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FTTC now live on Bentley (TBHT) exchange

Gigabit

ULTIMATE Member
Looks like the Bentley (TBHT) exchange is now accepting orders. Our local cabinet doesn't seem to be yet though :(
 
Of course every other cabinet on the exchange is live except mine :( Checked a multitude of numbers on various cabinets and they're all accepting orders except those on my cabinet!

Just my luck.
 
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It's all at the cabinet level anyway - there was an Openreach van at cabinet 3 yesterday so presumably work is still ongoing.
 
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Openreach have confirmed that our area is enabled but the cabinet is not yet enabled, as previously suspected.

Some people have waited two years for their cabinet to actually be available for orders! Hope that doesn't happen here! :o
 
"Area" is a bit meaningless anyway. There isn't such a thing as "exchange enabled".

The other cabinet in the village isn't being done (from the last data I saw), so those people might well be waiting for years despite having the worst speeds (0.5 to 2.5 Meg). It's supposed to be "reviewed before 2017".

Assuming that the fibre is pulled through before the cabinet is stood which isn't necessarily true then I would guess that cabinet 3 isn't far from going live, the other hold up has been power - if the power is too expensive then there's a suggestion that BT keep knocking it back by months or years in a stand-off with the power company. But then you'd have thought that would have been established long ago.
 
Hopefully we should get a decent uplift when the cabinet goes live. 6Mb is starting to feel a bit slow.
 
Since I decided to move back to the HH5, I'm back on 8mbps (instead of near 11) and I can't say I'm finding it too bad.

I discussed with my parents what package we'd go on if FTTP comes and they seem to think the 330mbps option isn't *too* expensive! I was a bit shocked tbh. It's just largely a waiting game unfortunately, with lots of ups and downs along the way.
 
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Since we've moved over to Vodafone we're having to put up with 20 Meg up and down. Latency is quite good, web pages snap back instantly or near as, but even 20 Meg feels slow, uploads take over twice as long as with EE.

What interests me is if all we're getting is VDSL which is fine for the corner of the village near the cabinet but pathetically slow at this cable length, or if more is planned.

One assumes that they wouldn't have been installing the electronics into the VDSL cabinet without power being sorted first so you'd imagine that cabinet 3 would be live within a few weeks.
 
Here they're using FTTP for infill. The cabinet is fitted at the exchange, so is great for all those in the village, but for all of us on the edges...The fibre feed for the existing cabinet and the 20CN exchange travels pretty much right outside my house, so my area could very easily get a cabinet, but for 30 or so premises, FTTP is far more cost effective I think. Either way, there's still one or two properties that are going to be stuck on sub 3mbps so far as I can see.
 
I doubt there will be FTTP in use around here. I don't think FTTP is being used anywhere in Hampshire under BDUK.

The cabinet is just horrifically placed, if it was more central I suspect more people would benefit.
 
I've just been re-notified about the G.Fast roll-out which should hopefully see more houses around here be able to get fast broadband, if they bring the node close enough to the houses.

Luckily with FTTC already here (basically) this should be here sooner than later.
 
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I fear that might be a touch optimistic. BT are good at talking about stuff, but not good at actually doing stuff. It is a carrot to the taxpayer at best. Talk of any such "rollout" is premature.

If BT do deploy any G.Fast nodes they will be in areas served by cable or alt-nets and most probably to poles which service, say, 50 properties.

They will not be deploying that tech to this sort of area where one node might service, as would be the case here, three properties. Or if placed further down the road but within distance for performance purposes, seven or eight properties.

Those properties will remain "off network" for superfast broadband. This is always going to be the issue when trying to use ancient old phone lines to distribute broadband services.

If on the other hand, we had our own FTTP network, the nodes would arrive pretty well immediately.
 
Well I don't think anybody around here is going to be building an FTTP network anytime soon unfortunately.
 
VDSL is live on cabinet 3.

BT BROADBAND AVAILABILITY CHECKER

Address xxx, LOWER FROYLE, ALTON, GU34 xxx on Exchange BENTLEY is served by Cabinet 3

According to the Wholesale checker, it will be anywhere between 15 and 36 Meg down and between 3 and 7.5 Meg up. Why such a range?

Where it falls within that range is kind of critical really. Vodafone 4G gives us 20/20 and EE 4G isn't as fast as it was, but is between about 25 and 50 down and 37 and 50 up.

Phone line length is about 1.3km so that ought to be somewhere around 18 down 5 up (line speed) so probably about 17 down 4 up performance. About the same as 3G. Why is the High estimate 36 Meg?

PlusNet is offering 27 down 5 up (it's talking the low end of the Range A Rates) and subscribes to the OFCOM Code of Practise for speeds and so is bound to try to achieve them or allow you to cancel. Though it doesn't specify full refund.

AAISP doesn't subscribe to the Code of Practice and seems to expect you to keep on paying even if it falls short. No thanks. Adrian, I don't think you'd accept that sort of one-sided arrangement yourself, would you ;)

Aquiss and Zen want a phone number to get an estimate - still not sorted yet, I see. Not interested in custom? Why would I have a phone number?

It has been so long since I looked at fixed line broadband. It's not exactly compelling.

See what your result comes back with.
 
Aquiss and Zen want a phone number to get an estimate - still not sorted yet, I see. Not interested in custom? Why would I have a phone number?

This is not going to change any time soon I'm afraid. This is presently our preferred method (without a sim provider) for us to get accurate data, that we can be confident enough to use for contracts.

This maybe reviewed later, but I want to see the changes to GPL migrations in place before we focus on other areas.

The range issue you speak of, is one of the reasons we use numbers presently. As measurements come from the DP, we can see wild swings via address matches, wild enough that customers get shown to have fibre available via addresses, but reality on installs, via the number, they are too far away from the cabinet.
 
Thanks for the reply.

I've put in our neighbour's phone number as we don't have one. Their line length is about 15m longer than ours. The D-side will be otherwise identical, only the length from the pole is different since the house is behind this one, which is nearer to it.

The results are identical to ours (checked by address) in every respect.

It reads as if the FTTC Range A High number (36.3 Meg) is based solely on the straight line distance to the cabinet - about 550m - and the FTTC Range B Impacted Low number (15 Meg) is based on the length of the D-side, about 1300m, with a few meg knocked off for poor line plant.

This is a murky world. Why there are so many speed complaints about fixed line services is making sense now. *Not aimed at Aquiss *

What I'm seeing reads as "We want a year's commitment from you and we'll supply you with something without being held to what it is".

PlusNet:
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/speed-check-estimates.shtml

6. What is the 10th centile?

This is the measure that Ofcom have suggested service providers use to determine what 'significantly lower' means. The 10th centile is based on other customers on the same access technology as your line, and means that your speed is in the bottom 10% of all customers with similar services.

For ADSL1 (up to 6Mb) products the 10th centile is 1,250 kbps.

For ADSL2+ (up to 17Mb) and Fibre (up to 76Mb) products the 10th centile is 2,000 kbps.

..reads as: as long as your speed is over 2Mbps, we won't consider that to be significantly lower than the estimate or be bound to do anything about this. "15Mbps (example) is not significantly lower than the 27Mbps we estimated."

Is this Orwell's "Newspeak" in action?

You don't get estimates with 4G, but the cost to try is about ten quid for a SIM card and some data and can swap ISPs in moments with no commitment.

I think I'll wait to see if a neighbour signs up first and what speeds they get.
 
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BT are honouring the estimate they provided on order and NOT the current much reduced one. Although my speed is quite a bit below the current estimate now. Allegedly the estimates now take into account DP to house distance whereas before the speed was just to DP.

One of my neighbours has FTTC at 10mbps, but his line is straight from DP and not embedded in shrubbery...Of course, one of my other neighbours has WBC FTTP, but that's that. Certainly if you were predicted 27 now, I'd be more inclined to believe it than before. Hmph.
 
To get 36Mbps the line length would have to be less than 600m according to this:

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/guide/fibre-broadband.html

.. which it isn't. The BT database knows this. Why is it giving incorrect information? Maybe there's some kind of repeater half way along the circuit that I don't know about.

Sky is offering "*Superfast* broadband from 27 to 36 Meg". So it would have to be > 24Meg for the product not to be missold. The OFCOM Code of Practice wouldn't even apply, a full refund plus, potentially, compensation would be due if it didn't hit that speed because the product is not as described/sold. 18 month contract - LOL. You must be joking.

If only if *were* fibre-optic broadband eh?
 
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