BT Openreach effigy set alight by villagers

[Energize]

So does being homeless, but I would be equally stupid to do down that route with such logic too.

Perish the thought of having to move to a new area, it's pretty standard. Everywhere is a compromise for the money, you want to live in that area of the country for that budget, then you have to buy a property without 200mb broadband. I hate the entitlement attitude that has become so commonplace in today's society.

Don't want to wait? My advice, get satellite broadband.

Hmm, I live in a town that's had FTTC for yonks and yet i have FTTP also.
I suppose the FTTP might have come first.

Same here, it's not that uncommon.

 

[glenimp617]

The same criteria cannot be attributed to BB, sorry.

I'm not so sure

 

[Faustus]

Why are you sorry? The internet has become an essential utility, whether you agree or not. A lot of normal things require regular internet access.

So are you saying you would die without Internet access? Blimey I shouldn't have survived the first 40 or so years of my life then.

 

[Faustus]

The exchange (not a small one) is listed as enabled. The cabinet is also listed as enabled.
The problem is that BT and OpenReach each have two databases. When you phone up to get swapped over, they check those databases. One of BT's and one of OR's each say we can have it... and the other of each says it's not available to us. BT therefore say, on that basis, that they are unable to offer us the better service at this time...
Using the various checkers, our lowest assured speed is 512k, accurate to within 1 or 2 Mb (which would account for why we get naff-all most of the time) and the estimated speeds are no different between ADSL and VDSL.

So approach your local council who (a) should have the correct story and (b) if it is available then ask your local councillor for support. You might be pleasantly surprised at the change in tone once other officials become involved.

 

[tom01]

Unfortunately these rural areas are going to continue to struggle for a long time, commercially it just doesn’t make sense for private businesses like Open Reach to install the infrastructure required in areas with such low populations as their return on investment wouldn’t be met. I don’t agree with this and believe everyone should have access to Broadband.

I used to spend a lot of time in a very rural part up north with my ex partners family. They were a farming family situated in the middle of nowhere amongst a cluster of about 4 houses. The nearest village was several miles away, the nearest shop was 12 miles away! The broadband speed was unbearable at < 0.5 Mbps most of the time. If more than one person was using the internet it would fail to even load google on occasion. For a business that’s really tough not to mention when you have the rest of the household wanting to use the internet as we all do everyday.

I don’t think people are nessacarily aware just how dependent we have all become on access to the internet, even farming has evolved with a lot of the management of the business requiring uploading and inputting data online. It’s an essential utility.

That being said there was good 4G coverage due to being on a hill but I spent many hours trying to find an unlimited 4G data plan but they just don’t exist any more with most having low monthly data usage restrictions.

I find it hard to understand why a partnership or product doesn’t exist where those who cannot access fixed broadband can’t be given unlimited data plans on 4G, even if at a slightly more premium price than usual monthly plans. It would allow such remote community’s to access the internet at reasonable speeds without the worry of running out of data.

 

[FoxEye]

Same here, it's not that uncommon.

Having read his comments again, he's saying FTTP/FTTC can exist in the same town.

I'm saying if your local cab is FTTC enabled, it's BT's/OpenReach's policy not to provide FTTP to properties served by that cab, unless it's FTTPoD (which is stupid expensive, bascially a self-financed install).

This is common knowledge. Your cab has FTTC, you don't get FTTP (for a sane price). But like I said, there are a few exceptions even to that rule (normally when the cab serves properties with vast differences in local loop length, some in-range for VDSL, some out-of-range).

 

[spoffle]

So are you saying you would die without Internet access? Blimey I shouldn't have survived the first 40 or so years of my life then.

Can you show me where I said this, or even implied it?

Because you're just intentionally missing the point.

 

[Brookert]

So are you saying you would die without Internet access? Blimey I shouldn't have survived the first 40 or so years of my life then.

Would you die without a proper sewage system? Is sewage an essential utility?

It's not life or death, it's about being able to function in modern society.

 

[Energize]

Having read his comments again, he's saying FTTP/FTTC can exist in the same town.

I'm saying if your local cab is FTTC enabled, it's BT's/OpenReach's policy not to provide FTTP to properties served by that cab, unless it's FTTPoD (which is stupid expensive, bascially a self-financed install).

This is common knowledge. Your cab has FTTC, you don't get FTTP (for a sane price). But like I said, there are a few exceptions even to that rule (normally when the cab serves properties with vast differences in local loop length, some in-range for VDSL, some out-of-range).

The cabinet at the end of our street is FTTC but virgin provide 200mb FTTP as well for about £30 a month.

The fibre cabling under the pavement was installed about 15 years ago by another company so luckily they could just use that.

 

[Efour]

Virgin do fibre to your house now?
I used to live 10m away from their green box so I never had any issues with the last coax meters anyway.

 

[spoffle]

The cabinet at the end of our street is FTTC but virgin provide 200mb FTTP as well for about £30 a month.

The fibre cabling under the pavement was installed about 15 years ago by another company so luckily they could just use that.

Are you sure? Virgin's headline coax speed is 350Mb. I can't see FTTP being only 200Mb.

 

[Dangerous Dave]

Are you sure? Virgin's headline coax speed is 350Mb. I can't see FTTP being only 200Mb.

Virgin are offering the standard products over the fibre connection using radio frequency over glass, hopefully in the future this will change.

https://richardglover.co.uk/2017/07/virgin-media-fttp-install/

 

[ttaskmaster]

Perish the thought of having to move to a new area, it's pretty standard.

OK, so I give up a 20 year career in stable employment, leave my wife who has to stay here for her job, move away from all my friends and family and go live in some ratspit ******** of a town working for much less money, just to satisfy your idea of an acceptable compromise?
Good one. Any more bright ideas?

Everywhere is a compromise for the money, you want to live in that area of the country for that budget, then you have to buy a property without 200mb broadband.

I have to live in this area and I can't afford to buy - This is just renting prices we're talking about.

I hate the entitlement attitude that has become so commonplace in today's society.

This is me simply wanting BT to deliver what they've been promising for four years.
If holding them to their word somehow makes me "entitled", then **** it, I'm an entitled little millennial and demand what I'm entitled to...

Don't want to wait? My advice, get satellite broadband.

Absolute GENIUS! Why didn't I think of that?
Oh, wait, I did - We're outside the supply area for most of them, and those that can supply us are too expensive. If I could afford those, I wouldn't be living here, would I!

So approach your local council who (a) should have the correct story and (b) if it is available then ask your local councillor for support. You might be pleasantly surprised at the change in tone once other officials become involved.

Once they decide which one of teh three possibles actually covers our area today, I might get somewhere... But the issue remains in that BT and every other possible provider all rely on looking up these conflicting databases.

 

[=XDC=FluphyBunny]

At work we looked into getting fibre early last year but all the online checks said it wasn't available. I checked the business next door and they could get fibre. Contacted Openreach and after a number of emails they said that fibre broadband was now available. Boss changed his mind and we continued to run on ADSL. Fast forward to now and ..... we can no longer get fibre Odd that the broadband available is now worse than a year ago.

 

[MikeTheNative]

At work we looked into getting fibre early last year but all the online checks said it wasn't available. I checked the business next door and they could get fibre. Contacted Openreach and after a number of emails they said that fibre broadband was now available. Boss changed his mind and we continued to run on ADSL. Fast forward to now and ..... we can no longer get fibre Odd that the broadband available is now worse than a year ago.

Had a similar issue when we moved house, somebody else got the last spot on the cabinet before we could place an order. Had to wait a few months till they upped the availability. Going from 75 to 5 for a few months was pretty grim.

 

[=XDC=FluphyBunny]

Had a similar issue when we moved house, somebody else got the last spot on the cabinet before we could place an order. Had to wait a few months till they upped the availability. Going from 75 to 5 for a few months was pretty grim.

I have had fibre for years at home and I live in an area that I would consider not to be at the bleeding edge of technological roll out and it amazes me just how sketchy high speed broadband availability is.

I have seen 5g mentioned, is it going to be the holy grail ? Can I look forward to cancelling my line rental as the broadband connection is the only reason I still pay it.

 

[skyripper]

Nope. We're all electric. Storage heaters are a bitch and the woodburner only does one room.

Only two of the houses have oil, but they don't talk to each other.
We tried a shared woodstore offer, but everyone else can afford electric heaters... Especially whoever lives in the (small) manor house.
Same for cess pits. Some places have septic tanks, but tankering companies have different rates for each and won't give group discounts.

Sounds similar to the last place I lived in. Little cottage in the middle of a wooded country estate, 10 mins by car to the nearest shop, broadband over a old piece of wire that was probably put in 50 years ago. Septic tank in the front garden. Expensive tankered LPG for heating. Drafty wooden single pane windows which looked oh so pretty but oh so bloody drafty! And a landlady who was extremely posh, very wealthy and used to respond to "the boiler doesn't work" with "oh, what a bore, can't you call someone?".

We got used to having to download movies overnight to watch the next day, restricting Steam downloads etc. I think we topped out at 1.2mb/s, although most of the time it was around 900kb/s. There are things you can do in terms of traffic management and changing usage habits which help. Even changing Chrome to use the mobile version of images helped with webpages and browsing for example.

When it came time to move home, broadband speed was a consideration, but lack of superfast / fibre wasn't. I think we get the heady heights of 15mb/s now. Which fibre users will tell you is terrible. For us, it is a world of difference. We can now enjoy Netflix and do things with automation and Hive.

I do miss the ducks, pheasants, horses, squirrels, moles and voles. Don't miss the poo truck or the heating bills, or horseflies though.

I guess my post is saying, superfast broadband isnt important, just a luxury.

Whereas "fast-enough" broadband isn't important until you don't have it. Then you really miss it.

And rubbish broadband is really limiting in terms of quality of life for essential things like shopping online, job searching, researching anything or even just keeping your laptop up to date with patches etc (I'm looking at you Microsoft for preloading Windows 10 to various bits of kit over my 900kb/s adsl!!)

 

[ttaskmaster]

We got used to having to download movies overnight to watch the next day, restricting Steam downloads etc.

Yep, doing that as we speak, although flip a coin to see if it completes within a single night. Even using SteamChat can be problematic, really.

I guess my post is saying, superfast broadband isnt important, just a luxury.

Then if we can't have it, why do BT keep trying to sell it?
That is the kicker - Not some sense of entitlement at my end, but the carrot-dangling rip-off merchants who can't even make up their mind if we can have what they're trying to sell us anyway.

And rubbish broadband is really limiting in terms of quality of life for essential things like shopping online, job searching, researching anything or even just keeping your laptop up to date with patches etc

And that's where it starts to impact our life in the 'modern world' - I could work from home half the time if our internet was fast enough. As is, being on the phone to BT about it and them telling me to open their own website, even that took an age.

 

[skyripper]

I could work from home half the time if our internet was fast enough. As is, being on the phone to BT about it and them telling me to open their own website, even that took an age.

I'm assuming you've done some self-improvement work - getting a router where you can play with the SNR, fitting a modern BT Openreach filter faceplate in place of whatever may be there from ages past, disconnecting the [unneeded] bell wire for phone extensions etc. to give yourself the best chance of maxing out your line.

 

[skyripper]

Then if we can't have it, why do BT keep trying to sell it?
That is the kicker - Not some sense of entitlement at my end, but the carrot-dangling rip-off merchants who can't even make up their mind if we can have what they're trying to sell us anyway.

That's just badly targetted sales calls/emails/ads. They will do the smallest amount of due diligence when it comes to trying to sell to you, until you make contact with them. They may only get 1 response out of a 5000, so they're not going to bother checking if all 5000 can actually use the product .