BT has, finally, connected me to fibre broadband this morning. All the people involved have been really efficient, courteous and even charming, going out of their way to help. But that's not my reason for noting this.
My reason for doing that is to note the phenomenal increase in broadband speed that this has given rise to. I am now connecting at about five times the speed that I was first thing this morning, before the connection was put in.
Given that I spent a great deal of my life on the internet, that is inevitably going to have an impact upon my productivity, and eliminate the frustrations that I have sometimes suffered whilst waiting to do the most basic things, such as loading an email.
It has taken years for the speed that I know exists in places like the universities where I have worked to now be available in my home. Given the dependence of this country on people now working at home it's ridiculous that the rollout of high-speed broadband is taking so long when other countries are so far ahead of us.
Do you know that advert about Fatima? If that fictional ballet dancer really needed another job, helping roll out broadband in rural communities would be high on the list. Cyber is not that relevant until you can access it.
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I live in rural Derbyshire and my connection is still shite.
I can’t quite believe the change this morning
We’ve (surprisingly), had very fast broadband in our smallish east coast town (population of the local conurbation is over 160k) for many years now. I remember Diamond Cable installing the lines many years ago in the days before the internet was a thing which became fortunately became ntl and then Virginmedia in due course. Connections of hundreds of megabits are relatively cheap. The only problem is that VM have us over a barrel. ADSL top speed in the local area is around 6 megs because Openreach have simply never bothered to roll out faster connections here. It leads to the inexorable cranking up of VM’s prices year on year and you have to be willing to take a big hit in connectivity if you want to move to a different ISP. So much for competition!?
not the cheapest but a shout out here for Zen from customer service perspective – Been with them many years now after BeThere got absorbed by Sky.
I used them once upon a while
But this was an Openreach issue, of course
Living in rural Wales we went from 0.3Mbps to 50Mbps when we got fibre to the property subsidised by Welsh government. In this digital age it was life transforming. Anyone gets the chance, grab it with both hands.
72mpbs here now….amazing
Ive had grim experiences with broadband, which ended with me getting through to the CEO of BT! I know something of the industry and it was apparent that whilst the Openreach engineers are mostly competent and doing their best, the management of Openreach and the systems that support them were and perhaps still are utterly hopeless. In my letter to the BT CEO I offered cheekily to put a team of experienced people together to help tackle their problems. I got a reply from his personal team of trouble shooters the following day… The problem was a simple as a broken telephone wire from the pole to our house which their fancy diagnostics had not picked up.
Its not just a rural/northern issue; Im in relatively rural, Surrey/Hampshire borders. The cables to our group of houses are aluminium, laid in the 70s when copper was expensive and now rotting away. The engineers have perennial problems and there’s an Openreach van in the road most weeks! It would make total sense for them to replace it by fibre if only to save on the maintenance costs but i guess short term thinking rules.
On a regular basis I work with guy in the European Commission, ex-telecomms engineer. Back in the 1990s/early 2000s the Commission calaculated that if the likes of BT ripped out all their copper and went fibre – they would make a profit even after the fibre investment simply by selling the scrap copper. Did you know, that per metre fibre costs less than good quality bog-roll. Did you know that BT in 1980 tested its first overhead fibre line between Machynlleth and Dollgellau (in Wales).
So here we are, 40 years later & BT finally pulls its finger out. One reason this has taken so long is the support given to “ADSL” (asynchronous digital subscriber line” – piece of junk but various Euro telco companies bet on it – so they kept it going – long after its sell-by date. FTTH (fibre to the home) was ready to go by the mid-1990s. Nowt happened.
Richard, I am very pleased that you now have a fit for purpose Internet connection. Had governments of various complexions (in the Uk & elsewhere) had the brains/balls this could have happened 10 years ago. Apologioes for pouring cold water on everything – but maybe you found the background of interest.
Thanks Mike
Having lived with about 3mb from BT for years we went for a microwave link (subsidised by Welsh Gov) which gave us 40/50mb – at a cost of £50 per month. Only 1 snag: you can`t search with google (on some machines)
So, still on BT at 3meg….
Have a look at duckduckgo.com, Brian. The results are just as good and they don’t track you round the internet
Hello again Richard. In one sense you’ve been waiting nearly half-a-century for BT to connect you to fibre broadband.
Back in the 70’s, British Telecom’s Chief Technology Officer (Dr Peter Cochrane) persuaded them to invest heavily in digital technology.
By the mid-80’s, Britain had more fibre cable per capita than any other nation. In 1990 there were BT factories in Ipswich and Birmingham producing components for local loops; the first wide-area fibre-optic network was in Hastings.
Then… along came Thatcher!
BT was privatized; factories sold to HP & Fujitsu, assets stripped and expertise lost to Korea & Japan.
In the Far East, Broadband rollout continued apace whereas Western countries were hampered by political incompetence.
My dearly departed mother got fibre to the home via self-help B4RN about two years ago, in a Cumbrian village. From about 1 Mb/s to 1000 download, and 0.25 Mb/s to 1000 upload. We could all have that.
Agreed
Congratulations Richard. Here in rural mid Devon I have had the BT fibre connection for 3 years now at 75Mbps and it works wonderfully. The only problem is that we regularly get mains power cuts rendering it all useless.
But there is still Vodafone at 4G on the mobile.
I used to have regular (almost frequent) power cuts in Norfolk – that does not happen here
Moving south a few miles helped in that regard!
This piece of news about Oneweb has interesting possibilities.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-53370930
Maybe…
I used the skills I learned as a kid working on a farm (like driving a digger) to do the civil engineering work for the last 1.2km back in 2016. Openreach provided the duct, etc. My neighbour and I did the groundwork, we now have 300m up from 0.1mb when it was not raining. http://ruraldebugging.blogspot.com/2016/08/broadband-final-installment-fttp-very.html. Christmas 2015 in a trench I will remember for the wrong reasons … horizontal driving rain.
OpenReach was just amazing all the way once we were able to deal with them direct. BT, Ceredigion council and the Welsh government were beyond useless, even obstructive.
Pleased your connection is sorted. It was life-changing for us.
Good one
I am glad I did not have to go that far….
Just to show what can be done:
I have Virginmedia and have in it’s various guises for 20 years or so. Here where I am (York) I have the top broadband offering which I have just tested at 380Mbps download in the room the the router and around 200Mbps in other rooms (all wifi on a MacBook). Upload is capped at 37Mbps for domestic customers. Virgin is fibre to the kerb or cabinet – FTTK or FTTC, and co-axial to the house. They are slowly rolling out a 1gig offering.
Also, here in York we also have another cable offering from TalkTalk and FibreNation which is 1gig download & upload which is FTTH.
I suppose we’re lucky, but if it can be done here then….
I now realise that what I have been upgraded to is far below what is possible…
BT provides the admin part….Openreach provides the infrastructure.
My [basic] line is 20mbps down and 1.6mbps up.
While I admit that several hundred gbps would be nice, I must admit that I can manage on what is available. Better is available (maximum 76mbps) but at £40/month, I don’t think so.
For my needs, the 20mbps will do!!
Insultingly, my mobile phone manages 66mbps and with a similar latency to the landline!!
I had no choice but upgrade: I could sit for ages waiting for things to happen on the old line
Right now I very much doubt I need better than this…
“UK’s National Audit Office warns full-fibre rollout strategy is leaving rural Britain behind. Again
Tough luck, bumpkins! Broadband speed gap misery to widen, says report”
https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/16/national_audit_office/
Indeed…..
As something totally unrelated to data….my grandson had a need to see a paediatrician this week……no appointments were available for several months via the NHS….so we paid for him to see a specialist, at the same NHS hospital, but on the NHS paying-patient system, within 4 days.
Something is not right, somewhere. I know there is a pandemic; but..
Agreed….
This is not right
Two tier medicine…
Richard