Connected to wrong exchange

[Aaron844]

Hi all,

We moved into a new build premises in august last year and were installed FTTP by openreach. After initially being told we could order up to 900mb fttp by BT they said something is wrong and they would put me on a temporary order of 100mb.

After countless complaints and months passed we were told 'openreach said no' by the FTTP team. Like a parent telling their child they can't have dessert. This after we invested in CAT cabling in the walls of the home.

Housing developer said before we purchased that speeds of up to 1gb would be obtainable and to make it worse we got an email from both BT and openreach saying it was available with speeds up to 900mb.

So i did a bit of investigating and it turns out we are connected to an exchange 25 miles away in a completely different town that offers a max 330mb. It's a full exchange so orders available on BT max out at 100mb. Can someone explain to me what gives openreach the right to blantantly connect someone to a different town when their own town is available or is this an honest mistake that they seem oblivious to realise?

Our neighbours who are about 10 metres away behind us are connected to our own town's exchange and can get 1000mb. So in summary we are connected to the wrong exchange and openreach are responding to my complaints with very generic responses, i doubt they even read the complaint.

Can anyone advise of any other routes i can take this down to try and get rerouted as painlessly as possible?

[imjolly]

FTTP does not come from the exchange so which exchange is immaterial

is your fibre supplied underground or from Poles?

enter phone number and post results  remember delete number

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

[Starwire]

FTTP does come from an Exchange, just not necessarily the one nearest to you.

BT have Parent/Child Exchanges. I say BT because they own/maintain them, not Openreach.

The Parent Exchange is usually the one that houses the Head End, which is where the Fibre comes from, that’s even true of FTTC/G.Fast Services.

The longest Spine I’ve worked on is 48km, which is 29 miles and there’s Spines that go as far as 60+ km so 25 miles is no different than most.

As both you and your neighbours who you say are on different Exchanges have FTTP there’s always the possibility you both sit on the border of Exchange areas. It’s not uncommon for Exchange Boundaries to divide Next Door Neighbours. 

There’s something like 5500 Exchanges throughout the U.K. and once BT/Openreach switch off the PSTN and have 100% FTTP Coverage most of them will shut down.

[Aaron844]

Address LARNE on Exchange WHITEABBEY

Featured Products Downstream Line Rate(Mbps) Upstream Line Rate (Mbps) Downstream Range (Mbps) Availability Date FTTP Install ProcessWBC FTTP

Up to 330

Up to 50

--

Available

1 Stage

Other Offerings Availability DateVDSL Multicast

Available

Below is my neighbours

Address LARNE on Exchange LARNE is served by Cabinet 33

Featured Products Downstream Line Rate(Mbps) Upstream Line Rate (Mbps) Downstream HandbackThreshold(Mbps) WBC FTTC Availability Date WBC SOGEA Availability DateHigh Low High Low      VDSL Range A (Clean) 

VDSL Range B (Impacted) 

80	75.3	20	19	70.1	Available	Available
80	74.5	20	19	68.2	Available	Available

Featured Products Downstream Line Rate(Mbps) Upstream Line Rate (Mbps) Downstream Range (Mbps) Availability Date FTTP Install ProcessWBC FTTP

Up to 1000

Up to 220

--

Available

1 Stage

ADSL Products Downstream Line Rate (Mbps) Upstream Line Rate (Mbps) Downstream Range(Mbps) Availability DateWBC ADSL 2+WBC ADSL2+ Annex MADSL MaxWBC Fixed RateFixed Rate

Up to 6	--	4 to 8	Available
Up to 6	Up to 1	4 to 8	Available
Up to 5	--	3.5 to 7.5	Available
2	--	--	Available
2	--	--	Available

Other Offerings Availability DateVDSL MulticastADSL Multicast

Available

Available

Exchange Product Restrictions StatusFTTP Priority ExchangeWLR WithdrawalSOADSL Restriction

N

N

Y

The difference is stark and i'm not exaggerating when i say the two properties are metres apart. We feel like we should be connected to our own town at the very least

Fibre is supplied underground.

[Starwire]

It could also be you and your Neighbours are on the same Parent Exchange but they’re connected to a Huawei and or Nokia Head End, which has 1Gbps Capabilities and you are connected to and Older ECI Head End, which is restricted to 350Mbps.

A photo of the ONT you have would confirm which one you’re connected to.

If it’s a Nokia ONT it’ll either be Huawei or a Nokia Head End.

If it’s and ECI ONT then it’ll definitely be ECI.

[Aaron844]

 Nokia, I think?

[Starwire]

Yeah, pretty sure that’s Nokia as I can tell by the Serial Number.

Also ECI ONT’s are bulky and look old.

So at least we know you’re on either a Nokia and or Huawei Head End, both of which are capable of 1Gbps.

As I said before, distance from the Head End is irrelevant, it could be 50cm way or 50 miles away, doesn’t matter.

I’d hazard a guess it’s probably the Back Haul Equipment, i.e. BT’s Equipment that isn’t ready/capable of Higher Speeds yet.

A friend who works for BT Technology said they’re flat out across the U.K. on a build project to increase the size of the Back Haul to handle the amount of traffic on it.

[Aaron844]

So where is this backhaul equipment exactly, given the neighbours are on BT. is it where my line runs to, the other end of it that bt plug something in that is old? does this then lie with BT and not openreach?

[jac_95]

Bit about the BT Group structure and BT Consumer.

BT Consumer uses BT Wholesale. At the headend exchange after terminating the fibre connection off Openreach's equipment it would connect to BT Wholesale's equipment and backhaul.

As to Starwire's point about increasing backhaul there will be various parts of the BT Group that would be working together on this, this would be BT Wholesale, Networks and potentially Digital (what was under BT Technology but split into 2 units about a year ago)

[Aaron844]

It seems strange why they would install new builds with old gear then if thats the case, if they're just creating work for themselves? And two houses metres apart be on two totally different exchanges, myself on one lacking the sheer amount of options of the other. It's confusing to say the least