OK so we are not actually that isolated (being in the Midlands) but I live in a small village of 32 houses several miles from the nearest exchange and the wires from us to the exchange are apparently aluminium. What this actually means is that most of the village can get about 0.8meg but some of the houses can only get 0.2meg.

I fancy the idea of a village co-operative sharing a faster ( satellite or 4G) link.
Someone on Singletrack must be an expert or at least have some ideas in this area?

Helpful ideas please.

David

Our village was in a similar position some years ago. If no one else chips in I’ll put you in touch wit my FiL who sorted out something and still is up to date with the latest tech.

Accidentally put something through the existing cables (if they are underground) or if they run along the verge like so many in this area do, then i can confirm they are very prone to being caught in tractor wheels when they mount the verge to allow cars to pass or wait till there’s a windy day and watch as multiple trees bring down the overhead cables, a local village/hamlet of a few houses that may or may not exist in a secluded part of Dumfries &Galloway or perhaps further afield in my imagination had a similar problem and may possibly have had their line upgraded after perhaps 5 yrs of getting nowhere by other means.

http://www.gigaclear.com/ doing the likes of Rutland Telecom springs to mind. But please be aware things are a changing in 4G land, with the relaxation in rules over usage of spectrum along with the recent auction in the same expect lots better that the current pitiful coverage offered.

Similar position here in rural Suffolk. There are still lots of ‘not-spots’ which are too far from exchanges and where BT has yet to be arsed to do anything about it.

Currently we get broadband wirelessly from a small community provider, but as BT slowly extends its scope this provider is being put out of business – but this may happen before BT’s upgrade can reach all those effected.

Given government blather about ‘super-fast broadband’, each county council has a responsibility to deliver or have a plan to deliver this to not just some but ALL local residents. They have been given money by government so to do. They need to show what they are doing with that money, and they need to be held accountable. So contact your local councillor and ask what they are doing, what they plan to do and within what timescale, and what interim community broadband services exist in your part of the Midlands. Join any local broadband lobby groups you can. Try and shame these elected representatives into action. In my experience here, the Tories, Lib Dems and even Labour are pretty crap, UKIP aren’t interested unless they can blame Johnny Foreigner, and the Greens are the only people doing anything about this.

Hope that helps?

BGAN

Accidentally put something through the existing cables

Obviously tongue in cheek, but if that were too happen, they would just replace one section of cable and you’d be no better off. (unless of course you were very persistent and they decided to reroute underground due to fault liability)

Except for the fact the whole village lost internet and phone service for several days, and you’d either need to go into hiding or hope you had good liability cover as I can confirm that simple things like diggers can result in 10’s of thousands in charges once several hundred man hours are chucked on top of the replacement cable! Plus if you cut off enough customers, some automated cleverness gets the police straight out there on blue lights as they think its being nicked :d

I’m sure you know this, but they are looking at rolling out 4g and TV whitespace for places that are not viable for fibre.

The issue is BT

Not common knowledge, but BT don’t own the overhead poles / infrastructure but thanks to a loop hole they can prevent other providers from using them. The is a way around this if local communities initiate rather than the provider

This makes the economics work in a lot of cases, to run fibre over existing poles is around £1000 per mile (rather than 10 to a 100 times that to lay new ducts)

Have a look here. Not cheap mind you.

Broadband for Rural North

Openreach own the poles and what is hung from them. They charge providers to provide service over it. BT (as in who you order your phone line from) pay the same as any of the other numerous providers.

If you are suggesting Tiscali/T Mobile/Sky/Plusnet etc etc should all be given permission to provide their own network over the poles there would be complete mayhem. The infrastructure has a limited capacity and would not cope with separate cables from each provider.

I believe there is a service in place where a provider can rent duct space from openreach and provide their own cables, however, it would have to be economically viable for them to do this so again, rural areas aren’t likely to interest them.

Any use to you?

http://b4rn.org.uk/

Satellite broadband is now much better (priced) than it used to be but still expensive at £75 a month for top, unlimited plans. Still, 16Mb is pretty good. We have a few clients using it with stable results.

link

BT do own the wires and the poles, well it’s actually BT Open reach. Alternative providers such as Talk Talk, Sky, etc can rent the cables from BT and use their own switching and broadband equipment in the exchange. This is called Local Loop Unbundling (LLU).
If they view there is a demand then they can put their kit in the exchange.
Obviously this isn’t likely to happen in exchanges with small communities. Sadly it’s all down to cost / benefit analysis. Many small exchanges are still on ADSL MAX (up to 8mbps) provided by BT. They will eventually get upgraded to ADSL 2 (up to 24mbps),but don’t hold your breath for Fibre!

Meanwhile BT are bypassing any cabinets in FTTC enabled areas if they can’t make enough profit fast enough. There needs to be a universal service obligation. Instead of which, BT are holding out for more cash and upgrading the already upgraded areas.

Have a word with these guys
http://www.airband.com/network/airband-network/

theyve implemented a number of WIMAX kind of systems around Worcs and Herefs. Ive met a heavy BB user who’s a massive fan – 20Mb in the middle of nowhere for £20 a month. IIRC he said the 50 subscribers had to stump up £100 each for the install because they didnt raise 100 subscribers but the numbs differ for each installation.

Murray, indeed, our office is 300m max from the exchange, yet 2km away they can have fibre. Crazy, that we potentially have to wait possibly 12 more months since the exchange went live.

Ime open reach are useless at their job and useless at customer service and as they re not the end provider you can’t do anything about their uselessness. Added to their monopoly on the infra structure, I’d say Don’t hold your breath for them to be upgrading anything anytime soon.

Sounds like satellite or similar might be your best bet.

bigyinn, don’t hold your breath! It’s been 18 months since our village was upgraded to FTTC but even with the help of my MP I can’t get a date from BT Openreach for our cabinet to be upgraded. My neighbours at the bottom of my garden can get FTTC but none of us on my street can – the cables run 1 mile in the wrong direction to a cabinet that Openreach chose not to upgrade as it doesn’t cover enough houses.

I think we’ll get it within the next 6 months, as the additional cabinet related to the main cabinet for the FTTC processor has been installed in the last month……

murray – spot on. I live on a new build development in a FTTC area, but Openreach didn’t bother to lay fibre while it was being built, nor did they take the opportunity to plonk in an upgraded cabinet.

What’s more frustrating is that according to an Openreach technician I waylaid as he fiddled with the green box, they ran fibre to the old cabinet anyway for the benefit of the local school.

They’re a bunch of useless short-sighted profit-obsessed half-wits who couldn’t be trusted to organise a bun fight in a bakery.

My folks recently had Airband installed. They’re in rural wales – 4km+ from the exchange. Previously, on a good day, they got 0.5mb with BT – now they get a very steady 20mb.

http://www.airband.co/

Have a look at these NE1 Connect working up here in rural Northumberland and seem to get things working

Good news bigyinn – hope it works out