Planned Openreach Exchange Upgrades

[#1]

Does anyone know of an online resource that details any upgrades planned for a specific exchange?

I'm asking as I know there are new technologies available such as G.Fast and it would be good to get an insight in to any future upgrades. I am sure at one point there was an Excel file available that had this or similar information but I can't find it.

[#2]

You could try the Openreach Fibre First page - if you scroll down, there's a map where you select your nearest city and it shows fibre plans for your area (completed / in progress / planned within 3 months).

https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/fibre-first 

More info :

https://www.openreach.com/help-and-support/questions-about-fibre-availability 

As for G.fast, don't get your hopes up ! ISP Review says it's all but been abandoned in favour of FTTP.

https://https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/03/g-fast-broadband-gets-commercial-uk-launch-by-... 

[#3]

No idea about Openreach plans but currently CityFibre are currently upgrading the town I live in so Vodafone can offer there new Gigafast home broadband services.

It would be nice to know if Openreach & Plusnet had any upgrade plans to offer FTTP to more customers.

[#4]

I guess that urban areas will end up with a choice of competing FTTP providers whilst we in the outlying villages are ignored. I must assume that it makes business sense to the suits in these companies to get into a price battle in urban areas rather than be a monopoly provider in smaller clusters of properties further afield.

[#5]

@Baldrick1 

Interesting. I would have agreed with that sentiment a year or so ago but I think things are changing. My sister in law moved into a property in Cornwall a month ago and was convinced she'd have to get a 4g/5g internet solution as most of the providers weren't offering much in the way of landline broadband. She was delighted to find that BT offered FTTP so now her and her grateful neighbours who didn't know anything about it, are enjoying full FTTP

[#6]

@Mook 

OR has today announced that they do not intend to extend the g.fast network at all until April 2021 earliest.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/06/openreach-confirm-g-fast-broadband-rollout-paused-unti...

[#7]

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@davel8r wrote:

@Baldrick1 

Interesting. I would have agreed with that sentiment a year or so ago but I think things are changing. My sister in law moved into a property in Cornwall a month ago and was convinced she'd have to get a 4g/5g internet solution as most of the providers weren't offering much in the way of landline broadband. She was delighted to find that BT offered FTTP so now her and her grateful neighbours who didn't know anything about it, are enjoying full FTTP

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@davel8r 

Cornwall has some of the best native FTTP coverage in the country (much of which has been in place since 2012-13), see https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/index.php?tab=2&election=1#8/51.148/-2.549/geafttp/

You've hit the nail on the head regarding your SiLs neighbours not knowing they could get FTTP due to most ISPs (including PlusNet of course!) choosing not to sell it.

I know quite a few people who are adamant they 'can't get fibre' because their own ISP (e.g. Sky or TalkTalk selling VDSL2 which they like to refer to as 'fibre') has told them so, when all along there's FTTP right up their street!

[#8]

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@nozzer wrote:

@Mook 

OR has today announced that they do not intend to extend the g.fast network at all until April 2021 earliest.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/06/openreach-confirm-g-fast-broadband-rollout-paused-unti...

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Hopefully they will totally scrap this expansion of FTTC and this FTTC bodge by a different name and concentrate their resources on FTTP. I'm very pleased for the inhabitents of Cornwall, all I get is we 'currently we have no plans' etc.

[#9]

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@Baldrick1 wrote:

... all I get is we 'currently we have no plans' etc.

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@Baldrick1 

I could show you checker results for some addresses I know in my town where it says exactly the same, yet houses either side, and most of the rest of the street (both sides) show as 'WBC FTTP'.  Just some seemingly random houses are affected in this way, even though their DPs (poles) have the old FTTP manifolds on them and some have even had the new CBT type added.  This is simply down to the all too frequent BT/Openreach database errors.

So hopefully your situation may not be quite as bad as it seems.

[#10]

@RobPN 

If only! All our services are underground so I would not miss Openreach activity in the area.

[#11]

@Baldrick1 

What I was getting at was even though the checker says 'no plans' that may not be accurate.

BT/OR are well known for not being the most efficient organisation(s).

An example of their inefficiency / stupidity (this was a couple of years ago) -

Some friends live in a street with only 8 houses on it, all on the same side, numbered 1-8, they live at number 2.

Numbers 6-8 were showing as FTTP available, numbers 1-5 were showing as 'no plans'.

The two groups as described were fed from separate DPs (poles again), both poles were equipped with the original type manifolds (with ample capacity) and had been that way for several years.

BUT thats's not the stupid part;

After getting no sense from Superfast Cornwall over protracted phone calls, I sent an email on my friends behalf to the CEO of BT (as people do) explaining the situation and intimating a database error which seemed obvious.

I got swift replies and results - someone was sent to check and 7 days later their address was showing as 'WBC FTTP' available.

The stupid part is that numbers 1 and 3-5 (on the same DP) were not updated in the same way!

3-4 weeks later the pole was equipped with a new type CBT fibre connection in addition to the old manifold, the missing 4 addresses were then added and my friends availability data was changed from '2-stage' to '1-stage' to reflect the different type of installation available.

Edit:  typo

[#12]

????  ????-

[#13]

@Baldrick1  @Mook 

In addition to the links provided above by @Condo (of which the map on the 'Our Fibre First locations' section at the Fibre First link looked useful), I just came across this which may be of interest 

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/01/openreach-add-227-rural-uk-areas-to-fttp-broadband-rol...

[#14]

My town is on the list that RobPN has linked to.  There has been lots of activity by Openreach around over the last few months, with both the BT Wholesale and Openreach sites making no mention of it being available to me any time soon.  Last week, following Openreach doing some final work on the pole that I'm connected to the next day both say FTTP is available to order.  So basically, don't expect any signs on the checkers that its on its way, just that it is now available.

[#15]

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@pjmarsh wrote:

...  So basically, don't expect any signs on the checkers that its on its way, just that it is now available.

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Agreed.  I've not looked for ages but I do recall that the various build stages for VDSL would be indicated on the checker, but for FTTP that wasn't the case and it would just go straight from 'nothing' to available.