Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[jim1985]

Bit of background to my current situation.

I've had an FTTP connection for the last 3 years or so. When I originally took the FTTP connection, my exchange was one of the ones that was limited to a maximum of 330Mbps down and 50Mbps up, so this is the speed that I took.


Within the past couple of months I noticed by chance that the BT Wholesale checker was now showing that my exchange could provide my address with 1000Mbps down and 220Mbps up.
Being the bit of a nerd that I am, I rather excitedly got on to my ISP and negotiated a deal to increase my speed to 550Mbps down and 75Mbps up. This is where things started to go wrong.


After many attempts by my ISP, we have been unsuccessful in obtaining a speed increase. OpenReach keep coming back and saying that 330 / 50 is the maximum that I can get and that's that.
My ISP have pushed for more of an explanation, to which OpenReach have said that there is an incompatibility with equipment somewhere between my home and the local  exchange.
That's it, that's as much as I know.

If I go on to BT Broadband's site (BT are not my current ISP) and attempt to place a new order for an FTTP product, any order for any speed up to 300 will allow me to go through and complete the order if I so wish to. However, trying to place an order for any FTTP product over 300 causes an error at some stage of the order and tells me that the order cannot be completed.
I then decided to try entering some of my immediate neighbours addresses in to the order screens and low and behold I appear to be able to place an order for whatever FTTP speed I want.
The thing to point out here, the neighbour's addresses that I was experimenting with, none of them currently have an ONT installed whereas obviously I do.
It's also worth mentioning that my current ONT is an ECI C-Series. << I believe this may be where my problem lies, I seem to remember ECI being part of the problem that used to limit exchanges to the 330 / 50 speeds.

I have pointed this out to my ISP and asked them to suggest that OpenReach swap out my existing ONT for a newer one. Apparently OpenReach are also refusing to do this as they say it still won't enable my line to be upgraded past it's current speeds.


I'm pretty fed up of the whole situation now and I'm hoping that someone hear can either offer some advice on some magical words that I could pass on to OpenReach in order to get this resolved 
Or failing that, if someone could help me to understand that what OpenReach are saying is correct. At the moment it just sounds to me like they can't be bothered to do whatever needs doing to increase my line speed. In which case, why state the exchange is gigabit enabled if existing FTTP customers cannot upgrade to the faster speeds?


**EDIT
I have been doing a little reading around this forum and I'm guessing I'm in the same situation as this thread: https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,26041.0.html

[burakkucat]

It's also worth mentioning that my current ONT is an ECI C-Series. << I believe this may be where my problem lies, I seem to remember ECI being part of the problem that used to limit exchanges to the 330 / 50 speeds.

I have pointed this out to my ISP and asked them to suggest that OpenReach swap out my existing ONT for a newer one. Apparently OpenReach are also refusing to do this as they say it still won't enable my line to be upgraded past it's current speeds.

I strongly suspect that you have been "blessed" with the "Curse of ECI". 

As you have an ECI ONT in situ that fact tells me that the OLT in the (fibre) head-end exchange is also of ECI manufacture. And those OLTs can only provide services on attached PONs at the 330/50 Mbps rate.

If your ISP/CP was to ask Openreach the direct question "Is this speed limitation due to the ECI OLT in the head-end exchange?", it would be interesting to know the response obtained . . .

[j0hn]

The issue isn't your ECI ONT.
The issue is your ECI ONT is connected to an ECI OLT in the exchange.

The checker is wrong and you will not be able to order anything above 330/50.

OpenReach are apparently changing their deployment method slightly in that they longer require ONT's to match the OLT.
They are going to be installing Nokia ONT's everywhere from now on.
Those with existing ECI/Huawei ONT's will keep them.

As above this wouldn't make a difference to you as it's the exchange hardware that can't cope with higher speeds.

The ECI OLT only has 1Gb ports coming out the back of the OLT.

Any neighbour on the same splitter node as you (up to 32 local homes) will have the exact same limitations. The checker may allow them to order faster but it will be rejected.

[skyeci]

In time will openreach fix this kind of issue?

Thanks

[j0hn]

Eventually yes but there appears no great rush on OpenReach's part.

The last I seen from OpenReach on the subject was in the following ISPReview article

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2019/06/tackling-the-330mbps-speed-limit-in-some-openreach-fttp-areas.html

Only a tiny proportion of our FTTP footprint, covering less than 50,000 premises, is limited to 330Mbps download speeds – and we’re constantly working on ways to upgrade and extend our network. We’re investing billions of pounds into FTTP ahead of widespread consumer demand, and all of our current and future build is capable of offering gigabit speeds.

[skyeci]

Good old ECI strikes again..... will we ever be rid of it...I hope my exchange is not in this setup..

Thanks for the info

[Alex Atkin UK]

As I understand it, if you don't yet have FTTP, its not a problem.

This is specifically a problem for areas that had FTTP rolled out early before the mass roll out started, such as new builds.