New broadband supplier

[Bob Eager]

It's showing 4 or 4 dots in our road, and they are all in the same postcode.

[Mark Carver]

Certainly not dwellings. One of the blue spots near me is smack in the middle of the local common !

[Andy Burns]

It won't be BT doing the alterations or paying for them, possibly it was BT insisting it was done by the building owner (Telereal) to prevent damage to the equipment.

[Andrew]

Stripping and refelting the flat concrete roof of the 1950's building I can accept. It has to be done every ~20 years, so adding a layer of what looked like Extruded Poly (the pinky coloured stuff like Knauf loft panels) and putting the 'felt' on top (?) probably reduces the heat loss (and and any tendency to condensation) so is probably worthwhile.

But a few weeks later festooning the roof with aluminium guard rails (two horizontal rails) just seems daft. No-one goes up there other than the 10-yearly survey to check for damage. It has also made the building a bit of an eyesore, luckily it is hidden behind the Royal Mail building.

I must get closer and see if I can spot if they have connected up a proper lightning connector :-). On wednesday at 15:30 the sky went black, and an astonishing amount of rain came down for a few minutes, then a huge flash and bang. All my lights blipped and the PC rebooted itself, but it took out all the phones and internet at the local old peoples home next to the railway line. Not too long afterwards I got an email from Southern Rail saying that all services between Horsham and Barnham were suspended because lightning had taken out the signalling system.

[Richard]

That common anywhere near a government site? Could those be the moles we hear about on occasion? ;)

[Chris Green]

Yes, but what do they mean. I saw them but there seems no way to get them to say what they mean.

As above, there's a feeble yellow spot just about on my house.

[Chris Green]

I don't think there is any 'local FTTP', the whole village has FTTC though.

[Chris Green]

Yes, that's exactly my experience. We have FTTC and the map shows none. The map shows FTTP nearby and, as far as I'm aware it isn't.

[Chris Green]

So a dot just means there's a postcode and provides no information about what's available there? (I'm sure this isn't the intention but it really does seem to be the reality)

[Theo]

When you tick 'ADSL/ADSL2+ est speed' there is a key underneath: red = 0 to 2 Mbps yellow = 2-8 Mbps green = 8-24Mbps

while if you tick 'Openreach VDSL2/FTTP Postcodes' the key is: red = 0 to 3.9Mbps yellow = 4 to 23.9 Mbps green = 24 Mbps+

Other tickboxes use colours for different meanings, and they have their own key.

Theo

[Theo]

Maybe they are infills or new builds? Take a walk and see if there's any evidence of fibre on poles etc.

For example my village is FTTC, but there's a site with 2 new build houses on a lane, and there's fibre on the existing poles running as far as them. They've put in a new pole past the end of that site, suggesting they're planning to fibre the rest of the dead-end lane (which must be ~2km from the cabinet) but nothing further has happened. The farm at the end of the lane has a barn with a pole route that must be on the end of a quite long bit of copper, so I could see that as a prime candidate for FTTP, although the barn looks disused so I'm not sure the farm uses that line at the moment.

(The above does not show as FTTP on the map, though)

Theo

[Mark Carver]

Are you sure ? you need to select, "Openreach VDSL2/FTTP Postcodes"; FTTC postcodes are then indicated with red, amber, or green spots (depending on estimated FTTC speed)

[Chris Green]

There's no new builds down our road.

Er, quite, i.e. it's wrong.

[Martin Brown]

Poles with fibre on tend to sprout a small yellow label on them saying words to the effect of "Warning fibre overhead". Ours also have a "do not climb" notice on them since they are loose in the ground and bent like bananas after tree fell on the mains cable colocated with them.

In places the mains is two phase and neutral bare metal as three wires in a vertical configuration higher up the pole. They have to bring in a cherry picker to work on them.

If you find the right map then it might. There are lots of out of date maps for mobile phone coverage and broadband coverage. I had my FTTP installed months before the village was officially notified that it was available! I did eventually get a postcard informing me it was "here".

[Vir Campestris]

They rolled out fibre to our village a few years ago. I've recently heard rumours that some people do have FTTC. It used to be all tot he exchange, and single figure Mbit rates.

I expect the long runs will all end up being fibre, so rural locations may be better than cities. Fibre is more reliable - it doesn't corrode.

Andy

[The Natural Philosopher]

What is abundantly clear to me already, is that fibre is pretty much

100% reliable, and as yet there is no degrade mechanism. It works or its broken, basically. Ergo if OpenRetch could wave a magic wand and have it everywhere and no copper, they would.

Its the same with overhead 11KV cables. The grid company hasn't installed any new for years - all new is underground, where the chance of a digger mashing it is way lower than being struck by lightning, or having a tree blow onto it. In short the interest rates on the more expensive capital costs are offset by the less wages needed to be paid to maintain it.

It works out cheaper to do it right.

So OpenRetch want fibre and an end to all ageing corroding copper.

The question is how to finance doing it and where to get enough trained engineers to do it.

It will take time.

[Andrew]

Sharks will bite through it :-).

Probably not of much concern to us though.

[Joe]

Rats will chew it. My son's block of flats lost their Net that way.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yes, its probably time to create insect proof and rodent proof sheatung.

[Andy Burns]

Email from plusnet today ...

==== Your broadband (Unlimited Fibre Extra) and line rental contract is coming to an end on 17th February 2023.

When your contract ends your monthly price will go from £31.96 to £47.54. Price changes apply.

Ofcom, the communications regulator, requires us to show you the current best prices available for you.

Here is your best price (in line with Ofcom guidance) Unlimited Fibre Extra broadband and line rental for £23.99 a month. 18 month contract. Add Evenings & Weekends Included call plan to your package for an additional £0.00 per month. ====

mind you with CPI+3.9% it'll soon be back to £30/month