Trying to get FTTC info from BT is like pulling hen's teeth

[#1]

After hitting brick wall after brick wall with BT I decided to do a bit of investigating myself.
According to http://nibroadband.com/where-is-superfast, I found out the following
Results for Dromore, Co Tyrone (NIDMR)
# Cabinet Address______________Install Date
1 Shaneragh__________________Ready for Customer Orders
2 Fintona Road________________Ready for Customer Orders
3 Irvinestown Road_____________Ready for Customer Orders
4 Entrance to Fairview Gdns______Ready for Customer Orders
The first of these, Shaneragh (also spelt Shannaragh), is reasonable close to me. So I went off for a drive (following the poles) to see if I could find anything out. It would appear that my line follows the Skreen Road (travelling SW) down to the junction with the Cavan Road and from there it travels WNW on the Cavan Road to the A32.
Where our line meets the main Omagh to Dromore Road is at the junction of The Clanaghbogan Road (A32) and the Cavan Road. To my utter surprise, here I found 2 cabinets that look remarkably like FTTC BT boxs! Can anyone confirm this? These are approximately 2 miles, line distance, from where we live. One of them (on the A32) has a large number 1 on it. (Does this refer to the #1 as the cabinet address above?The other one (on the Cavan Road, about 10 meters away) had nothing on it.
Does anyone know if there is any way of finding out:
1. What “Ready for Customer Orders” means? As all the checks I have done say Dromore is not FTTC
2. Where this mystery “Shaneragh” cabinet actually is?
3. Where my own cabinet is, and if it is indeed FTTC?
4. If the cabinet we are on is or might in the near future have FTTC, would this make a signicant difference, given that we are a further 2 miles away via copper cabling?
5. Why is it impossible to get this kind of information from BT???????
I have phoned, emailed and written to BT with no response other than - No, Dromore exchange is not FTTC and we do not know if or when it will be. No information about cabinets is no available.
I have stamped my feet, kicked cupboards, ranted, raved and (to my shame)  have probably been quite rude to one or two members of BT's staff. What IS the big secret???
Talk about feeling like the proverbial mushroom! Kept in the dark and covered with you know what!! 
So any light that ANYONE could shed on any/all of the above would be greatly appreciated.
Photos attached are: the cabinet on the main A32 at the junction of the Cavan Road showing the #1, old and new cabinet together just 10meters away on the Cavan Road, closer view of newer cabinet on Cavan Road and the map from nibroadband.com

[#2]

According to this site, the cabinet in your first picture is a standard PCP. Looks like BT are just replacing an old street cabinet with a newer model.

[#3]

BT regard all information relating to their PCP's cabinets (Primay connection point Cabinets) as confidential.
It 'MAY' be in part only that this confidentiality is for reasons of National Security.
As well as your and mine phone lines certain cabinets all over the UK may contain the connections for more "sensitive" lines.
There will also be commercial  reasons why BT keep the info closed.  I'm sure in some areas the cable companies would be delighted to know what roads etc are served by what cabinets.
Then there is the sad fact that if BT did release some of the data, quite apart from the time/money that would take to do it, in the end all that would happen is that it would give more ammunition for those who want to complain about something or everything (why their house is on cabinet A and not cabinet B and can it be swapped over - answer no) etc meaning even more aggro for BT....

[#4]

Thanks for that Jaggies, I think! 
There was another cabinet - (photo attached), but because of the electric warning on the side I presumed it was electricity.
However I have just been checking the BTFibre map again - more in hope than expectation, and it IS now saying that the Dromore Exchange is ready for infinity!!!!!
I give up! ???????
x47c - I understand reasons of security - Lord knows we have had to live through all that for long enough here, but I asked as recently as 4 days ago about infinity and was told that there were NO PLANS for it in Dromore. Now BTs own map is showing it ready!! DOH!! 

[#5]

Yup, that's definitely a FTTC cabinet. 

[#6]

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!  I love you!
The only question is now if it will do me any good! 

[#7]

The '1' on the PCP does mean it is cabinet 1. The FTTC pairs have not (yet) been seen with numbers.
The bad news is that a 2 mile distance is probably too much for VDSL2 to offer you decent speeds; in fact it is likely to be no better than ADSL2+ over that distance. The trouble is that, even though this would still represent an improvement over ADSL2+ from the exchange, I don't think BT are letting it be used like this.
As I understand it, BT's DSL checker at http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/adslchecker.welcome will not include FTTC if it estimates a speed lower than 5 Mbps.

[#8]

Thanks for that WWWombat, Just so frustrating. FTTC was mean to improve things in rural areas, just more waiting I guess. If only they would let it be used to improve ADSL2+ it would make a massive difference for those of us that are struggling to get speeds of over 1MB. 

[#9]

I was just trying to figure some of the numbers out on this...
One thing I had heard was about BT Openreach only accepting FTTC connections at a minimum of 5Mbps (though BT Retail only accept it, and label it, as "Infinity" when it is above 15Mbps)
The other thing was that VDSL2 degrades to the same speed as ADSL2+ at a distance of 1.8km from the cabinet
I just tried plugging some numbers into the ADSL speed calculator at http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/max_speed_calc.php.
- ADSL2+ runs at 5Mbps with attenuations of 50dB, at a distance of 3.6km
- ADSL2+ runs at 18Mbps with attenuations of 25dB at a distance of 1.8km
Those numbers suggest that people between 1.8 and 3.6km from the cabinet are getting the equivalent to an ADSL2+ service, but with the advantage of only including the distance to the cabinet, and not the exchange.
The good news for you is that, at 2 miles, you might just fall inside the limits (if that is indeed where the limits lie).
FTTC was meant to improve things for rural areas? I'm not sure I've heard it phrased like that! I suspect that, for now, the real rural areas aren't populated densely enough to make installation of an FTTC cabinet commercially viable. I guess you need a cabinet of roughly 300 subscribers, where at least 50% will take up the service in a significant way (ie be less than 1.8km from that cabinet, or perhaps 3.6km). Things might change as smaller FTTC DSLAMs become economical to install closer to the subscribers.

[#10]

You are very good to go to that bother. I have had a look at the Kitz site put in the Downstream Attenuation from my router, and according to it I am 4.6 km away. So looks like I am well and truly snookered for now! 

[#11]

Right now, that just means you are 4.6km away from the exchange, not the cabinet.

[#12]

Oh yes, of course it does -    Doh! Having another senior moment!  There may be light at the end of the tunnel after all.
The distance to the exchange from the cabinet is probably about 2.5km away. The attenuation is showing at 63.5. which is giving a distance of 4.6 km. I know the line from our house, following the poles is 3.5 km (as it is 2.2 miles) so I make the total distance as 6km - um, something doesn't add up there!! 

[#13]

Most routers won't show an attenuation higher than 63.5dB so it could be a lot higher

[#14]

Thanks for that Oldjim, I think! It does explain the discrepancy in the distances. Is there any way I could find out what it actually is?

[#15]

Other than by
1. Physically following any overhead line from your house as far as is dissapears down a pole and thence into an underground junction box.
2. Actually knowing the route the underground cable takes back to the cabinet and measuring it
3. likewise knowing the route the E-side cable takes back to the exchange and measuring that either on a map or by car/on foot etc
..the answer is not really.
I live on a rural private road so the road committee has copies of the official BT plan for the cables running along the road and these plans do not give precise measured locations, nor depth, or lengths, nor are the positions of the joint boxes in the ground particularly accurate in some cases..some haven't been opened for 20 years or more and are under a foot or so of leaves,brambles, and small trees by now.
The attenuation - even if it did record above 63.5 can only be an indication, some lines are vey good and have lower attenuations for their length and some are bad giving higher ones. I shall not even go down the point that the attenuation stated by the router is only anyway an 'averaged out' figure of the various differing attenuations at different frequencies over the frequency range used by ADSL.

The gainers in rural FTTC will be the village of say 300 homes fed from one centrally located cabinet.
As exchanges were rarely put in the centre of their service area some villages at the far opposite end will currently have dire broadband (or even none) while the cabinet is a few 100 yards away on the village green. So they will benefit enormously from FTTC.
Often in rural areas the big problem is sourcing a power supply for the FTTC cabinet.
I recall seeing that the FTTC cabinets comes in something like 100 and 300 pair sizes, but obviously there is a huge difference in cost to BT between enabling a 100 pair cabinet out on a limb at the edge of an exchange area for FTTC compared to enabling one which is already merely en-route from the exchange to an existing  300 pair cabinet.
The rural loosers will be the isolated farmstead- often now with some farm buildings converted into offices of some type - too far from the exchange or the cabinet for either service - their only current option seems to be hugely expensive satellite broadband or mobile broadband with it poor download limits.