Posts by rhydian 424 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Aug 2008
Its about time Openreach were made to offer a better service level for domestic customers. They are by far the worst utility for installation and repair delays. Even business response can be slow due to Openreach's wide reaching organisational incompetence. Their reluctance to fix known, long term faults is legendary.
My only fear is that MBORC (Matters beyond our/openreach's reasonable control) will be invoked far more often to make up the shortfalls.
"If they hadn't been such cheapskates after privatisation in the 80's and put so much aluminium rather than copper underground, it wouldn't be in such a crap state either."
The GPO/PO telephones used aluminium and even worse stuff (copper coated steel was probably the worst) when copper prices shot up in the 60s/70s. This was before privatisation.
And as for BT being ready to "fibre up the whole country" in the 80s, that would have killed any competition stone dead. I also doubt they were serious, they had only just started installing system X and system Y digital exchanges in the early 1980s, and were only starting on shifting their backhaul over to fibre.
"I don't accept that it costs £14/month (BT's prices) to maintain a bit of copper between you and the exchange/cabinet, my copper wire has been in place for over 30 years, where is the cost for the line? the equipment you talk about is the PSTN voice equipment right?, not the ADSL+ stuff?"
Your line rental pays for the maintenance of that line and the exchange equipment its connected to, along with the poles, cabinets, electricity supplies and so on that line. The ADSL part covers the cost of a DSLAM port, the backhaul back out to the outside world and so on.
If you weren't paying line rental, then your ISP/Comms provider would simply roll up those access and maintenance charges in to your monthly rate. That's what electricity supply companies do with their "no standing charge" tariffs. Your still paying for the cost of getting a line to your house (and maintaining it), but wrapped up in a single monthly payment.
This reminds me of Aberystwyth back in the late 1990s and Early 2000s. Thanks to the vagaries of takeovers, Dixons were directly opposite Currys on the High Street. The only difference was that Currys had fridges and washing machines on display, while Dixons had cameras. In the end they moved the Currys to an out of town retail park, and Dixons were gone not long after.
...Covered by an extended 5 year guarantee!
But seriously, the new borged being will need to sort out the frankly dismal level of product knowledge that the average Currys/PCWorld sales droid has. Carphone warehouse might have a few issues, but I've always found their customer care to be at least "reasonable".
Currys on the other hand couldn't show me a live broadcast on a TV they had for sale as the shop hadn't actually got a TV licence. Then, when I asked about integrated freesat TVs, the sales droid BSOD'd and had to fetch the supoervisor. When I told the supervisor I didn't want to look at an LG because I'd experienced faulty ones in the past, he said my doubts were unfounded.
That was until I pointed out the LG on display which was turning the screen off once a second...
I'd consider moving to an MVNO, but its sometimes a right struggle to find out which network they use in the background. Living out in the sticks only one network has 3G capabilities locally.
If there were a list of MVNOs and which network they used it would be damned handy.
"Yes the police and technology are not exactly best friends. Mind you I was curious as to how these false alarms put the police in danger, I don't think a false alarm about a bomb can actually explode....."
I'd imagine the thinking is that as there are only a fixed number of SWAT or bomb disposal units, ones sent to false callouts aren't available to cover real ones, meaning the officers there will be at risk.
When I was starting my degree course, I remember a lecturer telling us "Don't bother with the Library. By the time the book is written, checked and published the information is out of date". While this wouldn't be true of more general works, I really can't see how a tech books specialist survived this long.
I work with an organisation with offices all over Wales (15 sites) and we've never had any issues with standardising language for documentation or with general conversation.
And if your looking for a closer example, what do English people call a small bread item ideally shaped to contain cooked bacon?
That Welsh/Cymraeg is an official language of Government in Wales, and has legal parity with English. Therefore anything that helps those working with Welsh in the assembly is an useful aid, especially when it can be used by the greater public. In comparison England doesn't actually have an official language.
As for "Well you can speak English perfectly well" arguments. Yes, I can speak English, but in my work and home life I genuinely don't need to unless dealing with firms like EE or BT business. Heck, even my (Spanish owned) electricity supplier offers welsh language billing. It's a peculiar trait of some English speakers to not quite understand why anyone would want to speak anything else (the classic "when abroad simply speak louder" mindset).
And as for "Welsh isn't even standardised", neither is English (hence all the choices of "xyz English" for MS word spell checking).
" It's a shame because with the kit and technology available to journalists and others today, we should be in a golden age of reporting but the cuts make that impossible."
The problem is that its that "kit and technology" that's driving down the revenues of publishing and journalism, both online and in print. There's no point making a beautiful looking magazine if not enough people will pay for it.
"Meanwhile, the fact STILL remains that broadband at that speed CAN be provisioned in Romania for much cheaper than Britain, in spite of the difference in GDP!"
The difference is of course with wages that low, your staffing costs are also lower (meaning less cost to pass on to your customer)...
"I don't get why that is, I am in a similar situation, exchange only line... what is the difference to putting the VDSL support in the exchange vs a cab? I can't see what the problem it..."
A commentard on another BT/openreach story explained that there's an industry body (Basically the big ISPs and exchange kit makers) that governs what can and can't be put in to BT's exchanges. Apparently VDSL kit doesn't play nice with other kit, therefore the usual response is to stick a cab just outside the exchange for those lines.
As with just about everything in life the question of work versus home life isn't one you can "fix" with a blanket rule.
For example, as the son of someone who worked "on call" shifts on various evenings and weekends I count my weekends and evenings as very important. I will only do work stuff at those times when its unavoidable (e.g. specific events) or it makes more sense from an operations point of view (e.g. its less bother all round to rewire a cabinet on a sunday afternoon than monday morning).
There are others (like my boss) who routinely do work outside "normal" hours as he prefers the fact he's unlikely to be disturbed (unlike in work hours).
If you passed a law one way or the other neither of us would be happy...
Another example of the downsides of forced amalgamation. I bet the rival groups were originally from separate firms that were amalgamated. British Leyland had massive problems with their factories and development teams seeing each other as the "enemy" rather than the real competition.
The usual approach was:
"We see that Leyland are making loads of money building trucks and buses"
"We also see that BMC/Austin Morris are losing loads of money building cars"
"I know! Lets 'persuade' (i.e. order) Leyland to buy BMC, then it'll all work out fine!"
7 years later, when BLMC (the combined company) has fallen to bits...
"I've got a great idea chaps, lets buy the whole thing with public money!"
Repeat for the IT industry, Aircraft, Shipbuilding...
"Please enter the telephone/account number on your keypad" yet the first thing the CS operator asks for is exactly the same information
Voice Recognition. In that a recognises *A* voice, but usually not yours
"Indirect" phone numbers i.e. to call my local bank I have to call in to a centralised call centre. Not much use if you want to check if you left your hat there...
...I do have a major advantage. Many major companies (BT/Scottish Power/Banks/Royal Mail etc) and all Government services have Welsh language call centres. The queues are much shorter and the chances of you being transferred to India are nil. This is very, very handy when even native English speakers find it hard to pronounce or spell your address, let alone someone speaking their 2nd Language.
It cost the previous owner of the place about £12.
It runs for a good 6-12 months on a 9v battery.
The reset button is big, red and easy to reach (thanks to the design of my stairs)
Thanks to sensible positioning and the positioning of my stairs its easy to test/reset if needed
So why on earth would I (or anyone) want an internet connected, gesture controlled, overcomplicated way of doing the same thing?
I suggest you come and have a nose at Corris (WNCRR) and Llanuwchllyn (WNLU) exchanges in North Wales. Both are small village exchanges and as far as I can tell neither has any cabinets.
Corris exchange also supplies the Village of Aberllefenni around two miles away and there's no cabinet between the two (having grown up there I did a lot of looking).
I do know there are villages are wired in the way you describe (usually around market towns with lines going back to that exchange), but in my experience very rural areas are still supplied overhead over long distances with no cabinets, meaning FTTC will require pretty serious rewiring.
"
Hmm, isn't there a way to run this wireless? Having said that, laying fibre also increases "traditional" capacity for phone and mobile, so there are some incentives to sort this out, but I agree, money is the key issue here."
Wireless is brilliant if you happen to live somewhere that has the topography of a snooker table (hence its popularity in East Anglia). It's not as much use in hilly terrain as lines of sight are much less likely.
The Welsh Government offered grants to those who couldn't get broadband any other way to go over to satellite. The main feedback I get from them and from those using satellite for events etc is:
1: Its "slow" i.e. the latency is absolutely mental compared to ADSL so the connection seems slower to the average user and can cause issues with Skype/Video chat etc.
2: The download limits are still low/expensive compared to ADSL. The grants only covered the purchasing, rather than the running costs.
I have heard reports of some users going back to dialup as even though its slow, the latency was at least manageable.
In conclusion: Satellite is brilliant if you can't get anything at all, but pants compared to even 4 meg ADSL
I'd imagine its mainly down to how the lines were installed back in the day. Most rural exchanges I know of are around 80% direct exchange lines, especially once you leave the "core" of the town/village. That means that BT has to rewire its network to put cabinets in to these areas and get power supplies etc. to them. BT have been known to stick a new fibre cab just outside the exchange to deal with short direct exchange lines (you can usually tell by the fact its shiny, new and has cooling vents)
I didn't manage to see what fujitsu's plans were, but I can't imagine they'd be much different to BT's, especially when you take in to account the fact that most of the backhaul would probably still have to be BT Sourced.
Also, what was the situation regarding Fujitsu having to make the links available to other providers a la BT wholesale?
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