Broadband

Rural broadband progress 'slower than dial-up'

'POOR broadband is continuing to leaving rural businesses at a social and economic disadvantage.'

http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/business/rural-broadband-progress-slower-than-dial-up/69179.article

UK broadband services still patchy, Ofcom reveals

'But it admitted that 3% of premises do not have basic broadband of 2Mbps. And 15% can't receive 10Mbps - the usual requirement for a typical household these days.'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30375854

To avoid confusion and rising anger, let’s abolish line rental

A good article which explains how our telephone lines deliver a service for our online life.  It also goes some way to describing why it is difficult, nay well nigh impossible, to get a direct answer from BT Openreach about when our cabinets in Nocton will be upgraded to fibre. We are not their customers!

http://theconversation.com/to-avoid-confusion-and-rising-anger-lets-abolish-line-rental-34951

BT Openreach

'Openreach provides the same products, support and levels of service to all service providers. It works on behalf of over 500 service providers (such as Sky, TalkTalk, BT and daisy) to maintain the local access network that connects 18 million homes and businesses to 5,500 local telephone exchanges using 120 million kilometres of cable.'

http://www.homeandwork.openreach.co.uk/openreach-explained/

Why can’t I contact Openreach directly for phone or broadband problems?

'All of your details are held by your service provider. They provide your phone/broadband service and manage your account. We simply don’t have the information needed to help you.'

http://www.homeandwork.openreach.co.uk/problems-with-your-phone-or-broadband/

SamKnows

'SamKnows has been providing UK broadband availability information via SamKnows.com since 2003. The broadband availability service was the original catalyst for the SamKnows site, started by Sam Crawford whilst at University as part of his computer sciences degree. The purpose of the original site was to track and campaign for local loop unbundling in the UK on behalf of consumers. At that time, the UK consumer had little choice in terms of broadband provider, SamKnows became the focal point for the campaign to unbundle telephone exchanges to enable greater competition, to the significant benefit of the UK consumer!

On SamKnows.com you'll find the wholesale services available in each location. These are the broadband providers who have deployed their own networks in the area that is defined by either the postcode or telephone number entered into the broadband availability checker. SamKnows also provides a telephone exchange search service, this enables you to search for telephone exchanges by entering your postcode and to map them via Google maps (see below for our local Metheringham Exchange).

Metheringham Exchange
https://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/SLMIM

Fibre Broadband

The following information has been extracted from a question and answer session on the BT Forums:

'The rollout of Fibre broadband (FTTC/P) is being managed and done by Openreach for all ISPs & Communication Providers. Openreach's Superfast Fibre Broadband plans are considered commercially sensitive so they are not released to the public. If there is no mention of WBC FTTC when checking the BT Wholesale Database then unfortunately it looks like your cabinet isn't currently in Openreach's fibre broadband rollout plan.

Click here to see what your looking for in the BT Wholesale Database.

The Openreach Superfast Fibre Broadband rollout is still in it's early stages and the plans are always being added too.  So your cabinet may be upgraded in the future, though there is no public time scale on when that will be. Please bear in mind that in some cases it may not be possible to provide FTTC broadband in areas due to: 

• Your line may be too far from the local street cabinet to have a stable FTTC broadband service such as BT Infinity service.
• Your local street cabinet may not be suitable for fibre optic cables.
• We haven't yet got the council's planning permission to do the necessary work at your local street cabinet.
• Your home may not be suitable for fibre optic cables.
• Your landlord may not have agreed to the fibre infrastructure being provided in your building (for example if you live in a flat).
• There isn't a adequate power supply
• Health and safety issues
• No ducting or inadequate ducting
• plus lots more.

The build of the fibre broadband infrastructure in the area isn't always easy and can be very complex. Unfortunately BT Retail (a communication provider/ISP who operates this forum) does not have much say as to when and if you will be able to get FTTC or FTTP/H based broadband such as BT Infinity.

You can register your interest for Fibre Broadband such as BT Infinity by going to: http://www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/expression-gen.aspx

You can keep checking the BT Wholesale Database and BT Infinity website for the most up to date information as these are updated regularly.

The Openreach When and Where website is: http://www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/where-and-when/

Source: https://community.bt.com/t5/BT-Infinity-Speed-Connection/Where-are-the-cabinet-roll-out-plans/td-p/825458