BT speeds up fibre rollout

BT said it has already passed 12 million premises.....

That is precisely the problem.

Our exchange is Infinity (fibre) enabled but our local cabinet has been bypassed for the last two years so no 'superfast' (hate that term) service for us.

How many other premises have been passed as their exchanges have been enabled is anyone's guess as BT will not say.

By jontym123 on 1 Nov 2012

BT speeds up fibre rollout

Certainly not for me , I checked the BT web site about 3 months ago It said end of September 2012 , just checked it again now March 2013.

More like BT Slow Down.

By emjga1 on 1 Nov 2012

BT speeds up fibre rollout

@emjga1 _ I've had that for two years now, each time the deadline rolls around another 3 months is tacked on. I wouldn't mind but I live in West London, I'm not in the middle of nowhere. BT's claimed coverage seems disingenuous to me.

By stripeyhorse on 1 Nov 2012

Completely meaningless

They could 'enable' every single exchange in the country tomorrow and it would make no difference.

What counts is laying fibre to the cabinets and that's an expensive and labour intensive activity that BT are not going to undertake unless there is some serious wonga in it for them.

Thus we have millions of people who have had fibre enable exchanges for months or even years but have no prospect of increased speeds for the foreseeable future.

By qpw3141 on 1 Nov 2012

Do they have enough engineers?

I've just had my FTTP installation cancelled as they don't have enough engineers in the area. Probably more sensible for them to actually complete roll-outs in an area before spending more cash elsewhere.

By JimmyD on 2 Nov 2012

Super Broadband Joke

I live a rural area our exchange (Fern)provides our area with between 29.0 Mbps and 54.0 Mpbs so it is next to impossible for me to keep on line for more than 6 or 7 mins without loosing the broadband signal making downloading anything a nightmare. It drives me mad that Companies are advertising speeds of up to 20MB Super Fast Broadband when little exchanges are being left behind surely it would be fair to let us have at least 2MB - we are not on the roll out list and I was told it could be another 4 to 5 years before the exchange would be upgraded it's fast becoming a 2 tier system.

By moira on 2 Nov 2012

Headline Speeds

Maybe we should allow BT (and others) to continue to promote headline speeds but have an appropriate pricing structure.

In my own case, my theoretical max is 24Mbps but on a good day and I receive only 2Mbps. So I should only pay one twelfth of the price. That should focus some minds and provide incentive for improvement. But of course it will never happen.

And I can say from experience that the universal service target of 2Mbps boasted about so much by this and the previous government is so out of line with (early) 21st century needs that it is a pathetic joke.

By jontym123 on 5 Nov 2012

Cabinet issues

jontym123 said "Our exchange is Infinity (fibre) enabled but our local cabinet has been bypassed for the last two years so no 'superfast' (hate that term) service for us."

Sadly that's a planning permission issue. Our council down here in Bath received objections to the larger FTTC cabinet, so the council rejected them in certain areas.

However, it gets worse. They made design/paint suggestions to Openreach and Openreach never responded. They simply moved on! Council was suggestion that, rather than green, they paint the cabinets black, got no reply, Openreach never returned.

It seems that, unless Openreach get permission for the standard green cabinets, they simply move on the next cabinet and do not return.

So, we have a situation in the city of Bath where some cabinets are approved and many were rejected....ironically in the centre, where most businesses (like ours) are located.

By moxxey on 6 Nov 2012

@moxxey

Sorry to hear that you, too, are having issues with BT.

In our case it wasn't a planning issue, just BT being unwilling to include our cabinet in the roll out and no explicit reason given although I suspect economics/return on investment.

Sadly this appears to be a national trait with BT. Enable an exchange but only 60% or less of the cabinets upgraded.

BT will then claim that X million customers have Infinity enabled exchanges. What is left distinctly unstated is what proportion of those subscribers to an exchange cannot obtain Infinity because their cabinet has not been included in the roll out.

By jontym123 on 7 Nov 2012