Internet at the cottage?

jake9891

jake9891

jake9891

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Joined
7 Feb 2011
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300
Location
London
Hi folks,

I am looking for a bit of advice. Two years ago me and my parents have moved to a cottage house. In our small town we were reaching 8 mb/s on our AOL Gold* package (*I can't exactly remember the name of it, it was one of the highest available at the time). When we moved in to the cottage the speed dropped down to around 0.5 mb/s *sigh* and we were stuck on it since then. I talked to my neighbours and apparently we were lucky to even get that, as they have tried to get a broadband before and everyone told them that it is not possible, because we are to far from the exchange. When we called AOL they said there is nothing they can do so they dropped the price to a £10. We haven't tried to do anything about it since then.

I am planning to improve the existing home network to be able to share media between all computers and other devices, so it would be good to try to improve our Internet connection as well.

Here I need the advice. What options do we have? What would you guys do in my place?

Thanks,

Edit: My parents live near Retford, the exchange's post code is: DN226ET
 
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You could try going on the site "Sam Knows" and you could do things such as check
you area and see exactly what is in your area, also you can do an exchange mapping
which will tell you were the nearest exchange is and will tell you what you can get from
that exchange as well.

Then when you know the information like that you can ring and order what ever service
you like then.

I have had a quick look and it seems that all the ADSL connections you can get fine
but none of the cable connections.

And

According to the exchange mapping you should get about 7.5Mb connection

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker
 
According to Samknows your exchange is scheduled for FTTC (BT Infinity) on 01/03/2012.

There could be delays after that (possibly infinite) before your local cabinet is enabled, but it’s your best chance of a decent connection.

Shadz:- I think you've used the exchange postcode to get that 7.5 Mbps.

Edit: I've just spotted my inadvertent pun!
 
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bremen1874 said:
According to Samknows your exchange is scheduled for FTTC (BT Infinity) on 01/03/2012.

There could be delays after that (possibly infinite) before your local cabinet is enabled, but it’s your best chance of a decent connection.

Shadz:- I think you've used the exchange postcode to get that 7.5 Mbps.

Edit: I've just spotted my inadvertent pun!
Click to expand...


Whoops lol yup think i did lol.

And yeh nice pun lol
 
Yes for a obvious reasons I haven't given my parent's postcode, when I do a check on SamKnows it says I am approximately 3.5 km from the exchange, but the cable length is obviously longer. On BT ADSL it says:

"According to BT Wholesale, your line is very unlikely to be able to support ADSL, although a 256kbps service may be available."

So looks like we don't have much options with this.

What do you guys think about mobile internet? is it any good? on my HTC I get around 2 meg on a good day with a full signal. My only concern is that monthly allowance on a dongle wouldn't be enough to share it with 2 people. Also how would that work in a home environment I guess some 3G router would be needed to be able to connect few devices to the Internet across the whole house.

Are there any other, less popular options?
 
What's your Three coverage like? There's unlimited data on some of their tarrifs (including tethering).

There's always the satellite broadband option.
 
If you can get a good coverage from 3, then your choices are to either get a Mifi dongle or a straight forward USB dongle, which you can plug into a Draytek router. I used this setup some years ago when waiting for my broadband to switch over. Was pretty good.
 
As above, i would buy a three PAYG sim and check out the internet speed in the area.

I quite regularly reach 5-7mb or faster on my phone in the middle of nowhere.
 
I'd see what you can get from mobile broadband. I realise the UK doesn't have LTE yet, but even a decent 3G HSPA connection will get you much more than what you're on right now. There are routers that can share the "dongle connection" wirelessly as well, so you wouldn't need one dongle per PC.
 
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Looks like mobile internet from 3 might be a good option, both my parents are 3 customers, but they get really weak signal downstairs, might be our house, upstairs seems fine, so probably that would be the best place for a 3G router. 3 has better offers compared to Vodafone, I think 15gb allowance would be enough for a month for general browsing, youtube, etc

InQ said:
Check your parents post code in the December FTTC checker to see what it says about when/if they can get FTTC;

https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?snapid=S351604JNil
Click to expand...

InQ, that's what I get:

SAU_ID = SLRF
Name = RETFORD
SAU_NODE_ID = {SLRF}{P16}
Exchange Only Flag = 0
Percent Lines = 100%
Uplift = 5.77
Phase = 8a
Deployed = Yes
FTTC or FTTP = FTTC

what does phase 8a means? is there any explanation to this spreadsheet? because all these do not mean much to me unfortunately.
 
8a means that it's the first generation up to 40 Mbps product.

They're currently trialling 17a for the updated 80 Mbps product (17a uses a wider range of frequencies).
 
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I think p16 is the green cabinet you are connected to. Any ideas of which green cab they are on?
Look for another green cab next to the existing one, this will house the equipment needed for fibre.
100% means all lines in that post code go to that cab....I think!

Ps. I would have expected more uplift if you are barely getting ADSL currently though....maybe even miles from the green cab?
Also make sure when you searched the post code on the spreadsheet you did a find all and not just find.
 
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