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FTTC - Available, now unavailable?

Hi all,

FTTC has recently become available in my area (Exminster exchange). I live less than 200 metres from cabinet 1 so was quite pleased to see when I was checking that I should be able to get the top speed.

At least until today when I've come to actually place an order, and found that everywhere is now saying that Fibre is unavailable. I've checked various ISPs and the BT Wholesale checker, all of which are saying it's not in my area. I've got a couple of friends in the area, both on the same cabinet as me. One friend is in the same boat, but the other (who I think may have already put in an order) is still showing as having it available.

Does anyone know why the situation might have changed and if there's anything I can do to get it fixed? The only thing I can think of is that it's become full but it's only been available for a couple of weeks, and we've had no leaflets or posters etc go up yet.

Thanks,

Nick
 
Were the checks you were doing then, and the ones you're doing now, both on a phone number or a full address?

One explanation is that the original checks were by postcode and more then one cabinet serves the postcode so the checker took a punt on which one it might be and said Yes. Later you use the address or the phone number which locate the unique property and it turns out that the guess it took the first time was wrong as it's a different cabinet.

Or, the Wholesale checker was or is simply wrong.

Another explanation is that it is "full" as you suggest. If it's one of the little cabinets in an area with godawful ADSL speeds and no Virgin cable then these can reach capacity very quickly, as I read in one case, in two days. If that's the case then you'd need to wait until someone drops the service or to see if BT increase the capacity.

It is always perfectly possible to have BT Wholesale as the only ISP at a cabinet - yes, you could pick another ISP but you're still largely getting a BT service in many respects. Talk Talk and Sky don't always install their equipment at the exchange and when they do, it can lag behind BT's availability. The wholesale checker is the best bet as opposed to a specific ISP's website.
 
Yes, we're in a little village with no Virgin so it's quite possible it's reached capacity already. Nurts. Is it likely BT will increase capacity or am I likely to be stuck for a while?
 
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Look at the story about the village with no phone service since November and answer your own question. (sorry).
 
It does sound like a "full capacity" situation and Openreach can sometimes take a while before they resolve those, especially for smaller rural cabs.
 
Hi Nick,

If you enter your number into the BT Availability checker, take a look under the table as BT now include if there is no Capacity available at the cabinet and also include the date by which its expected to be available again.

The checker can be found from http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/
 
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