This topic

Upgrading a cabinet which prevents all residents from a faster broadband service

village1 — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 10:39:23 GMT

I represent a Residents' Association; we did a survey which showed many residents are on BT broadband with a poor service below 10mbps and often just dropping off. This has worsened since lockdown with many working from home. We are surrounded by a faster service in our area, within 50 metres of most of us, on different roads, the Ofcom map shows this clearly, and we have been told informally by Openreach technicians that the cabinet that serves us is the only one in the area that has not been upgraded. How do you speak to ANYONE about this? We are not after fibre, just a better speed and value for the very expensive contract we are all paying.

Anyone any ideas about how to get anywhere with BT to Openreach to service improvements?

Re: Upgrading a cabinet which prevents all residents from a faster broadband service

iniltous — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 11:02:58 GMT

The ‘network’ is no more the responsibility of BT Consumer , than Sky or Talk Talk or any other retail company, presumably the residents you represent are not all BT Consumer customers but are served by other company’s as well, have you posted similar questions on there other company’s sites ?
BT isn’t a proxy for Openreach, you should , if concerned that you live in an area that isn’t currently well served for faster broadband speeds , contact OR directly and see if there are any plans to address this.
Your statement is a little confusing, you say your cabinet is the only one in the area that hasn’t been upgraded , but you are not after ‘fibre’ , then what upgrade are you after ?
Upgrading to FTTC is a commercial decision, if it’s not commercially viable to upgrade , then there may be a BDUK type route to share some of the costs, or you could explore a community funded project, where the difference between what OR would consider spending , and the overall cost is met by the CFP agreeing to make up the difference.

Re: Upgrading a cabinet which prevents all residents from a faster broadband service

village1 — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 11:38:40 GMT

Yes there are other companies providing the service to their customers, and those people generally are not complaining - it is the BT group of residents who are pretty appalled.

I haven't been able to speak to anyone concerned with this problem, from Openreach. In fact the recorded message tells you to call a number which no longer exists.

We are simply wanting to have the speeds of our service at least in the super fast category. Anyone who has a speed of below 10 download and below 1 upload is entitled to an improvement.

Re: Upgrading a cabinet which prevents all residents from a faster broadband service

village1 — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 11:43:15 GMT

Sorry I forgot to add: the other cabinets in the area are upgraded for fibre. The one serving our street is not. Additionally, the BT speed check tell me for my address I should get a download speed of 16 - would that ever have been the case. And some of our members have a download speed of 5 download and .5 upload. Which is why we are complaining as a group.

Re: Upgrading a cabinet which prevents all residents from a faster broadband service

imjolly — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 12:09:10 GMT

enter your phone number and post results delete number but leave exchange and cab

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL

do you get a good signal on your mobile phone?

Re: Upgrading a cabinet which prevents all residents from a faster broadband service

village1 — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 12:38:14 GMT

My personal broadband speed is good (12/1) after much work by Openreach, I am speaking on behalf of Residents' Assn. members.

Re: Upgrading a cabinet which prevents all residents from a faster broadband service

iniltous — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 12:47:34 GMT

Seems odd that it’s only BT customers that are appalled , but customers of other company’s who will no doubt will be receiving the pretty much the same speeds are not, but anyway, as already stated BT don’t operate or maintain the network, OR do, but are not normally customer facing, but do have avenues to contact them within certain parameters, enquiring about any plans for the area fall within them.

If you have the wrong contact number, you could always try email or failing that obtain the correct number , but here is a good place to start

https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/community-fibre-partnerships

Re: Upgrading a cabinet which prevents all residents from a faster broadband service

village1 — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 13:02:57 GMT

Thanks.
We are exploring this.

Re: Upgrading a cabinet which prevents all residents from a faster broadband service

village1 — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 13:05:28 GMT

But!!!! We are not asking necessarily for fibre but just a better quality fast broadband service.

Re: Upgrading a cabinet which prevents all residents from a faster broadband service

imjolly — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 13:17:04 GMT

from what you have posted your cabinet already delivers adsl2+ up to 24mb depending on distance from the exchange so only way to get faster is move nearer the exchange or cab gets upgraded for fibre or you are lucky enough to get FTTP in the future

Re: Upgrading a cabinet which prevents all residents from a faster broadband service

village1 — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 15:02:31 GMT

Residents who live closer to the exchange than me have all got worse speeds. So that's not right!

Re: Upgrading a cabinet which prevents all residents from a faster broadband service

imjolly — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 15:05:28 GMT

if you are all on adsl2 then it is the distance from the exchange that is the main factor in determining your connection speed it is distance from the street cabinet when it comes to FTTC connection.

that is right

Re: Upgrading a cabinet which prevents all residents from a faster broadband service

iniltous — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 18:00:41 GMT

If you have non fibre broadband , then the service is delivered from the exchange, it’s a rate adaptive system, the longer the line the slower the service, so it follows the closer to the exchange the ‘faster’ the service, that is what the posted graph shows, it plots speed against distance...if someone lives closer to the exchange than you, but gets slower speed , that needs investigation, bearing in mind it is the length of the cable from the exchange , not an ‘as the crow flies’ distance

You haven’t actually posted what speed you should expect and what speed you get, perhaps you could as already stated post your router statistics and the results from a DSL checker like this

https://www.dslchecker.bt.com/

I appreciate that your enquiry is for more than just yourself, but if your details show that your service doesn’t need to be as bad as you state it is, then any fixes could potentially be applied across the board.

Re: Upgrading a cabinet which prevents all residents from a faster broadband service

CJT80 — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 18:12:39 GMT

@iniltous

The link you have provided has been changed by BT Wholesale it's now:

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com