UPDATE2 New Homes Development in Bonnyrigg Stuck with Slow Broadband

A group of residents on the new Hopefield development in Bonnyrigg (Scotland), which is managed by Taylor Wimpey, have setup a campaign to get their local Openreach (BT) Street Cabinet upgraded to FTTC (“fibre broadband”) after becoming frustrated by the areas super slow Internet.

Bonnyrigg is a busy town that sits just outside the boundary of Scotland’s capital city (Edinburgh) and the area is home to approximately 16,000 people, so you’d expect or at least hope that the local connectivity would be pretty good; particularly on any new build home developments.

Sadly some residents on the Hopefield development, specifically those who are connected to the local Street Cabinet no. 56 (Dalkeith Exchange), cannot access “fibre broadband” and have instead been left stuck with ADSL download speeds that sometimes struggle to push above even 1Mbps (Megabits per second).

When Hopefield was built the cabinet itself was still fairly new and, as we’ve seen elsewhere with new builds, this sometimes results in the area being overlooked by the Government’s state aid supported (Digital Scotland) roll-out of superfast broadband connectivity. The news is frustrating for a number of reasons, not least because many others nearby can already get faster services.

According to a BT spokesperson, who was responding to a local complaint, the area isn’t “currently included in the network roll-out because after our initial survey, it was established that Openreach would not be able to upgrade this cabinet at this moment in time because a viable solution could not be found” (clear as mud, but probably means it’s too expensive). Meanwhile the property developer has moved to shift their responsibility.

Sarah MacAndrew, Taylor Wimpey’s Local Customer Services Boss, said (here):

“We’re aware that a number of our customers are experiencing very slow broadband speeds at our Hopefield development in Bonnyrigg, and we share their frustration that we have been unable to help resolve it. Taylor Wimpey is responsible for installing the ducts that carry the cables and lay them as part of the construction process. We have done this at Hopefield.

The responsibility for then putting cables through the ducts and connecting our customers to the network lies solely with Openreach, part of the BT Group. To continue to try and help, we have made contact with Openreach to understand and explore whether there are ways in which we can help to resolve the situation.”

In fairness the biggest responsibility should always rest with the developer of any major new build (they don’t have to use BT, it’s their choice) and also home owners, who should try to ensure that they are happy with the connectivity provided before agreeing to buy (admittedly this isn’t always easy and you are often reliant upon the developer’s promise or definition of “good broadband“).

Outside of that the reality remains that BT is currently only held to a very basic Universal Service Obligation, which requires them to install a working phone line and that may or may not deliver decent broadband speeds (ancient dialup speeds are the current minimum standard). Naturally BT, as a commercial business, will often only deliver the minimum required. The future 10Mbps USO may help, but that’s still being debated and won’t be enforced until 2020.

On the other hand all of this comes hot on the heels of a new deal between the Home Builders Federation (HBF), Government and BT that aims to deliver “fibre based” (FTTC/P) superfast or ultrafast broadband connectivity into new build properties across the United Kingdom (details here and here). But applying this retrospectively to existing / recently completed builds is somewhat of a separate matter.

All of the new policy tends to focus on projects that are currently in the planning phases and not those that are already being built or recently completed. Similarly the forthcoming European policy will soon require “All new buildings – and those undergoing major renovation – for which applications for building permission have been submitted after 31 December 2016 must be high-speed ready” (here). But this won’t help Bonnyrigg or others like it.

Meanwhile residents connected to cabinet 56, which is located on Burnbrae Road at the primary school in Hopefield estate, have setup a Facebook campaign page that seems to be drawing some attention to the problem (Cabinet 56 – Hopefield Estate). A closer inspection of the area also reveals that the nearby Cabinet no. 50, which covers part of the same postcode area, should be getting “fibre broadband” by June 2016. So at least some local residents might soon be happy.

We have asked Openreach for a more recent comment and hope to update again later.

UPDATE 10th May 2016

Openreach has confirmed to ISPreview.co.uk that the cabinet in question has only existed since late 2011 (this around when the first Open Market Reviews were taking place) and so it wasn’t included in either Openreach’s commercial fibre rollout or the intervention area for the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband rollout in partnership with the public sector.

However, Openreach has been discussing a privately-funded, potential engineering solution with two local developers and they hope to progress this. Mind you no agreement has been set in stone and so for now this is only talk of something that might or might not happen.

UPDATE 13th May 2016

Local sources are informing us that Taylor Wimpey has agreed to help fund the cabinet’s upgrade.