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Having lived a year during lockdown where there was barely one bar of mobile signal outside, we had to rely on EE 4G external aerial which regularly dropped out. Now living where there are people within 10km reliant on Starlink, but we are quite close to the fibre ‘ring main’ that runs around the island so we get FTTP which has been very reliable. Having no good broadband infrastructure does hold back investment in remote areas and should be essential.
@daverhp - keep up the good work with b4rn 😃
The comical bit is how the Community Benefit Society approach has made something work really really well that the commercial operators deemed non-viable, and as soon as you remove the make massive profit bit you can have something that is equitably cheap, fast and reliable for everyone (no more artificial special offers, discount periods, pay an extra £x per month and supposedly get faster etc).
So what is the secret? Is it actually much cheaper to lay cables across open fields than digging holes in urban roads? (Provided you get involved at the parish level so the landowners allow access for free as they also benefit?)
Are there similar projects popping up elsewhere? Responses to this thread would suggest not.....
Per metre it's certainly a lot cheaper in fields than in roads. The catch is that it takes a lot more planning, surveying and meeting landowners.
The secret is that we recruit local volunteers who put a huge effort in - they have the local contacts and credibility. I don't think it could work without them.
It's a moderately unique model. Broadband for Surrey Hills (B4SH) is doing well, and Balquhidder has a similar project. I would say it works on a small scale but we now have 13,000 live customers and a footprint which could connect the same again without expanding our area. In global terms that's tiny - but for those 13,000 in very rural areas I doubt it seems so. Certainly doesn't to me, who joined B4RN when we had a handful of employees.
The staff also are massively committed; many of us came fresh to the industry from other careers having got involved in our parish projects. Being a volunteer is B4RN's "extended interview process". 😀
There probably isn't a single secret; B4RN has been smart and lucky, and retaining our community benefit society status keeps us from grabbing commercial hands who might be happy to compromise to make a few more quid.
When I drive around the country we cover I do feel great pride to have had a hand in it, and I have personal favourite 'crazily remote' houses we connect with gigabit speed. I know of two that don't even have mains electricity.
Bonkers but brilliant. Shouldn't work, but it does. You just have to want to do it enough. Hopefully another 13,000 to come!
It'd be a deal-breaker for me. But I work from home, I need a reliable connection. There's also a considerable amount of internet-connected stuff.
I've often considered this, living somewhere rural sounds amazing in theory, but I expect the novelty would quickly wear off when I can't get a pizza delivered and it's an hour and a half round trip to Tesco.
Currently got 75 mbps but in the process of buying a house where we’ll only have 35 mbps. I WFH with lots of video calls and got a teenage son. Are we screwed? Probably not, but think we will definitely notice it if the wife and I are streaming HD the same time as the boy.
If you're both streaming 4k video then probably, it needs about 25Mbps. Lower resolutions have considerable lower requirements.
Yes, you’re measuring the slowest part of the chain, in this case probably the Tenda WIFI
It's likely the Wi-Fi NIC in the Chromebook it it's old. Different standards support different speeds.
That’s a speedtest running every 30 mins. You can see the variance we get on download especially and how bad it is this week.
Your internet connection would probably be a lot better if you weren't stress testing it every half an hour. 😁
Broadband is the new currency.
the govt pays the royal mint to print currency.
Qed, broadband should be free, as a means to promote business and trade.
Your internet connection would probably be a lot better if you weren’t stress testing it every half an hour. 😁
I did actually consider that. But I wanted to try and build up some data I could beat Three with. Because being told to reboot your phone wasn't improving things! I'll prob go back to twice a day once the fibre is in.
Rural is lovely. It's only a 30 min round trip to Tesco 🙂
Wasn't there an Eu Directive a decade or so ago regarding the move to online services and internet connectivity?
I know we had a target in Sweden to have 97% with facility to be connected to a 10Mbps service by 2020 (at reasonable cost). As a couple of my neighbours were involved in the work.
We were in the 3% and should have been connected 2023, so we did our own community project about 10 years ago instead. (23 slipped to 25, so some of the other small villages/hamlets nearby still aren't connected, but we did extend our system to the next hamlet, so ~60 properties).
Quite a few of the older folk (who didn't want internet) got the conduits fitted and clipped into place, but didn't get the fibres blown through (saved them about 6-700 quid). So even they saw the writing on the wall. Think there are only 3 houses not fully connected now. But we've also got full 4G and some 5G locally.
Realistically, you can't function in Sweden without a connection. Most banking is online now, most of the council and government services as well. So even those without a connection have to go to the library or get someone with a connection to help. (Though most companies do still offer a offline version of their services. Sometimes at a cost!)
I suspect the gov are wholly relying on 5g, if they have a plan at all. The community group installs are all well and good if there is a community, but if there's just one house then that will never happen. My parents live on a farm 1 mile from the nearest road, I don't think they will ever have an option beyond mobile broadband, which just about works. They're lucky in that they have signal because they are only 15 minutes drive from the nearest town despite being very isolated in the direct locality. No idea what all the farms in the dales, Wales, lakes can ever do.
That's before you get on the the digital switchover - old people in a remote house liable to power cuts, mobile signal only in one spot and a landline reliant on power supply. The gov have got that one seriously wrong
That’s mad compared to even what we’re paying for the SIM.
5G Sims (on all networks) are available unlimited (I think maybe there is a theoretical cap of several 100Gb) for around £250 a year or less if its 3. While its not going to work for everyone its price wise quite viable for many as an alternative. The issue is the contention on mobile data networks remains horrible as the capacity to the pole lags behind the capacity pole > phone.
@mert - when the council were originally planning the rural rollout, they quoted some of the EU directives as that's what unlocked the EU funds! (pre brexit, sigh). The funding was split between some UK Gov grants and EU money. There was 'target' for a min 30 meg but tech just overtook that really. I guess the 4G can be 30 meg but as @benpinnick says the contention is horrible.
The community stuff for us has tried to be really inclusive. Even when we knew a few locations were going to be really expensive to do and it'd drive the overall price up. Like I said before, we had one bidder for the work (even with the massive subsidy) and I don't think they're making huge amounts on it, I think its about reference-ability and long term revenue as we're never going back to what we had before.
Door knocking was interesting. We had one 'the internet is evil, we won't have it in here' and quite a few 'yeah we'll sign up but we're not installing it as we hardly use it' from those in - shall we say - later years. The one worry we kept hearing was 'does this mean my landline will stop working'. I reckon they must be phoning each other as nobody we know has a landline anymore!
I did actually consider that. But I wanted to try and build up some data I could beat Three with. Because being told to reboot your phone wasn’t improving things! I’ll prob go back to twice a day once the fibre is in.
One would hope that an ISP had access to performance stats at their end, but I take your point.
Door knocking was interesting. We had one ‘the internet is evil, we won’t have it in here’
I once took a support call from a vicar who was seriously unimpressed that we'd connected up his church with Demon Internet.
One would hope that an ISP had access to performance stats at their end, but I take your point.
They will *absolutely* lie about it.
Had that with BT, "our system says you're getting 10Mbps, like what you paid for." *Looks at router maintenance page showing 0.7*. Took a month of calls to get to that stage. Then i emigrated and had to deal with Telia (Swedish national provider) who swore blind that if we paid for 16/2Mbps that's what we'd get, all the way up to their "experts" that we spoke to after about a dozen calls to their help desk and being escalated twice. Fibre couldn't come fast enough.
Paying for the slowest fibre they offer now, get more than i'm paying for.
Really it was an exercise in frustration mgt. They didn't ever acknowledge their poor performance. Every and I mean EVERY call went like this:
Me: it's rubbish, here are some stats
Them: Reboot your phone. Does it work outside.
Me: It's an external antenna connected to a router with one of your 4G sims. All provided through your.
Them: Reboot the router
Me: Done that, still rubbish.
Them: We don't see any problems in your area
Me: See these stats, they would suggest otherwise
Them: "Three has left the chat"
I once took a support call from a vicar who was seriously unimpressed that we’d connected up his church with Demon Internet.
Proper LOL that's brilliant.
Me: it’s rubbish, here are some stats
Them: Reboot your phone. Does it work outside.
Me: It’s an external antenna connected to a router with one of your 4G sims. All provided through your.
Them: Reboot the router
Me: Done that, still rubbish.
Them: We don’t see any problems in your area
Me: See these stats, they would suggest otherwise
Them: “Three has left the chat”
I gave up on three for exactly this issue. I could get 70mb at 6 in the morning but by 6 in the evening I would struggle to push 5mb.
EE share alot of the same infrastructure and yet on the EE service I could stay consistently fast. Three is not the network to be on for data only service.
EVERY call went like this:
Ah, yes, I know this system. We flirted with it.
The idea is that you have a helpdesk in front of the helpdesk. They aren't technical so you can pay peanuts for chimps who can follow a script without drooling. "Is it plugged in? At both ends?" genuinely fielded like 80% of the calls we took. The problem is, it ****s you for the other 20%. The pre-helpdesk are instructed that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES are they to pass a call to Tech without first doing basic checks.
This is exponentially toss for a customer with providers like Sky whose policy is that once you get to speak to Tech they come up with some attempted fix or other and then close the call. So when it doesn't work and you call back you're starting afresh with Simian Support again, asking the same questions you've already answered five times over.
@benpinnick - exactly the same. I've attempted to explain this is not a 'phone' issue but feel @cougar explanation of who I was dealing with may explain why that was an exercise in frustration.
We grabbed a bag of SIMs a few weeks ago and found both EE and Vodafone now work here for phone signal. So we'll be binning our Three phone SIMs as well. I'll expect customer service to be just as bad, but hopefully won't have to use it as often. Plus wifi calling has made it less of an issue.
Quick update - I'm tending to Yes it is a 4th utility now having had fibre installed.
I was waiting for the pics to upload as I normally would and they were just there! More usefully I re-imaged my macbook in 20 minutes rather than 4-5 hours it took on 4G, I can now do a proper backup to the cloud for files/videos and everything is way more snappy.
The 4G was so bad these last two weeks I've been reduced to voice calls. Couldn't even run teams with camera off!
Outside work we had Apple TV streaming on big TV and two other HD streams on laptops. No buffering. This is both new and I won't miss the 'will it won't it' jeopardy of the 4G. New problem is mesh (not wired backhaul) can't get near the 900 meg. This is a good problem to have and I have plans 🙂
If I’m reading that right you’re getting less than 1 Meg upload on the device you are testing with. I would agree you are going to need that sorted as that’s a long way from even supporting a video call I should think.
In my news, I got the go ahead from my Dad to order him FTTP. Will be intrigued to see how Gigaclear cope with a 200m distance from their cable along the road to the actual house.
Nah that's just what the mesh was showing when we had multiple streams running so 100 meg/sec (not 1 meg-odd notation on the deco) of the 900 we have provisioned. The mesh is throttling at about 400-600 meg depending on where you are. Due to house shape/size/outside buildings we have six nodes so it's 'worse' in here where data has to transit three nodes to get to router and it's best in the middle of the house where it transits one.
Video is fab- done two calls already today, rock solid, health stats showing 0% packet loss, 20ms ping.
First thing I need to do is dump the provider router and plug internet directly into the Deco mesh so removing a hop. That'll give me something, but because we can't run ethernet backhaul we're always going to get some losses esp with multiple hops away.
If I connect to the deco next to the router I'll get 800+ but sadly that's not where most of the devices are. Also we have two flavours of deco so I'm going to remove the older 3 to see if they are pulling the speed down. All good fun.
Nah that’s just what the mesh was showing when we had multiple streams running so 100 meg/sec (not 1 meg-odd notation on the deco) of the 900 we have provisioned.
I'm talking abut the "855 kbps" figure. That's showing less than 1 meg upload speed.
That's just a snapshot, it's all download for the TV streams - this wasn't a speedtest, it was a screen grab of the app. If I run a speedtest I'll get the 400/500 up/down.
In my news, I got the go ahead from my Dad to order him FTTP. Will be intrigued to see how Gigaclear cope with a 200m distance from their cable along the road to the actual house.
Here we had to have a pole put in to get access to the three houses. I'm guessing that's not feasible. Here they are meant to do a site survey before turning up but they're so busy they just come and work it out on the day. For example we needed a 'swan hook' because otherwise the first tractor would have taken out the cable!
Here we had to have a pole put in to get access to the three houses. I’m guessing that’s not feasible. Here they are meant to do a site survey before turning up but they’re so busy they just come and work it out on the day. For example we needed a ‘swan hook’ because otherwise the first tractor would have taken out the cable!
Currently the phone line is on poles for about two thirds of the way and then goes underground across the garden. I can't see it being easy but maybe I'm being pessimistic.
How they handle the the pre-installation visit seems odd as they seem to say they'll just turn up randomly sometime ahead of the installation day (or maybe not at all in your case!). They say you don't need to be in as they don't need access to the house. Seems entirety unsuitable for a complex installation (and my situation where I need to be around to deal with them, rather than leaving it to my 93 yr old Dad).
That does sound a bit rubbish.
I was surprised how durable the fibre is, you really can abuse it (but also it 'snaps' when you bend it over as the installer did to make it the right length) - but the problem with anything underground is it's likely to be blocked. I know that's been the issue every time a duct or similar has been part of the house connection.
I was waiting for the pics to upload as I normally would and they were just there! More usefully I re-imaged my macbook in 20 minutes rather than 4-5 hours it took on 4G, I can now do a proper backup to the cloud for files/videos and everything is way more snappy.
This is something which needs to be talked about more, because it's huge.
ADSL is asynchronous - that's what the 'A' stands for - so upload speed is typically terrible. Historically this hasn't really been much of an issue because who regularly uploads things? But with the rise in popularity of cloud services like OneDrive and the Apple equivalent it's increasingly important. Fibre (and for all its failings, VM cable) utterly demolishes this issue at a stroke.
I think we're on the cusp of seeing DSL start to go the way of ISDN. BT is going to have a rude awakening when the country goes "why are we paying north of twenty quid a month for a landline again, exactly?"
Fibre (and for all its failings, VM cable) utterly demolishes this issue at a stroke.
Fibre to property via Openreach is asynchronous eg. mine is 950/110 down/up (Mbps)
Virgin fibre (assume that's what you mean by VM) is also asynchronous eg low end package 132/20, high end 1130/104. Maybe VM varies geographically - that's what I am offered at my postcode.
Totally agree with your overall point that upload speed is chronically over looked. I'd throw in latency as well - that's what makes a connection seem 'snappy' to your average web-browsing consumer - it's not just a stat for gamers.
Latency here has gone for 60-90 to 14. It's not just about the size of the pipe, it's definitely also how long it takes to get there.
I think we’re on the cusp of seeing DSL start to go the way of ISDN. BT is going to have a rude awakening when the country goes “why are we paying north of twenty quid a month for a landline again, exactly?
Agree with that. ADSL is a brilliant technical solution to creating a digital infrastructure on what is essentially an analogue medium (last mile etc) but it's increasingly not fit for purpose. When it was developed those sync services weren't even considered never mind available.
The difference to ISDN for me was it was often bemoaned as It Still Does Nothing and was seen as an expensive luxury compared to adsl on analogue. Whereas ADSL is both expensive (our fibre connection is cheaper than ADSL+Phone from 2 years ago) and increasingly not going to meet the needs of WFH, Gaming, every service being digital etc.
Fibre to property via Openreach is asynchronous eg. mine is 950/110 down/up (Mbps)
Mine isn't, it's 500Mbps in both directions.
Virgin fibre (assume that’s what you mean by VM) is also asynchronous eg low end package 132/20, high end 1130/104. Maybe VM varies geographically – that’s what I am offered at my postcode.
I was referring to Virgin cable, not fibre. Again, anecdotally of course, but when I had VM cable it was 350Mbps in both directions (IIRC).
But as you say, all of this stuff likely depends to a great degree on geography.
@Cougar - what ISP is that with as I'd be all over 500/500 compared to my 950/110? I assumed all Openreach based stuff was the same packages just resold bay all the ISPs.
What relationship they have with Openreach beyond Physical Infrastructure Access I don't know. Probably not much.
What relationship they have with Openreach beyond Physical Infrastructure Access I don’t know. Probably not much.
Pretty sure they're just using existing poles & ducts to install their own fibre hence being able to offer synchronous connections.
FullFibre are allowed to use the existing BT poles but they can't go near the power poles. This has caused an issue with a few houses not being connected. They definitely use existing ducts if they exist and they can unblock them.
From memory for the 300 houses in the scheme, they needed something like 90 new poles. They have a very cool machine for putting them in. Doesn't take long at all.
Acid test is go switch it off for a week (including phone) and then ask the question again. I think most people underestimate how pervasive internet usage is these days. For working at home it’s a critical service.
A week! I'm not sure I could switch it off for a day - especially a working one! Anyway a week-ish of ludicrous speed internet connectivity, I have learned.
- not all mesh networks (even from same provider) are the same. Dedicated wifi channels/pref separate radios for backhaul (unless you're able to cable them together- no chance for us) are what's needed for 500+ meg internet speeds.
- Placement of mesh nodes is critical, too close/overlapping is almost as bad as too far away and weak connection between them
- I want to spend some quality time with the team who developed the TP-DECO app. In a locked room and I'm the only one with a baseball bat 🙂 It's lacks both functionality and stability.
- 4K TV is amazing. Been catching up with For All Mankind and it's just stunning. Rewatched Dune as we're off to see it at flicks later. Also very good. No way we'd have got close to that with old connection.
- OneDrive / Cloud first is seamless, none of that 'did I save that' moments.
- Upload speed - as mentioned earlier - is almost as important. I re uploaded a 5 gig video to YT. Pre fibre it took 3 attempts and finally managed it after a 1hr50 upload process. This time- 3 minutes! And I think it'd have gone quicker if my Mac could hose it up to YT at full speed.
- you really notice 'slow' websites. Looking at you STW but others as well. Stuff like the beeb and guardian are lightning quick.
- Teams wise, I'm getting 90ms RTD (as opposed to 200+ jittery) rock solid, never changes and max o.1% packet loss. It's no 'better' really than when the old BB was actually working but I don't start every call wondering if I'll finish it on the analogue phone!