I thought the problem in Milton Keynes was caused by the extensive use of cables with aluminium rather than copper conductors? As far as I am aware it has little or nothing to do with fibre optic cables.
When you do, use only twisted-pair wiring e.g. the solid wire, loose twist phone cable or Cat5 Ethernet cable. Don't use bell wire or the flat cable commonly used in telephone extensions available in DIY outlets. The twists are necessary to minimise noise pick-up and are essential for Broadband installations.
If you're going to install Broadband, use a replacement faceplate filter on the Master socket, such as
think its really all about the cost of a completely different technology. Not just the kit itself, but the training of operators, the laying in of power to street cabinets, the test equipment and so on.
The cable companies started with standard US CATV kit, and street cabs at frequent intervals. Laying in IP and telephony was a bit of a late addition. But they had the basic infrastructure (which is still not paid for at all) in place .
BT openreach has to essentially do exactly the same countrywide. It WILL happen, but slowly and when the kit is reasonable priced and as fast as they can train operators up. Terminating a fibre is a bit trickier than copper.
Well they have ducts already which are the really expensive part, think around =A3100 per metre to dig a trench and lay a duct. Power could be fed along those ducts, indeed it already is to power phones and ISDN NTEs etc so no need to involve the RECs and getting umpteen connections to the local grid made. Bear in mind you do not want your telecoms infrastructure to be reliant on the local grid working either.
Depends how you look at it. The PO van (Postman Pat type) that delivers our post has a round of at most 20 miles, it takes until lunchtime to complete that round and the back of the van is pretty packed with crates of post.
When I've looked in the back of the courier vans, large hi-top transit type, delivering here in the morning there have been at most a couple of dozen other packages in them, just loose on the floor with space between them and not stacked at all. The address's on those packges are scattered over distances of 20 miles or more from here.
So van miles per package is much better for the PO van than the courier and don't forget we see at least three courier vans around here every working day all covering similar sized areas.
I regularly get Royal Mail deliveries of one item, just for me, with nothing else in the van. I know the Royal Mail staff well, and they tell me this is quite normal.
But it is no more representative of the whole country than your experience. I repeat, there is more than enough work to go round.
Are you confusing Royal Mail and Parcel Force? I some how doubt that Royal Mail that delivers your morning post does a run solely for you. Parcel Force is just another courier company and the fact they do a run with just one package proves my point. It would bar more effcient to drop it at the local Royal Mail delivery office and send it out on the round.
I guess if the round is a walking rather than driving one that poses a bit of a problem but the walking postie and his post still has to get from the delivery office to the round...
I dunno...I've seen similar. Even small parcels tend to come early in the day, by van. The postie comes a lot later (4 hours later) with the letters. The van is never very full, but I suspect he's on his way back from delivering postbags. The posties tend to take out one bag, deliver it, then collect the second one from some convenient pickup point such as a corner shop. They get dropped off at the start of the round by minibus.
rates
Simpler... I note that mobiles are not all the same rate you have to follow the * to find that 3 is charged at 12.5p/min and lots of other conditions.
"Bog simple" would be Xp/min UK, Yp/min mobiles no if's or buts. Which is effectively what I have got with BT. Calls are capped at 10p UK and 25p mobiles for the first 60 mins, we rarely makes calls longer than 10 mins let alone 60.
I'm not convinced that the facts they have about BT are quite right. BT don't do per second billing?
Looking at "line only" I don't understand the prices and the maths don't work in the "Annual Price" box (=A39.85 x 12 =3D 118.20 not
118.25). Where does the "Price" =A310.75 come from it's not 9.85 (line)If a company can't get basic facts about their charges right or present them in an unabiguous manner I'm not impressed...
I keep getting bits of post from BT inviteing me to "Return to BT" and it's worded to imply that the line is LLU'd. Which is rather neat as there are no LLU providers in our exchnage and I still pay BT line rental and still pay BT for calls...
Perzackerly the van goes out with the round bag(s) and drops them off at those medium sized boxes on a stick that you see around housing estates and other places. This same van also takes and delivers Royal Mail parcels associated with the rounds it has dropped off. This van will be making this trip every day.
Considering how many pence per mile it costs to have a vehicle on the road I should think many couriers would leap at the chance of not having to deliver "the last mile". They do it with letter post so why not parcels? Of course it would require some imaginative and sensible thinking and pricing from Royal Mail management...
OK, but with letters RM are passing the house, and probably delivering already, so the marginal cost of delivering an extra item is very low. With parcels this isn't the case. Also courier firms have contractual delivery times to meet and might be reluctant to risk their reputation by subcontracting.
Normal calls are charged per minute (rounded up to the next minute) and then rounded up to the next penny, also a call setup fee is charged. Of course there are about a million exceptions to their pricing rules
I don't follow. Our postie delivers RM parcels and RM letters from a single van. In areas where the round is walked, the walking postie picks up sections of the round from boxes that a van has gone around and dropped of at. This same van also does RM parcels. I can't see why this van cannot also do other couriers parcels.
Around here it would improve some couriers service as their stuff would arrive between 0900 and 1000 rather than late afternoon. There is also an advantage to the recipient, once the post has been delivered there is no need to wait in any longer as there will be no other deliveries...
A reasonable point but easyly solved with the contracts. The "before
0900" or "before Noon" obilgations could be delivered by the van doing the RM Special Delivery service that has the similar (same?) obligations.
I've had a few Screwfix deliveries lately - they were shipped out via Parcel Force, but delivered (with my milk and paper) by the local postie.
I too regularly receive parcels via the normal post office, that have been run out from the village post office 'just for me'. Nothing to do with Parcel Force. Sometimes, I will even get a knock on the door to find that one of the posties has done a special run to me in their own car ! Now that's what I call a proper 'old fashioned' service ethic, and it's a pity more companies don't have the same attitude to their customers.
Arfa
I think that is an averaged rate.
BT wholesale do, though.
Well my bill simply says 8.70 for the line rental, and VAT at 15%
And per second billing on the calls.
Total bill is less that the rental used to be on the BT line. £15 plus VAT.
It would be very handy to know when an item was coming. Farnell, for instance, have an unfathomable shipping policy for their 'standard' delivery. One week, you can order two transistors, and they will come, in a Jiffy bag, by UPS. The next week, you can order a hulking great transformer, and it will come by RM in a box the size of your head. Trouble is, UPS vary their routings "for security purposes, mate" as one of their drivers told me, which means that one week, your stuff is delivered at 8:30am, and the next week, not until 4:30pm. Also, you never see the same driver more than twice, which means that they never learn that whatever I am ordering has little monetary value, so is ok to leave behind the bin if I'm not in. The local posties know this, so if I miss a delivery from them, it will usually be there for me to find, or at worst, back in the post office a coupla hours later. I think it would be good for RM to have some kind of arrangement to do the final mile deliveries for these couriers. However, I can see that they might have some difficulty selling this idea in the current climate of union unrest ...
Arfa
No.
It only happens with small packets that are deemed too heavy for the postie and standard parcels. The ordinary mail is delivered by the postie on his round.
What "fact" would that be, exactly?
There is a system for that.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.