So those who follow my trials and tribulations with getting better broadband, will know that following a move in 2012 I lost my FTTC connection and had to revert back to an ADSL connection, a slow ADSL connection at that generally getting between 1-1.5 Mbs. This was because my house was connected to cabinet 25, and this was the only cabinet connected to the Worle Exchange which was never upgraded to FTTC. My expectation was that within a year it would probably be upgraded, it never was…
I have written previously about my woes with fibre before, when we first moved house and lost fibre and then my initial investigations into why I couldn’t get FTTC and back in 2012 writing about the confirmation of no plans to upgrading cabinet 25.
When I first approached BT Openreach about this issue, they said it was not commercially viable and that they wouldn’t be upgrading the cabinet. The only alternative I was told, it would probably be upgraded by Connecting Devon and Somerset as part of a public private partnership.
Their first response was that it wasn’t part of their initial roll out. I wasn’t too surprised by this, as I was sure they would focus on the rural areas away from the places that already had FTTC to show real impact.
When they updated one of their maps I discovered that we were no longer part of their plans, it followed that we were now part of a commercial roll out and wasn’t
BT Openreach still wasn’t providing any sensible or details.
It was apparent that there was no solid information on when, or even if, we would be getting fibre…
In a side story, on the other side of the railway tracks, on the other side of the village, Virgin Media were laying cable. Now there was very little information on this installation, the Virgin Media site was giving even less away than BT Openreach!
Then some news…
According to the report in the local Weston Mercury, BT Openreach had changed their mind and would be upgrading cabinet 25 to fibre so that we can get FTTC.
So what changed?
Personally I did wonder if the Virgin Media installations were getting them worried?
Who knows?
Well in 2017 I may finally be getting a faster internet connection, until then I will have to contend with slow ADSL and 4G for my connectivity.
We’re on a similar path in central London…so strange to me that high-speed fibre isn’t an option in the center of such a large city.
From BT:
“You’re in a fibre plan and we’re looking at the existing network in your area to see how we will design the upgrade. You can’t order a fibre service today but typically it’ll be available to your premises within the next 12 months.”
I live just around the corner from you judging by the photo. It’s a massive headache isn’t it? Moving from the countryside I expected decent Bb on a new build estate. I did see Virgin laying cables just a stones throw in Locking Castle East so fingers crossed. I don’t even get mobile reception!
It’s challenging to find out what the Virgin Media plans are they may come over the railway tracks, but I’ve not see any evidence of this, except some ducts with CATV on it by Flowerdown Bridge and some planned roadworks by Virgin down towards the Landing Light.
Plenty of Openreach action by the old moor lane bridge behind Tesco Express. Looks like they are laying cables?
AHA, I knew if I searched there would be talking about this, having moved into “The Dead Zone” as I like to call it I’ve had to completely give up Xbox online, we get an average…wait for it……800kb – 1 mb speed, we can’t even load the speed test websites!! Engineers have been round 3 times as our house shows there being a fault on the line (as it’s so bloody slow) then when I rang BT to barter lower line rental and Internet he tried to bloody upgrade the package so I had to explain there’s nothing that can be done about the speed until BT pull their finger out!
Recently enquired about cabinet 25 and got this response! Dont expect it to be upgraded any time soon.
i have sent this email into the mercury hoping they will contact open reach for a statment.
Dear lewis,
Thank you for taking the time to contact us about Superfast Fibre Broadband availability.
You are connected to cabinet 25 of exchange WORLE.
We would like to inform you that cabinet 34 project has been put on hold for further survey activities.
However we’ve recently reassessed our remaining fibre delivery programme and recalculated when your cabinet will be delivered.
Our market research team is working hard to provide fibre to all the customers as earliest possible and they are finding best solutions for that. However, we won’t be able to provide you an estimated date as of now. These solutions are only in test at the moment and in the very early stages. We are looking at installing cabinets to provide the FTTC (FIBRE TO THE CABINET)/ FTTP(FIBRE TO THE PREMISES.
We’ve factored in the physical amount of work left along with operational commitments.
This forecast will be updated (and may come forward) once we have plans in place. This will be based on forecasting and our best estimates on completing physical and technical tasks needed to provide fibre to your area.