My understanding is that the line length will preclude us from being placed onto an FTTC service - is this correct?
Yes, you will be too far. The signal for superfast speeds runs out anywhere between 2km and 3km from the cabinet.
As such I think it is a bit rich that they classify this as fibre enabled.
You might be fibre-enabled, but you won't be classed as receiving superfast speeds.
BDUK, and even politicians, are now trying to be clear on this front.
Take, for example, this debate in parliament
. OK, that is about North Yorkshire (and they sure know how to waffle) but it very much shows that they are now trying to be clear.
By itself, "being clear" won't bring you faster speeds from the cabinet in the village. But it will make politicians understand what needs to be done in the later phases, and what to do with the round-2 funding.
They cannot provide any information on whether the village will feature in any future phases which is so frustrating.
That's the rub - and it is indeed frustrating.
Most BDUK projects work on a number of phases (see the document I link to below), and the later phases just aren't known well enough for them to give details.
In addition, the early phases are almost entirely about deployment of FTTC. If there is going to be any augmentation of an area that has FTTC deployed, but still has people unserved, then that is going to be a very late phase. There's a good chance it will be left to the round 2 funding, which is only just getting started. And there's a reasonable chance that it won't get included.
BT are starting to talk about options that get superfast speeds deeper into the network, but I wouldn't hold your breath on actually seeing them soon.
Remember - BT and the councils can probably hit their 90% target by just adding FTTC cabinets, and largely ignoring the lines that are still too long. To hit the later 95% targets, they need to go deeper, and serve properties in smaller clusters (perhaps groups of 30-40 properties). But if your property is more isolated than this, then you are in the final 5%, and you probably depend on the 2018 solution. That is likely to be wireless- or satellite-based.
I also wonder how they will ever judge/measure the success of the Programme. The original forecast was based on modelling and at the point they commit to deployment they have no idea of speeds that individual lines will receive and say it is too much work to compile this info from ISPs. Presumably they apply some modelling. Once live I assume the same logic around the amount of work required to collect actual data will be too great and so more modelling will be used. If they use the same models how do they actually know what they have really delivered and whether they have met the objectives
As you've seen, the distinction between merely being enabled, and actually having access to superfast speeds, is well understood - and the measures of success are limited to those that actually get superfast.
BDUK, Councils and BT are aware that the coverage data at the start is based on models, and that they refine that data as they both do more surveys *and* perform the deployment.
The picture describing this can be seen on pages 19-21 of the PDF here: BDUK "extending superfast" industry day
Your situation is very much the kind of place they need to understand as the models turn into reality, and as they figure out how to turn "fibre-enabled but too far to get superfast speeds" into "fibre-enabled with superfast speeds".