In reply to a post by WWWombat:

The issue isn't just 10m of cable.

The starting problem is indeed 10m of cable that doesn't exist, that needs to be put in ducting that likely doesn't exist either. 10m of hole in the ground is more expensive than it sounds.

The secondary problem is that, once those 10m are in place, that cable wouldn't be allowed to physically joint into the existing cable. To do so would be to invite interference between VDSL2 services from the two different cabinets - downstream services from the old cab would be badly affected by services from the new cab, while upstream services to the new cab would be decimated by services up to the old cab. There would be risks to ADSL services too.

Crosstalk is a noise source that is the primary killer of VDSL2 services - and the possibility of your service disrupting everyone else's (and vice versa) cannot be emphasised enough!

That means a whole new, full-length cable is needed. And a separate DP at the top of your pole too, in all likelihood. There needs to be space at the top of the poles, and the extra cable must not end up overloading any of the poles with additional weight/strain.

And BT will, of course, have to live forever more with a segment of network that is just non-standard. That a short segment has 2 cables, 2 DPs, 2 cabs is a source of future confusion, and the source of inadvertent faults too.

hi, looking at location of cab 64/where the FTTC cab near cab64 is/my existing cable route and location of BT man hole covers there must be ducting etc going right past the nearest telegraph pole so I wouldn't expect too much additional work relatively speaking if they did re-provide from the nearest cab. Given that there are only 3 telegraph poles on my street with tired 40+ year old equipment, one of the DP's at top of my pole has been completely ripped out as fully faulty, and I'm provided from the pole furthest from the cab I'd say it would make much more sense to just run a new cable from cab 64 along the telegraph poles, replace the faulty DP's on the street and re-provide all houses from the new cab. Chances of openreach doing this is probably low knowing them as they like to avoid work but the cabling in my street is very old, capacity is full (due to so many faulty cables being ripped out) and if they were running new cable the full 40 metre length of the street to my house anyway it just makes sense to fix the problems once and for all, would also avoid any of these Crosstalk/segmentation of network issues mentioned. Not sure preventative maintenance is a concept openreach have got to grips with though and even if I paid they'd no doubt just install one line and wait for the rest to inevitably fail soon after.

In reply to a post by ian72:

And they would most likely just use a spare pair in the existing cable anyway which would go back to the existing cab - you generally cannot choose which cab a new line connects to when ordering and I doubt you could do that under USO even if it was applicable.

hi, as far as I can tell there are no spare pairs hence they had to swap my faulty line with the only phone only line on the street to try and fix the errors I was getting, maybe there is spare capacity in the local area they could extend in my direction but as for the DP on the telegraph pole opposite my house it's full I'm told

You could try ordering a new line but as they don't have to provide a second line then they might well just charge you the money for installing a new cable anyway.

As has already been said BT are under no obligation to make your line faster (their only obligation is to allow you out of contract for not meeting minimum expected speed). You either keep on badgering BT and hope they give in, give in yourself or pay the money they are asking for.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

If requesting additional lines and costs are exceeded and it may be a low hurdle as USO only requires a functional telephone line that supports 28 Kilo bits per second and subsequent lines to a property do not fall into USO remit then likely to go around the loop many more times.

So legally there is nothing to force them supply you from the nearer cabinet, or even to supply a second phone line.

In short I believe you are on a hiding to nothing without spending the cash on the network rearrangement

you may be right but I have to at least try to get this fixed and BT have offered to try and get a second line installed, got to be worth a try. Tempted to cancel my line then find two other people on the street with no BT line and pay them to have one installed before reordering mine when there is definitely no capacity! No doubt openreach would find some way of messing that up as well though

Remember that BT are under no obligation to provide you with a second line and that any such installation is likely to incur charges in full for any additional costs incurred by BT.

In reply to a post by ian72:

You could try ordering a new line but as they don't have to provide a second line then they might well just charge you the money for installing a new cable anyway.

As has already been said BT are under no obligation to make your line faster (their only obligation is to allow you out of contract for not meeting minimum expected speed). You either keep on badgering BT and hope they give in, give in yourself or pay the money they are asking for.

I'll try the second line install from BT and see where it takes me, can't end up worse than where I am now. Is there an in depth way of checking for any line errors on the router/via other method (and is there an 'acceptable' number of errors within a certain time period etc)? My old line had many many errors and so bad the HH6 told me I needed to test the line/call an engineer, I seem to remember after moving me to the other line the engineer said the errors were 'much reduced' rather than completely gone - if I'm still getting errors maybe I can report the line as faulty again and get it looked at that way (if there's nothing but faulty lines available at the DP they'd have to do something...)

In reply to a post by MCM:

Remember that BT are under no obligation to provide you with a second line and that any such installation is likely to incur charges in full for any additional costs incurred by BT.

BT themselves have suggested installing a second line then cancelling the first line/transferring broadband to line 2 when 2nd line is up and running, they already sent an engineer to my house once to do the install but we aborted once I talked to them and found job notes stated cab 3 again. Only afterwards did I think it might have been better to let them try to install and have him report back that all lines are in use. If there are any charges for a second line they will need to inform me of costs before proceeding and I can make a decision at that point.

That is because with the equivalence rules BT who you are ordering from have the same abilities as Sky to demand certain cable routing...i.e. its not normal

So a provider can do things like add to job notes, but they cannot guarantee it as part of a usual consumer order

Regardless of what a BT engineer may tell you you need to remember that BT Openreach are unlikely to carry out a network rearrangement to provide you with a second line without you being required to pay the full cost of the work. Remember also that BT Consumer are not Openreach and are treated by Openreach in an identical fashion as they would Talk Talk or Sky.

In reply to a post by ad_d:

Not sure preventative maintenance is a concept openreach have got to grips with though and

Thank Ofcom for establishing the competitive market we are now in. There's no money for anything preventative.