Power cuts

[Tim Streater]

Well, if move to the country, don't whinge about the early cockerel or the church bells. We're not interested.

[meow2222]

Now theres a daft proposal.

NT

[Martin Brown]

Your choices are either accept it or move. Same with no gas at all.

There is a tick box exercise in progress in various rural areas that will enable the government to claim success. But they have set the barrier for "fast" internet at 2Mbps which isn't even enough to stream a single channel of HD TV in realtime so it is worse than useless.

The main effect is to give money to BT to do stuff in the profitable suburban parts that they would have done anyway together with a bit of meaningless tokenism in the rural hinterlands.

My own exchange it technically FTTC enabled but the only powered cabinet is even further from me than the exchange.

You can get satellite broadband anywhere for a price or 3G data in many places but with patchy coverage. Worth looking at the alternatives if your broadband connection is very ropey. A neighbouring village on aluminium phone cables barely gets 256kbps on ADSL and people would be better off there using prehistoric bonded ISDN.

[charles]

The "barrier" in Surrey is 16MBs. It is admitted taht aprox 1000 houses will be out of range.

Certainly not the case in Surrey.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Yes; great soft shandy-drinking Southern poofters often complain about the power supply in the countryside. Since you're not one of them, I take it you'll just accept it.

[Dave Liquorice]

Not quite, 2 Mbps is the minimum "universal access" speed that is supoosed to be available to *every* household. HTF they are going to do that I don't know.

I don't think there is a "fast" definition. "Super fast" is > 24 Mbps or similar speed, finding a reliable definition isn't easy.

True but it'll just about cope with heavly compressed SD. I've yet to find a HD internet stream that runs at a decent rate >= 10 Mbps but then it wouldn't be any use to me as I only have 6 Mbps ADSL.

Agreed, though the urban roll out is probably faster and denser than if BT had been left to do it.

Does 20 down, 6 MBps up, for £24/month fall foul of "for a price"? The £150 install min 12 months and only 10 GB/month aren't very attractive though.

Aye, I've got about 6 Mbps but another mile down the road into the village and away from the exchange most people only get around 500 kbps. There are farms another 3 miles or so beyond the village. How are they going to get the "universal access" 2 Mbps?

[meow2222]

No, those are not my choices.

I do wonder why bt et al dont put a computer box in relevant cabinets that runs people's internet down all the available copper between cabinet and ex change. Would that not be a useful intermediate step that would quickly pay its way? (My info on how such things are currently run is insufficient.)

NT

[Andy Burns]

Depends, if most lines are already ADSL enabled, the total bonded copper capacity to the cabinet wouldn't be much higher than at present (unlike running fibre to the cabinet) so contention between all customers and the cabinet could be an issue, probably a bit late in the day to be developing that sort of technology.

There's a whole class of customers who are over 4-5km from the exchange and struggle to get 2Mbps from ADSL, but who are closer than 2-3km to the cabinet who might get 8-10Mbps if the cabinet was VDSL enabled. Since these people wouldn't get the "headline" 80Mbps rates BT seems uninterested, they prefer to provide VDSL speeds faster than 24Mbps to people who *already* get 8 to 24Mbps on ADSL.

[Martin Brown]

Your only other alternative is satellite broadband or one of the local microwave link based DIY/entrepreneur groups that BT is currently in the process of bankrupting by targeting their most profitable markets.

I have in mind the likes of North Yorkshire initiatives like:

I have heard good things about Clannet

There is already a massive shortage of real copper circuits back to the exchange! That is the key problem for rural broadband. They have to DACS two grannies for every new ADSL circuit they enable round here and they are quite simply running out of grannies and working copper.

It doesn't help now that silver surfers are on the march so that the DACS'd grannies now want their internet connections as well!

Round here they tend to break one existing circuit for every two they install so we have a semi-permanent encampment of BT Openreach vans. It got so bad last year that they had to truck in Lancastrians to help out after several customers were left without phones for a month or more. (incidentally turns out they pay some puny compensation for that)

The fibre line of FTTC gets them a massively parallel high bandwidth connection back to the exchange from the cabinet with enough virtual circuit bandwidth equivalent to give everyone a decent connection.

The snag is that in the countryside most of us live too far from the FTTC cabinet to get any noticeable advantage!

[Huge]

[tony sayer]

Yes thats what happened years ago around these parts, several village systems used 2.4 Ghz radio with rather large aerials when good ole BT enabled up the local exchange these systems died out;(..

Don't they make this 'ere copper cable anymore, or dare they not risk putting it in should those pesky Pikey's pinch it?...

Sad that;(..

Still that nice Yorkshire scenery must more than compensate;?...

[John Rumm]

actually the situation is probably easier than with gas... at least there are some DIY options for faster access such as sticking in your own outside wifi backhaul connection to somewhere with faster access.

[John Rumm]

And here... In fact I don't recall even seeing a local cabinet - I think our lines are hardwired back to the exchange after doing a lap of the village.

[Andy Burns]

BT's checker will tell you which cabinet you're on, or whether you're an EO (exchange only) line - in which case you're even less likely to get VDSL.

[Andy Burns]

Ooops, now with link ...

[charles]

It tells me I can get upto 5Mbps - actually I get 8.32.

[meow2222]

no :) those arent either.

NT

[Martin Brown]

There is probably a hole in the ground somewhere about 3'x6' with a bunch of wire knitting in it - when you look inside you have to wonder how it manages to work at all! It is no surprise to me that it breaks most times when they attempt to make alterations (which is often).

You can usually find them by watching out for where the OpenReach vans are always parked up!

[Martin Brown]

Can you provide a sample? When I do it for my own number I just get:

Featured Products

Downstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Upstream Line Rate(Mbps)

Downstream Range(Mbps)

Availability Date

ADSL Max Up to 2 -- 1 to 3.5 Available Fixed Rate 2 -- -- Available

And this is despite the fact that I connect at 5Mbps ADLS max at present and I know for a fact that the exchange is FTTC enabled. (and we are in a patch the availability map says has it now)

No indication of how it is connected back to the exchange at all. (or that FTTC is even there - I guess not offered to my number)

I tried a few friends closer the exchange and the guy who practically lives on top of it is connected back via cabinet 3 FTTC @ 80Mbps. This is a bit odd since I have no idea where cabinets 1 & 2 might be.

[Andy Burns]

Right above the featured products table, I get

Telephone Number 0116xxxyyyy on Exchange WEST WIGSTON is served by Cabinet 5, can't provide an example of an EO line I'm afraid, I presume if it doesn't give a cabinet number you're direct, then again it might mean incomplete records.

I know it's fairly inaccurate with its speed estimates, I only recommended it to find which cabinet you're on!

our exchange is FTTC enabled, but closest cabinet isn't, so no mention of it for me, if I use other peoples phone numbers, it mentions an unexpected delay in making FTTC available - I'm signed-up for alerts from roadworks.org, so I happen to know they're doing work on the ducts between the exchange and the village, presumably to get the fibre in.