Should I be getting faster speeds (green box installed)

Sometime last year a green box was installed on our street.

"Great!", I thought, I'll soon be able to get faster speeds.

On 19th December, I received a text message saying "Hi, BT Here. Good news! We're improving our network so you can enjoy faster speeds at no extra cost. No engineering visit required, but we will need to disconnect your line for upto 2hrs around 09:00 on 21-DEC-18".

21st December came and went, with no faster speeds. I rebooted my router a few times to try to help the process along.

BT Wholesale's ADSL checker now says:

Featured Products
Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)
Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Downstream Handback Threshold(Mbps)

WBC FTTC Availability Date
WBC SOGEA Availability Date

Left in Jumper
High Low High Low
VDSL Range A (Clean) 80 79 20 19 75 Unavailable -- --
VDSL Range B (Impacted) 80 79 20 19 74 Unavailable -- --

However, My BT Home Hub says:

Data rate:
3.69 Mbps / 28.37 Mbps
Maximum data rate:
3705 / 28206
Noise margin:
6.2 dB / 2.9 dB
Line attenuation:
29.7 dB

When I raised it with BT on their online help, they said the "WBC FTTC Availability Date" said "Unavailable" and that's why I wasn't getting 80/20.

But why does it say 80/20 and why was the green box installed and why did I get the text message?

Looks like the answer may have been staring me in the face. Further down I've just noticed the BT Wholesale ADSL checker says:

FTTP is not available.

VDSL FTTC and SOGEA is currently not available on this cabinet due to following reasons:- This cabinet is temporarily unavailable for fibre orders due to engineering works..

So that suggests although the green box is there they haven't finished installing it...

You are connected to a VDSL2 cabinet

Data rate:
3.69 Mbps / 28.37 Mbps

Shows speeds that are impossible from ASDL2+ but the attenuation figure looks too high to get speeds much higher, suggesting you are not as close to the cabinet as you may think.

Need to know the postcode (send in a private message) to check if that close cabinet is yours, or maybe on a different one

One thought, are the speeds you are seeing also what you had before 21st December, i.e. connected to a cabinet a lot further away and a new one closer has been added (known as infill) - the migration of lines from old to new cabinets in these cases are not without issues sometimes.

Knowing the postcode will help me figure it out, and then if it looks like a live to live migration failure can chase up with Openreach to find out reason for delays

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

suggesting you are not as close to the cabinet as you may think.

Nor on cab. that BTw Checker is reporting on.

OP, you did use phone no. checker?

Thanks for your reply!

Yes, the speeds and the statistics are the same as I had prior to 21st December.

Previously the green box wasn't there - it was recently installed on my street. Perhaps it is is simply not ready yet and no one is connected to it?

Will send a private message with my postcode

I entered my phone number here: https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/adsl.htm

Looks like a new infill cabinet to get superfast speeds to more people from a BDUK project

Therefore it looks like still awaiting on the live to live migration to take place i.e. Openreach has to co-ordinate the move of lines from old cabinet to new cabinet with all the providers of customers affected which can take some time.

During this period the checkers are known to give quirky results, to the extent that we don't add it to our own systems until it looks like it is really live. Sometimes the wait can be longer as occasionally when they make the first person live they discover a problem and cabinet has to have some remedial work done.

So your speeds will increase at some point, and you should have to do nothing.

Fantastic, thanks!

Had some disconnections yesterday and reconnections at a lower speed, which prompted me again to check the BT Wholesale ADSL checker which now says:

Left in Jumper
High Low High Low
VDSL Range A (Clean) 80 79 20 19 74 Available -- --
VDSL Range B (Impacted) 80 79 20 19 74 Available -- --

So, "Unavailable" in my original post has changed to "Available".

On "My BT", the upgrades section is working again (previously it wouldn't let me view available offers). So I thought I'd take the opportunity to upgrade to "Superfast Fibre Plus" and was told my minimum download speed would be 68 Mbps.

The upgrade was complete today, but I'm still connecting at worse speeds than I was in my original post! Router statistics are now:


Data rate:

3.72 Mbps / 19.33 Mbps
Maximum data rate:

3717 / 23364
Noise margin:

6.2 dB / 6.3 dB
Line attenuation:

29.8 dB

Any thoughts? Perhaps the migration to the new cabinet box has progressed further but still isn't complete?

Regrades don't usually happen on a next day basis, this sounds more like all you've done is change the package name in the BT Consumer portal and nothing has changed on the actual line

19.3 Mbps down and 3.72 Mbps up suggests you are still on a cabinet a lot further away

IMPORTANT For others reading, if you get an infill cabinet you should need to do nothing and in time your speeds will improve to what ever the product you were previously connected to, i.e. if on the old 40/10 service the maximum sync will be 40 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up. There is no need for people to regrade their products with their ISP - only if you are getting the max 40 Mbps or 55 Mbps sync of the slower tiers and want higher speeds i.e. remove the sync cap and pay more for the 80/20 service would you regrade.

Edited by MrSaffron (Fri 08-Mar-19 11:38:37)