Much as I like the countryside where I have lived nearly all my life, it’s become a right PITA trying to get normal every day work and general stuff done using tinternet & phone, it seems to have got steadily worse this year for some reason.

Mobile phone reception is terrible to non-existent for 02 we’re on and other people who come around on other networks say it’s equally bad. This coupled with terrible BT landline/broadband that runs slow and drops out continuously means both life and work related activities are being really hampered. When I complain I get the same old answer, try this try that, told by operators it’s fine and palmed off. Not made any difference and it’s definitely getting worse.

We’re 8 houses in a hamlet, 3 miles from the nearest village (where apparently there is a BT exchange and people there get 1 or 2 bars mobile reception). Us and neighbours have been on to council to see if they can lobby and use their influence but no joy yet. I could swap networks for mobile and even BT although having spoken to neighbours on other providers it makes no difference, still rubbish reception and poor landline. Just resent paying for a service for both that I really need for work more than anything and it’s totally shit.

So living in the countryside in the UK in 2016 isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Will the operators/government ever invest to improve things? Can’t see it happening soon. Been told rural Russia and other Euro countries have far better coverage for both internet and mobiles than we do here. Might be easier to move I suppose.
Rant over.
Won’t start on how crap the roads are as well, ditches blocked and hedges overgrown etc. I’m not a DM reader either.

Red stripe – are you my neighbour…..seriously I’m in one of 8houses in a hamlet 3 miles from the village and have crap internet and next to no phone signal

And me! Only 5 houses here though. Benefits outweigh the downsides.

Just tell them to send out an engineer. They’ll replace some lines/connections and improve it.

A mate of mine runs the council rural broadband project round here. You can put a bid in for his services when he’s done here.

Crap broadband – yup. I’m straight from the exchange so no chance of any improvement until ’18 (ain’t holding my breath over that neither).
Crap mobile – yup, had to move to EE. On Vodafone I couldn’t pick up even texts for a six week period once… Had to walk 5 mins to find a signal to make a call.

And I’m about 10 miles west of TR so I’m sure he’s probably skimming off the good stuff before it gets to me…. 😀

Wow, this thread loaded quickly. 😉

I am with you – my old work was very limited mobile and no broadband, only satelite broadband option. It is hard to believe these days…

Will the operators/government ever invest to improve things? [/I]

I think you mean ‘spend’, not invest. As they’ll never get a ‘return’.

FWIW I live ‘off-piste’, its all of 1/2 mile from a village with a +1000 strong council head office and recently I gave in and doubled our spend to get double the speed. Now £50 per month…

I think there is a village in Wales that got electricity about 5 years ago if it makes you feel better!

Tbh I’m not that desperate to get better internet that I’ll spend more I spend 9 quid a month Inc line rental so get my money’s worth.

How ever I must add I have had faster internet while being driven hrough the Turkmen desert in a Toyota previa 🙂

I think there is a village in Wales that got electricity about 5 years ago if it makes you feel better!

Bangor?

😉

puh!

I’m 10 minutes walk from a railway station where I can pick up a train, should I so desire, that will get me to London Waterloo in 45 minutes.
I’m 45 minutes from Heathrow, Gatwick or Southampton (a gem!) airports or half an hour from a ferry to France. Communications are superb!

But, my broadband service is absolute garbage- 2.5 Mb/s this evening and a Ping of 5500 (is that good?). There are about 100 houses in my road, in a town of about 10,000 people, but BT steadfastly refuse to supply 21st century technology and I can’t go anywhere else to get it. It’s a **** disgrace that BT should have a monopoly on this.It doesn’t matter what I spend, I’ll never get quicker internet than this here.

Hmm…small village (<40 houses) in the heart of the Cotswolds, 38MB broadband and 4G at 75%.

It’s pretty good here 🙂

Virgin*?? *ducks*

*I have never used nor do I work for the afore mentioned 😀

In Bristle my 4G connection blows the broadband out the water. Just use my iPhone as a wi-fi hotspot

Daffy, neighbour of Dave & Jezza?
Whenever I speak to the BT bods in India they always say speed is within what’s expected but don’t explain why it drops out usually 5 or 6 times a day and router needs rebooting, bah

Nope, but the broadband and 4g was a deal breaker after living in similar conditions to the OP.

I resorted to importing, modifying and secretly installing 3G signal boosters from the States to relay signals to the barn.

How very, very STW…

‘We moved to the countryside, but the broadband is awful!’.

‘Well Jeff off back to the city then, Chimp’.

Village of (guessing) 500 houses. Only 10 miles from a decent a sized city with great ICT infrastructure (lived there until 2 years ago) – it has strong 4g signal and I had constant 80Mbps connection.

On a good day I get 1Mbps down and 0.3Mbps up. Reasonable 3g signal on 3 but no 4g (at least on that network). Half the village has 200Mbps service but that will never get to us on the (ironically enough) new development.

Currently trying to persuade Sky there’s something wrong as neighbours on the same infrastructure but different ISPs are getting the dizzy heights of 8Mbps!

Still, in a month’s time (hopefully) our crowdfunded upgrade will go live and we should see 50Mbps…

BT steadfastly refuse to supply 21st century technology and I can’t go anywhere else to get it

A bit of patience and a bit more lobbying, it will come unless you are incredibly unlucky and are really remote.

Openreach are going at it to try and get superfast internet installed. Its a £3 billion investment in the network, 25 million properties with superfast access so far and 27,000 properties enabled each week. It’ll come…if you are really remote perhaps it won’t be a fibre to the cab/premise solution, but there will be a solution.

Perhaps Virgin would like to cough up the investment or bid for some BDUK government funding, or even share their network with the other ISPs…thought not…they’ll stick to urban areas where there is a greater return on investment…

Half the village has 200Mbps service but that will never get to us on the (ironically enough) new development.

Why so sure? I pulled the cables into my estate and they livened up the whole lot with fibre to the cab…except for half of my street. Turns out I was fed from a small cabinet with few connections, which meant throwing tens of thousands at another cabinet wasn’t a viable use of cash. It eventually got upgraded about two years later with government funding.

In Bristle my 4G connection blows the broadband out the water. Just use my iPhone as a wi-fi hotspot

I’m hoping that we may get a mobile signal once the leaves fall from the trees…

Crikey – grew up, worked and lived here way before Internet and mobiles even existed……..

So grumbling about it is even dafter!

You aren’t going to get the same connectivity in places where there aren’t as many people because money.

Hamlet in the north cotswolds here, broadband is okay but only mobile network is 02 which is hit and miss, some days fine, some days, squit

Crikey, yes a rant and why not when Europe is better I’m told, I know it won’t be great, just seems to have got much worse this year, not sure why

Same here.

When I work from home I have to use the house phone to make calls* and any thought of streaming a movie is but a pipe dream.

*ironic given I’m part of the mobile team in a national telco. We’d love all our broadband and mobile customers to have a great speed/signal but we’re beholden to the mobile network operators and BT Openreach.

Ofcom will live to regret not splitting Openreach from BT….

This is not a first world problem, this is an STW first world problem.

It’s not a rant, it’s not even a whinge, it’s a sulk.

You win, it’s a sulk, which happens to cost me a fair bit each month, I’ll keep pursuing and live in hope

Hamlet of 1 house here, 2km from a hamlet of 12houses. Bridleways everywhere. 1000mbps via b4rn.org.uk. You just need to get organised!!!

C

Lol, I live 200 yards from the countryside* and we get crap broadband too, but come on, it’s worth it.

*like real National Park countryside.

you just have to get organised give a shit.

Why so sure? I pulled the cables into my estate and they livened up the whole lot with fibre to the cab…except for half of my street. Turns out I was fed from a small cabinet with few connections, which meant throwing tens of thousands at another cabinet wasn’t a viable use of cash. It eventually got upgraded about two years later with government funding.

Long story. Basically crap developers wouldn’t let private fibre company dig up the roads before they’re adopted, so private fibre company took their ball and went home before having already connected the rest of the village and supplied us with a router ready for installation. BT initially not bothered (in the county plan our village is marked for private broadband development only). Hence our need to crowdfund our own BT fibre to the cabinet upgrade.

Would a sattelite Internet connection work? That’s what my neighbour did at my old house. Similar countryside location, similar crappy broadband. She also got some Vodafone gizmo that routed her mobile phone through her new fast broadband.

I was looking to do the same but ended up moving,

Now in the sticks, only one neighbour but the line runs up or road to the village on the hill past us. Bin told by BT that they can supply fibre to the house, 300mbps should I want to stump up the cash, or 46mbps if I stay on the infinity contact we were on before we moved.

That was at the end of July, still waiting for a call from BT telling us what the latest is (ie still no interband).

Last week we’ve resorted to putting a 3/4g wifi hotspot on the side of the house, just about gets 3g on a good day…..

I lived in a hamlet of 5 houses with poor internet and no phone signal at all .I had to walk up a hill to use the phone as we were in a dip.

My work office is at Stirling university innovation park.
The bt cabinet is about a hundred metres away, with fibre connection.
They won’t connect the cabinet to the business park.
Instead we have to do our own leased line, or pay for 2mb slice of the universities own fibre connection.
BT claim we are ‘connected’ to ultra fast, as we ‘could’ be connected, and thier undertaking is to cabinet, not customers.
BT do seem reluctant to actually put effort in.

I wonder if it would be better to have a French or Spanish mobile. Because whenever I go to Europe with my tesco phone it always defaults to the strongest signal and I get it on my normal monthly free minutes. Yet when in the UK I’m stuck on their O2 piggyback even if it’s only Vodafone or ee that has any reception. Why can’t I get a UK roaming tariff?

redstripe – depending how crap your broadband is this might work (sounds mad but should work)

1. get up on the roof of your property and check if you can get a 3g signal on any of the networks
2. If so, buy a Cel-Fi to create a strong 3G network indoors
3. If not, buy a fishing rod, heavy duty plastic bag, 20m usb extension lead, 3g/4g dongle, a bag of silica gel and some zip ties. Connect the dongle to the lead, place in bag with silica gel and zip tie to top of the rod
4. Attach rod to highest part of your house / property and then connect to the dongle with a laptop. if it gets a good signal you’re in business and can bodge it further to create fast broadband indoors.

Something like this would work as well:

My Automated Home: Nigel Giddings – Installing Broadband in a Rural Location

Hamlet of 1 house here, 2km from a hamlet of 12houses. Bridleways everywhere. 1000mbps via b4rn.org.uk. You just need to get organised!!!

C

You poor sod ! 1Mbps is even less than me…

Why can’t I get a UK roaming tariff?

You can – it’s called Anywhere Sim and works really well. It’s v expensive though.

That anywhere SIM looks interesting.