Infill - How long is a piece of string?
A large chunk of Weston-super-Mare had RFoG rolled out a couple of years ago. The small estate I live on was missed out during that rollout (they did surrounding streets, within metres, but ignored us). Then VM took a bit of a break and started rolling out XGS--PON in the rest of the town. Then they took another break and are now in the process of filling in more of the missed parts, which includes where I live.
The contractors employed by VM/nexfibe were on the estate through Feb installing L4 cabs (I believe that's the correct terminology) and micro trunking. They've been gone for some weeks now and, predictably, nothing. When I put my postcode in to the checker I just get the "Keep me posted" page. I believe there's a "We're coming soon" page, but I'm not even getting that. I emailed the expansion works team and got the predictable, "got to have the work signed off and test the system" fob off with no idea of timescale. Seems crazy to me to spend thousands digging up the estate to then sit on it. Any thoughts on when the estate could be activated? In other words, how long is a piece of string?
I've done some reading around how the VM network is put together. From what I understand, L4 cabs are cabled back to an L3. They did not install an L3 during the build. Just enough L4s to cover the houses on the estate. What's more, the trunking they have installed is entirely self contained within the estate. It does not join back to any of the previously enabled RFoG build from a few years ago. It does go past Openreach infrastructure (large chambers in two locations). Could VM be planning to use the Openreach ducts to connect the estate up? This seems unlikely as I thought VM (i.e. nexfibre) were trying to stay away from using Openreach infrastructure.
Using tools such as BIDB and One.Network and I can see they are building a new L3 about 0.5mile away, but that is right in the middle of another piece of infill they are most likely about to start. I can't imagine there is enough capacity on that L3 to cover our estate as well. I've also been through the local authority online planning applications and cannot find any applications for an L3 any closer than the one 0.5mile away. All the other L3s they put in planning for are all located further away from us.
Any thoughts on what the plan might be? And how this might influence when VM complete the work so I can place an order?
