In reply to a post by eckiedoo:

Could it be that those "jumpers" are connecting the original E-side directly to the original D-side totally within the PCP, thus shorting out the more-recent links to the FTTC and back, the latter possibly being simply cut and isolated within the PCP?

That is the line has been upgraded to FTTC/VDSL some time in the past; and to re-establish ADSL connections, short jumpers within the PCP have been used to return to the original "straight-through" PCP connections to permit ADSL functions to be resumed or started?

If it has been done that way, there would be no need to visit the PCP (and/or the FTTC) to install ADSL.

But what you've described is just the usual setup on the PCP. It's how it's always been, prior to FTTC.

So there would be no reason to mention that setup on the availability checker. If someone is on ADSL and changes providers, moves into a new home, whatever, provided OR are confident the routing is correct there is no need for a PCP visit.

It's only when a line either goes to FTTC or goes from FTTC back to ADSL that someone needs to go to the PCP.

In effect we are in agreement, as your final line also describes what I had in mind-

"It's only when a line either goes to FTTC or GOES FROM FTTC BACK TO ADSL that someone needs to go to the PCP."

If the the line has been in effect patched back from VDSL to provide ADSL, then it may be thought necessary to record that patching "jumpers" have been installed.

But such patching "jumpers" are surely rare - how many users have requested such a reversal, unless the VDSL performance has been very poor, one possibility being FTTC/VDSL line length to the user.

I know what it means for sure as its my job What you describe as patching jumpers are just the norm though, every line needs jumpers apart from one specific, rare situation.

But yes it often happens (FTTC jumpers being removed). People don't really care if something is FTTC or ADSL, so they'll often switch between the two based on what deal is around at the time. Rented houses will often switch between the two technologies too.

Your second paragraph is particularly interesting, as I do not recollect seeing any reports covering that aspect, changing relatively frequently between FTTC/VDSL and ADSL.

Any more details of the actual wiring changes etc?

Prior to now, my impression was that it was relatively rare, particularly considering the low over-all upgrade to VDSL, the last BT report back in June 2015 gave a figure of 19% following on from 13% about November 2014.

And "my" local FTTC, about 10 M from my front door and lounge window, only had 48 Filter-Links in it, about 17% from installation and RFS in March 2014, with a second batch of 48 added in May 2015, as I spoke to the lad doing it, out of a back-plane for 288.

Although I have never worked for a telephone company/organisation, I did do the Telephone Boys course (Telecomms Principles 1,2 &3, Radio 1 &2, Elementary Telecomms Practice etc - Mr Rance of GPO Telephones was main Lecturer) at the Heriot Watt in the 1950s, as being the nearest in content to my RADAR/Radio Apprenticeship with Ferranti.

So Risers and Jumpers were familiar terms to me.

Some people just go with whatever is a good deal at the time then move on after 12 months to the next good package. Also as I mentioned before there's always loads of rental places.

What do you want to know about the wiring?

It being confirmed that jumpers are used to re-establish the direct connection through the PCP to move back to ADSL, I am trying to establish if there would be any need to identify in the records that they are present - as it would appear, in principle, that to upgrade a second or subsequent time to FTTC/VDSL would require no more effort and instruction notes than the first time.


Could it be that there is some conflict with any records associated with the FTTC, such as that the actual Filter/Link location in the Back-Plane may be in the middle of already in-use F/Ls, rather than at the present "last one" on the assumption that there have been later upgrades for other users, so a very specific, original, FTTC to PCP Link Pair has to be used?

For example, assuming that the original FTTC F/L allocated to the User's Line had been #12, that some other upgrades for other users had been implemented up to, say, #19, the general expectation would be that #20 would be used on the next consecutive upgrade.

When that user down-graded back to ADSL, would F/L # 12 now be left unused; but still be "allocated"?

Later the user (or new occupant of the house), now wanting to move back up from ADSL to VDSL, would his line be re-linked to F/L # 12 because of the earlier upgrade; or ...?

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I was present at "my" PCP when my upgrade from ADSL to VDSL was carried out, from just as the confirmation of the Line Number was coming through, to when the PCP work was finished; and I returned "over the road" to my house to swap the Bright Boxes etc.

I'll try and answer as best I can buy it is quite complex.

Openreach definitely need to know if jumpers are in place to the DSLAM. When someone stops paying for their FTTC we leave the jumpers in place by default. If that line is jumpered through to port 12 of the DSLAM then that port will just become deactivated but the jumper will still exist. There may be a gap of a few weeks (say if someone is struggling to pay a bill or something). If that house then orders broadband again and it's an FTTC connection the system just goes in and reactivates port 12 and virtually maps it to the service they've ordered. So there's no reason for an engineer to go to the cabinet in that situation, even if they switch to another provider-so long as they stay on an FTTC service. Of course if that house were to order ADSL then a cabinet visit would be required to remove the line from port 12. If the cabinet is full and someone else orders FTTC in that gap where we have it deactivated then the system would grab port 12 for that line instead.

I think that illustrates the scenario you asked about anyway. All ports are technically the same, we can just virtually tweak what they actually do, remotely.

It's also useful to know if left in FTTC jumpers are present when a new line is being built. An old pre connected line from the cabinet to random point in the network may be used but a spare line might be used from the exchange to the cabinet. It's useful to know if either of these have left in FTTC jumpers before trying to connect the two to provide service. The system alerts the engineer to any left in FTTC jumpers.

As I say, there's multiple reasons why OR engineers need to know what the FTTC jumpers are doing but there's absolutely no reason that CPs or the general public do!

MOrning Icarus.

Agreed that "the general public" does not need to know such details normally; but I think that it is reasonable to assume that we making use of TBB, have a greater interest than normal, in what goes on "behind the scenes".

Otherwise, what would be the "raison d'etre" for TBB?


Thank you for the additional details.

Oh I know, I expect people on TBB to be interested! I don't, however, understand why information about jumpers is on the BTW Availability Checker. That's what I was talking about, not TBB.

Hopefully the additional info made sense anyway, sometimes this stuff is hard to describe!

Because the BTW checker was probably never originally intended for public information, but is one of the few things BT Group has not yet decided to withdraw from such access.

As such, it displays the information held on the relevant part of the database. Simples .

When I first had broadband from ProdigyNet, they had an enquiry screen that gave all the DSLAM (and MSAN when they came along) details for any exchange. This included the cards installed and the number of free and used ports on each.

That got withdrawn from their help menus after a while.