More UK broadband for bumpkins, but have-nots still ain’t happy Small enterprises have warned that delays in BT's rollout of rural broadband could push them out of business as the government announced that three million rural properties now have super-fast net access. Dr Adam Marshall, policy director at the British Chambers of Commerce, told the Daily Mail: "No one should be patting …
I'm in a quite small, somewhat rural town in the desolate wilderness of South Warwickshire. While investigating the availability of superfast broadband, I noticed that the housing estates around the edges can get it, but in the centre of town we don't. After a lot more searching I found the likely reason - the housing estates are connected to cabinets, in the centre we're connected directly to the exchange. Apparently this makes us even more difficult and uneconomic to get fibre to. As far as I could see, hand-wringing and excuses are the nearest we will get to a solution.
As far as I could see, hand-wringing and excuses are the nearest we will get to a solution.
As far as BT are concerned, they couldn't give a hoot (in the same way that VM don't give a hoot about the fringes and backwaters of their coverage, TBH). But why not up it to your MP, write to the local rag, your councillor, and the chamber of commerce. Four letters, based on similar content, but intended to garner support and attention. A bit of thought and there will be other sensitive touchpoints, and a bit of momentum may build. Maybe not, but other than four sheets of A4, a few quid on postage, what have you got to lose?
But why not up it to your MP, write to the local rag, your councillor, and the chamber of commerce.
Been there and got the t-shirt!
My neighbouring village's Parish council managed to get to a village meeting a few months back: a BT representative, their (Conservative) MP, their (Conservative) County Councillor and a rep from the regional quango set up to administer BDUK across the county. BT said it was uneconomic for them to cable up the village and the others simply wrung their hands and offered their commiserations as there was nothing they could do since BT was the quango's contracted delivery contractor...
Additionally, BT didn't divulge any information that might be useful to getting local support ie. routing of cables, numbers of cabinets, numbers of residential and business phone/broadband subscribers per cabinet, installation costs.
The irritation is that BT have done the neighbouring villages because they are on different exchanges and have ducted cables, whereas this village, due to the age of installation is catered for by telephone poles and a rather long line from the 'nearest' town that existed way back when BT's predecessor first installed the lines...
What I've noticed from BDUK is that BT (and the contracting quango's) are wedded to a simple upgrade of the PSTN from copper to fibre, but still largely cable based and constrained to the existing topology that has it's roots in the Victorian era. Try and suggest doing something obvious with current technologies eg. WISPs, line of sight links etc. or even connect to a different (newer) exchange and you simply loose the BT guys and their sponsors.
Agreed - we are 7.5km from the exchange but despite BT finding that they have existing ducting between the exchange the village which they could put fibre in, they decided not to because they don't want to cough up for a cabinet in the village.
The irony: it is a rare day when there is not a BT (or several) van on 7.5km stretch between the village and the exchange. The annual cost of the engineer time must be many multiples of the cost to fibre and put in a cabinet which would dramatically shortening possible length for the copper to fail.
Estimated 240 copper pairs over 7.5km = 3600km of copper most of it installed 60 years ago.
Where we live the target is apparently 2mbps for the countryside. Our council teamed with Milton Keynes and Bedford Borough to get BT to improve broadband in the larger market towns (Sandy, Biggleswade, etc.) but where a village already received 2mbps then nah no need to do anything.
Villages should learn how to roll their own WISPs. Depending on how is done, anywhere from 20Mbps to 80Mbps is entirely possible. To help offset the cost, once installed and bedded in residents could drop the BT connection and simply use a Sipgate/VoIP service, much cheaper.
I have used a WISP, I found it remarkably reliable, only when the National Grid started laying temporary wooden "roading" to rewire pylons was there any problem as they blocked the line of sight with 40' x 20' wooden sections being hoisted into position. That doesn't happen every day.
And yes, I was able to watch streamed HD TV
Dr Adam Marshall, policy director at the British Chambers of Commerce, told the Daily Mail: "No one should be patting themselves on the back. Across the UK, far too many businesses and consumers still have insufficient or unreliable broadband coverage, which stops entrepreneurs and exporters in their tracks. While many are in rural areas, 'not-spots' plague companies even near our major cities."
We're lucky the daily fail didn't claim rural broadband causes cancer .....
"That would explain the lack of telephone lines and mains electricity?"
Sewers? Gas? Public transport? Bank branches?
Rural provision of anything is expensive. Electricity and phone connections were only provided by socialising the cost. City dwellers paid more than the cost of provision, rural folk less. That only works where there's a near monopoly, else city folk buy cheaper things from a competitor and there's no-one to subsidise the expensive connections where competitors won't go.
Please define arseend of nowhere. I leave less than 2 miles from a small town with fibre to the cabinet, 5 miles from Milton Keynes with fibre to the cabinet, 11 miles from Leighton Buzzard (fibre and cable services) and about the same from Flitwick (with its Virgin Media super fast service and fibre to the cabinet) and I still get a crappy broadband 'cos our exchange is to small to do make it economic to upgrade.
There are also estates in Milton Keynes where the broadband is pretty crap or non-existent although I think BT did eventually replace all the aluminium wiring that prevented customers from getting broadband
According to the "Better Broadband for Oxfordshire" website, we have been due to get BT FTTC in our village in the next month or two for well over a year (probably 2). Every time I look, the date has moved out again, although always a couple of months from now.
And these jokers have been sitting on the government money that should have been spent on the (well costed, well planned) local FTTH initiative that was being created by a local entrepreneur, until the government decided the money should all go to BT and BT would be allowed to cherry-pick the market towns, making any alternative scheme completely unviable. It would have already been running for the last few years under a sensible funding scheme.
Spare a thought for the farmers working in a valley in the Penines who are expected by Her Maj's Cretins to file everything electronically, with get 25kbits worth of bandwidth out of a maximum of 512kbits (no mobile mast available either). BT have kindly offered to fix the lines & exchange for the village - but leave the farmers with their knackered cable and massive contention unfixed.
A 3rd party has agreed to lay fibre along the whole valley so *everyone* gets a decent connection, but they have to get the funding through BT to do it. I think you can guess the rest, although you may be surprised to learn that Councillors are advocating the BT solution *very* strongly despite the fact it will serve a fraction of the inhabitants of the valley - and it won't even be fibre.
Yes having promised 2 Mbps to 90% of the population, (Think about it, if you did an analysis where does 90% of the population live? - You do the maths), they have failed to hit this target, despite money that was supposed to help 'the final mile' being used in our county to upgrade cabinets in market towns (who were already enjoying 'fast' broadband), so that they could enjoy 'superfast' broadband. BT loved it because there were lots of customers there and the politician's loved it because there was lots of voters there. Meantime out in the rural hinterland we are still awaiting the serious 'backhaul' to arrive.
The only politico that seemed to suss this out was Patricia Hodge, but she had little clout as she was 'on the wrong side'. Sorry if all this sounds negative, but it's the way it has been on my patch.
For the longest time my old flat the centre of Leeds (less than 800 yards from the exchange) couldn't get infinity nor did they plan to (we had a cabinet in the basement but no dice from by).
I now live in the 'burbs and infinity was ready and waiting.
Now I've just got the matter of the works net connection in a light industrial unit on the edge of a satellite town. Bt have pretty much said sod off we can't be arsed. Despite the local cabinet being just up the road and it being a newish set of buildings that should have had the fiber in to start with.
But hey ho. 2mb for 12 people is plenty. And it's not like we're uploading whole websites with high quality images... Oh wait.
The whole thing is a superfarce, but until we get a regulator who regulates the farce will continue. We need competition, and support going to new companies who will build proper networks. We need to stop wasting public money patching up old phone networks. We need fibre. Moral and Optic. The CLA won't do anything. They will just advise their clients to get satellites. Its all part of the BT plan and the CLA will fall for it again. They have already been infiltrated with vital visionaries.
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