BT announces 163 new fibre exchanges

... however ...

Having the exchange upgraded to fibre will only benefit residents if they also upgrade the street cabinets. I live in an area where the exchange has been enabled since 2010 but they are yet to replace all the street cabinets and still cannot get a FTTC connection.

By csmith on 25 Sep 2012

smoke and mirrors

I have had a fibre exchange since spring 2011, but I do not have a fibre cabinet. All this horn blowing about fibre enabled exchanges is smoke and mirrors if they are not upgrading cabinets as well.

By maniacfox on 25 Sep 2012

Link?

anyone got a link to the full story? I'd like to know what the B stands for?

By GlidemanUK on 25 Sep 2012

Don't get too excited

Our local Exchange was scheduled for March 2012, this then moved to September 2012 and now, today, has been moved to March 2013!

That's even before you start to worry about cabinet updates!

By Neilski on 25 Sep 2012

Is it the cabinets?

Or, the rather more difficult problem of laying miles and miles of fibre?

By qpw3141 on 25 Sep 2012

Just a thought...

...re your post, qpw3141.

I just wonder if the fibre enabled exchanges have the fibre laid to all cabinets but that the economics of upgrading all of the cabinets connected to the exchange is the issue.

Our exchange was one of the very first to be upgraded to Infinity but we have learned that BT has no plans whatsoever to actually upgrade our local cabinet. Could that be because the cabinet is not "fully populated" and so it isn't deemed commercially viable to replace it?

Who knows, because BT isn't saying.

By jontym123 on 25 Sep 2012

BT, con men

Want BT FTTC? move to an area served by Virgin fibre, thats the situation around here, BT have no plans at all to convert any cabinets outside of the Virgin area

By colinday2 on 25 Sep 2012

Mine won't be upgraded until March

Until the I have to put up with 100Mb - but that's Virgin for you.

By confucious on 25 Sep 2012

waste of time, stop bt publishing lists of exchanges, they are worthless

BT should not be allowed to get away with this con. lets see some honesty, publish a list of exchanges and the cabinets connected to it that will get upgraded. There is nothing in this list that was worth the 'bits' that we had to slowly download to read it.
Like so many have already stated, our exchange was upgraded, but not the cabinets that service our area and this has nothing to do with commercial viability, just a lack of competition, the ony chance most of us stand, would be it BT was made to open up the ducts at a fair and reaonable price.
BT is not fit, to own the infrastucture and own/manage the services. over it

By andy493 on 25 Sep 2012

@confucious

ROFL. Thanks for making me start my day with a laugh.

By jontym123 on 26 Sep 2012

@ GlidemanUK

The B stands for 'Borough' - its from the Local Authority database published as part of the Open Data initiative.

I recognise it as we make use of the dataset ourselves but dont ask me what the definition of a borough is!

By Fraz_pro on 26 Sep 2012

Good on you

Well done BT (British Company and one of UK's bigger employers) keep up the good work.

By kevjoejor on 26 Sep 2012

If you are in South Yorkshire?

http://www.digitalregion.co.uk/get-connected


Digital Region

Superfast broadband


Digital Region is a groundbreaking project providing South Yorkshire with the best superfast broadband coverage in the UK.

Over the past two years Digital Region Limited has built a 350 mile fibre optic network across the entire region.

Building a network of this size has been a huge engineering task. Now close to completion, it will provide 1.3 million people, 546,000 homes and 40,000 businesses in and around Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield with access to next generation broadband.

South Yorkshire now has a communications infrastructure that is world class and our region is a UK leader in broadband technology.

By Slrxm94 on 26 Sep 2012

Suffolk

Is there a way of getting a list of exchanges and cabinets with fibre by county?

I met with Virgin Media to discuss service provision to my organisation; their line being "better than BT". When I mentioned Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, they said "Speak to BT".

Its true that many carriers are not interested in competing in some geographical areas; and BT don't innovate or compete without any competition.

So in my area, I can only prey that BT provide if mine, and your taxes, pay for their monopoly in this area.

By redgar3 on 26 Sep 2012

Thanks BT

On the same day as this announcement I find out that the rollout to my cabinet as been again delayed.

Another 3 month delay which is the third three month delay on the cabinet.

What is the point of enabling exchanges if they don't bother with the cabinets?

It's not like there isn't many properties connected to the cabinet either. So frustrating!

By kingct on 26 Sep 2012

@kingct

Welcome to the club of Infinity enabled exchanges but only about 50 - 60% of the cabinets enabled.

By jontym123 on 27 Sep 2012

Up the pole

I just wondered if anyone knows how long it takes to get connected once they have laid the cable, the street where I live has a loop of cable at the top of each street pole but it has been like that for some time, so near and yet so far ! I am using an iPad at the moment and for some reason I cannot scroll down the list to see if Shrewsbury is there.

By Ajacks1 on 27 Sep 2012

Information

Best source of info that I know.....
http://www.samknows.com/broadband

By Rye24 on 27 Sep 2012

Yes I think that this is a massive Con!

Wait a minute, Am I reading this wrong?
Can someone please explain this whole issue to me.
Fibre to the exchanges! Is this an enhancement to existing old fibre optic cables to improve or upgrade Broadband bandwidth and increase speeds??
I used to be very interested in the subject of telephone communications and the way BT transmitted those communications over their network.
But that was back in the mid 1960s! And one of the last big things I seem to remember from that era, visiting various trade and engineering exhibitions was the big deal about BT upgrading their entire backbone network system UK wide to the then latest digital fibre optic cable! Which was touted as being thousands of time faster and virtually interference free!
Did this upgrade never happen? Or was it perhaps limited to a few chosen large important exchanges?
If so are BT now saying the any exchanges they are promissing to upgrade to fibre are currently (In the 21st century) still connected by old 50s and 60s copper cabble!?

Airboss99

By Citizen_s on 27 Sep 2012

A huge con

We had fibre come to our 'rural'location courtesy of winnig the BT competition last year..Hooray.. Well NO not actually, all the rural areas got nothing, the small town got fibre to the exchange and instead of the promised high speeds I still count myself lucky to get just under 2Mb/S at a distance of 3 miles from the exchange on copper which is what I had before. No doubt BT will claim this as a success 'improving' my link despite it having no effect whatever.. CON CON CON>>>

By fornost0 on 27 Sep 2012

Shame on BT

Not one in Wales

By Jon666 on 27 Sep 2012

andybram

What a surprise, Lincolshire once again conspicuously absent. Seems lightly populated rural areas are of no interest to BT, despite the fact they are upgrading exchanges only a few miles away in South Yorkshire. We had to shout and scream to get broadband and looks like the same for fibre. All I want is a decent upload speed, my download is fine at 6.5Mb as I only live 100 yards from the exchange, but it takes forever to upload my photos to livedrive, and as a photographer this is one of my backup provisions and therefore vital. Come on BT, come on government, how are we ever going to be the "best broadband in Europe" as they are claiming we are/will be?

By andybram on 27 Sep 2012

Whinging Poms?

Thank your lucky bloody stars that it's BT you're all bleating about and not Telstra from down under.

They were so mistrusted from years of milking their vertical integration that the government assumed control of the country's fibre infrastructure plan aka the NBN.

Having suffered Telstra ADSL first hand, I've come home to broadband that is in a different league.

Perhaps BT announce every step with fanfare because of the endless tide of whinging.

By tim_wall on 27 Sep 2012

ADSL?

Awful Digital Slow Link, yes that's what we get here on the Suffolk/Norfolk borders. Not a hope in hell of BT supplying a decent service before I nip off to the big exchange in the sky or the other previously mentioned place! Must not grumble though, I can still see far enough across the fens to use my semaphor flags and signal lamps.

By Mike01Hu on 28 Sep 2012

Having a laugh

had a look at their list and notice the ones local to me as well as the other Scottish ones are all the smallest exchanges, no wonder they're confident that it'll be 2013. My two local exchanges just happen to be in Virgin cabled areas, so is BT telling me that U can forget BT fibre if that's the case. My phone line is at least 50 years old, they refuse to change it unlike my neighbours who got theirs replaced with a brand new pole and cabling, despite the six houses they did all being with virgin on the grounds that they had a bt original line, that got damaged to one house, and therefore BT had to replace their line, in case they sold the houses and the new owners wanted to be with BT. Lovely logic, but why not replace my line as well, which is a shorter run to the pole than three of them and I'm a bl**dy BT customer.

By derekd5 on 30 Sep 2012