FTTC in next house but not mine?

[#1]

Hi,
Our so-called Broadband is terrible (600k today), so I'm desperate for an upgrade.
Our local cabinet has been upgraded to Infinity. We're about half a mile away.
The house whose garden backs onto our garden shows on the BT Infinity checker as capable of enhanced broadband. I'm guessing they can't gwet "full" Infinity is because we're quite a way from the box. Nevertheless, they can get the enhanced speed.
However, our house only shows broadband "up to" 5 megs (hahaha, I wish). We're only 50 metres away from the neighbours!
SURELY we must be able to take advantage of the upgraded box? I don't care if it's not 20 meg. Six would be a dream!
I've spent hours trying to find a number to call, or a person to appeal to. I'm at my wits' end. If anyone can help I'd be very, very grateful.

[#2]

Should of posted this in broadband section, but still.
It is entirely possible that you are not on the same street loop and fibre box as the neighbour behind you.
It may be worth checking where the copper wire goes from your house to the telephone post and down to the nearest box,

[#3]

Quote from: clarkgable

Hi, Our so-called Broadband is terrible (600k today), so I'm desperate for an upgrade. Our local cabinet has been upgraded to Infinity. We're about half a mile away. SURELY we must be able to take advantage of the upgraded box? I don't care if it's not 20 meg. Six would be a dream! I've spent hours trying to find a number to call, or a person to appeal to. I'm at my wits' end. If anyone can help I'd be very, very grateful.

@ clarkgable
If you're happy enough to PM your phone No. & postcode to me I could run some checks for you later on.
I assure you they would remain confidential.
I was in the same boat. Around 5 km from the exchange, 1 Mb ADSL.
0.5 miles from the Fibre cabinet, etimated speed 14.6 Mb (Plusnet) & can't have FTTC (BT).
Had FTTC installed - 33 Mb actual download speeds (at first)
Currently have some line problems that are being dealt with. Speeds now down to 15 Mb.
Paul

[#4]

Hi Mark,
Thanks for the suggestion. I'm pretty sure we are served by the same cabinet, because I asked a BT engineer the other day. He said we were already enabled for Infinity, and I asked him where the box was.
However, he may have been mistaken, because he wasn't outside my house when I asked (he was in the next street - the one I mentioned in my original post). I did drive round for twenty mins earlier and the only box I could find is the one he mentioned. I've tried looking online for a map of box locations but I can't find anything
Do you know how I could find out which actual box we're connected to?

[#5]

Hi Paul,
I've PM'ed you.
Many thanks,
Greg.

[#6]

@clarkgable,
I have checked your line on our broadband availability checker.  Unfortunately it appears the cabinet you are connected to is not Fibre enabled.  Also your estimated speeds for both ADSL and ADSL2+ are identical so I don't suspect you would see a noticeable improvement if any if you switched to ADSL2+.  In the meantime I have updated your profile on our systems to 2000kbps as this was out of sync with the BT profile.  You should now see an improvement in your throughput up to this level.

[#7]

Hi Alex,
Thanks for that.
Can you tell me where this cabinet actually is? I've driven around the area, and also spoken to a BT engineer, and the only cabinet I can find is the same one that he mentioned to me - which is fibre-enabled.
I do understand that the house behind ours may be connected to a different box, but it seems odd that BT would somehow overlook "our" box when they've converted another one in the same area.
I'd just like to go to "our" box and see for myself that it hasn't been converted. I can't quite believe it. How the heck do you find out which box is "your" box, short of driving around for ages or spending even longer on Google Street View (which is slower than driving, with the speed of our connection?
Thanks,
Greg.,

[#8]

Might be worth contacting the owner of this site and see if he can shed any light on where your cabinet might be
http://www.trefor.net/tech-pages/availability-checker/

[#9]

@clarkgable,
Unfortunately we cannot tell you which cabinet you are connected to as we aren't privy to that information.  However, once the service is available on your cabinet then the BT line checker will show that this is the case.

[#10]

@knowdice. Thanks for that. I'm checking...
@Alex Rolls:  does that mean you simply checked with the BT Infinity availability checker? If so, I already did that. A lot. I don't think it's correct. What I'd like to know is if I can request fibre, and just take my chances? You see, I think I COULD get the service, albeit not at the absolute premium speed. I'm 99% certain that the problem isn't that I'm not connected to a fibre box, I think the problem is that BT don't want to guarantee the stability of the service.
But really, I should be able to sign a waiver, saying that I'm willing to take a chance. Does that make sense?

[#11]

Quote from: clarkgable

What I'd like to know is if I can request fibre, and just take my chances?

If the availability checker doesn't show that the service is available then the ordering system won't let us place the order. 

[#12]

There is a document floating around from Openreach that lists postcodes, cabinet numbers etc. I don't think it was meant to be made public.
My postcode was listed against a different cabinet than the one I expected and already knew the location of.
To find the location of my cabinet I plotted the centres of each postcode from the OR document on a map for all of those connected to the same cabinet as my postcode and then took a walk around the middle of the area, not fool proof but I already had an idea of where the cables ran.
PB

[#13]

Quote

then the ordering system won't let us place the order

And neither, unfortunately, will any other provider using BT Wholesale (or should that be Openreach) infrastructure.
I was able to find my cabinet by following the path of BT manhole covers (at the end of my street it could have gone either of two ways though), there were clues in the orientation of the covers but I eventually used an AM radio tuned to 612kHz (MW) which was able to pick up the noise of the lines and managed to pinpoint the route of my line that way!
I was lucky though, because I was able to start at a BT manhole on the pavement about 3m from my front house wall where my master socket is.

[#14]

Quote

There is a document floating around from openreach that lists postcodes, cabinet numbers etc

I'm pretty sure I saw a link to that somewhere on these forums, will post if I find it (unless someone else beats me to it :).)

[#15]

I have a copy so if you want to advise your post code by PM or otherwise I can check it