BT Tampering with Epsom cabinet 53

It appears that the only people able to receive a fibre optic connection to the Epsom exchange on our estate are BT infinity customers. I've contacted my neighbours (all of whom registered interest around the same time on the http://bt.com/infinity web site), and it appears only those that are BT broadband customers were sent the "Fibre is now available email".
What's more strange is what appears to have happened with our cabinet (number 53). See below for pictures showing the old cabinet 53 that is now connected to a brand new shiny fibre cabinet, and you can clearly see the road having been dug up where the cable is lying that connects the old cabinet to the new one...
NOTE: CLICK ON THE PICTURES BELOW TO SEE FULL VERSIONS OF THEM
Cabinet 53 which serves all houses on our estate.

Cabinet 53 with road way dug up to connect new cabinet (see next picture)

New fibre cabinet

Note how the only people in our area reporting fibre optic speeds (i.e. greater than 8MB speed) are BT customers exclusively!
NOTE: CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO SEE THE FULL VERSION

The only address that now lists as being able to receive broadband on our estate is the following one... (although somehow they're connected to cabinet 43).


What's even more strange is that customers that already have fibre connection with BT infinity are told that they can't have it, if they search using their postcode and house number (i.e. pretending not to be an existing BT customer), however if they search with their BT landline number, it comes up saying they can have fibre optic.
Note the picture below, where I have used my landline number on the left, and then the neighbour who already has BT infinity fibre connection on the right. Both of us are connected to Cabinet 53 as you can see...(click each picture below in turn)
NOTE: this web site has now been replaced by this one https://speedtest.btwholesale.com/PerformanceTesterWS/diagnostics.do


Update: 05/02/2013 15:04:56
From: Neville @ BTSent: 05 February 2013 14:50
Subject: Re: Cabinet 53
   
Hi Merrick - please see below for update:-
    
OR have come back and confirmed the cabinet 53 has been temporarily withdrawn from service as “full”. Or have activity to look at increasing the capacity and once completed will open the cabinet for service. Cabinets are available to all SPs/CP on equivalent basis so whilst you may only see BTR users reporting this does not mean that other users are not using the cabinet they may simply not be reporting.

OR have not given an indication of how long it will be before the cabinet comes back into service.


Update: 08/02/2013 22:58
Seems that sometimes the little guy can get stuff done then. Fibre available now to us again on the 26th February 2013.

Update:26/02/2013 10:36:30: I am now officially a plus.net fibre customer. I have to say that the gulf of difference between their customer service and BT is finally what made my mind up on which provider to choose. (P.S. Fibre is now available to all on our estate via cabinet 53 again, as of this morning 26th Feb 2013).
Update: 02/03/2013 11:37: After ringing up Plus.net about my order and letting them know that bt wholesale site are listing availability from the 12th March now, it appears that my Fibre connection is being put on hold for now.

Update: 12/03/2013 11:25: Checked this morning, and for some reason now the BT wholesale site is saying that there is no fibre available, and does NOT even list an availability date now!

I've kindly asked Neville at BT wholesale to look into this issue for me. Luckily he understands that people that are connected to this cabinet already have a fibre connection.
From: neville @bt.com
Sent: 12 March 2013 15:37
Subject: RE: Epsom cabinet 53
Hi Merrick – we have received an update from our suppliers to advise that providing no issues this cab should be back up and running by the end of next week. I can only suggest that you continue to monitor and place order as soon as it becomes available. Cheers Nev
Guess I'm going to have to keep waiting then.
Update: 13/03/2013 10:37: Now showing next Tuesday 19th March. Let's hope this is the last of it.

Update 27/03/2013 13:45: James Moyse (BT Open reach engineer number 606415840) came today and connected me to fibre finally. Have to say James was excellent, and confirmed my suspicions that there are a finite number of ports in the cabinet, and that there was nothing needing to be done at the exchange today in order to get me connected.
So I've now officially gone from this...

to this...

Also just to confirm that I wasn't crazy, it turns out that there are a finite number of new patch boards connected to the new fibre cabinet, and that these are solely occupied by BT customers at the moment. I'm now officially a plus.net fibre customer connected to number 71 of 150, so just glad I got in there before they all run out!

How to route network traffic with two or more network adapters

Use route /? from a command line to discover the answer...

1. Get the destination ip address from comparing the tcp receive port number from a PROCMON filter on operation begins with TCP, and the name of the process that you're running e.g. chrome.exe
2. netstat -n | findstr /i "port number here" - this will give you the destination ip address
3. route print - to get the interface card number
4. route add destination.ip.address.here MASK 255.255.255.255 default.gateway.ip.here IF interfacecardnumber

e.g.

> route ADD 157.0.0.0 MASK 255.0.0.0  157.55.80.1 METRIC 3 IF 2
         destination^      ^mask      ^gateway     metric^    ^
                                                     Interface^
  If IF is not given, it tries to find the best interface for a given
  gateway.

Your computer might already be using both connections. It really depends on the topology of the networks, and where the various services lie.
If you are on windows and go to the command line and run "route print" you'll see a table that the operating system uses to decide which interface to send packets out on to a given destination IP address.

If you run "netstat -n" it will show open TCP connections on your computer. The left hand column will show the local IP addressed being used. If you see more than one local address used (besides 127.0.0.1) then your computer is probably already using both connections.
There are similar commands on the Mac, but I'm not sure what they are.

What you'd do, I think, is figure out the outbound IP addresses that matter to you what subnet they're routed through. Route those that way and have the default routing set the other way. Obviously you can route ranges of IP addresses. Whichever is easiest to specify is what you'll specify.

Orange Broadband Speed Issues

24th November 2011...

I'm happy to report that after 3 months of painfully slow broadband speed, our issues have finally been resolved. Unfortunately it's not known exactly what the problem was that caused it in the first place. We either suspect a rogue radio controlled toy in the toy box (which we have now moved away from our router), or a change by BT or Orange at the Epsom exchange perhaps, although BT wholesale swear blind they haven't changed anything this week to make that be the case.

Anyway, should you be an Orange customer, then there really is only one person you should deal with for resolving your broadband issues. His name is Daniel Flint ( on ext 34045 ). If calling from your orange mobile then just use 150, 1, 2, 2, 2 then ask to be transferred to the Broadband Fault Management team, and then onto him. If you're calling in the afternoon after 4pm then deal with Craig Coleman (on ext 32383). After approximately 40 (yes forty calls to Orange), these were the only two people that actually cared about our case, and were the only ones to ring back when they said they would.


----

Further to my original post about PPP server down with Orange live box issues I was having back in 2006 I have found some notes on a web site about how you can fix your router speed issues these days.
After 32 calls to Orange technical help this month, we're finally hopeful that the 4th BT engineer saying that it is our BRAS profile that has been set incorrectly for our 7mb sync speed, and our SNR noise margin being 3.3db where it should be 6db, is probably what is wrong. More about this here - http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/lowSNR.htm
P.S. Worth knowing that if you do contact Orange broadband customer service, then you should ask to be put through to the Fault management team in South Yorkshire directly to speak to someone English that actually has the authority to arrange a BT Special Fault Investigation Engineer to be sent to your property.
Doing this on my Orange Livebox appeared to give me a better speed connection.
You will need your username and password.
1.     Switch off your PC
2.     Switch power off to Router for 3 minutes then switch back on
3.     Wait 5 minutes to allow Router time to stabilise
4.     Switch PC back on
5.     Open internet browser
6.     If still unable to access the internet follow steps below:
7.     Log into Router home page
for BT Business supplied equipment type the following in the address line:
BT Business Hub 192.168.1.254
for non BT equipment please refer to your supplier
8.     Click on settings tab
9.     Click on Broadband
10.     Click on link configuration
11.     You will now be able to see your username and password fields
12.     Please change the username details that appear before the @ symbol as follows:
bt_test_user @XXXXXXXXXX  (you must insert underscore _ in the name as shown)
13.     Please leave password field blank unless prompted in which case enter ADSL (upper case)
14.     Scroll to bottom of page and click on save
15.     If prompted for Router password please input if not known click on "forgot password" link
16.     This will connect the router on test details and the internet light will change to green
17.     Repeat from step 7 above and change user name and password back to your own details.

Appendix A - Good speed test sites

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/diagnostics#results - starting to like this one best now.
http://speedtest.net/ - my most used one
http://speedtester.bt.com/ - this is the official one that BT will recognise you have a fault from.
http://www.uswitch.com/broadband/speedtest/streetstats/ - Find stats from other houses on your street here as well

Appendix B - Good line testing sites

http://tools.ssl128bit.net/Whoosh/LLU.aspx?telephone=0123456789

Appendix C - Useful contacts

08448 738 586 (called from your home land line) to Orange Fault management team in the UK (South Yorkshire) - use these guys to get your BBEU number and progress it with BT Wholelsale (see next contact number)...
https://www.btwholesale.com/ - Faults team on 0800 085 3608 (option 3 wait a long time for phone to be answered though!). You will require your BBEU number (or CBUK number or VPMS number) to get through to them. Also eChat to them available here - https://btwholesale.com/pages/static/echat.html - select the IP/DATA/WBC products link on the right to chat to someone directly.
bring.your.broadband@everythingeverywhere.com - email address for South Yorkshire team that manages Orange broadband

Appendix D - Checking what speed you should be getting

Find your SNR noise margin and your attenuation stats off your broadband router. Type your attenuation into this calculator, http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/max_speed_calc.php,  to see what speed you should be entitled to get (on a wired connection to your router that is).
Your SNR margin should be above 6db at least as well, so worth checking that. If it isn't complain to your ISP as they should be able to fix this.

Appendix E - Connecting to BT OpenZone account

Have also discovered that for Orange customers you can connect to the BT OpenZone Wifi network using your orange email username and password.