"Fast broadband for all by 2020 pledged by David Cameron"

Yeah not line of sight, not end of the world as have been reasonably fine with the naff connection for 2 years or so now.

Just gets a bit frustrating with all the talk of everything that's being done to provision 'superfast' stuff yet can see us falling through the cracks as everyone around us has it.
 
So who's going to pay for all of this? What about people like the customer I spoke to last week who was 8.5Km from the exchange and couldn't get broadband and even Fibre was too far to the cabinet?
 
MissChief said:
So who's going to pay for all of this? What about people like the customer I spoke to last week who was 8.5Km from the exchange and couldn't get broadband and even Fibre was too far to the cabinet?
Click to expand...

Guessing then it's a case of wireless, satellite or other non fixed line comms to give the required connection.
 
I know someone 3 miles out of Nantwich, she can't get any reliable broadband,

Mobile broadband. EE last said the mast was over capacity. Also tried Vodafone not reliable.

ADSL. She can't get any form of internet from BT, ADSL was syncing at around 300kps, however that was so intermittent BT engineers have said her pole needs replacing but will not as it can provide voice. Been with PostOffice BB, TalkTalk and BT had to cancel the lot including land line.

Now Satellite broadband and it's down most of the time, Hybeam say it's due to weather.

She has been let down by every ISP and is currently driving to my house to use my Internet. She sometimes uses Crewe library, however pages take that long to load she has to read a book also.

The above sounds ridiculous but it's all true.
 
Last edited:
I've been living in London for the past 5 years, the last 3.5 of which I've had Hyperoptic 1Gbps.. which was totally amazing,

Recently moved out down to Surrey, and whilst I'm saving £1k per month on rent, the broadband situation is bloody terrible.. Despite the fact I have a fully active and working phone line, it's taking Plusnet 3-4 weeks to install FTTC for me - the level of service is just diabolical from these companies..

What's more frustrating is I'm an engineering consultant - I work for most of these ISPs and help design their backbone/access networks for them, (Juniper, Cisco, Alcatel etc) and I've worked with all of the main UK providers and some in the EU/US too, there's no real appetite from anybody to actually spend the money and deliver FTTP.

Even companies like Gigaclear (who are one of our customers) aren't really competing with anyone else - they simply run their own fibre to rural areas and collect all the business - which is brilliant, but the bigger providers just aren't interested in pushing it, the cost of doing it is so high.

The government don't help much either, historically, they give heaps of cash to BT who don't deliver anything, because they're too big - and full of old men waiting to retire, they just absorb the money and the consumer never sees any improvement to infrastructure, then to look like they're being fair - they give heaps of money to small companies like UK Broadband, who are too small and incompetent to do anything either, and the cash disappears into nothing, and nothing ever changes..

/rant.
 
Screeeech said:
I've been living in London for the past 5 years, the last 3.5 of which I've had Hyperoptic 1Gbps.. which was totally amazing,

Recently moved out down to Surrey, and whilst I'm saving £1k per month on rent, the broadband situation is bloody terrible.. Despite the fact I have a fully active and working phone line, it's taking Plusnet 3-4 weeks to install FTTC for me - the level of service is just diabolical from these companies..

What's more frustrating is I'm an engineering consultant - I work for most of these ISPs and help design their backbone/access networks for them, (Juniper, Cisco, Alcatel etc) and I've worked with all of the main UK providers and some in the EU/US too, there's no real appetite from anybody to actually spend the money and deliver FTTP.

Even companies like Gigaclear (who are one of our customers) aren't really competing with anyone else - they simply run their own fibre to rural areas and collect all the business - which is brilliant, but the bigger providers just aren't interested in pushing it, the cost of doing it is so high.

The government don't help much either, historically, they give heaps of cash to BT who don't deliver anything, because they're too big - and full of old men waiting to retire, they just absorb the money and the consumer never sees any improvement to infrastructure, then to look like they're being fair - they give heaps of money to small companies like UK Broadband, who are too small and incompetent to do anything either, and the cash disappears into nothing, and nothing ever changes..

/rant.
Click to expand...

The current roll-out of FTTC is a complete waste of money imo.
 
Completely agree with Screech. I'm actually using Ubiquiti kit to bring decent speed broadband to my house. BT control our local cabinet and despite there being 250 houses on the estate open reach won't install FTTC. We get 1.5mb here, openreach just waiting for their government hand out.
 
JasonM said:
I know someone 3 miles out of Nantwich, she can't get any reliable broadband,

Mobile broadband. EE last said the mast was over capacity. Also tried Vodafone not reliable.

ADSL. She can't get any form of internet from BT, ADSL was syncing at around 300kps, however that was so intermittent BT engineers have said her pole needs replacing but will not as it can provide voice. Been with PostOffice BB, TalkTalk and BT had to cancel the lot including land line.

Now Satellite broadband and it's down most of the time, Hybeam say it's due to weather.

She has been let down by every ISP and is currently driving to my house to use my Internet. She sometimes uses Crewe library, however pages take that long to load she has to read a book also.

The above sounds ridiculous but it's all true.
Click to expand...

BT hasn't changed one bit since I can remember from 2004 - 2007.
 
thebennyboy said:
The current roll-out of FTTC is a complete waste of money imo.
Click to expand...

What would you do instead? Have everyone wait a decade using a 6Mbps ADSL service until enough cash had been saved up to start an FTTP rollout? Or build FTTP with money that doesn't exist?

The sums have been done many times over, if FTTP was commercially viable to deploy into your particular area then it would be there already.
 
I remember one time thinking of the sound of 8Mb sounded fast. Even though I've never had it. The best once was 6Mb but mostly 5.7. To think single digits doesn't cut it anymore.

I remember Gordon Brown saying 2Mb in 2009/10 was classed as superfast broadband.
 
BT need to hold their hands up and admit that to some areas they simply can't get service there for the money they get. The money needs to go to WORTHY alternatives.

WISP is the answer for the % who can't get the FTTC infrastructure.
 
^ agreed. The issue that a lot of businesses have at the moment is that they will build out to a village that has been declared to not be commercially viable, only to be overbuilt by Openreach later on. Invariably people don't care about their Internet as long as it's 'good enough' so given the choice between 100Mb Gigaclear for whatever it costs, or £10 'fibre' from Sky you can see why these altnets are reluctant to invest.

It would be nice to have a legal framework in place where Openreach had to make a binding agreement in areas they decided weren't commercially viable and the implication of that would be they wouldn't be allowed in for five years (unless they bought the company that built the original network or something like that).

The other option I guess is to make a fake fibre networks company and just pretend you're going to build out to a village, to force Openreach's hand.
 
Not really sure why all the hate for copper. Phone cable is just a low spec UTP. Cat5e ethernet cable is UTP.

Getting a high bandwidth fibre to a street cabinet is infinitely easier than running fibre to each individual premises.

Replace the copper on demand to Cat5e or similar and there you go, gigabit capable connection. Lots of properties are supplied but duct already (also makes FTTP easy) or overhead wire so equally easily replaced. My house is actually one of the awkward ones and would need digging up.

BT is also one of the leading researchers with fibre optic transmission, especially with improving what is already in situ. Ideal for the network they have.
 
There is a small section of my line from one junction box to another that is still on aluminium. It has been regularly breaking anytime an engineer goes in and moves cables.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom