cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Why has my cabinet not been upgraded from ADSL to FTTC?

Baglady
Dabbler
Posts: 12
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎11-02-2021

Why has my cabinet not been upgraded from ADSL to FTTC?

It would appear that patience is not a virtue. We have been waiting for our cabinet to be upgraded to FTTC since 2010 when all the surrounding cabinets were upgraded. To add insult to injury, all of those cabinets have also since been upgraded from fibre to superfast fibre!

The 120+ households served by our cabinet have been left with basic ADSL broadband as our only option. Furthermore, we have been told that because our cabinet was never upgraded to FTTC, we are also not going to be eligible for FTTP!

How can this be justified? Why have our streets been singled out to remain on poor ADSL speeds?

Working from home as a result of the pandemic has highlighted what a big issue this is. Every day I receive warning messages that "your internet connection is unstable" or "bad internet connection" and I regularly get dumped out of meetings because our internet cannot cope with the demand required for an MS Teams meeting.

I have been doing regular speed checks over the past few weeks, and have been appalled to find that we are quite often at or below 1Mbps for download, and have been at 0Mbps upload.

Please can someone from PlusNet get OpenReach to finally rectify their obvious oversight in not upgrading this one cabinet when all the others were done?

I have attached a map with the location of our cabinet circled in red. Please note, all of the other cabinets on the map have been upgraded to FTTC. For reference, I have also marked in yellow the streets which are served by this cabinet (clearly we are not in a rural location!).

31 REPLIES 31
Baldrick1
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 11,618
Thanks: 5,166
Fixes: 415
Registered: ‎30-06-2016

Re: Why has my cabinet not been upgraded from ADSL to FTTC?

@Baglady  Welcome to the forum.

Plusnet are but a seller of the existing products so I doubt you will get any help there.

You need to be contacting Openreach, your local council or your MP and ask their help.

Alternatively have you considered using the mobile network, depending on your choice of supliers the price is not that different. Another option is to move to BT and ask them to do something under the Univeral Service Obligation.https://www.bt.com/broadband/USO

Moderator and Customer
If this helped - select the Thumb
If it fixed it,  help others - select 'This Fixed My Problem'

TeeGee
Seasoned Pro
Posts: 597
Thanks: 309
Fixes: 1
Registered: ‎24-02-2009

Re: Why has my cabinet not been upgraded from ADSL to FTTC?

The Universal Service requirement may well be the way forward. You can get a bit more detail about the reality of your connection HERE

bmc
Hero
Posts: 3,196
Thanks: 1,000
Fixes: 48
Registered: ‎28-02-2017

Re: Why has my cabinet not been upgraded from ADSL to FTTC?

@Baglady 

Finding dates or even plans for deployment of Fibre is often a fruitless task. PlusNet will not be able to help - no ISP is able to "tell" OpenReach what to do.

 

Have you checked the following. If you dig through the site I think there is a contact form somewhere where you could ask for information.

https://www.openreach.com/

 

Brian

Bogbody
Aspiring Pro
Posts: 181
Thanks: 47
Fixes: 4
Registered: ‎23-02-2020

Re: Why has my cabinet not been upgraded from ADSL to FTTC?

Looking at your map I lived in a similar location and got over 8 M/s.
At that distance you should get much better than 1 M/s.
Get hold of plusnet and report a fault.
Baglady
Dabbler
Posts: 12
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎11-02-2021

Re: Why has my cabinet not been upgraded from ADSL to FTTC?

Thanks for your comment... 

I have been in touch with OpenReach - five times already! 😠 They are absolutely hopeless and give useless, and mostly factually incorrect information. They basically do not want to admit they clearly forgot to do this cabinet.

I have also got the local council involved. They have been in contact with OpenReach, but have not had any reply of significance yet.

SuperFast West Yorkshire was surprised to hear about a lack of fibre in my location - they thought all the cabinets in our area had been upgraded.

I plan to write to the CEO of OpenReach, but I was hoping that PlusNet (as my ISP and part of BT) might be able to have a 'back-room' conversation first. Failing this, I will be contacting my MP and the Ombudsman...

In the meantime, thank you for the suggestion of the USO - I will definitely look into this! 😊

jab1
Legend
Posts: 16,817
Thanks: 5,339
Fixes: 248
Registered: ‎24-02-2012

Re: Why has my cabinet not been upgraded from ADSL to FTTC?


@Baglady wrote:

 

I plan to write to the CEO of OpenReach, but I was hoping that PlusNet (as my ISP and part of BT) might be able to have a 'back-room' conversation first. Failing this, I will be contacting my MP and the Ombudsman...

In the meantime, thank you for the suggestion of the USO - I will definitely look into this! 😊


Sorry, @Baglady , but as an ISP, Plusnet are a separate organisation to OR, and even though they are part of the BT Group, they have no 'backdoor' access.

John
Baglady
Dabbler
Posts: 12
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎11-02-2021

Re: Why has my cabinet not been upgraded from ADSL to FTTC?

Thanks, @jab1 

I thought it was a longshot that they might be able to help. Bummer 😪

Gandalf
Community Gaffer
Community Gaffer
Posts: 26,563
Thanks: 10,265
Fixes: 1,599
Registered: ‎21-04-2017

Re: Why has my cabinet not been upgraded from ADSL to FTTC?

Sorry for the issues with getting fibre. I've raised this with Openreach and while this is nothing definitive, the fibre enquiries adviser has noted that your postcode's currently waiting to be assessed for a FTTP roll-out. Fingers crossed!

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
jab1
Legend
Posts: 16,817
Thanks: 5,339
Fixes: 248
Registered: ‎24-02-2012

Re: Why has my cabinet not been upgraded from ADSL to FTTC?

@Gandalf Interesting. That could be sometime in the next 5 years+ which doesn't particularly assist the OP. The more interesting question is why their cabinet wasn't upgraded to FTTC when surrounding ones were?

Thanks for looking though.😉

John
bmc
Hero
Posts: 3,196
Thanks: 1,000
Fixes: 48
Registered: ‎28-02-2017

Re: Why has my cabinet not been upgraded from ADSL to FTTC?

@Baglady 

Couple of things.

Have you run the fault checking tests as suggested in Post #5 - Login to you PlusNet account and then follow trouble shooting links.

 

Secondly, while it doesn't help with your long wait, the news from Gandalf is both good and bad.

OpenReach  would probably not be considering your cabinet for FTTP if you had a decent FTTC service.

Given all nearby cabinets have FTTC, there must (should !!!) be a good fibre optic network in the area which would probably reduce costs and the time required for an FTTP install to your cabinet.

 

The bad news is PlusNet don't do a FTTP product so you would need to change ISP's when (or if !!!!) the time came.

 

Brian

 

 

Baglady
Dabbler
Posts: 12
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎11-02-2021

Re: Why has my cabinet not been upgraded from ADSL to FTTC?

@Gandalf Thanking you for looking into this... but as @jab1 has mentioned, my question is *why* was our cabinet the only one in the are which was not upgraded to FTTC back in 2010.

I have been in contact with Superfast West Yorkshire, and they were very surprised to learn of a lack of fibre in our area as they were unaware any cabinets remained to be upgraded to FTTC. It's clear that OpenReach has somehow forgotten/missed our cabinet and now seem unwilling to rectify their mistake.

Regarding your comment about the future rollout of FTTP, I have a further question: If we are not FTTC, will we also miss out on FTTP if/when this gets eventually gets rolled out in our area? The answer I have received so far is that if our cabinet has not been upgraded to FTTC, there is no way we will be able to get FTTP. This is because if there is no fibre feed to our cabinet, then they cannot feed to our house. Is this true?

I suppose what's more to the point is the fact that an upgrade to FTTP at some point in the future does not help with our current requirement to work from home. 

I did a speed test this morning (when the connection was stable enough to complete a test and not drop out!) and our current speeds are: download 0.8Mbps; upload 0.4Mbps; data delay 1556.7ms.

These fall way short of the Ofcom agreed minimum download of 10Mbps and upload of 1Mbps.

As suggested by @Bogbody and @bmc I have reported the problem to your fault team and hope that they are able to find something to help us out... fingers crossed.

RealAleMadrid
Aspiring Hero
Posts: 2,713
Thanks: 1,395
Fixes: 59
Registered: ‎07-07-2009

Re: Why has my cabinet not been upgraded from ADSL to FTTC?

@Baglady  You do not have to have FTTC in order to get FTTP, they are completely independent, the FTTP fibre does not come from the cabinet to your house. It has its own route back to the exchange, which can be a different exchange to the one your phone line is connected to.

I sympathise with your very poor speed on ADSL, I hope Plusnet can improve it.

Baglady
Dabbler
Posts: 12
Thanks: 2
Registered: ‎11-02-2021

Re: Why has my cabinet not been upgraded from ADSL to FTTC?

@RealAleMadrid Thank you!!! That is fantastic news 😁

It still doesn't help with our current speed issue, but at least there is hope on the horizon that at some point in the future we will be able to get FTTP.

Gandalf
Community Gaffer
Community Gaffer
Posts: 26,563
Thanks: 10,265
Fixes: 1,599
Registered: ‎21-04-2017

Re: Why has my cabinet not been upgraded from ADSL to FTTC?

@Baglady Unfortunately I can't say definitively why your cabinet's not been upgraded to FTTC while others in the area have as we haven't been given that information from Openreach (nor is it info we can really find out I'm afraid)

It's possible it may be simply due to cost, I've seen FTTC projects fall through in the past due to a lack of funding although that may not be the case here, there may be another reason.

For visibility this is the email I got back from Openreach's fibre enquiries team:

Good afternoon Anoush,

Thank you for your fibre enquiry. Having investigated our network data, I have found that we are not able to supply your customer with a Fibre service from our existing network and regrettably, your customers’ property is not included in the current fibre to the property  (FTTP) rollout.

Unfortunately [redacted the cabinet number] that provides service to this address is not fibre enabled so fibre to the cab (FTTC) is not available. This post code is currently waiting to be assessed for possible FTTP which is one reason why the CAB will not be fibre enabled.

At this time I cannot say if your customers property will be included in the FTTP roll-out as no surveys have been completed. I can only advise you to contact us again towards the end of this year when more information regarding FTTP may be available.

Alternatively your customer could contact the Community Fibre Partnership scheme.

A Community Fibre Partnership is where we work with your customers’ local community to build a customised fibre solution to bring fibre broadband to homes and businesses.

We put a joint funding arrangement in place, which means we contribute as much of the cost as we can, and your customers’ community funds the rest. We’ll then build the most affordable solution we can to meet your customers’ community’s needs. We’ll also advise on any grants they might be able to get to help pay for their part e.g. from local authorities or the Government.

Further information can be found at https://communityfibre.openreach.co.uk

Your customer can register to let us know they’re interested in a Community Fibre Partnership (they aren’t committing to anything at this stage). We’ll then email them a reference number, and details of what will happen next.

Around 24 hours later we’ll send a second email with a link to a website. They can use this to fill in details of the addresses, postcodes and landline numbers of other local people who are interested in setting up the Partnership.

I hope my comments help to explain our current position and give your customer a possible solution that you may wish to explore. This case will now be closed as we have completed our investigations. If you should need any further assistance please raise a new enquiry as any further correspondence to this case will not be seen by the team.

If you'd want to query this further with Openreach you'll be able to complete a similar formwize Here although as far as I'm aware it'll be seen by the same team as the ones we contact through our formwize so they may not be able to provide any further information (If they could or had any I'm sure they would've added it in the email)

Based on their response though it may be worth filling out that formwize at the end of the year for an update on the progress.

As @RealAleMadrid has noted you can get FTTP even though the cabinet's not fibre enabled, because the fibre cables would go straight from the exchange to your property. There's a bit more of an insight on our trial FAQs Here.

I hope this helps. 

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet