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[waltergmw]

Hello everybody again,

I know this is not of national importance but some of you might like to know that our first FTTC went live in Ewhurst last Friday with the other two expected in the next two weeks.
They are only 15 months late behind our scuppered Vtesse Networks project.
Perhaps more of a worry is that they have all only been provided with 100 pr tie cables in single ducts, including one 57 m road crossing, despite impassioned pleas to BT.
I had included engineering contingency in our procurement specification calling for a standard 500 service capacity from the cabinets as e.g. the then Rutland Telecoms had done.

Kind regards,
Walter

[UncleUB]

You must be very pleased Walter as I know you have put a lot of time and effort in this.  :clap2:

[roseway]

Well done Walter, even if it is less than you wanted. :clap2:

[Black Sheep]

Hello everybody again,

I know this is not of national importance but some of you might like to know that our first FTTC went live in Ewhurst last Friday with the other two expected in the next two weeks.
They are only 15 months late behind our scuppered Vtesse Networks project.
Perhaps more of a worry is that they have all only been provided with 100 pr tie cables in single ducts, including one 57 m road crossing, despite impassioned pleas to BT.
I had included engineering contingency in our procurement specification calling for a standard 500 service capacity from the cabinets as e.g. the then Rutland Telecoms had done.

Kind regards,
Walter

Hallelujah, Walt !! Chuffed for ya.

As an aside, when you say "500 service capacity", I assume you are referring to the ammount of available spares on FTTC ?? If that's the case, it will be the first I've ever heard or seen of ?? The largest 'Go Live' FTTC I've personally witnessed is a 200PR.

It makes business sense to do this, as you can always add to the capacity later on, rather than hope saturation is achieved. A lot of people put their signature on papers saying they back various issues, but when it comes down to forking out cold, hard cash ...... it can sometimes change their views.

Just my thoughts Walt, nothing more nothing less pal. 

[burakkucat]

 

Well done Walter, for all your hard work on behalf of the Ewhurstians!

[waltergmw]

@ everybody,

Thank you so much for your very kind words.

This is so much less than we require, and after an additional 15 months wait, and without any sustainable fibre backbone, nor any duct space for future expansion that we are decidedly underwhelmed. We are very frustrated at the quite disgraceful tactics that BT used to destroy our Vtesse Networks project. Given that there are around 1000 properties, though not all will require a service tomorrow, providing a miserable maximum of 300, if BT can afford the extra line card which can only be used for the first 36 channels, is an absolute travesty.

It may come as no surprise that we are already looking for other fibre options following the heros on B4RN in sunny but soggy Lancashire !
I know because I've walked around 4 km of one of their routes; I certainly needed my walking boots and gaiters as well.

@ BS, thank you very much for your thoughts. If only your FTTC designers would listen to your very sensible words we would all be much better off.
I had used plain common sense in specifying a healthy contingency capacity figure which is quite easily achieved if you design a cabinet for a non-Virgin Media area, (or even had the sense to install an ECI 256 as demonstrated close to Kitz's Shangri-La). I certainly wouldn't expect the cabinet to be fully populated from day one, but to have to dig the roads up yet again just to bury extra ducting is IMHO quite preposterous and a totally unnecessary expense which WE all have to pay for.

Re your maximum install size BS, I have an unconfirmed report from one of your fibre blowing colleagues that they have used extra common sense in Southampton and have realised that BT has a standard 50 pr cable which magically produces a total of 250 from the maximum 256 ECI DSLAM capacity. It would make common sense not to equip the last 6 channels so they are available for lightning strikes etc. damage anyway. I am not sure if or how they got around the IDC block cable layouts though.

Kind regards,
Walter

[Black Sheep]

"I certainly wouldn't expect the cabinet to be fully populated from day one, but to have to dig the roads up yet again just to bury extra ducting is IMHO quite preposterous and a totally unnecessary expense which WE all have to pay for".

There is no additional digging required when providing an expansion to the FTTC. All that is required is another 100PR cable shoving down existing ductwork, and then 'threading and connecing' the pairs. There may be additional work at the actual Fibre Cab required (as in extra equipment installed) ?? But I wouldn't know about this.

[waltergmw]

@ BS,

Whilst that is surely possible in some cases it is rather unlikely here with a 57 m single duct without any intermediate joint pits and with the duct going straight up into the FTTC.
The poor guys putting the first two hundred pairs in took 2.5 days as the pulling rope jammed on the existing fibre "cable" and duct.
They had to return on day two to restart the exercise from the other (FTTC) end without a winch or even cable trailers.
They were knackered at the end of that day!

As one of the guys pulling the rope is an experienced younger climber, I doubt if he was less fit that your Lancastrian mountaineers !

(Even if they achieve that, there's every chance that BT might one day be expected to add a second FTTC as indeed they have done twice already in Chilworth, another semi-rural village without Virgin Media off the THGI exchange.)

Kind regards,
Walter

[Azzaka]

Pleased for you Walter. And about time to Sire.

-Leo

[waltergmw]

Thanks very much Leo,

Your Richard Metcalfe is about to be a very busy man - I hope !

Then a fortnight later or so, the fun will really start and I'm sure your guys will be overjoyed to hear from us all again !

Kind regards,
Walter

[kitz]

Well done walter.   Im glad that all your hard work has finally come to fruition 

[BritBrat]

What are you going to do with all that spare time you will now have

I bet you are very happy I am due fibre sometime next year.

BUT, do you have to use BT as the fibre ISP? if not make sure everyone uses Sky, Zen or some other ISP.

[waltergmw]

@ Everybody,

Thank you all so much for your kind words.

@ Britbrat I have been very fortunate in that some really excellent advertising material is available to suggest that any ISP is better than the performance of the incumbent as illustrated here:-

http://www.ewhurst-broadband.org.uk/?p=2751#comment-478

The situation might improve in mid January (I.e. over 6 months), if they don't postpone the repair yet again, provided they can find a suitable engineer who is able to connect both ends of 12 wires properly.
It is quite preposterous that the initial lash up provided no spares at all, when an additional £10 or so could have provided two spare pairs by using 2 * 4 pr drop wires.

Regarding the battle, it is likely to be just beginning as the gazumping incumbent has thought it quite fit and proper to provide a maximum of 100 paris in three cabinets to serve 900 properties as a replacement for our 500 service cabinets we had specified.
This provides sufficient for 29%, 30% and 46% of houses respectively.
I was actually thanked by our minders for pointing out in the early Spring of this year that a "Higher capacity ECI cabinet" is useless if only a single pair of 100 pr cables are installed.
You might think that remedial works would be in order, but we now (8 months later) have to suffer the ignominy of competing with all the other substandard areas in Surrey for a virtual peppercorn of State Aid to rectify the numbers required as well as obtaining services for all those sub standard lines where no VDSL service is available.

Sorry for the minor rant, but perhaps it's a good thing that I am in a jocular mood this evening !

Kind regards,
Walter

EDIT One of my more agressive correspondents has provided the following opinion.
If this sort of thing is required to enable every State Aid application we may well be in for a very long wait.

Securing of an EU allowable decision for state aid for Ewhurst may prove difficult if the letter of the EU requirements is followed.  Accurate mapping would be needed to show the bits that BT are not able to reach with their current deployment.  Also BT have already killed off a subsidised project on the basis that they would provide a solution within 3 years (the time period where the EU will not grant state aid once a company declares it will do the job).  Note paragraph (c) in the attachment speaks about “similar if not identical quality conditions”  meaning comparisons should be based on similar if not identical specifications.  Regarding the Ewhurst history, paragraph (c) is in a different context, but how can BT kill subsidy to a competitive project and then receive subsidy to make good an inferior infrastructure without falling foul of the EU laws?

[waltergmw]

Hello everybody,

We've hit the local press at least.

http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/s/2123154_village_gets_bt_cabinets_but_broadband_too_slow

You probably realise that I have found many contacts across the Country.
Ewhurst is now seen by many as a shabby example of commercialism but I don't think we are considered as a den of iniquity. Perhaps some within the behemoth might wish they had not sat upon this particular Pandora's box though.

There will be a continuing campaign to provide adequate broadband services to ALL that require these ever more necessary facilities.

Kind regards,
Walter

[waltergmw]

Gentlefolk,

Today, some 15 months late we achieved our first VDSL service. It took three BT Openreach engineers to install it, but I presume two were probably new recruits. As the FTTC line length is around 450 m and only a 38 / 10 had been ordered we weren't surprised that we achieved full speed. The next two cabinets will be far more of a challenge with much longer lines. The last cabinet is yet to be officially activated but has had power applied for nearly two weeks. As the installation dates now stretch into December, we suspect BT Openreach are in no hurry to be swamped with yet another avalanche. Of course silence is the order of the day !

Kind regards,
Walter