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bt fttc

Just checked BT's roll out map, my exchange was due for fttc update in March, now it's showing June.

Why the hell can't BT get anywhere near it's own dates, the fiasco just rolls on.

When the end of June gets here I'm sure it will roll ove yet another 3, why 3 months why not just a month?
 
Agree entirely. My exchange was enabled end of 2010/beginning 2011, less than half the town has cabinets though. Since that time ive checked my number dozens of times and dozens of times the date has been put back. Up until a few weeks ago it was showing End of March for my street to finally get a cabinet, just like you though its now showing June.

I have no faith come end of June it will be done either. The whole rollout and the way they have gobbled up tax payer cash in an already financially screwed Britain is an utter joke. Though i expected it to be an utter joke from the start.... Mix BT and Government together and you cant get anything else.
 
Much the same story here - 31 December 2011 became 31 March 2012, and, predictably, as soon as that date is reached, the theoretical date (which I have no faith in whatsoever), has become 30 June 2012.

Tea stall.
Jumble sale.
BT.

Do not allow these to be mixed together - the resulting shambles could seriously damage your sanity.
 
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@reset...
"...why 3 months why not just a month?"

Dividing the year into three month periods means that BT only have to learn to count to four - twelve would be completely beyond their abilities.
 
Sadly this is all quite normal as BT's dates are only rough estimates and tend to shift both backwards and sometimes forwards in time. In other cases some upgrades have been suspended / cancelled completely until other problems can be resolved first and we've seen a few put back by an entire year.

BT occasionally mentions these changes specifically but most of the time they happen quietly in the background via a tiny database change. The lesson is, don't allow your expectations to get ahead of reality. Deploying FTTC / FTTP is quite tricky and requires some major work so it's to be expected that many locations will suffer delays.

Delays like this are practically normal for most ISP / telecoms firms when rolling out new tech.
 
Our exchange enablement date has been moved fowards from by end of 2012(Dec 12) to June 12 ,lol so far the only signs that my nearest cab is getting a Fttc DSLAM cab near to it is the white paint markings written on the footpath ,infact i think there will be 2 cabs sited next to each other, one serving my cab 32 and one for the other cab 31 which is situated opposite a roundabout
And the only planned roadworks around (bt related) are unblocking ducting and laying some, but no where near the cabs, so i see that date meaning nothing
 
Well, there's progress of a sort here in sunny Willesden.
We too have had a visit from the painters, and there is now a large white rectangle marked out on the pavement, with the letters "BT" inside it.
Needless to say, the old green cab and all the telegraph poles are on the east side of the road, but the spot marked for the new fibre cab is on the west side of the road, about ten yards nearer the exchange, making everyone's line length from the cabinet about ten yards longer.

It will also do a nice job of adding to the things that obstruct the parking bay there - I'd hate to be the poor sod trying to use the disabled spot there and trying to get someone out of the passenger side and into a wheelchair. What with the tree and the signpost, you'd have to park in the middle of the ruddy road. The logical thing to do would be to reallocate things so that the diabled spot was on the end of the parking bay, out of the way of these obstructions and clear of the payment machine for non-residents, but the indicated location of the new BT cab will scupper that idea.

They call it "planning". :rolleyes:
 
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Sadly this is all quite normal as BT's dates are only rough estimates and tend to shift both backwards and sometimes forwards in time. In other cases some upgrades have been suspended / cancelled completely until other problems can be resolved first and we've seen a few put back by an entire year.

My exchange was enabled back towards the end of 2010 (around Sept-Nov Time, i believe it was one of the first) The original date for me to get FTTC (IE my cab to be upgraded) was if i recall correctly End of December 2010.

That then shifted to Jan 2011, then March 2011, then June 2011, then Sept 2011, and then (spot the patter) the end of December 2011.
It then stated March 2012, and now it says June 2012 on their checker LOL........ A year late, my god i wish i was one of those lucky enough to only have to wait a year extra for the shambolic BT.


BT occasionally mentions these changes specifically but most of the time they happen quietly in the background via a tiny database change. The lesson is, don't allow your expectations to get ahead of reality. Deploying FTTC / FTTP is quite tricky and requires some major work so it's to be expected that many locations will suffer delays.

Major work!!!! Sorry but thats nonsense its a simple job in most cases that doesnt even involve digging up a road or pavement.

Delays like this are practically normal for most ISP / telecoms firms when rolling out new tech.

Its funny, 3G services i remember came to my area around 2 months ahead of when 2 of the 4 mobile providers predicted. I suspect 4G will also get here ahead of schedule. Virgin media (or rather Telewest as it was when my street got that) finished that deployment in my street many years ago 3 weeks ahead of schedule (Now thats what you call major work, having to dig the length of a pavement the entire street and across a road at 2 points).

Then i look at BTs history......
ADSL 2Mb services in this street, 3 months late....
ADSLMAX.... That was 7 months late.....
FTTC....... Who the heck knows how long its gonna take them.

The sad part is history says they were incompetent before, this time they are even worse and for where i live had local authority money for the area deployment already. The fact some of my council tax has probably filled BT pockets and they havent even done 50% of this town with cabinets since end of 2010 is a utter disgrace.

This entire rollout and allocating of funds, has been nothing more than a joke from the start. FTTC is nothing more than a stop gap measure which in 20 years will be the equivalent of fixed rate 2Mb ADSL today.

I suspect most will only realise when its too late and then question why millions of tax payers money was spent on a half baked solution rather than question it and the slow progress are making now..... Oh and it is slow progress before anyone trys to say it is not........ The figures BT give about coverage percent are nothing more than a mask by giving exchange figures to meet their idealistic coverage figures rather than how many people actually have a cabinet to use the service.

Infact mark theres an idea for a survey, ask people to enter there number on the BT infinity checker and ask if they are able to get infinity........... I highly suspect 60% (or whatever BTs latest BS Coverage figure is) will not have the option to take the service.
 
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Even if the exchange is FTTC enabled, thats only part of the equation the new cabinets have to be instaled etc. Even if others locally can get FTTC theres no definate yay or nay you will get it.
ie out of 2000 homes locally and 7 cabinets, 6 are FTTC around June 2010.
The Openreach engineer did state 13 months ago the worst areas were being done first and probably explains why one cab not upgraded as they get 3meg downloads on ADSL2+
 
Ironically my experience is the opposite, as far as times go. Our local town was scheduled for September 2010 and that's when it was ready. Everything went to schedule.

Sadly they haven't gone any of the cabinets connecting any businesses (that I can find). They're still stuck with ADSLx if they can get it. Maybe because some are exchange only lines. Maybe because some are too far away from the fibre cabinet to get the service.

So despite this "superfast broadband" programme, there's still no modern broadband offering for businesses in the entire town and I can't see when that is ever going to change. It will be assumed that "the market" will provide for that urban area. But there, er, isn't one. That's been the biggest problem all along.

I have a vision of a gap between those higher in the business who see a cabinet rollout plan on a sheet of paper, and groups of experienced engineers on the ground who are told they'll be deploying fibre to one set of "D-sides" who then fall about laughing and point out they're all ancient, some are aliminium, and all are really long.

Then that area is crossed off the list and it then misses out on superfast or any broadband at all. To be fair this is not dissimilar to Virgin Media (ntl as was) who, when encountering the slightest wayleave issue used to skip areas of towns since they didn't/don't have a universal obligation to provide anything. But then, it was their own money, which makes it slightly different.
 
If BT take government money for this superfast broadband they should not be allowed any excuse not to supply every exchange regardless of size/customers on the exchange.. I think BT should be taken out of the private sector and placed back in government control if we are giving them billions of money. This would stop the exorbitant bonuses to the heads and place it back into upgrading the system.
 
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If BT take government money for this superfast broadband they should not be allowed any excuse not to supply every exchange regardless of size/customers on the exchange.. I think BT should be taken out of the private sector and placed back in government control if we are giving them billions of money. This would stop the exorbitant bonuses to the heads and place it back into upgrading the system.

Its laughable because AFAIK there is no single area of this country which BT are going to end up funding 100% for there self. They either are grabbing EU money, local authority cash, BDUK funds or any other money public money (which when it comes down to it we can file under the umbrella of TAX PAYER CASH).

Im not away of any part of the country BT have or are going to fund on their own.

The total half baked job which has been done so far and the way they have been allowed to get away claiming because an exchange is done that equals everyone enabled (they use exchange figures to reach their conclusion x million have access) rather than who is actually lucky enough to have a FTTC cab just goes to show how pathetic our government have been in handling this roll out and how gutless Ofcom are in allowing them to basically lie through their teeth about how many people have access to FTTC.
 
"We too have had a visit from the painters, and there is now a large white rectangle marked out on the pavement, with the letters "BT" inside it."
(Me, 22 April)

...and yesterday our big shiny new green cabinet got erected, so there is hope that the 30 June date might actually be met.
However...
Our road is due to be resurfaced on 27 and 28 June.

The day Brent Council or the clowns they sub-contract their various operations out to get anything right, there will be a major crisis in the NHS - every A&E ward from Paddington to Pinner will be overwhelmed by the number of people staggering in, suffering badly from shock.

When they did the junction at the other end of the road a few months ago, they managed to cover up about half of the manhole cover for a "buried in the road" C&W cabinet, so I expect this time they will manage to sever a BT cable, and we'll all be off to the local park to light a big bonfire in order to send smoke signals, as we will have no phone or broadband at all.
 
What is more likely to happen is come the 27-28 June they come and lay a nice new shiny road surface........

Next day BT turn up needing to shove the last few metres of fibre cable through a duct to the nice new shiny cabinet only to find the duct has collapsed and the next thing you know the nice new shiny road surface is being dug up.

Ahhhh great isnt it? You pay your tax for your new road, then you pay a bit more tax which is given to BT for FTTC and to destroy your nice new road.

LOL :D
 
That's the spirit Gordon, stay positive :) .

Hopefully it should be ok though as these days I've noticed that road resurfacing work seems to be done a lot more quickly than before, though that's no guarantee that they won't screw other bits up along the way. Similarly it usually takes a week or two to complete any decent stretch of road so yours must be pretty short for it to take 2 days.
 
That's the spirit Gordon, stay positive :) .

Hopefully it should be ok though as these days I've noticed that road resurfacing work seems to be done a lot more quickly than before, though that's no guarantee that they won't screw other bits up along the way. Similarly it usually takes a week or two to complete any decent stretch of road so yours must be pretty short for it to take 2 days.

Could be just a few pot holes are being filled, councils like to call that "RE-SURFACING" nowadays to make you feel you are getting more for your money :D
 
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It is (or at least, is supposed to be) a "proper" resurfacing job - but our road isn't all that long to start with, and they are doing it in bits. Further up the hill, beyond the junction three houses up from me, they have different dates. The stretch that involves my part (and the new BT cabinet), scheduled for 27 and 28 June, is only about 250 yards, probably less.

I expect that in accordance with "Best Value" policy (read - any old rubbish as long as it's cheap) which councils use these days, it will be done with a 50/50 mixture of mud and tar stockpiled after they dredged the main road near Kensal Rise station and resurfaced that. I think they must have used the same 50% mud content last time - it doesn't seem to have worn very well.
There wasn't a BT FTTC cabinet there then, of course, so they blocked one of the drains instead.
 
Ah yes they did that on the road to my old home too. As a result the water simply ran over the road surface when it rained and guess what.. it dissolved most of the road so they had to do it all again. Oh and they made the same mistake a second time.. ugh, glad I moved before the third attempt.

I don't know why it's so hard to tarmac around the drain.
 
Ah yes they did that on the road to my old home too. As a result the water simply ran over the road surface when it rained and guess what.. it dissolved most of the road so they had to do it all again. Oh and they made the same mistake a second time.. ugh, glad I moved before the third attempt.

I don't know why it's so hard to tarmac around the drain.

Its quite simple, council tell contractor "There are holes in Old Smith Road fill them in"

Contractor turns up sees the drain, remembers what they were told, and fills it in

Its called literal intelligence (or something like that :D)
 
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