Rural Broadband best strategy – STW masses help/advice?

In all honesty if you are expecting to download multiple HD streams, files + skype and for it to work 100% of the time, this isn’t going to work in a rural area; and when you have moved in there will be **** all you can do about it, if you really need a fast connection then moving somewhere rural isn’t going to work.

If a single line doesn’t work out, then several connections with a bonding service should work OK. It might not be anywhere near what I’ve got right now, but should be ok… with a few compromises 🙂

I recently went from 8 to 80mb…I was on a fibre enabled exchange but cabinet was uneconomical in the first wave. Not sure if the BDUK government funding resulting in my cab going live or Openreach decided the update was worth it.

However, 8-80mb. Don’t really notice the difference unless I’m downloading something that is measured in hundreds of mb.

Netflix, HD youtube, on-demand TV etc all works fine on both. The plus for Infinity is you have more choice of channels on Youview.

This exemplifies why BT Openreach – as the monopoly provider of connectivity between the exchange and your home and currently rinsing the state for broadband rollout – should have been separated from the rest of BT.

Everyone has a chance at the ‘states cash’ but Openreach have proved they can deliver so have ‘won’ the majority of the contracts. Would you give government cash to someone who was offering less connections and no track record of getting the network running? You don’t see many other companies offering to provide new infrastructure, especially when the returns make dubious financial sense. Even with the government cash up for grabs they are not exactly hammering on the door for it.

For the ‘not spots’ I believe there are various alternative options being explored and I imagine decent broadband will be available to virtually anyone in the not too distant future.

I worked from home and streamed video and so on on less than 7Mbit, so you’ll be fine. Also from moving heavily recently I’ve noticed that what BT predict and what you actually get can vary – the good way – by quite a bit. BT’s exchange checker claims I’ll get 7MBit where I live, but I get 11Mbit. If you discover that it’s not enough then a proper ISP like A&A (aaisp.net) will do bonded lines with no hassle to double your bandwidth.

If the exchange is FTTCd up then try clubbing together with the other residents to get your cabinet upgraded. That works for my inlaws village which is many miles from the exchange. The irony here is that the village now has the choice of <2Mbit ADSL or 40MBit FTTC…

I do wonder if as part of this “rural outreach” thing BT should be forced to FTTC more rurally but sell throttled services where they have a FTTC service but are capped at something like ~10Mbit with ~ADSL prices. Some people just want enough bandwith to netflix and don’t want to pay for FTTC.

No point capping FTTC when you can still choose to have normal copper ADSL at a lower speed.

If you are rural and ADSL was not feasible, the investment in FTTC would be considerable. If anyone was ‘forced’ to throttle the speed to provide a cheaper product, that would just make the investment less attractive due to a longer payback period. It still costs the same to get the infrastructure in place.

Clobber – Member
You’re not in East Northants by any chance?
Yep, take it you are too?

Yup. Kings Cliffe.

tallmart10
I am in East Northants and am interested in this option. I work from home in Brigstock and we suffer from 2-3Mb/s. How much does it cost to get the scheme up and running, and I’d be interested to know what are you monthly charges?

Not sure about the setup charges. Think they work on trying to sign up a certain number of accounts in the community/area to make the infrastructure worthwhile – their website might have more info.

Monthly charges, I think ours will be about 65 quid a month for 200Mbps and phone, which I reckon is decent value.

Wait up everyone! It’s all going to be fine, our esteemed leader says so…

Fast broadband for all by 2020 pledges Cameron

‘Fast’, in this case apparently represents 10Mbps. Sorry OP, you may have to wait a little longer. Still, at least it’s been pledged, which means of course jackshit.

http://www.revk.uk/2015/11/10mbs-uso.html is an interesting analysis on that pledge (which seems oddly familiar, has it been a decade now of PMs pledging to solve the rural broadband problem?)

Frustratingly for us, our cabinet is fibre enabled but it’s miles away so we’re stuck on regular broadband.

Yup. Kings Cliffe.

No way! same here, there are 3 or 4 of us on here from cliffe, we ought to meet up for a ride!

Clobber – Member
Yup. Kings Cliffe.
No way! same here, there are 3 or 4 of us on here from cliffe, we ought to meet up for a ride!

Small world! I’m guessing we’ve probably passed each other a few times in Fineshade or Wakerley (if I’m on the neon orange Alpine I’m kind of hard to miss). Might even be one of the locals I ‘stalk’ on Strava to see if I’ve missed any off-piste stuff in the woods.

I hope this doesnt sound flippant – have you checked 4G coverage in the area? Some of the 4g compaies eiter listened to rural communities, (or spotted them as a profit potential) and have rolled out coverage to some areas. You can get a 4G routers aren’t too expensive, I appreciate the contact might be, but you can ditch the phoneline altogetherr if it works (which is the only other way of getting BT’s attention)

Are there any rural broadband action groups in the area – they might have info on whats available, and possibly either funding, or at least deals with alternative providers.

other than that – pigeons and SD cards.

You don’t see many other companies offering to provide new infrastructure, especially when the returns make dubious financial sense. Even with the government cash up for grabs they are not exactly hammering on the door for it.

Yep.

The region I live in has 109,000 people scattered across 4,700 square km. Or as a provider you could look the next-door area, which has 492,000 people in 264 square km…

Orange Alpine! That’s a big bike for round ‘ere…

There are a couple of fast lads on Strava but not me… too slow…!

Email is in my profile if you fancy a ride out

Well, best laid plans and all that…

Despite being in the same little village as Clobber, I won’t now be getting Gigaclear 200Mbps+ fibre to the premises.

Looks like I’ll have to make do with BT/Openreach 50Mbps fibre to the cabinet.

So, what are the best deals/best provider to go with that use BT infrastructure? I need/want truly unlimited data each month.