Village broadband and high-speed optic fibre

[Alex]

 

I usually leave the computer on 24/7. At times, when connection to internet appears sluggish, I disconnect the router and then reconnect it, this at times speeds up the connection to a more acceptable speed.

I read this morning that under David Cameron's "Big Society " launch he says ;

"Local communities will get the power and money to run bus services, set up broadband internet networks and take over neighbourhood recycling schemes under a mass transfer of power from the state to the people."

[Johnny Redd]

OK reality check time............

Bottom end of Peplins Way, very close to Tumbliboo and Sasquatch but NOT benefitting from the new cable that was installed when a large length was knicked from the A1000 last year.

Typical download 250
Typical Upload 300

Thats all the time and were forced to have the most basic broadband modem (at BT Open Reach's suggestion) as nothing else detects the signal. It also takes in the order of 30 mins some days to detect any signal at all.

BT's answer - any signal in excess of 50kbps - THATS A TWENTIETH OF A MEGABIT - is considered an acceptable broadband signal!!!!

We desperately need this new local service.................

[sasquartch]

Jonny Redd - it does seem that you are NOT at all typical, most people are reporting 1.5-2.5 Mb download speeds.

It seems you have a particularly poor line. Can BT not change you to another 'pair' ?

Even if a new provider was set up to serve the village it wouldn't necessarily help you unless your line was changed or repaired.

One suggestion - do you have any neighbours that have a good service ? Could you share their connection ? Either wirelessly or via cable ? Easy enough to do and would be a way round what is clearly a source of extreme frustration for you. I'm guessing you would probably be happy to pay to share a good connection.

[awill]

In defence of Johnny Redd - and for those looking for results that back up his abysmal speeds, I live about as far up Peplins as you can get (around the green) and at 2115 this evening I got the following results from three different speed checking tools:

Broadband Speedchecker: Download 246, Upload 477
Speedtest BBMax: Download 246, Upload 475
Thinkbroadband: Download 231, Upload 505.

There is a reason I update my iphone using the wireless broadband at work....Sadly my home Mac is not a laptop otherwise I would do the same with that!

[Aloo]

Jonny Redd and awill are getting an abysmal service.   The rest of us are not getting a great service either given that the Potters Bar Exchange has been upgraded and unbundled.   
Despite the upgrade, as I understand it we still have copper going from the exchange to the village.  To get the Next Generation Access speeds, one option is for the copper to be replaced with fibre, either to the street cabinets or even better the home/premises.   (An opportunity to do some of this work and so reduce the cost, on the back of the bridge repairs and ducting being laid in the village/Bradmore has also been lost.)

The ROI for a conventional telco laying down the fibre seems to be unattractive.   I guestimate revenues of next generation broadband locally per annum  for a telco of between £20k and £60k; five year revenues of between £120k and £300k.   Initial capex of £40k, ongoing variable costs of £5k p.a.   Therefore a gross profit of worse case scenario £60k after 5 years

Also because there are areas of the country (and county) which have much worse provision than us, it is unlikely there would be any regional government grants to subsidise the costs.   

All that said, if the pure financial business case is flakey, is there an opportunity for us to form a social enterprise with the objective of getting next generation broadband introduced for the benefit of the local community and any profits to be re-invested locally?

[Arietor]

It must be worthwhile registering an interest with the EEDA by their 13 September deadline.
Is this something you could do for us , Tumbliboo?

[Alex]

 

I agree we need or could at least try to do "something"?

[Editor]

Some years ago, contractors, presumably working on behalf of a cable company, dug up the pavement on Moffats and laid a tube down the south side of the lane with small beer-mat-sized plastic cover inspection hatches outside the houses. We didn't ask for this, so I presume other houses were serviced in a similar way.  

When we had the drive relaid some years back, we had a branch from that hatch laid under our drive and to our house. We had a black pull chord (see image below) fitted to connect the two so that if cable were to be laid outside, we could pull it through to the outside wall of our house.

So, for the lower half of Moffats at least, there is already a pipe in place. If that work has been repreated throughout Brookmans Park (perhaps others will chip in if it was carried out in their area) then perhaps a large part of the cost has already been met, but I don't know by whom.

The writing on the cover reads CATV CableTel.  I Googled CableTel and found this...

CableTel took over NTL (the broadcast company) and traded for a while as "CableTel: Part of the NTL Group" and then as NTL CableTel. Then it took over ComTel, Cambridge Cable (which was owned by Comcast, the American cable operator) and Diamond Cable. I think the BT Cable (yes, BT) franchises came next (Westminster and Milton Keynes?) and then the merger with Cable and Wireless Communications, itself a product of a 3-way merger.

David

[Aloo]

Hi David

I used to work for a cable company, several years ago, so my knowledge maybe out of date, but I recall Cabletel assets were swallowed up by NTL.  NTL consumer business trades as Virgin, the business brand trades as NTL-Telewest.   I suspect that even with the dark fibre laid, the costs of "lighting -up" the fibre, provisioning, billing etc for a small section of the village (and therefore limited number of subscribers) would be unattractive for NTL.   Don't take this as gospel though, others may have a more up to date perspective.

In terms of registering for the EEDA support, I'll download the EOI and application form.   

[Alex]

 

Appear to have good know how on the case- thanks, and you have my support!

[Bob]

Hi David

I used to work for a cable company, several years ago, so my knowledge maybe out of date, but I recall Cabletel assets were swallowed up by NTL.  NTL consumer business trades as Virgin, the business brand trades as NTL-Telewest.   I suspect that even with the dark fibre laid, the costs of "lighting -up" the fibre, provisioning, billing etc for a small section of the village (and therefore limited number of subscribers) would be unattractive for NTL.   Don't take this as gospel though, others may have a more up to date perspective.

In terms of registering for the EEDA support, I'll download the EOI and application form.   

Do you not have access to Virgin TV in Brookmans park as we do in Cuffley because those are the same cable box covers that we have ?

[sharks]

Undoubtedly the way forward is that over time we will all move to wireless broadband as the cost of this service is coming down quicker than we can dig holes in the ground and lay cables.

Sharks

[Aidan Winwood]

Agreed regarding wireless taking over - whether the 4G services we get get in the UK are WiMAX or LTE (I think the current plans are for LTE), they are apparently testing upwards of 100-150 mbps up and download so copper-cable services are likely to be on their way out within 5 years and even optic will not be as quick.

Aidan

[Peter Hastings]

See the Ofcom report about us all being misled on this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10760069

[Bedlam]

Recently switched over to a BT Home Hub with no speed/connectin problems so far. 

[NMLHS]

I've only just logged onto this thread and have not yet read all of it but it struck me that I now get 0.9 mbps down and 0.3 up in Moffats Lane after giving my provider TalkTalk a talking to.  Previously I was getting about 2.25 to 0.3 mbps - my record was 0.036 download and 0.22 upload.

I considered the well advertised Virgin offer of 20 mbps and more but when I enquired I was told there was no fibre optic supply so I would not actually get more than 3 Mb on a good day. (Smacks of optimism to the extent of misrepresentation - covered of course in the small print.)

I also get a maximum of about 5 Mb upload capacity. Anything over that bounces back with "undeliverable" error message.  Does anyone else have this problem?

Therefore I shall await developments on Brookmans Broadband with interest.

[sasquartch]

I also get a maximum of about 5 Mb upload capacity. Anything over that bounces back with "undeliverable" error message.  Does anyone else have this problem?

I assume you're talking about email attachments. If so, this is most likely a restriction of whatever SMTP mail server you are using, it will have mothing to do with the actual speed of your connection.

[NMLHS]

I assume you're talking about email attachments. If so, this is most likely a restriction of whatever SMTP mail server you are using, it will have mothing to do with the actual speed of your connection.

Ah! Thanks; that would be the reason.

[Editor]

From the BBC...

BT competition seeks out UK's next fibre hotspots

Communities that are keen to obtain fibre-based broadband are being asked to publicly declare their desire for high-speed net access. BT will log responses to a website to get a better idea of the potential demand for fibre-based services

If you go to the BT Infinity site, http://www.bt.com/infinity there is a box on the right where you can enter your postcode to register interest in having optic fibre installed locally. The box looks like the images attached below.

Clearly, the decision will be made on a business basis, so numbers will be important.

[Mermaid]

Great! Thanks Dave, I've registered   

[BrookyP]

http://www.racetoinfinity.bt.com/

this is the web site to go to.

ive registered and it says we are already scheduled for it.

which is great....not sure when though...bp

[BrookyP]

amazing...just found this info on http://www.thinkbroadband.com/

-basically we are on for infinity by dec 2011


BT Openreach announce 159 new fibre broadband exchanges
Wednesday 29 September 2010 17:21:51 by John Hunt
BT have announced a further 159 exchanges today which will see faster broadband made available using Fibre-to-the-Cabinet technology. The new exchanges are part of Phase 6 of the roll out of fibre-based broadband which offers speeds of up to 40Mbps using technology installed in road-side cabinets. Only a handful of service providers currently offer this faster broadband which uses BT's network, but more will be coming on board as more areas receive the upgrades.

This latest update also details some exchanges which are to receive Fibre-to-the-Home/Premises (FTTH or FTTP) where fibre is run all the way to the building, and can offer faster speeds up to 100Mbps, but it's important to note that this won't be available to everyone in an area.

The new exchanges announced today are listed below. The 'Indicative live date' is an estimate only and in some cases, exchanges have seen these dates change by over 18 months. Previously announced exchanges can be found in the following articles:

PONTELAND   Northumberland   FTTC/P   Sep 2011
POTTERS BAR   Hertfordshire   FTTC   Dec 2011
PRUDHOE   Northumberland   FTTC/P   Dec 2011

[Aloo]

Super fast broadband - apparently our exchange is on the roll-out plan for superfast fibre-optic  (not sure whether there is any possibility of getting FTTP), looks like BT are offering FTTC.   

Also not clear to me when our exchange (Potters Bar) is being upgraded looks like Autumn 2011.   

[Aloo]

Relevant link is http://www.racetoinfinity.bt.com/home

[sasquartch]

There appears to be two distinct parts to this - firstly the exchange has to be upgraded (which we are told is late 2011) then presumably fibre has to be laid to the cabinet (or premises) (unless this is done in parallel.)

So my guess is that the more urban areas like Potters Bar itself will get the service first and outlying areas like BP will be later. So it may well be a few years away yet.

[Editor]

There appears to be two distinct parts to this - firstly the exchange has to be upgraded (which we are told is late 2011) then presumably fibre has to be laid to the cabinet (or premises) (unless this is done in parallel.)

A cable company laid the pipes ages ago. We have an access point at our house. It just needs the cable feeding through, but not sure who owns the infrastructure.

Check this post earlier in the thread for pictures.

http://www.brookmans.com/forum/index.php?topic=937.msg22440#msg22440

[sasquartch]

Nothing exists in Peplins Way as far as I know - so it's possible only a small amount of BP was cabled (or just the ducts installed) before the cable company (whoever they were) abandoned the project.

If the new infrastructure is fibre to the cabinet then possibly fibre can be laid along existing ducts anyway with no new connections required to each individual house. If that's the case then maybe fast broadband isn't as far away as it could be.

[Abbot]

Perhaps when the copper was taken along the A1000, they replaced it with Fibre. Or did that go to the mobile Mast??

How is the Broadband at the RVC??

[Alex]

 
BT are plugging "The race to Infinity" which is their super fast fibre optic broadband which they are lauching nationwide.Interested parties can register their interest and importantly, can vote to get broadband sooner rather than later. It's a race, the more votes in an area will determine the pecking order for the faster speeds.

Quote from their web site;

"The Race to Infinity is on: Vote now.
 
Remember, lots of people across the UK are voting for their towns, too. So if you want your area to get BT Infinity sooner, now's your chance to make it happen".

The link;  http://www.racetoinfinity.bt.com/

[slimgym]

Aren't we already due by Sept 2011 - I think the vote is for places with dates which haven't been decided yet.