KCC/BDUK Cabinet Upgrades

[RobL]

Updates on the progress of the KCC/BDUK project to deploy fibre to the cabinet in Speldhurst. Wasting our money on dead end technology.
Do let us know what speed you actually get if you order this! It will be faster for some, but not for all, and what a price to pay.

[RobL]

For anyone interested ... the Speldhurst Parish Council offices in Langton Green have now ordered FTTC (BT call it "Infinity"). I'll let you know what speed they get when it's up and running. They are approximately 100m from the cabinet to which they are connected (bottom of the "Twitten", I think). The Twitten is not on Google maps, but a house named "Manor Cottage" is on the map. There is a small FTTC cabinet installed there, with 80 VDSL ports on it, making 80 folk lucky, if they're close enough to be lucky.

In the centre of the village, I remain unable to order, or even get acknowledgement of a "future date" via the BT or Zen "speed checkers", so the pre-Christmas promise from Make Kent Quicker and BT has been resolutely missed. So much for big business and government doing any better than community projects. I suspect most people connected to the big cabinet outside the NDLAN exchange in Langton are experiencing the same "unavailability".

Here's what the BT website checker says:

BTOpenReach1.JPG

And here's what Zen's website checker says:

BTOpenReach2.JPG

Anyone in Speldhurst got any news?

Rgds,
--RobL.

[Shempz]

What a farce. Only 80 VDSL ports. What's the point of that?

I shudder to think how many (sorry, how "few") Fordcombe will get!

[RobL]

What a farce. Only 80 VDSL ports. What's the point of that?

I shudder to think how many (sorry, how "few") Fordcombe will get!

It's not just whether you are quick enough to grab one of the available "superfast" (cough) ports when they do get installed, it's what speed you actually get from it that is a lottery. With so much aluminium cable around, and countryside water, wind, snow and ice, the metal in the cable going from the cabinet to your house has a tough time ahead of it.

All of the online speed estimations are based on healthy cable/metal, and no knowledge of how long that cable really is, in the real world. All bets are off if you're unlucky enough to get a bad one.

What a waste of money the FTTC technology is.

[RobL]

More news from the buzzing efficiency of the Speldhurst Parish Council offices in Langton.

They have had BT Infinity for just over a week now, via the cabinet in the Twitten on the NDLAN telephone switch.

Speed Test 150116.jpg

Speed tests vary from 23.9Mbps (measured at 11:15am on a Friday) up to 34Mbps (measured some other time - not sure when). Upstream varies between 7 and 9 Mbps. This is what happens with under-provisioned operator backhaul and copper wiring - it isn't fibre, despite what BT and others would have you believe with their advertising. I will keep saying this, as long as they keep advertising it as fibre

--RobL.

[Clarky]

For those of us currently 'enjoying' between 3 and 4.5mb anything over 10 would be a drastic improvement. 25mb would be glorious but at what price?

[RobL]

For those of us currently 'enjoying' between 3 and 4.5mb anything over 10 would be a drastic improvement. 25mb would be glorious but at what price?

Well - to tie you in for 12-18 months Sky and BT will offer it "free", but with line rental at £16.99(ish) per month. That line rental tax will be around as long as BT Openreach infrastructure is the only way to get cost effective broadband to us rural folk. The real cost, once they've given you the intro-offer, is £30/month usually. Line rental plus whatever they decide to charge you.

It's the BDUK £1.2b public money giveaway that worries me, on dead-end copper infrastructure. It's just "wrong". Our government is ensuring the copper remains the only cost effective way, by not supporting community initiatives like B4RN and B4RS, and making it a fair playing field. We're watching the KCC/BDUK project carefully, and measuring their performance as best we can, so that B4RS can fix the problem properly, the right way, once they're done spending our money on it.

I'm lucky enough to get ADSL2+ with 18Mbps to me, and 1.2Mbps back to the internet. I struggle with that, when downloading the next Microsoft Server ISO which is 3+ Gigabytes in size, or when the kids want to watch a movie while I do a conference call using VoIP. We shouldn't be worrying about measly amounts of bandwidth - the technology exists to make it irrelevant. Our government and the incumbent don't want the status quo to change. That's the real problem.

[Clarky]

Well - to tie you in for 12-18 months Sky and BT will offer it "free", but with line rental at £16.99(ish) per month. That line rental tax will be around as long as BT Openreach infrastructure is the only way to get cost effective broadband to us rural folk. The real cost, once they've given you the intro-offer, is £30/month usually. Line rental plus whatever they decide to charge you.

It's the BDUK £1.2b public money giveaway that worries me, on dead-end copper infrastructure. It's just "wrong". Our government is ensuring the copper remains the only cost effective way, by not supporting community initiatives like B4RN and B4RS, and making it a fair playing field. We're watching the KCC/BDUK project carefully, and measuring their performance as best we can, so that B4RS can fix the problem properly, the right way, once they're done spending our money on it.

I'm lucky enough to get ADSL2+ with 18Mbps to me, and 1.2Mbps back to the internet. I struggle with that, when downloading the next Microsoft Server ISO which is 3+ Gigabytes in size, or when the kids want to watch a movie while I do a conference call using VoIP. We shouldn't be worrying about measly amounts of bandwidth - the technology exists to make it irrelevant. Our government and the incumbent don't want the status quo to change. That's the real problem.

I agree it is far from a perfect solution but I see no immediate change unless there is some form of legislation, perhaps a tax on Broadband use designed to create a fund from the non commercially viable rural projects could benefit. It is a numbers game alas and our numbers just don't stack up. Having just looked I now see that I'm being offered improvements from BT and Sky. I'm currently with Sky which was a massive improvement on the calamity that was TalkTalk. The only downside I can see is the 18month contract which for someone in rented accommodation is a little risky, especially with the way the housing market has been going lately. We are not far from the church so physical distance to the box is probably less than 100m. They suggest 40-50mb. I'd be happy with half of that as I currently drive to Crowborough daily because my business is broadband reliant.

FTTC I suppose is a way of offering a lower cost improvement, quickly, getting people off of their backs and fudging the 'fibre' figures. It is a stopgap but at least an improvement that makes a real difference to those who were struggling with ridiculously low speeds.

[stonewall100]

Rob,
Kevin (Speldhurst - near Barden Road) sent me this message:" I went for the "up to" 38mbps package with Sky, and I'm getting about 37.5 according to the white box. ". Sounds pretty reasonable.

[RobL]

Thanks Lawrence.

Yep. He's one of the very lucky ones, within a hundred metres of a cabinet given the speed he's seeing, with decent copper.

For every one of those good services, we'll see far more who have crap copper, possibly right next door to Kevin, and gets "up to" that speed, which could be anything "down to" 10Mbps where I *think* BT refuse to provide service as the VDSL service is considered commercially unviable.

Here's a fantastic link, to a BBC Newsnight review where Bill Murphy (BT), Ed Vaisey (MP) and Peter Cochrane (ex-BT CTO) all get their say on why what Kevin has got, and you and I might get, sometime, maybe, in the future, is utterly wrong and a waste of money. The alternative solutions struggle, and have not been given a fair chance, as you well know, despite universal agreement that we will end up with fibre.

More of the same from Neil Fairbrother ... here ... on why G.Fast is again, a technology cul-de-sac.

Enjoy,
--RobL.