Distance to cabinet restrictions for trial

[#1]

We are in a semi-rural location, approx 500 yards from the green cabinet. Almost half of the cable is overhead and the rest obviously underground. Would this preclude us from the trial? I'm guessing Plusnet/BT aren't going to stump up the costs of replacing this much cable with fibre.

[#2]

To be considered for the Plusnet FTTP trial you have to be in an area where a WBC FTTP service is already available. Put your phone number in this checker https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/adsl.htm?s_cid=ws_furls_adslchecker to see what you can get.

FTTP is fibre directly to your house but it does not come from the telephone cabinet so the distance to that does not matter. Is the cabinet enabled for FTTC which uses your existing phone line and at 500 metres you should get a good speed. The checker above will give you the all the options.

[#3]

Welcome to the community forums @tall_andy

In addition to what @RealAleMadrid said, (Assuming you're not already) you'll need to be an existing customer to be eligible for the FTTP trial. Please let us know if you have any further queries.

[#4]

@RealAleMadrid Yes the cabinet is enabled for FTTC.

My understanding is that a new fibre/cable pair is run into the house as part of the installation, so where does this come from if it's not the cabinet?

[#5]

FTTC Isn't "Fibre to the Premises" but uses your existing copper phone wire from the cabinet. The fibre bit is the link from the exchange to the cabinet. There is no new cabling required to your house for FTTC.

And FTTC (also known as VDSL) is a commercial product from Plusnet and you can sign up for it online or by phone. It is not part of the trial.

[#6]

@SpendLessTime I'm confused now, as it was @RealAleMadrid who asked me to check whether the cabinet was enabled for FTTC!

I was here to specifically ask about the FTTP trial, and whether the long distance from the cabinet would affect eligibility for that.

[#7]

FTTC & FTTP are completely different products.

FTTC uses the existing telephone infrastructure.

FTTP requires a new fibre infrastructure to be installed and connected to the fibre network (which is not done on a line by line basis).

Brian

[#8]

I asked you to use the checker to see what was available, not many places can get FTTP, did the checker show WBC FTTP available in the Featured Products (left hand column)? Ignore 'FTTP on demand' that is a stupidly expensive service which Plusnet do not supply. If you can't get FTTP then you say FTTC is available and you could order that with no changes needed to your wiring.

[#9]

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@tall_andy wrote:

I was here to specifically ask about the FTTP trial, and whether the long distance from the cabinet would affect eligibility for that.

You need to check if you can get FTTP which the checker would clearly state. (Not the FTTP on Demand version which isn't supported at all by Plusnet)

Only if the checker states that you can get FTTP, can you be considered for the Plusnet Trial. Or buy it commercial from BT Consumer, Zen etc. There aren't any other considerations at this point.

So the question is "What does the checker state for your phone number" ?

And @RealAleMadrid did ask for you to check for FTTP (Although the 2nd paragraph did mention FTTC but only to explain how it differs from FTTP)

To be considered for the Plusnet FTTP trial you have to be in an area where a WBC FTTP service is already available

[#10]

 Apologies for misreading the first post from @RealAleMadrid - the checker shows "FTTP on demand" on the l.h. side, but no "WBC FTTP", so I guess my original question is irrelevant now! Thanks everyone for your time.

Out of curiosity, going back to what @bmc said - does this mean you must already have fibre into the house to be eligible for the Plusnet trial? Presumably not many properties are lucky enough to have this (new builds perhaps?).

The reason I ask is that a work colleague (who lives on the outskirts of a small village in the middle of nowhere) recently signed up for the trial. OpenReach came out and installed a fibre cable into his house from "a nearby box" (my colleague's words). I assumed he meant a green cabinet, but with hindsight I should have realised Openreach aren't going to dig up the road whenever someone orders FTTP. 

I've just clarified with him and apparently the "box" is one of several fixed to a nearby telegraph pole, so what would this be?

[#11]

You need to be an existing PlusNet customer to join the trial (ADSL or VDSL).

The fibre network is run from the nearest Internet Head End (the "connection to the internet network if you like"). From there heavy duty cable will be run, eventually to an Aggregation Point near the network install area. The fibre is then distributed to various Distribution Points (DP's) from where an individual cable is run to any house ordering FTTP.

At the house an Optical Network Terminator (ONT) is installed inside the house. A router is then connected to this by Ethernet cable.

The following gives some idea of what's involved.

http://blog.thinkbroadband.com/2016/06/a-peek-at-the-future-world-of-openreach-fttp/

Brian

[#12]

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@tall_andy wrote:

@ Out of curiosity, going back to what @bmc said - does this mean you must already have fibre into the house to be eligible for the Plusnet trial? Presumably not many properties are lucky enough to have this (new builds perhaps?).

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No, the checker just states what Openreach can provide, if requested, at your premises.

So when I joined the trial, I had to have the route inspected first, then the fibre was blown through a duct to the house and a third visit to do the internal work. So 3 visits over a month. But in those days, the trial was a real trial in that no other provider sold it and only BT and Plusnet were offering access to FTTP via trials for existing customers.

Today as FTTP is commercial available via other providers, the work tends to be more streamlined although sometimes things go wrong.