Hi all,
I live on a 2013-built housing development in London fed from the Norbury exchange. The developer couldn't be bothered to get BT to install a cabinet despite building 230 new homes, so everyone is connected via a pre-existing local cabinet some distance away. My home is at least 800m or so from the cabinet, possibly more depending on the precise route. As a result, G.Fast offers no improvement over VDSL2. 31Mb is all I can get. Frustratingly, the nearest road outside the housing development has Virgin Media but we don't, even though only the last two letters of our postcode are different.
Two areas close by have apparently had FTTP rolled out (Thornton Heath, and Tooting). I see from web searches that the former was certainly an early OpenReach test rollout. Consulting the latest OpenReach lists, Norbury exchange is not currently expected to be enabled for FTTP.
However, a week ago contractors working on behalf of OpenReach installed the 12-port Fibre distribution connectors into the BT ducting throughout the development, at nearest 50m from my house. The contractor said it's usually around a month from the install date that they would be properly connected to the exchange and that I ought to be able to place an order then.
So far so good, but if I use the BT Wholesale Broadband Availability Checker
here, it shows for my address: FTTP 330/30Mb and Availability Date: Available.
FTTP Install Process shows just "--"
Down in the descriptive text underneath it explictly states that "FTTP is not available." From what I could gather, you can't order until that FTTP Install Process is populated with an installation category.
But then I put a previous London address of mine in to this same checker and I see exactly the same status. However, this previous address does offer Fibre 100 when using the BT retail fibre availability checker
here, which I understand is an FTTP product. I then tried many different previous addresses, some outside London, and they all seem to offer this same status of 330/30Mb FTTP but also stating that it's not available.
So... can any actual conclusions be drawn about FTTP availability from the BT checker? Is it possible I may get FTTP soon, even if my exchange is not on the latest list (why else would OpenReach install the fibre in the ducting?)? Or do they sometimes install the fibre infrastructure months or years ahead of retail availability?
I did read something about an OpenReach initiative to retro fit some new housing developments, so could this be the reason for the recent installation work? I guess BT is under pressure to deliver to a target number of households, and new developments are the low hanging fruit given that they have ducting to each front door in good condition.