A lot of people ask how to find their cabinet location.
BT's dslchecker shows a cabinet number and in the past some PCP spreadsheets have leaked, but it's still ridiculously difficult to find where your cabinet is sited (which can easily be 3/4 of a mile away even in built up areas such as London).
While BT don't publish the location data for its individual roadside equipment cabinets
(because it will harm my pet gerbil to do so?!), and they automatically get planning permission without grounds for objection (presumed consent stuff).... but they still have to notify the local authority via a planning application and get approval for major works, even if it's "rubber stamped" most of the time. Also FTTC has involved cabinets being upgraded or larger ones installed which also tends to involve planning rules. So you can use local council planning applications,
FOI and online data to get round BT's idiotic behaviour. As a bonus it captures most cabinets from before 20C right up to "planned and approval requested but not yet installed".
So I found mine, and thought I'd post up a quick "howto" since I haven't seen this trick elsewhere. It will get you a shortlist of the 2-3 cabinets it could be, and exactly where they are, so you can check the cabninet number on Street View or by going there. It's still not as easy as if BT just gave that information to people (because that would
harm their commerce, right?!) but it's better than nothing and should get you a very short shortlist of all possible locations. Try this trick if you're searching for your cabinet. It's not perfect but it works, and should stay up to date until BT finally let everyone know their Precious Cabinet's Position ("PCP").
- Background information needed:
Cabinet and exchange - Use http://dslchecker.bt.com to get the basic information about the connection and cabinet number for your phone number, address or postcode (small links at the bottom if you don't yet know the phone number). Also take a note of the "best expected speed" for FTTC if shown, which you'll use shortly. This will usually be called "FTTC Range A (Clean)".
Exchange location - Use Google (enter BT exchange and the official title) or the adslchecker if you know your details, to find the BT code and location of your exchange. Your cabinet could be up to 3/4 mile or so from your address even in built-up areas, but it's much more likely to be 1/2 a mile towards your exchange or a bit to the side, than 1/2 a mile in the exact opposite direction, so this will help you narrow down the most likely ones.
Distance your phone line runs to the cabinet - You can get this from your "best expected FTTC speed". The speed estimates are often based on calculated data, so you can compare it to any of the usual graphs showing distance from exchange vs expected speed, to get an idea roughly how far away to expect to find it. FTTC only gets carried by copper between your house and the cabinet, so estimated "best case" speed loss is due to FTTC signal degradation over the copper wire section, which is directly related to the distance the copper wire runs from the house to your cabinet where the optic fibre terminates. However, don't rely on this too rigidly, as copper cables may not follow the 'normal' route to the cabinet. But it can sometimes help. (Mine was 80 / 79.8 which suggested one of the closest cabinets)
The local councils and postcodes likely to be relevant to your address and the cabinet (including postcode units) - you need to know which authorities may have ben approached for planning consent for the cabinet servicing your house, and neighbouring postcodes and postcode units (smaller subdivisions) to know what postcodes are likely to be relevant. It can help to know, for example, that your house is "NW3 0" but 3 streets away it becomes "NW3 4" or "NW7".
- Now, you need to look up any website which lets the public search through planning applications for your local authority (and neighbouring authorities if near a boundary). Google will quickly get you these: search for planning applications or planning application search and the council or first part of postcode. If stuck, add the qualifier site:COUNCILWEBSITE.gov.uk or browse the site. You just need enough to find a search portal. There are some centralised portals too which may be helpful if you aren't making progress on the one you try first.
- Now you need to find out how planning applications are normally titled, so you know what to enter in your search. BT planning requests in my local council get titled like this:
"Installation of BT Openreach fibre optic green equipment cabinet. Pavement outside <ADDRESS, POSTCODE>",
"Installation of Openreach Fibre Optic Green Broadband Cabinet.",
"Green auxiliary cabinet", or
"Installation of replacement 12.5m high telecommunications tower and 2no. equipment cabinets".
The bits in bold are what you need. I found this out by simply Googling for typical words such as Openreach (BT's FTTC provisioners), Equipment cabinet, green cabinet, Installation cabinet or Broadband cabinet for my council, then once I could see the typical words used, I used the planning application search to list all applications for that authority, containing those expressions. I'd only use an actual postcodes or street name with care, or as a "distance from" basis, because your cabinet might be in an adjacent postcode or another street. Because wordings can vary, if in doubt, try a few variant wordings and then remove duplicates manually.
- If you struck gold, you should get a short list of exact cabinet street addresses that have been approved - perhaps with some duplicates - at which point your familiarity with the area and its postcodes will hopefully let you narrow this down quickly to half a dozen possibilities. Sometimes as in my case you won't even need to look at the details, the search results are all you need. Checking where they are on Google Maps and comparing your address and the exchange location will probably narrow the list down to just 1-3 possible cabinets at most, and then Street View (or more likely a quick walk) will confirm which of these hopefully has your number on the front or side! Solved!
Example results for my grandmother's home in Barnet, NW London:
Search page:
http://acolaidpublic.barnet.gov.uk/online-applications/pagedSearchResults.doSearch term used:
OpenreachResults:
- Installation of BT Openreach Fibre Optic Green Broadband Cabinet.
Pavement outside High Oaks, Highwood Hill, London, NW7 4EU | Ref. No: H/04302/12 | Received: Tue 13 Nov 2012 | Validated: Tue 13 Nov 2012 | Status: Decided
- Installation of BT Openreach Fibre Optic Green equipment cabinet.
Pavement outside High Oaks, Highwood Hill, London NW7 4EU |Ref. No: H/02988/12 | Received: Tue 31 Jul 2012 | Validated: Tue 31 Jul 2012 | Status: Decided
- Installation of BT Openreach Fibre Optic Green equipment cabinet.
Opposite 69 Hadley Highstone, EN5 4QQ | Ref. No: B/02916/12 | Received: Mon 30 Jul 2012 | Validated: Tue 31 Jul 2012 | Status: Decided
- Installation of BT Openreach Fibre Optic Green equipment cabinet.
Pavement outside Denman Drive, Off 44 Erskine Hill, London, NW11 6HD | Ref. No: F/02371/12 | Received: Fri 22 Jun 2012 | Validated: Fri 22 Jun 2012 | Status: Decided.
etc.
Only a couple of these could even slightly be a possible location for the cabinet connecting the address I chose as a test, and the exchange. Job done!
Hope this helps!
