Superfast broadband upgrade, coming to the boondocks

It looks like we here in lesser Malvernistan might soon be joining the 20th Century.
Just had a flyer arrive by carrier pigeon to say that our local exchange is due for an upgrade to “High-speed fibre broadband”.

We are about 5km from the exchange, our line is currently supposed to get 2Mbps and generally we get between 1.9Mbps and 2.1Mbps.

They’re talking of speeds “Upto 80Mbps”, but Im guessing that’s for those right on the fibre yes? So what kind of speed do you think we can get down our 5km of tin line once the exchange has fibre to it? 6Mbps? 8Mbps? 20Mbps? Anyone any ideas?

Let me know what happens; BT have been hauling fibre optic cables through the tubes under our pavement so I’m interested.

They are doing Much Marcle Mark! End of March apparently. Since my eldest has been claiming ‘media povety’ with our 3meg ish on a good day if it’s not raining, this is good news.

If we get 10 meg (2km away) consistantly I’ll be delighted.

Although the exchange will be fiber enabled it doesn’t mean your standard ADSL speeds will change. They will simply be able to offer you their fiber package.

This still uses the copper from the exchange to your house so is still line length dependent and will still cost more.

Can I take the opportunity to post this up? Fibre to the house, suddenly Hull isn’t such a backwater 😉

Had my parents upgraded last week – location-wise – very similar circumstances and speed to what you have. The new speeds haven’t settled down, but 50-75Mbps down and 15-17 up are common.

EDIT: the above speeds with Fiber.

I could help though even if they don’t fibre to your door.

The copper to our door is capable of supporting 5MB at least. With BT, SKY or anybody else other than TalkTalk from our exchange the best we could get was 0.5 to 1MB at best. That was purely down to the number of people on the exchange and the kit and line capacity out of the exchange. So a backbone upgrade on the exchange could do wonders still.

Actually the it’s FTTC (fibre to the cabinet) so the fibre goes from the exchange to a large green box in the street. You’ll then have a copper connection from your house to the cabinet as you do now (tho using VSDL instead of ASDL). Assuming the cabinet isn’t too far from you and you get in before the neighbours take all the capacity, you should be golden.

Stoner, with Fibre (FTTC) distance from the exchange isn’t relevant. Its how far you are from the cabinet (green box on the street) and whether your particular cabinet is enabled. The speed drops off quite dramatically if you are more than 1km from the cabinet too.
You can have FTTC in the local exchange, but if your cabinet isn’t enabled you cant have it.

Its how far you are from the cabinet (green box on the street)

In my parent’s case – they are about 200m from the green cabinet.

It also depends whether the thieving barstewards think they can make enough profit from your cabinet. If they can’t you’re stuffed.

Moved to BT Infinity this week on their unlimited “bling” package.

I’m about 100m from the street cabinet and get 75Mbps download, 15Mbps upload. All depends how close your local fibre-enabled cabinet is.

Exchange <-Fibre-> local cabinet <-Copper-> Your house

I haven’t gone blind yet.

Stoner, find your cabinet (just follow the telephone poles and they’ll lead you to it). We’re getting our soon but we’re 1.2km away from the cab so will ‘only’ get about 17Mb download….. better than the 2 we get now but not as sweet as the 39 I’m on right now by the beach!

Don’t fall in the trap of thinking you have to get FTC fibre from BT, have a look round and see what other companies are doing. I get mine from Plusnet (which some pedant will now point out is owned by BT). Unlimited usage 60 Mpbs down, 12 Mbps up for me.

Any company which resells BT broadband can resell FTTC.

we’re about the same distance as you from the exchange and get high 20’s to mid 30’s. High of 38mb on a supposed 40mb line.

cheers guys. I guess the question is whether they will take fibre from the exchange to the our village green box. I was hoping our ADSL would improve even if they didnt but I guess it wont.

We are about 4-500m from a green box but the green box is 4km+ from the exchange. Do they have to dig up the main road to get the fibre from exchange to village box? (The exchange is the next, bigger, village further along).

They’ll run the fibre through the existing ducts or on the existing poles. How many houses are served by the green box? Is there convenient power? If the answer is “lots” and “yes” you’re laughing.

<edit>Unless your wiring is aluminium</edit>

I think we’re aluminium.

Thats you then, unless its 6061-T6.

From what I’ve read aluminium is something of a downer – luckily we’ve had all our cabling between the house and cabinet replaced within the last 3 years.
Stoner you could see if you could get fibre to your property. Would cost about £3K installation but monthly costs are the same. You get around 300Mb down then!!

We are about 4-500m from a green box

Don’t assume it’s “the” green box*. They’re either upgraded or just newly installed boxes. You can spot them – taller than usual and with apitched (ie not flat) top.

I remember having fibre on only the third enabled exchange in the country. Now I live in the Northern Boondocks wet string gives a faster signal….

Don’t fall in the trap of thinking you have to get FTC fibre from BT

Ah, the old BT marketing machine. And to think, they claim they’re not a monopoly….

They’re talking of speeds “Upto 80Mbps”, but Im guessing that’s for those right on the fibre yes?

Yep. Similar effect to ADSL, only the run of copper is much shorter, and that’s the bit that slows over distance.

I think we’re aluminium.

As is most of the Lake District – when aluminium was way cheaper than copper in the 60s, it was used widely in these areas. Of course, they hadn’t envisaged its use for data transfer, at which it’s pretty dire.

With luck, the PCP upgrade may result in a copper upgrade to the home.

*If you lot can use ADSL and VDSL freely, please call it a PCP (primary cross connection point).

Am on talktalk. Was getting 2.5 Mbps down and 0.5 up. Upgraded to fttc and now have 7 down and 1 up. Home to cabinet is 1.2km. Judging by what you are all getting, I’ll be putting a long support call in on Monday.

TBH, we’d be more likely to install a shared WiMax system in the church tower that’s across the road from the the green box rather than replace aluminium.

Will see what happens over the course of the year.

Streaming grot 24×7 from the Church tower 😆

Modern day call to prayer ? The minaret of filth 🙂

WoooHooo!

Just seen a news report that there’s been another £1m thrown at BB in our county that explicitly is allocated to our village (among others) so that means fibre to the green box 600m away, definitely. I wonder if it means some investment in the last mile too? Either way it’s going to mean huge leaps in speed here. 🙂

A tory MP round these parts is in a v safe seat so could sit back and not bother with much, but ours has been banging BT and the dept of Media & Culture & Sport around the back of the head about broadband for ages so fair play to her.

There was activity around the Green Box locally, digging up of tarmac and stuff, so I’m hoping that a fibre upgrade might be in the offing.
The box is over the road from me, I could chuck stones at it from my front gate… 😉

we’re getting it in June, apparently

prepare for a slew of “what HD streaming deathporn site” questions

One day I too will reach the fabled 1mb/s that I currently dream of, despite being a 10min drive from the capital…

Hmpfff.

I was due to get it feb, then march, now its april-september.

So don’t hold your breath….

A tory MP round these parts is in a v safe seat so could sit back and not bother with much, but ours has been banging BT and the dept of Media & Culture & Sport around the back of the head about broadband for ages so fair play to her.

Careful now, you’re starting to sound like you might be thinking about voting Tory…..

Double WooHoo!!!! – just seen the contractors pulling cable through conduits from the exchange direction to the green box in the village.

Coming soon to a househusband near you soon: more high speed, HD grot than you can shake a soggy stick at!

So how long from now does it take them to glue the pipe into the magic box and get us all connected up to superspeeds?

So how long from now does it take them to glue the pipe into the magic box and get us all connected up to superspeeds?

That varies depending on contractor and the urge they have to complete that particular box. They’ll need to sort the kit at the other end of the line too which may take time.

Fibre to the house, varying between 35/45 Down and 17-20 up, I could go higher if I paid more.

I’m in a modern housing estate on the edge of a decent sized city, and I get crap all.

Stoner you’re still looking at a couple of months before they’ll take orders I think.
How far from the cabinet are you? We’re 1.2km by road but BT say it’s more like 3km – we ‘only’ get 12mbps 🙁
Possibly tempted by fibre to the property, but I’ve been told by a guy who probably should know about these things that physical connections will likely become obsolete and we’ll connect wirelessly to a local 5g hub.

Depending on your area Stoner you may have an equivalent of our local site Dreams of one day getting more than 1Mb[/url]! Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to detail any other regions this has been done for.

December2014-March2015 for me, I may even be able to watch a whole youtube video without caching by then, maybe!

Ah well, Im sure those vultures at BT will be in touch as soon as they sniff an opportunity to sign me for a superfast contract.

Maybe they’ll have one of their winter/spring/summer/autumn “sales” that are the same as the previous season sale :rolls:

https://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/WMHSW I presume. Checking ours we also have the same date for FTTC, but not for FTTP https://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/WMPOW – they have been doing quite a bit of work here, and I know they were putting in new cables.

Not sure how much difference FTTC will make, given we’re doing fairly well on old fashioned copper since they upgraded us to ADSL2+ which you don’t seem to have got (more than doubled our speed)

Yes, we’re Hanley Swan exchange here. Whats the diff between FFTC and FFTP?

Anyway, a baked bean tin and some taught string would be an improvement on our current speeds:

and that’s not even in the evening. iPlayer is pretty much unwatchable at night.