Phone and Ask?

Sorry, I have been overlooking this thread

Bad news for me - the new cab is across the street and it serves the people across the street, I would appear to be too close to the exchange and already get quite a good speed (about 12/13Mb/s on ADSL2+) - in this case I would be better if I was as little as 50yards further away from the exchange.

Oh well - it'll come to me eventually!

In reply to a post by tallseabird:

Sorry, I have been overlooking this thread

Bad news for me - the new cab is across the street and it serves the people across the street, I would appear to be too close to the exchange and already get quite a good speed (about 12/13Mb/s on ADSL2+) - in this case I would be better if I was as little as 50yards further away from the exchange.

Oh well - it'll come to me eventually!

Seemed obvious when it was ready for service and your number returned nothing. Bad luck but as you say it should come eventually. I believe BT is getting a lot of help in NI from the government to do the roll out so I'd expect it to the be the first UK region with 100% cabinets done similar to when it had the ADSL rollout completed ahead of others.

Cabinets further out get done first and work in, or so it seems.

I think you will find that the FTTC rollout was initially deployed for businesses in NI and as such I am also lead to believe that the Cabinets will be in place and serving businesses for 3 months before they are then opened up for consumer orders.

I rang up BT some time ago when I saw the 3 new local cabinets going in to see if I would be connected to one of them and to also get some idea of what cabinet I currently connected to to save me flogging a dead horse if I stood no chance of getting it. BT could not (or would not) supply information to support either so I took the sneaky route in.

I am fortunate enough to have a friend who is a BT engineer and he checked to see if I did connect to one of our new cabinets. He confirmed I was, advised of which cabinet, and indicated that BT's in house system acknowledged that I could receive FTTC through that cabinet back in early January. Unfortunately the BT Wholesale website just reflected good old ADSL when I checked at the time despite the cabinets going live at the end of October 2010 and still does to this day.

He was also unable to force anything through so he just suggested ringing up BT and banging on at them until they took an order (if you are connected to an FTTC cabinet of course).

It appears that it is a waiting game for consumers and good luck in tracing your connectivity to one of the shiny tall green cabinets!

In reply to a post by DBNI2K:

I think you will find that the FTTC rollout was initially deployed for businesses in NI and as such I am also lead to believe that the Cabinets will be in place and serving businesses for 3 months before they are then opened up for consumer orders.

I rang up BT some time ago when I saw the 3 new local cabinets going in to see if I would be connected to one of them and to also get some idea of what cabinet I currently connected to to save me flogging a dead horse if I stood no chance of getting it. BT could not (or would not) supply information to support either so I took the sneaky route in.

I am fortunate enough to have a friend who is a BT engineer and he checked to see if I did connect to one of our new cabinets. He confirmed I was, advised of which cabinet, and indicated that BT's in house system acknowledged that I could receive FTTC through that cabinet back in early January. Unfortunately the BT Wholesale website just reflected good old ADSL when I checked at the time despite the cabinets going live at the end of October 2010 and still does to this day.

He was also unable to force anything through so he just suggested ringing up BT and banging on at them until they took an order (if you are connected to an FTTC cabinet of course).

It appears that it is a waiting game for consumers and good luck in tracing your connectivity to one of the shiny tall green cabinets!

Be interested to see how many businesses are connected to the cabinet i'm on, slap bang in the middle of a residential area with 0 businesses seemingly connected to it. Also one of the earlier cabinets completed...

Think your analysis is unlikely as it's not economically sensible.

In reply to a post by orly:

Be interested to see how many businesses are connected to the cabinet i'm on, slap bang in the middle of a residential area with 0 businesses seemingly connected to it. Also one of the earlier cabinets completed...

Think your analysis is unlikely as it's not economically sensible.

Whilst I agree (to a degree) that it may not make economical sense to upgrade to FTTC country wide I think we need to appreciate what the NI Executive are trying to achieve by part funding the project with BT and attempting to bring 100% FTTC or other faster Broadband technologies to NI.

This product is not being put in for us consumers, we are an after thought and can obviously avail of the facilities once they are there. It's all about business and luring big businesses to the province. If businesses know that we have a fast and reliable communications and Broadband network (amongst other factors of course) then it can be a big swaying point in our country being used as a prime location for any new businesses.

If it pays off then the gamble and the huge expense would be worth it. Would you not agree?

Also you may find there are a considerable number of small businesses around you that you cannot actually see. With more and more people working from home, having FTTC available to them would have huge benifits what with VOIP and remote connectivity as a small example of the technologies that they could be using.

I dont agree with you on this one sorry. I know plenty of residential customers who were able to place orders as soon as the FTTC CAB went live in their area. There is no benefit of having a couple of business connected to CAB when there are far many more private properties that could be bringing in additional revenues. Remenber, BT have invested alot more money that DETI and will be looking for a return on their investment as soon as possible.

Rules may be different in NI, but for mainland it is very often the case that 'aid' to help with broadband has to be seen to be helping business needs. Thus there are often IT education programmes to help businesses make the most of the online world.

In terms of raw numbers of people who benefit the average consumer will out number the businesses, but the businesses generally have a much larger say, due to the revenue and jobs they bring to an area.

Agree with what you are saying but in NI I know a few business customers who just like me are waiting on the new FTTC CAB in our area to be commissioned. I really dont think residential customers have to wait until business customers have been using the service for 3 months before being allowed to place orders.

if the cab has not been commissioned, then how can residential customers order from that cabinet?

or are you saying that in a town, some cabinets that you view as purely residential have been enabled before yours? If so then sorry but it is just the reality of a roll-out where you cannot click your fingers and drop this stuff onto the pavement in a minute or two.