Semi rural Dorset to get FTTC this year, WOW.

[#1]

Well it’s been an exciting 2 weeks down here is semi rural Dorset. First we receive notice we are going Superfast Broadband by the end of this year, a bit of a shock when the last update we had was the end of 2016.
Then today the contractors arrive early this morning to dig holes and lay out stuff for the new cabinet and ...... dig up the power cable to our part of the estate. Southern Electricity were excellent and after I notified them of the problem rang me back at the exact time they suggested to keep me up to date with the repairs (now done, for now).
So some questions for all you high speed merchants;
As all the cables to my house are underground and not in ducts I would assume FTTP is not a feasible option?
So I will assume it will be FTTC and copper/aluminium to our house rough distance 150 Mtrs, we are currently on unlimited ADSL 2+ at about 5.5Meg download, what package would you suggest?
Next from your experience about how long does it take to get everything up and running (+/- a week or so)?
Also should I purchase my own equipment (I do for ADSL Broadband and always have)?
And what do you recommend?
Thanks for any replies, I know I’m a nuisance it’s a pre-requisite of old age
Regards P.

[#2]

if they are only just digging now then don't expect anything any time soon.
it can be a long process from the point of digging to an actual live exchange taking orders on any particular cabinet.

[#3]

Thanks chenks76, the last suggested time of activation was October/November this year so with luck by Christmas just in time for all the new game downloads  but forewarned is forearmed as they say.

[#4]

Wonder if this will reach OldJim's back yard?

[#5]

As I don't know his location I can't answer that but this is the broadband map for Dorset
http://mapping.dorsetforyou.com/superfast/availability/map
If you zoom in and hover over your rough location it will tell you if and when. I'm on the Warmwell exchange which it nowhere near Warmwell (it used to be a small brick building just East of Warmwell roundabout when I went to school) and is now in Owermoigne.
I hope it does get to him as we have paid over the odds for our connections for years now and it's about time we got something back /end of rant.

[#6]

Thanks for the link as I wasn't aware it had been updated
My FTTC date has moved forward a bit - from 2015 now whereas before it was by Summer 2016 although I suppose that could be the same

[#7]

I live in East Dorset & I've been on FTTC for over 18 months. There is a lot of work to do before you'll be enabled. We had the fibre cabs in place for over 3 months before they "blew" the cable through from the exchange. Just keep your eyes open for the various armies of BTOR engineers carrying out their various tasks.
At that distance you should get close to 70+ Mbs down, depending on the type of metal cable from your cab. Copper is much better than aluminium. One cab in my village is aluminium & the users have been having lots of problems.
I'm 500 metres from my cab & get 47 down, 13 up over copper.