Superfast Broadband
You may like to refer back to earlier enquiries about an improved broadband service to Nocton before reading on.
North Kesteven District Council
This announcement appeared on NKDC's Facebook page yesterday:
'The roll-out of Superfast Broadband across Lincolnshire is happening right now! Superfast broadband is now available in parts of Ruskington, Waddington, Navenby & Scopwick within the district. To find out if this means you, take a look here: http://onlincolnshire.org or call your Internet Service Provider.'
Onlincolnshire Website
I therefore decided to contact Onlincolnshire for an update about the service to our village:
Contact Form Submission
'I am having great difficulty ascertaining from both BT and BT OpenReach when we might be able to have Superfast Broadband. This is most disappointing since our cabinet (Metheringham No 3) is already fibre enabled, yet BT say that we cannot have Infinity. Any information you have on this matter will be welcomed.'
Email Response
'Dear Geoff
Thank you for your correspondence. Your cabinet has had fibre connected up to it from the exchange but the connection between the cabinet and the premises remains as copper; the faster signal cannot travel over 2.5km over copper. Unfortunately Metheringham 3 is more than 2.5km away from your property which means you will not be able to sign up for a faster product at this stage. We are aware of the issues in Nocton and hope to rectify these in Phase 2 of the programme which aims to bring the fibre closer to properties.
Once the tender is in for Phase 2 and modelling is complete we will be able to share our rollout plans with the people of Lincolnshire.
Apologies for this disappointing news – I hope that we can rectify this for you before the end of the programme
Kind regards'
If I manage to get any further information on the timeline for Phase 2, I will update you here on the blog.
Latest Update - 16th January
Email
You kindly answered my query about Superfast Broadband for our village recently - this is part of your response:
'We are aware of the issues in Nocton and hope to rectify these in Phase 2 of the programme which aims to bring the fibre closer to properties. Once the tender is in for Phase 2 and modelling is complete we will be able to share our rollout plans with the people of Lincolnshire."
Please will you give me an estimate for the expected timeline and a bit more detail about the processes involved:
1. When is the tender for Phase 2 scheduled to be issued and how long would this normally take?
2. Explain in more detail what the modelling phase involves.
3. How long after the tender and modelling does it normally take for the rollout to happen?
Many thanks.
Reply
Hi Geoff
The tender has now been issued and we expect the response to this in May at the latest. Modelling takes everyone who is in the intervention area with low speeds into account. The ‘winning’ supplier will model an infrastructure build using the technologies available to them to try and attain the best speeds for the largest amount of people, using funds as efficiently as possible.
We’ll be able to supply a timeframe when the modelling and planning is complete but if BT win the tender we are going to ask them to start phase 2 whilst completing phase 1. They may have the resource available to do this or they may state that phase 2 needs to wait until after phase 1 – it really depends on the solutions they arrive at and resource availability.
Phase 2 aims to improve superfast coverage (after phase 1) across the UK from 90% to 95% - Nocton is definitely on our radar and we will do our best to include the village in the programme.
I apologise for being vague and understand how frustrating this must be for you. Please bear with us and we will strive to arrive at a solution for you.
Kind regards
Naomi
Email
Hi Naomi,
Just a short note of thanks for the very prompt responses to both my enquiries. I have had terrible difficulty getting any such response at all from either BT or BT Openreach, so your excellent customer service has been refreshing.
I don’t know if you could somehow keep me informed of progress if that would be at all possible? If you could make some form of reminder on your ‘system’, then that would be superb. I can then keep our local community up to date, rather than everybody trying to make the same enquiry.
Best wishes,
Geoff
Rural broadband: BT attacked on broadband costs
'The government said that the spare cash would be ploughed back into offering fast broadband to more remote areas.'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31043548
BT Trials Prove Potential For Ultrafast Broadband Over Copper
'BT today unveiled the results of new field trials that show 'ultrafast' broadband - with combined downstream and upstream speeds of up to one Gigabit per second (1000 Mbps) - can be delivered via a mix of fibre and copper.'
http://www.btplc.com/news/articles/showarticle.cfm?articleid=%7B1f647c20-6f61-4e0f-a545-e23443e128ab%7D
Video: Using G.Fast technology to deliver fibre-like speeds over copper.
'Ultrafast broadband over a mix of copper and fibre.'
http://www.btplc.com/Innovation/Innovationnews/gfast/index.htm
Hi Geoff,
ReplyDeleteI recently moved to Nocton In June last year and have contacted OnLincolnshire on several occasions regarding bringing Fibre broadband to the village.
Below is the latest correspondence I received for your info.
Regards, Jim Mellor
I live in Nocton and the fibre cabinet Metheringham 3 has been enabled (July 2014). As I understand it due to the distance from the Cabinet I would not benefit from the faster fibre broadband. I currently only receive speeds of between 1.0 - 2.5 Mbps, which is very slow and frustrating. I recently had my line repaired by openreach (fault outside property under ground) and the engineer informed me that even though my property is between 1.5 - 2km from cab 3, I would still receive significantly faster broadband , approx. 8- 10 Mbps, which I would gladly pay for on a Fibre broadband package deal, even though I would receive below the 16mbps guarantee speed. Could you advise on what I could do ? Do you have a contact address/phone no etc where I could talk to someone in BT ? My property is on Main street Nocton which is at the end of the village closest to Cab 3. The cab 3 is located on the B1188 road , just at the Dunston turn off.
Hello James,
We are aware of the poor connectivity in Nocton and the fact that the fibre cabinet enabled last year has provided no remedy to the poor connectivity. We have requested that BT look at additional options for Nocton (this will most likely involve a cabinet being located in Nocton itself) and this is currently with the BT planners. We are confident that if there is a viable solution we will be able to requested the additional work, although there are no timescales on how long this would take at present.
In relation to the observations of the BT engineer; whilst he is correct about the distances and theoretical speed that you should be able to attain, this doesn’t always reflect what is actually available to order. The following link https://www.dslchecker.bt.com/ can be used to check which services are available at your address; unfortunately this information is also what all internet services providers who offer a product using BT Openreach's network use to determine service availability. Fibre to the cabinet services are not listed as available at your address so if you contact internet service providers they will state that it isn’t available.
I appreciate this is a frustrating situation knowing that there is potentially a solution available, but being unable to utilise it, but we are doing our best to remedy this and if a cabinet is located in Nocton then the majority of residents can expect speeds in the 50-80Mbps range.
Kind regards,
Owen Williams
Business Support Projects & Training team
Supporting Lincolnshire Broadband Programme
Lincolnshire County Council
Hi Jim, Welcome to Nocton... and many thanks for your contribution to the blog. Despite all the hype from BT and OnLincolnshire about how superfast broadband is being rolled out across this rural county of ours, I find it astonishing there isn't a scheduled timeline of the work required to upgrade the various communities. It will be interesting to see just how long it takes for our village to be upgraded. Best regards, Geoff
ReplyDeleteThanks Geoff,
ReplyDeleteFingers crossed that Fibre will come to the village eventually, will just need to keep pestering them !
Kind Regards, Jim