Have FTTC Guidelines Changed

Background - I moved to my home in 2017. At the time Openreaches dslchecker told me I was good for an 80mbps/20mbps FTTC connection. Sadly I later discovered this was the checker’s best guess as I live in a Virgin Media area. Real life FTTC speed was more like 30 Mbps / 10 Mbps. I eventually moved to Virgin media. But VM is expensive so am on the lookout for a better deal.

So, now to the title subject…. 2017 I could get FTTC but the reality wasn't as good as the promise. However, now when l try the product checkers from the likes BT, Sky, etc I’ve found that their FTTC products are no longer available to me. I can only get their rubbishy ADSL products now.

So, has something changed that means ISPs cannot offer me FTTC products anymore?

It might be that there are currently no spare ports on your serving DSLAM cabinet

That’s a good point. I think our DSLAM is also Huawei based when I think about it, so that’s a possible angle as well. Cheers dude

In reply to a post by loaderladdy:

I think our DSLAM is also Huawei based when I think about it, so that’s a possible angle as well. Cheers dude

What do you mean by that? That the cabinet being Huawei may be an issue?

Huawei are the only Vendor that OpenReach uses now for installing FTTC so your cabinet being Huawei isn't the issue.
The Huawei cabinets are much easier to expand to add capacity.

The only other Vendor OpenReach used for FTTC and that was ECI.
If an ECI cabinet fills up then it needs a Huawei DSLAM to add capacity.

The Huawei cabinets perform considerably better than the ECI cabinets.

If you enter your address on the BT Broadband Availability Checker it should tell you if your cabinet is on a waiting list (full up).

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

Edited by j0hn83 (Wed 21-Apr-21 05:17:32)

@j0hn83 it was more a tilt at this story on Huewei’s continuing problems with U.K. government views on China tbh

I checked my local cabinet via and it is ECI,

I totally agree with what you comments on ECI. That was my understanding as well.

I assumed that was what you were meaning.

I can assure you the reason you can't order FTTC is nothing to do with your cabinet being a Huawei or the UK government sucking up to America by not liking Huawei.

If OpenReach were to remove 1 of their cabinet Vendors it wouldn't be Huawei that got ripped out.
It would be the opposite with ECI being replaced by Huawei (as has happened on a small scale already).

nothing to with the who made the cab it will be either the card is full which mean they will be able to add another card or the DSLAM full - thats bad because that might take significantly be an issue to resolve or might hever be resolved

Thanks for your comments and advice all.

Guess I’ll just have to wait until my area finally gets FTTP, or a suitable 5G plan becomes available once they 5G my area.