EO Lines

[#1]

I had a sad conversation with a good friend of mine who recently moved to our side of Sheffield from a Virgin cable area.
He has Plusnet ADSL but would love fibre.
Unfortunately he is only about a 1/4 mile from his exchange and appears to be in an Exchange Only line area.
It's the same exchange as I am on but we have cabinets.
I know there are plans to upgrade EO lines but is this on a back burner for Openreach nationwide?

[#2]

Hi Strat,
I've not heard of any plans at all to provide fibre of any kind for EO lines.
I'll grab a chat with our products guys though to see if they know anything I don't and will get back to you if they do.

[#3]

BT has installed some cabinets for EO lines but it's hit and miss. It only helps if the majority of properties being served are close to the exchange as is the case if it's a cluster of houses 'surrounding' the exchange. All the EO lines are relocated through a new cabinet just outside the exchange and all is good.
Unfortunately in a lot of cases the properties being served are nowhere near the exchange (or only some of them). Typically they are farms or other isolated properties. In those cases the only place you could site the cabinet is the exchange but likely the properties would all be too far away to get a service. Rumour is that BT have considered FTTP for some EO cases but details are patchy.
It basically comes down to the questions: Where do most of the EO lines come together? If we stick a cabinet at that point will enough of the lines then support a good enough service to make it worthwhile building the cab.

[#4]

UPDATE: I've just learned that if an area is covered by BDUK then they are starting to install cabs right outside the exchange, EO lines are then being moved on to that as FTTC is ordered.
In some areas FTTP is being set up instead (this is mostly to cater for businesses) or some such as Chesterfield for example have both.