Call me a Dick

[Jonno]

All UK homes and businesses will have access to "fast broadband" by

2020, David Cameron has pledged.

[Brian-Gaff]

Access is the key word here. At what cost though? Brian

[Andrew Mawson]

But how do they define 'speed' ? My hub claims 8.5 mB/s whereas BT's speed test says 6.3. I'm rural, (but only 50 miles from London) overhead copper about 1.8 miles of cable length from the exchange. Are they really going to lay fibre to each and every house. In my case the nearest neighbour is 1/2 mile away !

Andrew

[Chris J Dixon]

So, "on the same footing as water and electricity". That's not going to be cheap.

Chris

[Tim Streater]

You start with FTTC. For us, that reduced the copper run from 1.5 miles to about 300 yards, and the speed from 4Mbps to 35Mbps.

[charles]

In my case the remaining copper is only 100yds and I now get round 60Mbps - mind you with ADSL2+ I was getting about 7Mbps and with simple ADSL only

2Mbps. About the same distance from the exchange.

[Davey]

Wasn't this defined by Norway or somewhere up there recently?

[Chris]

Quite. Water and electricity suppliers will connect any premises if paid enough and any necessary wayleaves can be negotiated and no doubt telecoms companies will too.

So what's new in this announcement?

[dave]

Yes Dick, Cameron is always promising things. Has he promised to wire it up too?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It's only fibre to the end of the street here. Overhead copper to the house - unusual in London.

Get 48 mB/s according to the BT speed test.

[dennis]

You and everyone else has access by satellite so the promise is already fulfilled.

[Roger Mills]

Yes, but lots of people in rural area are far more than 300 yards away from the nearest cabinet.

[Tim Streater]

So install another one that's closer. Anything else I can help you with?

[Adrian]

Cabinet? What cabinet? We're plugged straight into the exchange, which is a good couple of km away by straight line. The wire doesn't follow that straight line, of course, and there's a fairly big river in the way.

The various BT engineers who've been floating around here a lot lately reckon we're doing fairly well to get 2Mbit - certainly few of our neighbours get anything like that speed.

Don't even ask about the people further up the hill. By the time you get towards the top of the hill, and the line between our exchange and the one the other side, people are still on dial-up.

[Tim Streater]

You mean there's a single pair from your house to the exchange? Seems unlikely. What's it strung on or is it underground?

Our line and a few others went to a cab down the road (300 yards away). There, it joined up with many others and was patched into a 400-pair that went the 1.5 miles or so to the exchange. It was this 400 pair that some scroates cut 18 months ago at two man holes, and then pulled out with a car (by which time the fuzz were already on their way). They then scratched their heads wondering how to get 400 yards of 400-pair into their car, and abandoned before the cops arrived.

Since then, Openreach having sourced and installed a new 400-pair within 36 hours, they have pulled fibre from the exchange to a new cab next to the old one. Presumably that'll be 24-pair or less (a single pair would do).

They then patched between the cabs which is why going to FTTC for us was so quick.

I would have expected that in your case they'd install a number of cabs to cover the area.

[Robin]

The massive additional subsidy? Someone has to pay - either the general body of taxpayers or BT's other customers if they impose a "universal service obligation" on BT without compensation.

It'll be interesting to see if this really means people who've build their "dream house" in remote locations in recent years can now demand fast broadband at some other bugger's expense.

[Jonno]

Robin scribbled

The tories stopped a universal single price to install electricity to new properties over 40 years ago, so I'd expect BT to work the same. In a short time snail mail will be priced according to distance too.

[Roger Mills]

Yes, there is!. If I live out in the sticks, several miles from civilisation with no other properties around, perhaps you'd like to tell me who is going to pay for installing a cabinet close enough to me to be useful, and connecting it up with fibre?

[Jonno]

Roger Mills scribbled

If someone chooses to live out the sticks, miles from civilisation, wtf does he want fast broadband? I keep on hearing bollocks about running a business from home, what business?

[ARW]

would be my first guess