Green BT/telecoms box on house property

DaftyDuck

Just be aware you won't be able to have a drive at this end of your property (unless you spend ££££££ having the box moved). But, no, losing that much of your private property to ensure you have first-rate BB would be a bonus.

chris_m

dc197 wrote: »

That's just a stock photo.
Here's the actual one:

Looks like an ordinary street cabinet to me, not fibre BB.

moneyistooshorttomention

BornAtTheRightTime wrote: »

You can expect them there every time someone nearby orders an upgrade or downgrade of service or logs a fault. I pass one on a daily basis and there's an engineer's backside sticking out of at least every couple of weeks.
And that's just at 9am.

I'm now in an area where all spare "capacity" has been used up and people are having to fight/queue up etc just to get connected-up.

With that - they are "cobbling together" and "cobbling together" again and until I found a way to get round this I was part of a merry-go-round of:
- they sorted me out
- so the fault knocked on to someone else and they complained
- so they sorted them out and the fault knocked on to someone else again and they complained.

I was screaming long and loud that "I am used to NORMAL and that is what I am going to have - so forget about giving me a share of The Fault from inadequate supplies of lines, as I wont accept it".

It was a right old merry-go-round and I'm only too thankful I seem to have managed to get my own line "out of the loop" at last on that and they are sharing the faults around between the other houses remaining in the "circuit". However - I'm out of it:D

************

So it really does depend, to a large extent, what sort of area you are living in. That being whether they are trying to "share around" a capacity that just isn't up to it or no. Motto being that "If you are in an area where they are trying hard NOT to lay on extra capacity needed - then you get the fallout of all these unnecessary extra visits (ie as OpenReach try to share the misery around - rather than laying on the necessary extra capacity)".

The local OpenReach guys had filled me in pretty well whilst I was having to scream my head off at intervals to get "Normal" and they told me about the area set-up and just why they are driving round here so very often.

mpet

I think it's odd that the cab is positioned in the garden when there is clearly space on the footpath. Looking at the photo, is the house shown a new build (in comparison with the rest of the street).

I'm wondering if the cab was originally on the land that is now the house and has somehow been incorporated into the garden of the house you are looking at. It seems that the brickwork of the front wall has been extended at some point.

If the cab was deliberately sited in the garden, then BT should pay a Wayleave to the land owner.

dc197

I like to come back to my threads to give an update, partly to help others who may have found this thread via Google.
So here is the end of the tale.

* The box is a regular distribution point, not a fibre one. It houses the junction for telephones for nearby houses, and redundant cable TV services wires.
* The original intention may well have been for the cab to be outside the property boundary, but since construction it has always been inside. Same as all the other cabs in the estate.
* The vendors of the house stated that BT came to the box about once per year.
* I enquired with BT and they confirmed that no wayleave was in place, and invited me to enter into one upon my purchase.
* We purchased the house, and I soon made plans to change the layout of the front garden to a configuration that would mean access over the wall was difficult and would likely mean my new plants would be trampled during access visits.
* I asked BT about moving the box and creating a wayleave, and at first they were unhelpful. I could only speak to a receptionist who insisted that as I'd bought a house with an existing box on the property I was rather snookered.
* I persisted and used their online form to send a report of a problem regarding the box. In my narrative I said that no problem yet existed but that I wished to discuss access arrangements for visits, and to given directions for how to enter my property without damage.
* I received several calls from their "relocations" team, who were very helpful.
* That team put me in touch with the local manager, who visitied my house and then offered to move the cables out of the box and into an adjacent underground box under the footpath.
* He sent his men down and they emptied the cabinet of wires. Access to my property is no longer needed.
* They also initially offered to remove the empty box, both to remove the relative eyesore and to ensure that no future engineers would mistakenly try to open the empty cabinet.
* Unfortunately they later noted that if the empty box were to be removed it would expose the hole or short tunnel through which the cables were dragged out, meaning water might get in. They were unable to remove the box but were happy for me to grow ivy etc over it to hide it.
* Am am happy that no one needs to come onto the property, which was my original goal


So the conclusion is - if you ask nicely and keep asking, BT may do something about your green box.

DaftyDuck

Wait 20 years, and that box will be as valuable on the second hand market as a red phone box is today.....

Thanks for the feedback, and well done for peaceful negotiating skills!

rarrarrar

Nice to know that just because you are dealing with a large "official" organisation it doesnt mean that a sensible accommodating solution cant be reached with the local management. I think one always expects the worse these days.

dc197

Another update.
BT decided, after all, that it would be better to remove the cabinet entirely, to prevent engineers who are not from the local area team accidentally accessing it.
I was showing my new garden to a house guest when I realised the box had vanished one day.
The team did a great job of carefully removing it, making good the ground, without damaging my new plants (my main concern all along).
I can't speak highly enough of the BT OpenReach team .

JP1978

You do realise (too late now as you are in the house) that when FTTC (BT Infinity Fibre) is in that area, a new green box will go somewhere very close to the relocated PCP? I often see them right infront of someones garden wall and depending on model installed, could be twice the size and taller than the PCP in the OP pic.

This will be great as you will get the max speed from the fibre (as you now probably do from the ADSL) but WILL mean a lot more vans parked near your home when a new connection is made and obviously the initial disruption when it gets installed. The new FTTC boxes are powered and do have fans in them - they are quiet but like anything, at the dead of night maybe heard through an open adjacent window if on full speed or develop a fault.

FTTC - Fibre to the curb (ooops, cabinet)
PCP - POTS Connection Point
POTS means plain old telephone service

AdrianC

JP1978 wrote: »

FTTC - Fibre to the...

...cabinet