Arley Cheshire Exchange

[#1]

Hi
I've heard a rumour that BT are upgrading my exchange Arley (MRARL) to ADSL 2+, can you confirm this? Also what will I need to do to move onto ADSL2+?
Thanks
Al

[#2]

Hi alevans, welcome to the forum.
Well the rumour appears to be true, with an expected in-service date of the end of July.
Put your phone number into https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/main.html that should confimr it for you. Of course don't post any data from that containing your actual phone number.
Plusnet's CRT staff won't be around until Monday, but they may be able to confirm when you'd be automatically moved over, otherwise you can often make a manual request once it's available.

[#3]

Hi Al,
A warm welcome to the forums.  So that lovey nearby area is finally going to get faster broadband... Must check to see if the other nearby rural villages are also getting upgraded.  North Chesire is well over due some good news, though given the prominence of long lines around here adsl2 might not deliver any benefit to you.  I still only get 5Mbps on adsl2.  Unless you are right at the top of adsl1 speeds you might not see too much improvement.
Kevin

[#4]

Well it obviously depends on how long Al's line is Kevin. He may not get faster broadband but at least he'll be free of the shackles of 20CN profiles and hopefully have an improvement in Upstream speed.

[#5]

Gents
Thanks for the replies. If I'm right 21CN will also allow for fibre in the future, there is money set aside for fibre from the Arley exchange at some point!!!!
I probably won't initially see any benefits as I'm right at the end of the line for the exchange!!!
My line length is roughly 3.5km

[#6]

Hi Al,
21CN has nothing to do with fibre (FTTC) which is dependent on fibre being installed from the exchange to the 'local' green cabinets.  With FTTC 1 to 1.5km from the cabinet is the limit of viable operation.
At 3.5km from the exchange the most you can expect in improvement of ADSL2+ (21CN) over ADSL (20CN) is about 0.5Mbps.  As noted by Anotherone there are other technical improvements, though arguably  on a stable line they would not come into play and if the line is not stable then it needs fixing!
I suspect that the only real benefit you'll recieve / notice is some improvement in upload speed, which I guess will be in the region of 888kbps for your line length if / when you are switched and uncapped.
Kevin

[#7]

Hi alevans,
I've looked into this for you, and ADSL2+ is planned at your exchange You should be upgraded automatically once your exchange has been, though it won't necessarily be done straight away. As you can imagine, there will be a fair few people to upgrade

[#8]

Quote

As you can imagine, there will be a fair few people to upgrade

What, in Arley! The exchange only serves 190 residential premises

[#9]

I suppose it depends on your definition of "a fair few people" 
But if that's the case then it should be done fairly quickly

[#10]

Hi Al,
Once the service is showing as active when using the link I gave in reply #1, put in a request on here, you might be lucky and get it done quicker. That link should show you which cabinet you are connected to and if you can then locate it, you can try and work out the distance from it.
If you are familiar with your local authority's website for the "faster" broadband programme, you can check if your cabinet is on the list to be done.
If you don't know where to look use http://www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/rural-broadband/ which should pointy you in the right direction.
As for how much speed improvement you'll get with 21CN, that will depend upon the quality of your line, Townman's estimate may be mean, it may be over generous!  If you post your current Full DSL stats (see links in sig if using either of the Plusnet modem/routers) that'll give us a good idea about your line. But,

Quote from: Townman

As noted by Anotherone there are other technical improvements, though arguably  on a stable line they would not come into play and if the line is not stable then it needs fixing!

The improvements come into play immediately!! I think what Townman is trying to say is that if your line is stable your profile will rarely change, but your profile is not limited to specific bands as it is on 20CN, so in most cases you will see an improvement, as well as more rapid changes in profile if you do suffer from occasional speed changes.
Nearly forgot, you could still get useful improvements in speed even upto about 2.5km from the cabinet with FTTC, but hopefully you'll be much closer.

[#11]

Quote from: alevans

My line length is roughly 3.5km

Quote from: Anotherone

Townman's estimate may be mean, it may be over generous!  If you post your current Full DSL stats (see links in sig if using either of the Plusnet modem/routers) that'll give us a good idea about your line.

Not my estimate...
Looking here - http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/max_speed_calc.php - 49dB gives 3.5km and an estimate on 20CN as 5088 and on 21CN 5568.
So as I said an additional 0.5Mbps assuming there's no need for interleaving.
However what is interesting is the profile which impacts available data speed.  Due to the stepped nature of 20CN profiles as opposed to 21CN's 88.2% of synch speed 'sliding scale' approach, rather than the 4Mbps profile the above 20CN synch speed delivers, with 21CN you might see something as high as 4.9Mbps.
As AO states - what you will get depends on your circumstances, specifically the current line attenuation.

[#12]

Why are you referring me to a website I well know? As you ought to know, the attenuation is only part of the story. The estimated figures are based on a copper line in pretty good condition. You clearly have forgotten that if the line has deteriorated, an even greater possibility if it's got any longish length of aluminium instead of copper, then performance on the higher tones could well be down, and so the gains on 21CN could well be less than the estimate. On the other hand, if the line is top quality copper, the gains could be greater.
The very reason that I suggested posting the full DSL stats was that this would give a clue as to the overall quality of the line.
Oh, and Interleaving will have very little effect on achievable sync speeds!

[#13]

AO,
Linky provided for the benefit of the OP.

[#14]

Again as you should know, people rarely read the smaller print and guidance notes, so when providing links, especially when they may give an expectation of something, any other relevant factors should be mentioned.
As if I didn't know it wasn't "your" estimate or where you got it from (no issue with that per se), it was however initially provided "out of context", as it was in "your" post, it's correct to refer to it as your estimate - which I then put into context without quoting you. However, in reply #10, you then quote from the OP, and then immediately quote me and provide the kitz link with figures, re-iterating "So as I said an additional 0.5Mbps", which implies I don't know what I'm talking about. That I resent somewhat. Without repeating everything I've already said, it won't automatically be 0.5Mbps! Next time we are chatting elsewhere outside this forum, we''ll chat about that in greater depth. In the meantime current Full DSL stats from Al will give a good idea about the quality of his line.

[#15]

According to the latest spreadsheet (which anyone can look at), the WBC Service Availability Date is listed as 04/09/2015 for Arley (and Weaverham also).