Finding out if a cabinet will be FTTC-enabled

[#1]

Hi all,
Having had helpful responses before from this community, I wonder if I might ask another question.
Over a year after its first announced ready-for-service date, my local exchange started accepting orders for FTTC yesterday. 
My cabinet, however, is not enabled. 
My question is: can I find out if my cabinet is planned to be enabled? An added bonus would be *when*, but I guess that would be asking too much.
This is important to me to find out. I have started working from home via VPN, and my current 3Mbps (ADSL2+) is proving annoyingly slow. I'll wait fot FTTC if it is coming, but I don't want to waste time waiting for something that isn't planned to happen.
I have heard it is normal to enable an exchange before all its cabinets are done, so it might be on the way. But then again my cabinet might be uneconomic: and I don't seem to have any way to find out. The "Can you get FTTC?" sites can give dates for exchanges to be enabled, but none goes into details about cabinets.
I'm on the Moortown exchange in Leeds (MYMOO), cabinet P61.
Incidentally, that cabinet is *old*: cast-iron with "GPO" molded into the frame. I wonder how many remember the time when telephony came under the purview of the General Post Office? The cabinet was not new in 1959 when a relative lived here. Still in excellent condition, though, they built well in those days. Now if I were dishonest, I'd wonder if it is valuable, and whether its unexpected disappearance would trigger a new, FTTC-enabled replacement.... 
Thanks for any information,
Stephen
(PlusNet sdfranks)

[#2]

This is something I am also interested in after almost falling off my chair when I found out my exchange is on the latest list announced by bt as being fibre enabled before end of 2013!

[#3]

Hi all, my exchange (Aberdare) was enabled for fttc last December.
Work has been going on all over the area putting in new cabinets.
Our cabinet (14) is at the end of the line along a valley with a small urban village at the end.
All the cabs before ours on the line from the exchange have been enabled but ours keeps getting its date put back. Started Jan 2012 now December 2012. LOL
I wonder if this is purely an economic decision as demographically the village has a lot of older people and is not what you could call a "rich" neighborhood ?
Any comments would be welcome - As BT told me when I complained about 1mb speeds - move closer to the exchange.
Nice people BT !
Best of luck everyone else, guess I may be one of the 10% left out in the cold.
Geoff

[#4]

Hi egeoffreydavies,
Sorry to hear your story. I can understand the frustration of dates that keep getting put back.
But how are you getting the dates for your cabinet (14)? I've not been able to find any way to get any information about plans for cabinets.
Stephen

[#5]

The BT Wholesale checker will report if you can get FTTC (or FTTP), and will indicate a date if it is planned but not yet provisioned. That may, or may not, help.
I've also seen that Openreach respond to queries via email, giving quite accurate information on a cabinet level. I can't remember the email address, but it is something like "nga complaints or enquiries". Take a look at Openreach's website

[#6]

Hi WWWombat,
Thanks for the suggestion. I've found the address and emailed nga.enquiries@openreach.co.uk. I await their response with interest.
Stephen

[#7]

For the record: I got a reply just now.
So asking nga.enquiries@openreach.co.uk works, and I got the information I asked for in around 5 or 6 working days.
Good news for me: my cabinet is planned to be accepting orders "Mid-November". 
Stephen

[#8]

Just had a replay back from BT - our cabinet is not commercially viable.  Despite servicing from what I can see about 10-20% of the village. 
It also serves just about all the houses in the village that would be in a position to order FTTP on demand at the estimated £1500 ish to enable home working and home offices etc...
Just fired off an email to our councillors to see if they can get our local authority to assist with funds from BDUK, but I wont hold my breath.
I think BT should be made to publish just what percentages of households are able to obtain FTTC in the areas that they are enabling.  They seem to announce with great fanfare when launching new products or rolling out to various exchanges, but never actually tell the whole story.  I guess thats the price we pay for living in a county that has many small villages/towns, rather than the big cities.

[#9]

I have just had a reply to my email inquiry ,  Im in the same position as the previous poster.
Its really galling to see that new cabinets are in place but my village is not commercially viable.
It seems that Openreach are hoping for outside financing, hence they suggest that lobbying the County Council is the way forward.

[#10]

Start a campaign in the village to get some sort of wireless and watch BT suddenly decide it's viable!

[#11]

Good thought,there a good number of people who will campaign.
I have already contacted Parish /District and County Councillors.

[#12]

An interesting thread..................I think I will send an email to the address mentioned because "we" are apparently surrounded by FTTC exchanges with various villages equally apparently cabinet enabled but our exchange seems to be "out of the loop" for published plans, very galling
So just maybe I will get a sensible (supportive???) answer as to why we seem to have been missed out of "local" updates/upgrades!
Edit ~ the FAQ's on the OR site say that email will not respond to "when" questions and using the PostCode checker almsot confirms my supposition in that there are 3 major exchanges that are AO and 3 minor ones (including us) that are NC !   c'est la vie.

[#13]

During the first rollout of adsl i could understand wanting to keep roll out data private, it was commercially sensitive but in the end bt got the lion's share of the bb take up compared to the virgin network (talking wholesale here) with llu grabbing more later one.
Given that BT is getting BDUK funding, hiding behind what is commercially viable and isn't is no longer a secret and should be released by bt.
Thats how i feel about but yes those 10 to 30% left out on an exchange rollout is frustrating and i do feel for you guys.

[#14]

Here is part of the email from Openreach.
Our deployment is based on the commercial criteria for each cabinet and your PCP  fails to meet the commercial criteria. This is because the cabinet is too small to provide a return on the investment based on the costs for the construction and on-going running costs of providing a new FTTC cabinet.
Where cabinets are not commercially viable Government funding is available to county councils and it is worth registering your interest with our County Council.

I guess they mean  (your County Council)

[#15]

I think I need to talk to my neighbour who is a Parish Councillor in she has any insight???