Quote:
Originally Posted by APS
These is a difference between the work VM will need to do and what BT will need to do though. For VM they will normally need to dig up pavements/roads to lay a fibre and power to a new cabinet and copper to each house. In the case of BT all they often have to do is pull a fibre down an existing duct to an existing cabinet, and then change the kit inside that cabinet. The wires to the houses are already there.
Sometimes the work goes a little beyond this if there are limitations in the existing duct or cabinet, e.g. power and space. In that case the work is often limited to the cabinet or its surrounds. I have heard that if there are duct problems they just skip the upgrade on the specific cabinet and the customers it serves, at least in the short term, leaving groups of people with no upgrade!
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Pretty close to being correct but there is more work involved.
It is not just a matter of pulling a fibre cable to the existing cab. It needs a new cab to house the DSLAM, power and equipment as well.
The power co. may need to dig up the road/pavement to supply the power.
Collapsed/blocked ducts may need to be cleared/replaced. The amount of work involved is huge.
Then there is the problem of permissions.
Quite often BT don't need any unless in a conservation area or the local council objects for whatever reason (I'm not au fait at what they could be but it has happened).
If a collapsed duct is found in the middle of the road, again they must request permission from more than one (local/government) department to be able to dig up the road to replace/clear it.
Etc,etc.
Areas with these problems are "skipped" in the initial roll-out as you cannot have teams sat around waiting for things to be in place, they are best served continuing with the roll-out.
As continuing moving on gives a small buffer it does give teams the opportunity to re-visit areas that had a problem if everything is OK to go ahead.
Openreach have recently implemented a policy of changing the date for problem areas to the end of the current commercial roll-out phase rather than the 3 mth placeholder dates they used in an effort to not raise expectations. Not all the areas of BT's complicated site will reflect this.
A March 2014 placeholder means there are problems with any (or more) of the above and once resolved then the date will be brought forward.
IMHO it is far better than the date continually being put back by 3 months.