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roadworks.org - Fibre (potentially FTTP rollout)

Roadworks.org is showing that come December, there will be roadworks occurring on my road by BT. The description is "Access to underground structures - Desilt and fibre cabling for new customer connections". Does this indicate there will be FTTP delivered to certain houses or fibre to cabinets or is it them laying the fibre from the nearest big exchange to my, much smaller, one. I very much doubt it's the latter option as they were laying the fibre months ago and confirmed this to me when I spoke to them! The middle option I also doubt as there's no cabinets planned in that area, and it's just sufficiently close to the exchange that FTTC should yield fairly good speeds!
 
I should think it's either FTTC or they need to access something on your street, perhaps a cabinet or underground NGA aggregation point + ducts, in order to push the service into other nearby locations.

But if it does turn out to be FTTP then.. I hate you :).
 
Now, just up the road, it's listed that "Install 3m of 1 way poly duct in carriageway, install 46m of 1 way polyduct in footway" This is in houses that are definitely too far from the cabinet ~2.xkm. I think the homes in foorway are currently covered by telegraph pole, so they could be getting FTTP layed! By carriageway, it seems distinctly the area the fibre aggregation node is. In other words, it seems like they want to lay a duct under the road between the ag node and toe footway that feed those houses. Sadly, october, so it seems the september date has gone out the window again (from June!)
 
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The yellow striped cable looks distinctly like the FTTP stuff and it's running through underground duct across the road straight to the aggregation node. There's also been a load more yellow striped run along a new duct in a lane within yards of the same node with FTTC predicted speeds of around 2-3mbps. Illustration: ftp://pedrosmisctech.zapto.org/FTTP.png If they get FTTP while I'm left to languish on 8 down 1 up, I'm not going to be happy.

(Sorry to those stuck on much worse)
 
Starting to sound more like FTTrN than FTTP, assuming that really is a fibre optic cable running up the existing telegraph pole. Can you offer any postcode / street name details so we can look a little further into this?
 
Something similar has occurred in Malvern recently, a narrow, one way lane has been closed for over 7 weeks and the only work that seems to have been done is a narrow (<30cm) trench dug and tarmac'ed over, plus a pile of poly-ducting slowly disappearing.

One end disappearing into the fields towards a local village, the other end is lost in a morass of mud left by another set of contractors a few months ago.
 
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Hmm... not so sure about that. ;)
I can see that it says FTTP on the label, but from the second photo I reckon it's FTTC...
Fibre To The Cobwebs! :D

Enjoy - assuming you get it and it's not just for others along the road. :)
 
The various BT people I spoke to the other day couldn't decide between: "there's no FTTP in your area and never will be" and the foreign call centre guy who said "One month". Kinda wishing I'd recorded him saying the latter.

The max predicted speed for my bit is 17, which you can clearly see is somewhat out, but still rather below the 25/30/whatever they say next that should be 'superfast'. The areas covered by the two things in the two pics has speeds of between 15 and 10, but if you go down the lane, some houses are predicted as little as 3 on FTTC, which makes no semnse as there are some houses much further the main road on the same cab predicted 10...

The nice autumnal pic's location is about 50m from my house, so I can imagine they'd say I'm too far!
 
I have heard via another source now that roads closer to your nearest town will also be getting FTTP. Not sure if the information is just local rumour or if they had a reliable source.. but interesting that it's come to me via another route too.

Tom - www.mouselike.org
 
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Openreach told me the other day that they couldn't say, but then later said it's probably FTTP :). But right now they're basically saying, "we can't tell you anything officially.. yet", which is not a reply we'd expect if it were vanilla FTTC. From your pictures it's clearly not FTTC, unless they're adding those pole cables purely in order to prepare for future solutions (FTTP/dp/rN etc.).

We're seeing a lot of these developments lately, more than I'd expect for a mere batch of isolated BDUK linked trials. I'm starting to think there may be a grander plan in motion.

By the way, do you mind if I use those pics for article illustrations?
 
MarkJ
That's absolutely fine.

Next I'll try and get a close up of yellow label, but the weather outside looks awful!

I contacted BT Care through twitter about it and, for once, they didn't reply, not even with some generic 'crib sheet' phrase.
 
Maybe they are doing what I suggested a while back, and replacing most of the copper with a fibre connection.

(Fibre offering faster speeds, mores lines per, and far less attractive to Pikey thieves).

Doubly likely after some city analyst pointed out that BT are worth LESS than the value of the copper it owns.
 
Just been down the lane. there's clearly been work going on, judging by cables dangling from telegraph poles going ot the ground, cabled tied to trees etc. all pics here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/46141405@N07/sets/72157646510004573/
I've tried to explain on the pics as best I can. Start on this pic: https://www.flickr.com/photos/46141405@N07/14944555763/in/set-72157646510004573

Having discussed with my dad, he reckons the cable (which I think is fibre) is running on the ground as a temporary measure before they lay it in the ducts. Working out whether the cable is fibre or not would probably help!
 
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The cable travelling across contains both copper and fibre inside. How do I know? I spoke to one of the residents, who had a copper only telephone line, which connected to telegraph pole with only this copper and fibre cable. Also, the thickness of the thinner half of the cable is just the right size for the cable that comes out of the splitters on normal copper telegraph poles.

There are two manholes where the lane was ducted. One feeding the first telegraph pole with the copper and fibre cable running to the ground and a second at the bottom of the lane, where the yellow and black known FTTP cable is. EDIT: the yellow and black is "12BFT", so I'm guessing 12 blown fibre tube"?

Is there any way I can turn this into a drsox style "diary of an FTTP installation"

EDIT 2: The road is unadopted, which might explain how they've done the work.
EDIT 3: Here's just a quick vid I did, more of a ramble for my subscribers than anything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_vnuv-jBEw
 
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Since the Distribution point is in place, so all that needs to be done is for fibre to be run from my house to the DP. Or lest what I've gathered so far. Do you know any way to convince them of this fact to try and get installed. Or do you think I should wait see if there's like some subsidy or something as the VDSL speed is so below the 15 superfast surrey aims for.
 
At the moment I think the problem you'll have is that officially FTTP isn't classified as being available in your area (according to BT's checker), although clearly you are on the deployment plan for that service and it's still in the process of being finalised. I'd just wait until it shows up as being available in the database. The official completion date was end-of-September 2014 but clearly work was still going on in October, so it's not yet ready.
 
Just been in Alford, which was an area I saw mentioned on thinkbroadband. There'sa c onsiderable amount of FTTP work going on there. Most of it is much the same as what we've already seen, but some of the posts have strange "Openreach" branded green boxes at the bottom of them. See here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/46141405@N07/15438588440/

Also: got a video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxgmsg-8jQs which shows the system at a mini business park. The green box only had a fibre drop wire and the thicker manifold/distribution fibre going into it, so seemingly having no 'input'

It's not only Alfold and my location either, I've seen an FTTP install near Loseley park, Guildford, in an area with sub 2mbps ADSL.
 
Ah - I recognise that green box. ;)
It's a BT bacon butty store.
These are used in rural areas due to the shortage of cafes, and are quite simple. The heating element (powered by the phone line) is in the back, the darker green bottom part is a removable drip tray for collecting the grease, the tapered top part acts as a chimney, and the lockable front part keeps the sarnies safe from thieving Virgin Media raiders.
:)
 
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