Rutland Telecom offers local internet for local people Residents of Lyddington village, Rutland, are celebrating the arrival of decent broadband today, thanks to their very own telco. The residents gave up waiting for BT which declined to offer broadband in the Rutland village. So instead some 200 households raised £37,000 for the capital costs of installing fully unbundled …
There is a requirement for Royal Mail to provide a universal service to all UK households - thus ensuring that everyone gets their quota of junk mail. If would have been nice if OFCOMM had shown a little initiative and required a similar level of service from Overreach. After all, it's not as if they'd have to provide a chap with a bike to deliver the email in person (although, they couldn't charge for the stamp to send it, either) so I'd expect the running costs to be lower.
As it is, the BBC reckons there are 50 subscribers (what happened to the other 150?) for the £37k service - working out at about £750 per connection. I wonder what the annual charge, on top of these installation costs will be?
The website says they offer a "Proxy Report" which is a "bespoke report of all websites visited by your household over a month showing details of times of access." (http://www.relay-rutlandtelecom.co.uk/prices.html). I find that disturbing. Why would someone get that? Snooping on the wife maybe? Do all ISPs keep such records? Come to think of it do all ISPs use proxies? Hmmm...
Which was BT's comment (lifted from the BBC story):
"BT said it was "delighted to help Rutland Telecom" although it added that it hoped it would allow other service providers access to its new network. "Otherwise there is the risk of a local monopoly developing, which is never good for consumers," said BT Group Strategy Director Olivia Garfield.
Breathtaking, simply breathtaking. Words fail me....
You have a purpose after all (other than being the source of juve jokes).
"So instead some 200 households raised £37,000 for the capital costs of installing fully unbundled broadband connections"
So an investment of £185 per household has solved this problem and, I assume, they are all now share holders reaping some of the £30 per month costs. Wonderful.
I would have been happy to cough up.
What's the contention ratio? What's the uplink from that cabinet? The reason that I ask is that some ISPs offer high speed links, but the contention is appalling. I've seen cases where hundreds of users are sharing a single 155Mb ATM connection.
Secondly they raised £37,000 to implement this. That's less than £200 per customer, but what are the monthly running costs and how much are they charging for rental? I suppose, what I'm asking is: is the whole thing financially viable? And will any new users be expected to pay £185 connection charge? If not will the early adopters object? If they do have to pay will it scare off new customers?
Doesn't this imply that market forces can work for the installation of faster broadband? As far as I'm aware the shareholders expect to see a return on their investment in 2-3 years.
I find it ironic after the arguments for the 50p tax for broadband a community has shown an alternative that relies on market forces. Of course it would have been easier if BT hadn't been dragging their heels over the installation.
I still think that the network should be nationalised and fibre to the cabinet rolled out nationwide at the very least. But that isn't likely any time soon.
"Is your technical support and customer service outsourced to a call centre abroad?
No. In fact we are unique amongst ISPs in having offices in the high street. If you are not happy with the service then we cannot hide! We'll make you a coffee and get to the bottom of the problem. "
Wish more ISPs were like that.
There are lots of Internet cafes actually (still)* - you get access and coffee - but don't they usually have their own toilets?
* There's that one in the Windows 7 advert** on TV. Of course you don't want to sit next to the woman...
** Mostly about features that were introduced in Windows NT, afaics.
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