Print

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

[derek-payne]

My local exchange, NILDW, was scheduled for 21CN WBC upgrade end of March 2010, this did not happen, now there is no advised date for the upgrade to take place.

My question is :-
Has the roll-out of FTTC, BT infinity, which is going ahead quite quickly in N.I., superseded  21CN technology as such, in other words, have we skipped the 21CN upgrade via normal copper telephone cable and moved directly to F.O. technology ?

If my exchange had been upgraded to 21CN WBC I would have had the option to migrate to a potentially faster system, in my case probably worth while as on a good, 32db line @ 8.2 Mb. synch. and a stable 6.3 Mb. data rate, all be it at an extra charge from my ISP, Plusnet.

Am I ever likely to be given this option now remaining on copper lines or will I be forced to migrate to F.O. if I wish to upgrade when FTTC reaches my area ?

Doubtless the F.O. migration will cost more, admittantly it would offer a greater speed which to be honest I do not really need at present.

Derek P.

[waltergmw]

Hi Derek,

I suspect the 21CN work has just been postponed as I believe BT will want similar configurations at all exchanges so you should be able to migrate that way eventually.
It would be quite reasonable to expect a definitive answer from BT but not perhaps by return.
Note also that there's no guarantee that every PCP cabinet will be upgraded to FTTC in any case.
If 21CN isn't available immediately but FTTC is, you could well find more economical FTTC offerings from other CPs such as PlusNet are on offer:-

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/i/4627.html

As you have Sky & TalkTalk with LLU services you could elect go to one of them if nothing else is forthcoming.

Kind regards,
Walter

[derek-payne]

Walter,

Many thanks for your response.

Perhaps I am just overly suspicious about BT, have they dropped 21CN WBC in my area with the possibility of being able to charge more for a F.O. system without offering the intermediate option of 21CN on copper to a relatively light user like me ?

I take your point about the LLU providers on my exchange, TalkTalk I am very wary of after some very bad experiences with Tiscali, Sky I can`t say, don`t subscribe to their TV system so would not get the best package deals.
Am I correct in thinking that they could not offer me 21CN speeds either until my exchange was upgraded or is it different with LLU operation ?

To be honest, I am very happy with PlusNet, very good service, what a contrast since I escaped from Tiscali over a year ago.
I also have the bonus that my exchange has recently been re-graded to market 3, so my basic ISP service will half in June.

Best regards,

Derek P.

[waltergmw]

Hi again Derek,

There are others here, from Kitz downwards, who are much more conversant with the 20CN to 21CN migration process than I am, but I believe the 21CN migration only applies to BT together with other Communications Providers using BT Wholesale services.

Whilst I probably share your caution with BT marketeers (See their Infinity advertisements !), both migration operations are quite complex involving a lot of manual human intervention and they probably don't want to do them concurrently.
This is actually quite sensible as if you only do one operation at a time you have a much better chance of discovering the inevitable mistakes more easily.

Some LLU providers (E.g. TalkTalk and O2 / Be) already offer faster speeds using ADSL2+ but I'm not aware of anybody using VDSL2 in the UK other than FTTC suppliers such as Rutland Telecom, Vtesse Networks and BT.

Others please add anything you know on this subject.

Kind regards,
Walter

[derek-payne]

Walter,

Again many thanks for your response and support.

I think I will just sit tight at present and see what happens next, all sorts of tech. developments in the pipeline.

I actually do have the option of cable as well, quite a few years ago NTL, as they were then, carried out extensive cabling in my area, "green box" at the end of my street and a little ground J/B. on the footpath outside my house.
Just after that, NTL went out of business, I believe that Virgin took over the system.
If extra data speed mattered that much to me and I had problems with a long and/or noisy phone line then I supposed that would be my best option.
Neither are the case at present.

As I said earlier, I am still smarting from the experience with my last ISP and still very cautious about moving again except for a very good reason.

Best regards,

Derek P.

[Mick]

My local exchange, NILDW, was scheduled for 21CN WBC upgrade end of March 2010, this did not happen, now there is no advised date for the upgrade to take place.

Same here with the SMCHY exchange.

Now there's no date for 21CN.  No idea if BT will ever upgrade it to 21CN, let alone to FTTC.  Given that the exchange serves less than 670 houses I guess they will not bother with fibre.  Is there a way to find out if there is an ETA for 21CN?

[DrTeeth]

FTTC uses 21CN, which also explains that when 21CN equipment fails, so does the FTTC.

DrT

[waltergmw]

HI Dr T,

I have some difficulty with what actually defines 21CN. Where there is no FTTC, and observing from the end users modem, the line card chip is now identified as Infineon in our case at THCN.
If FTTC were available, the line card function is moved into the local cabinet and the internet traffic is routed into a fibre cable probably back to the same exchange, but bypassing the line cards there, before joining the exchange backhaul routes which also contain elements of 21CN architecture.

Kind regards,
Walter

[DrTeeth]

Hi Walter,

I'm not sure how it works either, but when my FTTC connection failed, tech support told me that 21CN was down at my exchange. I queried this as a) did not seem sensible, and b) it was VY early days for FTTC. I was told that FTTC can only work in an FTTC exchange and if 21CN part goes west, so does the FTTC.

With kind regards

DrT