fedupuser56
Casual Member
Hello,
We live in a rural area of Scotland and currently have basic internet access via the phone line. I'm a heavy user of tech for personal and work reasons (in terms of speed and volume of data - multiple smart TVs, chrome devices, security cams hooked up to an internet feed, work video calls), and in the three years we've been living here, I've been hoping to make some progress on making our internet access more... fit for purpose. It's a daily PITA!
Options I've explored:
1. Virgin Media - no coverage, nada, zilch, nothing planned, have registered interest in 2017 and heard nothing back. Used them when we lived in a city, amazing, but no luck here.
2. Hotspotting on a Vodafone 4g work connection - occasionally ok but not viable day-to-day - doesn't work well because it burns through my work phone battery, there's a 4gig/month data limit which is nowhere near enough, and you have to sit with it propped up at a window to get 4g mobile signal anyway else it drops onto 3g (no network has coverage here on 3g or 4g "officially", but you can get ok signal to receive calls and text in the garden reliably). And vodafone is the best network (we've tried Three, O2 and EE, all were worse).
3. Satellite wireless access - ones covering my area are hugely expensive and come with low gig/month limits, i.e. not unlimited data, and since I'm not a busiess I'm not sure I'm their target market for the unlimited data plans they have available (£120/month plus when I last checked).
4. Looking at the gigabit voucher scheme. Unfortunately, a few months ago I looked into this but spotted that https://www.scotlandsuperfast.com/ has our house as having fibre available.. which it doesn't. An appeal for a data fix to their team in September, and a couple of chasers since, hasn't fixed the dud data about our house. They won't even reveal what kind of SLA they have to fix incorrect data about our internet access, nor what the source of the information was. So I'm in limbo there too.
5. Openreach had our house "in scope" for fibre connection in 2018 but this was silently de-scoped. They put in the green box but failed to supply a power line to it, so despite seeing a green fibre cabinet from my living room window, it's useless. I've raised a complaint to Clive Selley's Exec Complaints team (in October 2019!) who didn't respond, but I chased them, and they eventually advised:
6. Universal Service Obligation. Unfortunately, the BT USO website claims that we already get 10mpbs speeds. This is misleading data, which they control! This speed check accounts for neither the phone line instability (which Openreach have many engineer call / visit logs for), nor the speed flux (I have Google mesh WiFi logs stating that our average speed yesterday was 9mbps after a quick check over the last 30 days), nor our domestic needs.
7. Their latest suggestion is to try and get me to organise "10+ neighbours" to sign up to a Community Portal Fibre Partnership to share the cost of installing fibre.. but that's difficult in our rural situation (in a detached house, along a B-road, surrounded by fields, not 10+ properties wanting broadband!). I've asked them (again!) to provide a cost estimate to hook up my + 1 neighbour's property, but since there is no real transparency or market competition to offer that service, I'm doubtful that Openreach's estimate is going to be reasonable... if it ever arrives.
I'm getting increasingly frustrated at how difficult it's been to try and get a decent internet connection here, and Openreach don't seem to operate in a normal business fashion where I (as a customer) can obtain a service that I can pay for directly.
I've spoken with my existing internet provider (Plusnet) who are generally awesome, and even they said they are entirely "held captive" by Openeach here.. I asked if they had better internal visibility of whether Openreach might stoop to provide a better service for a lowly pleb like me, a service user, and the guy on the Plusnet helpline basically said they check the public Openreach website.. they do not have special info on Openreach's rollout plans, no transparency, no accountability, nothing.
I'm stuck at what to try next.
Has anyone got any further ideas, buttons, levers to pull....?
(The government propoganda about ensuring everyone has access to decent broadband, even if you live rurally, is a bit of a running joke in the house, but it's laughter tinged with a huge dollop of frustration!!)
We live in a rural area of Scotland and currently have basic internet access via the phone line. I'm a heavy user of tech for personal and work reasons (in terms of speed and volume of data - multiple smart TVs, chrome devices, security cams hooked up to an internet feed, work video calls), and in the three years we've been living here, I've been hoping to make some progress on making our internet access more... fit for purpose. It's a daily PITA!
Options I've explored:
1. Virgin Media - no coverage, nada, zilch, nothing planned, have registered interest in 2017 and heard nothing back. Used them when we lived in a city, amazing, but no luck here.
2. Hotspotting on a Vodafone 4g work connection - occasionally ok but not viable day-to-day - doesn't work well because it burns through my work phone battery, there's a 4gig/month data limit which is nowhere near enough, and you have to sit with it propped up at a window to get 4g mobile signal anyway else it drops onto 3g (no network has coverage here on 3g or 4g "officially", but you can get ok signal to receive calls and text in the garden reliably). And vodafone is the best network (we've tried Three, O2 and EE, all were worse).
3. Satellite wireless access - ones covering my area are hugely expensive and come with low gig/month limits, i.e. not unlimited data, and since I'm not a busiess I'm not sure I'm their target market for the unlimited data plans they have available (£120/month plus when I last checked).
4. Looking at the gigabit voucher scheme. Unfortunately, a few months ago I looked into this but spotted that https://www.scotlandsuperfast.com/ has our house as having fibre available.. which it doesn't. An appeal for a data fix to their team in September, and a couple of chasers since, hasn't fixed the dud data about our house. They won't even reveal what kind of SLA they have to fix incorrect data about our internet access, nor what the source of the information was. So I'm in limbo there too.
5. Openreach had our house "in scope" for fibre connection in 2018 but this was silently de-scoped. They put in the green box but failed to supply a power line to it, so despite seeing a green fibre cabinet from my living room window, it's useless. I've raised a complaint to Clive Selley's Exec Complaints team (in October 2019!) who didn't respond, but I chased them, and they eventually advised:
6. Universal Service Obligation. Unfortunately, the BT USO website claims that we already get 10mpbs speeds. This is misleading data, which they control! This speed check accounts for neither the phone line instability (which Openreach have many engineer call / visit logs for), nor the speed flux (I have Google mesh WiFi logs stating that our average speed yesterday was 9mbps after a quick check over the last 30 days), nor our domestic needs.
7. Their latest suggestion is to try and get me to organise "10+ neighbours" to sign up to a Community Portal Fibre Partnership to share the cost of installing fibre.. but that's difficult in our rural situation (in a detached house, along a B-road, surrounded by fields, not 10+ properties wanting broadband!). I've asked them (again!) to provide a cost estimate to hook up my + 1 neighbour's property, but since there is no real transparency or market competition to offer that service, I'm doubtful that Openreach's estimate is going to be reasonable... if it ever arrives.
I'm getting increasingly frustrated at how difficult it's been to try and get a decent internet connection here, and Openreach don't seem to operate in a normal business fashion where I (as a customer) can obtain a service that I can pay for directly.
I've spoken with my existing internet provider (Plusnet) who are generally awesome, and even they said they are entirely "held captive" by Openeach here.. I asked if they had better internal visibility of whether Openreach might stoop to provide a better service for a lowly pleb like me, a service user, and the guy on the Plusnet helpline basically said they check the public Openreach website.. they do not have special info on Openreach's rollout plans, no transparency, no accountability, nothing.
I'm stuck at what to try next.
Has anyone got any further ideas, buttons, levers to pull....?
(The government propoganda about ensuring everyone has access to decent broadband, even if you live rurally, is a bit of a running joke in the house, but it's laughter tinged with a huge dollop of frustration!!)