Openreach needs to do two pieces of work to get the new fibre connection to the Call Flow cabinet. The first of these tasks is to run the fiber itself and this has been scheduled for this week. The second piece of work is to repair some of the ducting. This work should be getting scheduled this week. Obviously it is this second piece of work that is going to dictate when we can see fibre in Temple to which Call Flow can connect us.
Fingers Crossed.
Monday, January 30, 2017
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
Not so Happy News
Below is an update from Openreach in regards to their efforts to get fibre to our new cabinets.
Unfortunately they have hit issues with both of the paths they can run along. There is a blockage in the conduit in the first case and in the second the landowner along Temple Lane is asking for more compensation than Openreach are willing to offer (presumably because the other route would be less expensive even with all the extra works required). Here is the text of the update from Andy Hudson of Openreach.
I am hoping that someone in our community knows Mr. Randall well enough to reach out to him on behalf of the village. It would be nice to know that he is aware that this project is not being driven by profitability for BT but by the government on behalf of his neighbors who campaigned relentlessly for a year to get it approved!
Unfortunately they have hit issues with both of the paths they can run along. There is a blockage in the conduit in the first case and in the second the landowner along Temple Lane is asking for more compensation than Openreach are willing to offer (presumably because the other route would be less expensive even with all the extra works required). Here is the text of the update from Andy Hudson of Openreach.
Will, Roger
With reference to the installation for Call Flow Solutions to serve your community.
I know you are eagerly awaiting the delivery of your solution and I thought I would provide you with an update. This is more detail than we would usually provide but in the interest of good community relations I am happy to keep you informed. Our customer for the solution is Call Flow Solutions and I have asked that they too get the same update too via their commercial team on copy.
The route via the farmers’ fields seems unlikely to progress as the farmer is seeking higher levels of compensation than we would support. I do not have the details but our planning and wayleaves team are continuing to see if they can secure this option with the landowner. Helen Monroe on our side is leading this element and has everyone’s details following the site meeting.
The route down the road with the existing duct has a section that is not passable and requires replacing. This necessitates building a joint box in the road or verge and laying new duct with a road closure. This is being planned and the necessary permits and applications prepared. I will inform you when we get traffic permit dates back.
We have applied for lane closures on the A404 to access our boxes along the main route as all the boxes are manholes in the main carriageway.
We will continue to complete or attempt as much work as is possible in parallel.
I should have some information or road closure dates etc within a week and I will drop you a note when I have more details.
Regards
Andy
The net impact of the above is a delay of anywhere from a couple weeks to several months (or more based on our record so far with this project).I am hoping that someone in our community knows Mr. Randall well enough to reach out to him on behalf of the village. It would be nice to know that he is aware that this project is not being driven by profitability for BT but by the government on behalf of his neighbors who campaigned relentlessly for a year to get it approved!
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Happy High Speed New Year
It is the new year and things are starting to happen in earnest relative to our broadband speed upgrade!
Earlier this week Call Flow's new DSLAM (digital subscriber line access multiplexer) cabinet was installed on top of the concrete pad that was put in place during December. This is the cabinet that will contain the electronics that will get us on the super fast broadband that Call Flow will be offering shortly.
Once that cabinet appeared I notified BT Openreach (at their request) that it had been installed (hopefully they also had heard this from Call Flow)! The very next day Openreach began the process of connecting the copper that will be our bridge between our phone lines (in their new cabinet) and the superfast connections in the new Call Flow cabinet.
The fibre connection is proceeding as well. BT Openreach are pursuing two paths in parallel. One path would come from a fibre pickup point near the exit to Temple on the 404 down the conduit the provides us with our phone service. The downside of this path is that the conduit is crowded, though not at capacity, and the nature of the path into our valley is such that it may also have gotten silted up over time (creating a challenge for the running of our fibre). Work on this path is set to begin on the 14th of January.
Given the possible issues with the above path a second option is also being pursued. This option would take fibre from a pickup point close to the beginning of Temple Lane and trench it from there, down Temple Lane, and ultimately to the new cabinet that has just been installed. There is a meeting on the 16th to discuss this approach with the landowner.
In the meantime we will be waiting for power to be supplied to the new Call Flow cabinet. This has been ordered for mid February. We have been informed that all setup activities can still be completed by Call Flow without power to the cabinet, however, for subscribers to gain access to the cabinet the power will need to be there!
All of the above is good news for a change. In an ideal world we will not need the backup path for the fibre connection and we could have fibre to the new Call Flow cabinet in the coming days (or worst case week or two). At that point it will be up to Call Flow to get their infrastructure working. Continuing in the ideal world scenario this could mean that we might see high speed broadband available in February.
Earlier this week Call Flow's new DSLAM (digital subscriber line access multiplexer) cabinet was installed on top of the concrete pad that was put in place during December. This is the cabinet that will contain the electronics that will get us on the super fast broadband that Call Flow will be offering shortly.
Once that cabinet appeared I notified BT Openreach (at their request) that it had been installed (hopefully they also had heard this from Call Flow)! The very next day Openreach began the process of connecting the copper that will be our bridge between our phone lines (in their new cabinet) and the superfast connections in the new Call Flow cabinet.
The fibre connection is proceeding as well. BT Openreach are pursuing two paths in parallel. One path would come from a fibre pickup point near the exit to Temple on the 404 down the conduit the provides us with our phone service. The downside of this path is that the conduit is crowded, though not at capacity, and the nature of the path into our valley is such that it may also have gotten silted up over time (creating a challenge for the running of our fibre). Work on this path is set to begin on the 14th of January.
Given the possible issues with the above path a second option is also being pursued. This option would take fibre from a pickup point close to the beginning of Temple Lane and trench it from there, down Temple Lane, and ultimately to the new cabinet that has just been installed. There is a meeting on the 16th to discuss this approach with the landowner.
In the meantime we will be waiting for power to be supplied to the new Call Flow cabinet. This has been ordered for mid February. We have been informed that all setup activities can still be completed by Call Flow without power to the cabinet, however, for subscribers to gain access to the cabinet the power will need to be there!
All of the above is good news for a change. In an ideal world we will not need the backup path for the fibre connection and we could have fibre to the new Call Flow cabinet in the coming days (or worst case week or two). At that point it will be up to Call Flow to get their infrastructure working. Continuing in the ideal world scenario this could mean that we might see high speed broadband available in February.
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Confirmation from Call Flow
Roger and I have received a confirmation from Call Flow that the update from Superfast Berkshire was a good assessment of their plans and commitment to our upgrade. They added the following details:
- Openreach finally concluded the ‘CuRe’ part of the project after 12+ months on 25/11/16 i.e. after escalating to Ofcom. [It should be noted that Roger and I were completely surprised to hear about this after the fact. We feel that had we known this was an issue we could have helped bring it to a conclusion sooner. We are also interested in gaining an understanding from Openreach as to their side of the issue as there are usually two sides to every technology issue between vendors.]
- We duly submitted an order for the next stage of the process (sub loop unbundling – SLU) on 26/11/16.
- OR completed their survey and planning of the SLU part of the process on 6/12/16. Call Flow accepted the SLU charges on the 7/12/16 i.e. so that we could then officially connect our ducting into BT’s joint box.
- Our cabinet base and ducting as above has been completed as you indicate i.e. within days of being given the formal go-ahead from BT. This is far quicker than would normally be achieved and is an indication of the focus we have on this job.
- We plan to install the cabinet on the newly installed base in early to mid-January. This should, in no way, hold up the installation of BT’s fibre (some nearly 3km required cabling required which will take some time before they get to our cabinet).
- No wayleaves are required as our installation is on highways land.
- We are waiting for SSE to confirm an installation date for power and will chase this again later this week. While this will not hold up the BT fibre installation, it will be required to launch the service.
- We are currently anticipating the service to be live around mid-February provided both SSE and BT deliver on time.
The critical path does seem to be in the hands of Openreach given that they have nearly 3km of fibre to run to the new Call Flow cabinet. Call Flow is confident that this cable could be run now, with the necessary conduits installed to connect the Openreach Cabinet with the Call Flow foundation, and the end point and coil of fibre for final connection left in the Openreach Cabinet until the Call Flow cabinet is installed in early January.
This seems reasonable to me and given this I have asked our contact at Openreach if the laying of our fibre can be escalated to ensure the end project date. We have also suggested to Call Flow that they get an approval of this from their local Openreach project manager.
The bottom line of all this should be that we could get connected in February if all goes well.
There are still a lot of things that may not go well but this is the best date that I have seen in terms of having a good plan to support it to a good conclusion. Roger and I will continue to stay on top of it!
There are still a lot of things that may not go well but this is the best date that I have seen in terms of having a good plan to support it to a good conclusion. Roger and I will continue to stay on top of it!
Friday, December 9, 2016
Finally Some (largely unqualified) Good News!
Colin Batchelor, Project Manager for Superfast Berkshire, has given us a very complete update in regards to the activities that will result in us getting high speed broadband. Below is a summary of Colin's update. We have also asked Call Flow for their validation of this status and their response will be posted once we have it.
Call Flow has been working on a number of alternatives to meet the challenges posed by the location of our village. We are about as far away from the nearest telecoms cabinet as one can be and this does make for a challenge. Call Flow has been able to get an agreement from BT Openreach to create a node on their network for Temple. This means that we will be able to have a direct fibre connection into the network and is the best possible alternative for the village. A wireless option had been considered, and while this would have been a vast improvement over the current state, it would not have been as robust and future proof as a fibre connection.
As I write this it appears that construction work has started on the FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) cabinet that Call Flow is having installed next to the telecoms cabinet that BT Openreach placed on Bradenham Lane. This cabinet will be the destination for the new fibre run that BT Openreach will be installing. The broadband signal from Call Flow's new cabinet will be joined with our phone lines in the new BT Openreach cabinet and we will have blazingly fast broadband speeds.
Roger Thurston is reaching out to his contact at Call Flow to confirm their commitment to dates but our understanding from Colin is that we could have service in February. BT Openreach have committed to having the new network node online and fibre run by the end of January (ahead of when this would normally be done given that the requests were just made). Way-leaves across private land are not needed as the fibre route will be on the side of highways and our understanding is that these permissions are at hand. There is some provisioning work that Call Flow will need to do once things are connected but Colin has indicated that these items should not be time consuming.
So. Pretty good news and not a lot of qualifications (assuming everyone does their bit as promised).
So how fast could our connections be? Here is a chart from the BT website that shows what we can hope for (best case). I estimate that the furthest property in the village from the cabinet is still less than a half kilometer away. This means that the homes on either tip of the island could get 50mbps of download speed! I think this is probably optimistic but as these homes are probably getting around 1.5mbps now it will be a dramatic improvement regardless!
Call Flow has been working on a number of alternatives to meet the challenges posed by the location of our village. We are about as far away from the nearest telecoms cabinet as one can be and this does make for a challenge. Call Flow has been able to get an agreement from BT Openreach to create a node on their network for Temple. This means that we will be able to have a direct fibre connection into the network and is the best possible alternative for the village. A wireless option had been considered, and while this would have been a vast improvement over the current state, it would not have been as robust and future proof as a fibre connection.
As I write this it appears that construction work has started on the FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) cabinet that Call Flow is having installed next to the telecoms cabinet that BT Openreach placed on Bradenham Lane. This cabinet will be the destination for the new fibre run that BT Openreach will be installing. The broadband signal from Call Flow's new cabinet will be joined with our phone lines in the new BT Openreach cabinet and we will have blazingly fast broadband speeds.
Roger Thurston is reaching out to his contact at Call Flow to confirm their commitment to dates but our understanding from Colin is that we could have service in February. BT Openreach have committed to having the new network node online and fibre run by the end of January (ahead of when this would normally be done given that the requests were just made). Way-leaves across private land are not needed as the fibre route will be on the side of highways and our understanding is that these permissions are at hand. There is some provisioning work that Call Flow will need to do once things are connected but Colin has indicated that these items should not be time consuming.
So. Pretty good news and not a lot of qualifications (assuming everyone does their bit as promised).
So how fast could our connections be? Here is a chart from the BT website that shows what we can hope for (best case). I estimate that the furthest property in the village from the cabinet is still less than a half kilometer away. This means that the homes on either tip of the island could get 50mbps of download speed! I think this is probably optimistic but as these homes are probably getting around 1.5mbps now it will be a dramatic improvement regardless!
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Summary of Update from Openreach
I just got off the phone with Andy Hudson, Director of Network Delivery at Openreach. Our conversation can be summarised down to the following: Openreach are committed to delivering their pieces of a solution for Temple and this could be by the end of January to mid-February – he would welcome the opportunity to keep us updated. They have opened a new node on their network for Call Flow to connect. To complete this Call Flow will stand their equipment cabinet next to the Openreach one and the two will be connected together by Openreach. This is typically a 90 working day process as it allows time for the Communications Provider to stand their equipment and for work to be programmed in. However, Openreach will move the order through and complete work as soon as Call Flow have stood their cabinet.
Andy stressed that the overall project is Call Flow's to manage. They need to stand their new cabinet so that Openreach has a place to connect to the network and attach the new fibre for backhaul. In the course of such construction there is always the possibility of issues around land ownership, planning permissions and wayleave access which are sometimes outside of Openreach’s and Call Flow Solutions control. However the Openreach cabinet is now stood and any such issues have been resolved on the Openreach side.
The challenge now is to get the same kind of update and commitment from Call Flow!
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Some Hopeful Correspondence
Having not heard anything back from Call Flow Solutions in regards to my request for information on our project schedule I decided to make some inquiries of my own into Openreach. Working with Roger Thurston from the Island, I wrote and sent the following message to Clive Selley the CEO of Openreach. His response, and a couple of subsequent messages, follow:
Message from me to Clive Selley:
Message from me to Clive Selley:
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