[/COLOR]It's the average increase in speed to be expected for all users on that cabinet/postcode. It's not always accurate though, since it's just a rough estimate for the whole area. Being that close to the cab I see very little reason why you wouldn't get the full 80mb from the outset. My line's noisy and twice as long and still does 87mb.
Yes, unfortunately that's how it works with BT's rollout. Phase 8a, 8b and 9a are all supposed to be completed this year, but other than phase 8 areas being done before phase 9 there's very little to go on with regards to actual dates.
It costs BT on average about £30K to install a cab, and there's a lot of things that need to be done, including:
1) Finding a suitable location near the existing cab
2) Getting agreement from all parties to actually use the location
3) Getting council clearance/planning permission for the roadworks to put in the cab
4) Getting council clearance/planning permissions for the roadworks to give the cab power
5) Getting council clearance/planning permission for the roadworks to give the cab fibre
6) Getting council clearance/planning permission for the roadworks to connect the new cab to the old cab
7) Doing the actual work to install the cab
8) Getting another company to do the actual work to install the power
9) Installing the fibre feed, all the way from the exchange
10) Connecting the fibre cab to the PCP
11) Dealing with repeated delays and bureaucracy while doing the above
12) Repeat step 11 at least ten times
13) Doing all the higher level configuration and stuff
14) Make sure everything's working
15) THEN you can start connecting actual customers
