We have been in touch with Fastershire and its team has helped us to get a clearer idea about the ‘problem’ and it has helped us to identify a couple of potential solutions.
The problem
There appear to be just over 700 new properties on Coopers Edge (along and to the north of Lobleys Drive) which are currently showing on BT’s Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) database. Of these 97 can already access a superfast broadband service (this doesn’t necessarily mean they are getting superfast; it just means they can order a service if they want it).
However, there are also more than 450 homes that are served by BT superfast cabinets that are on an upgrade ‘waiting list’. This means they are connected to a fibre but the capacity of that cabinet to serve more premises needs to be improved. The complexity of these improvements will vary by cabinet, but an upgrade will be required before the residents it serves can get a superfast service. This may be the reason that ISPs are telling residents that superfast is ‘not available’, rather than that it will be available by a specified date.
The biggest problem seems to be those homes served by Cabinet 42, which hasn’t been fibre-enabled. The data suggests there are 134 homes that are connected to this one – some (but not all) of the properties in Arlington Road, Burroughs Close, Hazel Way, Lancaster Road, Juniper Way, Robinswood Close, Roselle Drive, Stearman Road, Sycamore, Walk Yew Tree Road and Walnut Close seem to be the main ones affected. Coopers Edge School is also linked to Cabinet 42.
In an ideal world the housebuilders responsible for the new homes would have been liaising in the early planning stages with BT and Virgin’s New Sites Teams. This might then have ensured that advance broadband capacity was facilitated as the homes were being built. It appears this didn’t happen.
The solutions?
Demand is key to the delivery of a decent broadband service – if there’s lots of it, BT will upgrade its cabinets (as it will ultimately get a fee every month for each connection it facilitates). BT is also required to meet specified service levels – if it doesn’t meet these quality standards it gets its knuckles rapped by the Government.
There appear to be two tactics that can be employed to sort the problem – one for the 450 homes that are currently on BT’s ‘waiting list’; and one for those that are currently linked to Cabinet 42.
If you are one of the 450 properties waiting for superfast broadband from a cabinet that has already been fibre-enabled you (in theory) shouldn’t have to wait for more than one or two months. If it is taking longer than this it suggests that BT/Openreach has been dragging its heels. It ought to be fairly simple for BT to upgrade a fibre-enabled cabinet (it can add in extra hardware, or tack a smaller cabinet on alongside), and it shouldn’t, in theory, take BT long to do this.
It is therefore vital to know how long you have been ‘waiting’. If you have been in limbo for more than two months please email us with your name, address, how long you have been ‘waiting’ and who you have been in contact with. We will then collate these responses and submit a formal complaint to BT’s High Level Complaints Team.
Send your details to this email – hucclecotepc@supanet.com
If you are linked to Cabinet 42 (the one that hasn’t been fibre-enabled yet) it may be possible to enable it by working with BT’s Community Fibre Partnership Team. The parish council has recently enquired with this Team, asking it to detail what it would cost to upgrade the cabinet and what top-up might be required to make it viable.
Once we know the cost there are a number of options open to us. For example, because the school is linked to cabinet 42 this may automatically trigger a pot of funding towards the cost. And, if the upgrade cost is fairly modest, there may be other grants or sources of finance that we could also explore.
13 thoughts on “POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS TO THE POOR BROADBAND ON COOPERS EDGE?”
Brenda Bentley
How do I find out if I’m connected to cabinet 42? Our internet is slow but not as bad as our daughters who lives on Tiger Moth.
Neil
hi there, we are in Tiger Moth and are currently running at max speed of 1. not sure which cabinet we are linked to.
Ruth
We live on Tiger Moth Close also and the speeds are awful. Been told b Sky that there is no room on cabinets in Coopers Edge
Catherine Llewellyn
Ditto. How do we know? I have been here 6 years and broadband speed is getting slower and slower. I live on Cannon Corner.
Ted Stevens
We understand that you can use this website to find which cabinet you are connected to – https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/adsl.htm
Just enter your phone number and it’ll tell you in the first line which cabinet you’re linked to
Mark
I know I’m connected to cabinet 42 as we were one of the first ones to be connected to it (as told by the BT engineer who did it) and I’ve registered my “interest” for fibre with BT for over a year, if the school is on the same cabinet then how are they getting on with their broadband connection as I thought the government mandated that schools were a priority for high speed internet!
Rob Rimes
Any updates regarding this issue? Still left in the dark regarding possible solutions for cabinet 42…
Council Administrator
Rob, we have collected information from people connected to Cabinet 42 and we will be sending it to BT’s Community Partnership scheme shortly. They will review the data and come back to us with a cost for providing fibre infrastructure.
Council Administrator
BT’s Community Fibre Partnership Team have advised us that Cabinet 42 is going to upgraded to fibre as part of their commercial deployment with an expected go live date of the end of June 2018.
Marc Perry
Just moved to the area at the end of last week and discovered that I’m connected to cabinet 42. This is good news, thank you very much for your efforts and the update.
Nathan
Just moved to the area this weekend and I’m opposite school so I assume Cab 42. End of June for a go live date. Are there any more details on this, dates of work etc?
It’s been six months for Marc now.
Zoe
My broadband is getting worse . Cabinet 42 in coopers edge ! My son has spent 7 days trying to download a Xbox game !! Still not done had to take it to friends !! What’s the latest news ??
Council Administrator
Zoe, unfortunately the timescales have slipped on completion of the project, however it is moving forward.
Openreach expect to have the cabinet up and running before the end of the year.
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