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[Debug]

*cries*

So... i'll be moving to a new home soon.  This means transferring the broadband across and generally some offline time which i hate.  Thought i'd prepare myself and check out the options.



WAAAA no FTTC! 

and what is 'cabinet under review' supposed to mean!?!  Sounds like an open-ended BT delay tactic 

Can anyone shed any light on this and who do i have to bug to get a faster connection 

[Debug]

Think i just found an answer, albeit not a resolution :

You say you’re in my area but that my cabinet is under review, can you tell me why this is and when you’re likely to have an answer?
A cabinet may be under review for a number of reasons, including local planning issues, (we still need planning permission in a number of scenarios, or planning due to safety reasons), problems with our underground network or issues with the supply of a suitable power source. Due to these reasons and the length of time it takes to resolve such problems, we are unable to give likely dates when the cabinet will be able to accept orders.

*cries some more* 

[kitz]

Oh dear - its approx 1.8km from the exchange.   I don't think you've had a connection that slow in >10yrs  

Cab 23 is one of the few cabs in Sunbury that there's no date for.  Its not even in any of the BDUK planned phases and all I can see on Magenta is 'Fibre Not Available'.  No date, no plans or nothing just 'Still assessing whether or not we can upgrade your cabinet'

From what I can see, your next nearest cabs are P32 (TW16 7DY) & P30 (TW16 7AP) both of which are enabled but are both on the other side of the A244.   The other area near your side of the road (TW16 7HT) is showing up as Exchange only lines and no fibre.  I'm guessing (& this is just a guess) the issue may be something with getting fibre to the other side of that main road.   
There's a similar case near here - where I used to live actually, if you can recall where that was- its also one the 'wrong side' of the main road serving that smallish estate.

Is it too late to cancel the move?  :hides:

[loonylion]

point to point wireless from a house on the 'enabled' side of the road?   

[Debug]

Unfortunately i cant cancel the move just because my internet will be poor..   as much as i'd like to!

I have noticed there is a manhole cover at the top of the road that is sprayed 'fibre optic linkbox' and the cab is about 20m from it, but it looks like its only serving about 50 houses so the chances of being upgraded seem low.

Everywhere else in the area is trading estate - that's probably the reason fibre is up and running.  Next time im over there i'll have a look at the cab and see if i can get some images.

Theres always a possibility i could *cough* borrow *cough* a couple of neighbors connections and bridge it all together 

[kitz]

Unless anyone else can come up with some more suggestions, the only thing I can think of is searching through local planning permission and scheduled roadworks to see if there is anything planned by BT.

As Blacksheep and others have mentioned several times before, sometimes the issue can be a collapsed duct, or other reason why they cant get fibre to that side of the road.   I'll admit that last night I google street viewed that postcode to have a look at the cab to see if I could get any clues.  It may just be that there arent sufficient premises from that cab to make the upgrade viable.   Looks like Virgin Cable arent there either.

Unfortunately i cant cancel the move just because my internet will be poor..   as much as i'd like to!

You'll have to rate limit what the girls can get, if they are anything like my nieces then streaming will soon take up a chunk of that "Up to 8Mbps" of bandwidth.  On the plus side you should be well capable of maximising any internal wiring etc and may even manage to reach the top end estimation of 12.5Mbps.    Depends how much further away from the cab you are I suppose.  If you have the current householders phone no, you could try putting it into the adsl checker and it may give you a more accurate result than postcode alone.

Good luck with the move, I believe Mrs_Debug is already well organised and has most of the packing done (including the cat!)

[waltergmw]

Gentlefolk,

I have observed in Lancashire VDSL cabinets which were supposed to be within 6 months but without a start date and a second group which, by deduction, were more than 6 months away. Some of those have now been demoted to under review which might depend upon further funding being made available.

Kitz's idea of using the existing phone number, or that of a neighbour, is a good plan. There is some hope with 21CN WBC available on a line length of 1.7 km it might well provide a better result than forecast unless the cable route is very much longer.

When you move into the new house do try to optimise the wiring and even (unofficially) relocating the NTE5 master socket as close as possible to the cable entry point but where mains power is reasonably available. Sunbury on Thames is not a million miles from Guildford so Walter's wheelbarrow might venture into slightly foreign parts if you're really stuck.

I also note that Virgin Media broadband is not available in your street but they invite you to provide contact details. Given the recent announcement of their expansion plans it might just be possible that they might beat the undefined BT timescales ?


Kind regards,
Walter

[kitz]

Some of those have now been demoted to under review which might depend upon further funding being made available.

You raise a good point there, I've forgotten the exact details,  but didnt Openreach recently get some sort of slap on the wrist about giving ETA dates?   For background info for debug:-  basically a couple of people complained to OFCOM about how their cab ETA dates had been put back several times.   In some instances there are times when there are various events beyond Openreaches control and they cannot perform the upgrades when anticipated. As a result BT stopped putting dates when they couldn't be certain.   A few of us mentioned at the time, we'd rather see some sort of date as an indication that at least something was going on,  rather than nothing at all.

[renluop]

You raise a good point there, I've forgotten the exact details,  but didnt Openreach recently get some sort of slap on the wrist about giving ETA dates?     

Was it here?


---
edited by admin - fixed link

[Debug]

Thanks for your offer of assistance Walter, I should be OK if a little rusty

I had the same issue with cabling when i moved into this property - there was a few irrelevent links in the wiring before the master socket so i kinda 'fixed' them and relocated the socket to a much better location.  It'll be the first step in pushing the boundaries of what is possible.

One of the neighbours is getting a steady 13mb from his line, on BT's router although has been rewired from the street recently.  Im hoping to get at least that if not more with some better built equipment.

Either way, its going to be a step back to the mid noughties, and a huge downgrade from my current connection:


Thanks for your help guys,  I'll get onto Virgins case and register interest, and see where i stand with my current contract, im sure im tied into Sky FTTC billing for another 8 months, although i dont know if it'll apply when they cant provide the service.

[waltergmw]

Gentlefolk,

We must also remember for any PCP still waiting for a FTTC (or even possibly FTTH) the laws of physics still apply and AFAIK PSTN modifications are always excluded. I am aware of one small Surrey area off the Shere exchange where all the properties "have access" and are "passed by" twisted pairs but the 42 properties cannot obtain any VDSL service at all. It also follows that there are others where "Superfast" equates to single digit download speeds.

Kind regards,
Walter

[Debug]

Understood.

Cant help but think that we are spoilt by modern technology.  The Dial-up days are not really that far behind us in the grand scheme of things 

The main issue as discussed with the neighbours seems to be an occasional raise of noise on the line from time to time creating instability and throttling back connection speeds.  The copper crosses a busy section of the M3 and a railway line on its long link to the exchange.

The street is only about 50 properties surrounded by trading estate so I guess with a reasonable connection its likely to be classified as an uneconomical upgrade.

Hasn't really got a lot going for it!

[kitz]

You raise a good point there, I've forgotten the exact details,  but didnt Openreach recently get some sort of slap on the wrist about giving ETA dates?     

Was it here?

Yep ty renluop thats it

[burakkucat]

Was it here?

Ren -- You have the leading f missing from your link! Finger slippage? 

[Debug]

Had a look through the local council for the area, there are no planning applications in place for the cab or the main road that feeds it.  Having said that, i cant find an application for the cab upgrade outside the kids school either which they dug up for 3 days and fed power last summer.  Is planning required for this kind of work?

I also threw caution to the wind and emailed OR requesting details about Cab-23 and what has prevented the rollout of FTTC upgrades.  Im not expecting anything of value back but i guess it was worth a try