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[sevenlayermuddle]

There is a small possibility I may have to eat pie for tea sometime soon, made from freshly grown humble.

Every time I looked at our local Council rollout plans in the past t had been broken up into different categories

'Accepting orders'
'Coming soon'
'Future exchanges'
'Under evaluation'
and
'Not currently in rollout plans.
And this last, N/C covered all of 'my' village, and all nearby villages and even medium sized towns too.

But I've just checked again, and they may be re-thinking.  My local exchange is now showing up as 'in the plan', and the interactive map shows me right on the edge of (but inside) an area for 'Council supported Fibre Rollout by end of 2015'.

The map resolution is awful, so it's hard to be certain if I'm actually 'in' or 'out'.  But my property, for historical reasons, already includes a number of BT ducts and underground boxes under wayleave agreements.  And there's a spot just over my fence (but still on 'my' land!) that would be the obvious place to locate a fibre cabinet.  Should put me in a strong negotiating position if they come along asking to extend the wayleave agreements to include a new cabinet.   

[roseway]

If this is being carried out in conjuction with BDUK there ought to be a postcode checker on the county council's website. It will still lead to the same low resolution maps, but it should say where in the plan your particular postcode sits (i.e. what phase of the program you're in).

By the way, the location of the FTTC cabinet has to be close to the present cabinet to which you're connected, so that the cables can be linked up easily.

[Ronski]

'Should put me in a strong negotiating position if they come along asking to extend the wayleave agreements to include a new cabinet.   

Shame they can't run FTTP directly in as recompense  for having the cabinet on your land.

[sevenlayermuddle]

If this is being carried out in conjuction with BDUK there ought to be a postcode checker on the county council's website. It will still lead to the same low resolution maps, but it should say where in the plan your particular postcode sits (i.e. what phase of the program you're in).

By the way, the location of the FTTC cabinet has to be close to the present cabinet to which you're connected, so that the cables can be linked up easily.

All I can find is a line (number) checker, not postcode checker - unless I am being thick,  it's changed quite a lot since last time I looked.  And all it tells me is I haven't got it yet, which I already know.

Not sure where my cabinet is, is there any way to tell?  I've just had a walk through the village in street view and the only one I can see is about a half mile away down the road, in the direction of the exchange.   

There's also several cable ducts and boxes ('distribution points' perhaps?) buried under bits of my garden, serving a number of neighbouring houses.  I presume then that these DPs (if that's what they are) would not be affected by fibre rollout?  No matter, I just liked the idea of striking a deal along the lines suggested by Ronski above. 

It's not something I have really tried to get my head around, as I didn't think there was any chance of being included.   I'll take more interest now!

[roseway]

Not sure where my cabinet is, is there any way to tell?  I've just had a walk through the village in street view and the only one I can see is about a half mile away down the road, in the direction of the exchange.

I'm not sure how to tell (others will know better than me), but a distance of ~800 m is quite possible, and should deliver FTTC speeds in the region of 28 Mbps down, 10 Mbps up.

If you don't mind, I think I should split this thread and put the later postings into the FTTC section, but that will have to wait until this evening.

[Black Sheep]

If you PM me your postcode 7LM, I'll let you know where the existing Cab is. New FTTC Cabs have to be sited within 50mtrs of these existing Cabs.

Custard goes well with pie. 

[c6em]

@Sevenlayermuddle
They won't bother you at all
BT will come along and use their code powers as a statutory utility to dump the FTTC cabinet where they like.
If that is on your verge of say a private road (ie your land) so be it.
Nowt you can do about it. (unless it is in a conservation area where PP is required and I'm not sure of the circumstances if the land was part of a listed building curtiledge).

If you really want to be obstructive you can require them to submit a formal application to the county court.

All you may see if you are watching the council planning registers on line is a statutory application by BT/Harlequin Group to your local council stating where they are putting them and advising the council that they have no right of refusal, no prior notice is required and no fee is payable to the council (I have one such example letter passed on to me).

[Black Sheep]

"BT will come along and use their code powers as a statutory utility to dump the FTTC cabinet where they like"

Not quite, see above about it having to be sited within 50mtrs of the existing Cab.

[sevenlayermuddle]

In fairness to BT, yes utilities have statutory powers to install equipment, even against the landowner's permission.   But they still have to pay a reasonable wayleave fee and, don't ask me why, but BT's wayleave fees seem to be very generous in comparison to (say) power companies.  I have an electricity pole in my garden too, so I speak from experience.   

Plus, if the property owner subsequently decides he had other plans for that bit of his garden, like maybe installing a nice bit of block paving, or building a shed, then the utility company ( given reasonable notice) usually has to relocate the services at their own cost.   That does depend on the legalistic wording of the wayleave, mind you.

As suggested by Eric though, maybe some bits of this thread wants splitting off?

[roseway]

maybe some bits of this thread wants splitting off?

It already has been.

[sevenlayermuddle]

Anyways, I see the checker at

http://www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/where-and-when/

is also looking a lot more optimistic.  Last time I looked, not many months ago, my exchange said 'NC' (Not current in plans).  Now it has skipped to a 'FE', and the linked pdf to explain that status says year 2014!

http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/super-fastfibreaccess/downloads/sffa_exchange_lists/future_exchanges.pdf

 

So I will certainly work on the assumption that I might get FTTC after all, it does look promising.

[roseway]

I'm crossing my fingers for you

[sevenlayermuddle]

Forgive me if (as I suspect) the answer to this is in other places, but a quick question…
 
Will I still be able to use my precious new Billion router?   

I think 'yes' if Openreach supply me with a separate modem, but on BT's offerings they seem to be shipping integrated home-hubs for self install.   My current layout has the router connected to a BT slave socket (* see below), allowing it to be positioned centrally for optimum WiFi, and also to reduce clutter, and I'd like to leave it there.  There's ethernet links available that would link it to a modem by the master socket.

* Yes I know that is ill-advised, even for ADSL1.  But having made certain (non trivial!) changes to my internal wiring I promise it suffers no signal degradation whatsoever for ADSL1, in fact performance is marginally better in its current location.  Happy to discuss in detail but that would be a separate thread.  I am of course resigned to VDSL needing the master socket, hence underlining my preference for separate modem & router. 

[roseway]

Will I still be able to use my precious new Billion router?

I'm in the same position as you on that point. We can use the 7800DXL as a router only, with a separate modem. I'll be using the HG612 as the modem. You can get these on Ebay at varying prices, depending on your Ebay bidding skills.

If your extension socket is connected with twisted pair cable of a good specification, I don't really see why you shouldn't continue to use it for VDSL2.

[sevenlayermuddle]

If your extension socket is connected with twisted pair cable of a good specification, I don't really see why you shouldn't continue to use it for VDSL2.

Possibly not but it would be unfair of me to try and persuade BT's installation engineers to 'take my word for it'.

In summary, the 'trick' was to fit an ADSL Nation socket with filtered faceplate where the router is connected.  All Telephone sockets downstream of the router are then on the filtered side and cease to burden the DSL signal, by my reasoning that's akin in some ways to the 'perfect scenario' of using the BT test socket in isolation.   When I was setting up the Billion I tried again in the master's test socket with internal wiring unplugged.  Results, in terms of connection speeds, margin stability, FECs etc were no different to results in the DSL terminated secondary socket.

It may not work for everybody though, I'm sure it must depend strongly on quality and properties of cabling for the master to router link, and I won't be surprised if VDSL may turn out to be more fussy.