Exeter Fibre mystery?

Just signed up to Sky package inc fibre optic deal.

However, when I run the online postcode checkers as to whether i can get fibre optic i get a big no: ex4 postcode in Exeter. However, Sky have assured me that I can get fibre at my postcode, but post CC details being given was then told that I may not be able to get fibre, but it will be 'confirmed' prior to engineer visit etc.

I know dont know what to think. I think the sales guy was genuine and wasnt trying to pull a fast one i.e. fibre to sucker me into a sale, but is this normal?

Try a full address check usually more accurate on bt wholesale adsl checker.

Try with phone number and post code. If you PM me your post code I can look around too.

The area you live in does have fibre optic services. The area has been upgraded to FTTC.
What is fibre to the cabinet.
Basically fibre runs to the local green cabinet, usually at the bottom of your street or around the corner or fairly close by. From here copper runs to your house. By making the amount of copper minimal you get fast speeds.
FTTC is only available to houses where their line goes via the local green cabinet.

Here is your problem...
At the postcode where you live around 90% of properties do not go via a local green cabinet. 90% go directly to the local telephone exchange... So the cable goes directly to the telephone exchange bypassing a cabinet. These are called exchange only lines.

The other 10% go via cabinets. So in your post code there's around a 10% chance that your line goes via the local green cabinet. If it does you will get fibre.

The fibre upgrade has taken place here. Those who are on exchange only lines will not see fibre in the current roll out plans. There are some trials taking place to get fibre on exchange only lines but it's nothing wide scale yet.

If you can send me your house number and if you're comfortable with it your phone number (assuming it's with BT) I can try and dig deeper into seeing if you're one of the lucky few that can get fibre in this post code. Perhaps Sky are unsure too.

Thanks. Hugely helpful! PM sent with further details.

As far as I can tell you do not appear to be on a line which goes via a fibre optic cabinet. Phone numbers give the best indication and your phone number shows no signs of FTTC being available.
There are a few lines, mainly near property number 1 which appear to go via a cabinet.
I don't see you personally getting fibre.

However in areas like this there's always a chance that the line does actually go via a cabinet, largely because BTs database isn't always 100% accurate.

I would proceed with this and see what happens. Based on what I can see though it's not available. It looks available to number 1 and a few others.

Perhaps Sky has just ran a post code check which shows fibres enabled in your area. Sadly your lines looking to be exchange only. You can get around 2 - 3Mbps so this is probably pretty poor news I bet especially since you got your hopes up.

You never know though Sky might know something about your line that I'm not seeing. Perhaps it's one of the few to go via a cabinet and it's just logged incorrectly. I highly doubt that you will see fibre services though for now.

It's a shame, but very helpful and thanks for the feedback! Appreciate it!

Don't take my findings as 100%. Give Sky a chance but don't be surprised if/when they say actually you can't get fibre. You could use this to surely get discounted ADSL though.

Well if you're unlucky and can't get fibre, you're not alone in Exeter which seems to have several islands of adsl- only connectivity in an otherwise FTTC/P enabled City. See this thread for more,

As do almost every other UK city

Hi guys i'm going to pitch in - I also live in EX4 region of Exeter like the original poster.

I had/have O2 broadband which gives me 4mbps and has now switched to Sky I believe (been bought out). I am also looking at a better package for speed and was considering Virgin cable. Also considering Sky but as with the other chap the checker indicates I also cannot get the fibre service.

Interestingly enough after the sky checker tells me I cannot receive fibre it indicates to me that instead I can get Broadband Lite or Broadband Unlimited with speeds of ...
12.2 - 19.0 Mbps

A bit confused that if my O2 is now 'Sky' why am I only getting 4mbps?

As someone else mentioned I ran the BT wholesale checker and just used my address
results were (a bit jumbled but experts will know pretty much whats what)

WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 3 -- 2.5 to 6.5 Available
ADSL Max Up to 3 -- 2 to 5.5 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 1 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 1 -- -- Available

yet I run the test under my phone number instead of address and get

WBC ADSL 2+ Up to 17 -- 10 to 19.5 Available
WBC ADSL 2+ Annex M Up to 17 Up to 1.5 10 to 19.5 Available
ADSL Max Up to 7.5 -- 6.5 to 8 Available
WBC Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available
Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available

both tests say
Telephone Number 01392****** on Exchange EXETER is served by Cabinet 33

If I got between 10-19mbps I probably wouldn't be looking to change - I dunno whats going on

You are currently with O2 Broadband and your line with them supports 4M a download speed.
Sky have bought the O2 Broadband company so O2 Broadband the company is now part of SKY the company.
You continue to have and use the O2 Broadband physical "wire" service, which is now owned by SKY the company.

The Address checker is an estimate of the BT Broadband "wire" service you can get
The Phone number checker is a better estimate of the BT Broadband "wire" service you can get
Normally the O2 Broadband "wire" service and the BT Broadband "wire" service would have the same speeds. So getting >4M on any Broadband service is unlikely, unless something is wrong with the "wire" coming into your house or indie your house and can be fixed.

You could move to a SKY Broadband "wire" service and I assume you would get around the same 4M download mark. Same for moving to a BT Broadband "wire" service.

You can not get a BT FTTC fibre "wire" service as this is not connected to your local street green cabinet.

To understand your speeds for ADSL and ADSL2+ based services the attenuation, noise margin and connection speeds from your router will show if you are running slower or faster than expected.

http://www.coolwebhome.co.uk/calc can give an estimate of where you fall in the range.

That will give a better idea than the database look ups which may have your location confused.

Okie dokie. Can you get us router statistics from your router? We need line attenuation, sync speed, noise margin.

Here's an example of the kind of thing we would like: See it has down and up speed, line attenuation and noise margin


Line state: Connected
Connection time: 126 days, 02:42:30
Downstream: 7.594 Mbps
Upstream: 448 Kbps

ADSL Settings

VPI/VCI: 0/38
Type: PPPoA
Modulation: G.992.1 Annex A
Latency type: Interleaved
Noise margin (Down/Up): 6.2 dB / 24.0 dB
Line attenuation (Down/Up): 39.9 dB / 20.5 dB

Here you go - still a bit confused lol

Link Information
Uptime: 4 days, 10:47:15
DSL Type: G.992.5 annex A
Maximum Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 884 / 6,173
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 858 / 4,968
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.5 / 19.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 34.0 / 54.5
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 6.5 / 6.0
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / BDCM
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 16 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 890 / 12,159,647
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 890 / 3,446
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 867 / 2,484

Looking at those stats I can see that the line is performing as well as possible.
If you switch to Sky on that line it will not go any faster. That's the best it's going to be. So 4.9Mbps is all you're gonna see.

Also you haven't moved to the Sky network just yet although sky do now own the o2 broadband customers lines. Sky haven't migrated anyone over to their own network just yet as far as I'm aware, unless the customer has subscribed to a specific sky package. In time you will go over to the Sky network but your speeds will be around the same.

Well I did the test on coolweb that was mentioned - my router says the following in its DSL connection page

O2_ADSL
View more...
Link Status: Disconnected
Type: PPPoA
Last Error Message: None

O2_ADSL2plus
View more...
Type: ETHoA
Uptime: 4 days, 10:59:41
IP Address: 94.blah.blah.blah
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [MB/GB]: 616.59 / 6.01

O2_Static
View more...
Link Status: Contacting DHCP server...
Type: ETHoA

Does this mean I am on ADSL2+????

If so I did the coolweb test and got results here - I selected ADSL2+ on the test as thats what the router says I'm on (??)

http://www.coolwebhome.co.uk/calc/calculator.php?par...

The test says
ADSL2+ (G.992.5)
Normal speed range at 19.0dB attenuation is 18400 Kbps to 20100 Kbps

My router says

DSL Connection
Link Information
Uptime: 4 days, 11:06:59
DSL Type: G.992.5 annex A
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 858 / 4,968
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00

Edited by deleted (Tue 13-Aug-13 20:10:29)

Normal speed range at 19.0dB attenuation is 18400 Kbps to 20100 Kbps

Where are you getting 19.0dB from? Your attentuation is 54.5 and your lines already over performing believe me.

I would only expect between 2.5 and 3.5Mbps on a line like yours typically.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Tue 13-Aug-13 20:19:59)

Keep calm.....

I entered wrong figure from the results page. I can now agree with your statement!

So to sum up, I get 4mb with O2, switching to Sky or whoever will still mean roughly the same speed. As according to the BT checker my line is 'Exchange EXETER is served by Cabinet 33' does that mean I can get fibre if I read your other post correctly??

At the postcode where you live around 90% of properties do not go via a local green cabinet. 90% go directly to the local telephone exchange... So the cable goes directly to the telephone exchange bypassing a cabinet. These are called exchange only lines.

Is cabinet 33 what I connect to rather than direct to the exchange or am I making another mistake

So to sum up, I get 4mb with O2, switching to Sky or whoever will still mean roughly the same speed.

Yep precisely.

As according to the BT checker my line is 'Exchange EXETER is served by Cabinet 33' does that mean I can get fibre if I read your other post correctly??

Nope it just means that your line goes via a cabinet. You can only get fibre if the cabinet you are connected via is upgraded to fibre.

The guy earlier, his line didn't even go via a cabinet. So even when the whole area was fibre upgraded (which it was) they still couldn't get fibre as their line never touched a cabinet.

Your line needs to go via a cabinet AND that cabinet needs to be upgraded to fibre for you to get fibre services.

You can check if you can get fibre here http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/products/broad...

Is cabinet 33 what I connect to rather than direct to the exch.nge or am I making another mistake

It sure looks that way. Cabinet 33 may not have been upgraded to fibre services yet though. Plenty of cabinets are not even in the fibre upgrade plans. So you know that your line goes via a cabinet although that cabinet doesn't necessarily have fibre services just yet (and may not in the near future if it's not in the rollout plans). Best to check on the BT site above

I thank you for the time you are spending helping me.

I put my number in that link and it said BT Infinity isn't currently available but

You can choose BT Broadband now offering: 17Mb *
Estimate download speed 10Mb-19.5Mb

Back to that again. Then it says

Can I get fibre optic BT Infinity in the future?
Getting BT Infinity at your property depends on a number of factors including whether or not your telephone exchange currently supports BT Infinity and whether your street cabinet and line have been enabled.To find out more you can look up your telephone exchange on the Openreach website. Your property is connected to EXETER telephone exchange.

So I looked up my postcode on the openreach checker and it says it is 'accepting orders' however it also says
because some postcodes are served by more than one exchange, the postcode checker can't identify the specific exchange serving your property

So I think its safe to say its more than likely that my cabinet isn't fibre'd up though I wish there was a sodding easier way of finding out

Yep if the BT checker says fibre is not available, then fibre is not available usually.

I find it interesting that all of the post code checkers think you should be getting 10Mbps+
Either your lines got an issue which is causing slower speeds or it's just pretty damn poor (more likely). Are you using the master socket etc? The estimates are based on your post code so that'll be an estimate on a new line etc. Perhaps you're on a bad e side / d side.

I think I remember plugging into the master socket a while back right inside the door where the line comes in and nothing of any difference was spotted. Maybe its just a poor line in general.

I think I'll go Virgin Cable!

thanks for your efforts to help me out

If Virgin is available 10000000000000% go for it

In reply to a post by sorethumbs:

I put my number in that link and it said BT Infinity isn't currently available but
You can choose BT Broadband now offering: 17Mb *

That's an impossible estimate with the router stats you gave earlier. Same with the BT Availability Number Checker you did earlier. The BT Checker is not usually that far off.

Are you sure when you did the router stats from the master socket, that you used the hidden test socket behind the removable faceplate?

Switching to the test socket should not massively affect attenuation, and to get 17 Meg it would have to be a fairly large change

No, it shouldn't but it might. A faulty faceplate for example. No harm in eliminating the possibility.

'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.' (S. Holmes)

Something must be accountable for the surprisingly high BT estimate. It not as tho' line has no BB history, altho' you could argue it has no BTw BB history being on O2 LLU. Even when I was on Orange LLU, BT estimated my line accurately at 15-17 Meg.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Wed 14-Aug-13 00:16:07)

I will try the main socket this evening.

I rang O2 out of interest today and was told I've not actually been switched over to Sky yet as part of the buyout. They tested my line and also said 4mb is pretty much all I can get although I guess they are contacting my router so if there is any fault inside my house slowing things up they wouldn't be able to tell me.

In reply to a post by sorethumbs:

I will try the main socket this evening.

Make sure it's the hidden test socket behind the removable faceplate.

ok I have removed the plate from the socket inside our front door it looks the same as the pic here http://www.hmmm.ip3.co.uk/bt-master-socket-nte5.shtml

Previous test (where router usually is)

Link Information
Uptime: 4 days, 10:47:15
DSL Type: G.992.5 annex A
Maximum Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 884 / 6,173
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 858 / 4,968
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.5 / 19.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 34.0 / 54.5
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 6.5 / 6.0
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / BDCM
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 16 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 890 / 12,159,647
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 890 / 3,446
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 867 / 2,484

Tonights test in the master socket

Link Information
Uptime: 0 days, 0:13:40
DSL Type: G.992.5 annex A
Maximum Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 863 / 6,796
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 858 / 5,230
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.5 / 18.5
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 33.5 / 55.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 7.0 / 6.5
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / BDCM
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 277
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 939 / 0

I can't see much difference

Yes, slight improvement. Rules out any issue with faceplate or internal wiring, as increase could just as well be due to re-sync itself.