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BT CN21 & FTTC Infinity

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Has the roll-out of FTTC, BT infinity, which is going ahead quite quickly in N.I., superseded  21CN technology as such, in other words, have we skipped the 21CN upgrade via normal copper telephone cable and moved directly to F.O. technology ?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

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