange I don't know.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Openreach do the commercial FTTC roll-out, but that ends in Spring 2014 and as you suggest you are rural then it will be a County Council based BDUK project, or you might be in the 10% where nothing improves, this shrinks to 5% by 2017 and to 2% in another year.

Time to name your county and people can point you to the project pages.

Thank you, Mr Saffron; much appreciated. Argyll and Bute is my County.

Given the short time frame under the commercial roll-out, much more about paying to jump the BDUK project lists now

Okay Scotland is split into two projects so its look at the maps available at

http://www.digitalscotland.org/superfast-broadband/c...

Two points:

A. The threshold at which another supplier finds it worth installing LLU equipment has been falling quite rapidly over time. By the standard of rural exchanges in Scotland, 1,200 domestic lines is quite large, so you should not rule out the possibility of another operator entering the exchange. There are other exchanges of this size or smaller with at least one competitor to BT. This may depend on how easily they can get bandwidth via the larger nearby towns.

B. In any case, given the size of your exchange and the fact that it falls under the Highlands & Island project (which is much more generously funded than the Rest of Scotland project) I think that it is almost a certainty that your area will be upgraded to FTTC under the HIE project. The only question will be when rather than whether it will happen.

That may not be much consolation if you would like faster broadband yesterday but spare a thought for those of us connected to much smaller exchanges with even more restricted service and who are going to finish up in the last 5%.

Evening XrayspeX

So the FTTC/VDSL feed would come from the "other" exchange, whilst the phone connections would continue to be by the existing exchange?

Yes

In reply to a post by DM3554:

Hi. First post ... I hope some technically savvy Forum members can answer my query.
Thanks, in anticipation. Richard.

Many thanks to all Forum members who contributed to this thread. You're very kind to devote your time and (impressive skill and knowledge) to helping newcomers to telecommunications like me ..... much appreciated.

Your posts and my resultant internet searches (to try to catch up with you all) have helped me to understand a great deal more than I did at the start.

I'm still finding it difficult to identify the BT Openreach person responsible for superfast broadband rollout in my neck of the woods (Cardross, Argyll and Bute), but I'll certainly keep trying.

Thanks, again, guys. Richard.