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When is rural not rural enough?

I live about 8 miles west of Cambridge which is also known to be the capital of "Silicon Fen". The village I'm in is not small, has a famous heart hospital and a thriving business park/light industrial estate.

I saw video on the BBC last week where one man on an island off the Isle of Skye was get what he called super fast speeds. This seemed to use an awful lot of equipment and I believe was funded by a rural broadband project.

My connection on a good day is less than 5mb, most people around me get 2mb if they are lucky.

Our BT exchange is about 1.5 miles away and BT have no plans to install fibre before 2015 and so far no rural broadband funding :mad:

My gripe is were I live we don't seem to be rural enough to get some cash from the governments rural broadband pot of cash but obviously not attractive enough to BT to install fibre.

I'd really like to get hold of a BT representative who can tell me why we are not down for fibre, not a call centre worker who knows nothing but an area manger or planner who can tell me more. Any ideas how I can do this?

And finally to make matters worse we have a Virgin media exchange in the village, green cable boxes but no cable as virgin say its too expensive to put in place.
 
Bet here are lots of places like this. I am 8 miles from centre of Kent's capital Maidstone.
Although I am close to the exchange and have 8mb synch, actual downloads are barely over 4mb.
We are on Market 1 exchange, i.e. no competition, just BTO resellers and high prices.
No sign of LLU, not now, not ever. No sign of 21CT, maybe 2nd quarter of the century.
Fibre ? Ha, 2nd half of the century, be dead by then !
Regards,.
Martin
 
My gripe is were I live we don't seem to be rural enough to get some cash from the governments rural broadband pot of cash but obviously not attractive enough to BT to install fibre.

I'd really like to get hold of a BT representative who can tell me why we are not down for fibre, not a call centre worker who knows nothing but an area manager or planner who can tell me more. Any ideas how I can do this?

And finally to make matters worse we have a Virgin media exchange in the village, green cable boxes but no cable as virgin say its too expensive to put in place.

Firstly, the initial pot of BDUK cash to 2015 is actually targeted to be used in precisely your kind of area. Ironically it's the last 10% or so of the most rural areas that will miss out. But we don't yet know the precise details for Cambridgeshire so you might still get an upgrade before 2015 as BT's current privately funded plan so far only goes up to 2013, with the BDUK based roll-out details likely to start emerging shortly. It would help if you gave a postcode for your village so we could take a closer look?

Also you can find more details about the plan for your county here:

http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/bu...unitydev/ecodevelopment/broadband/default.htm

http://www.connectingcambridgeshire.co.uk/

As for Virgin Media, like any private company they will respond if you can show a good level of demand within the local area. So you could get pro-active and go out asking local homes whether or not they'd be willing to sign a document of interest in Virgin's service and then present that to them for consideration. However it might be worth waiting to see what the final roll out plan for your county under BDUK funding is first.
 
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I think that the "rural" thing is a bit of a side-issue. I have a feeling I know the place you mean - my Dad had a spell in the heart hospital you mention.

Likewise we're 1.5 miles from the exchange, this village has 240 premises, the shortest line is about 2.5km long and manages 4Meg with lots of errors, the fastest speed in the village is just over 6Meg and the average is just short of 2.5Meg down and 0.3Meg up.

What concerns me is that the remit was to get 90% of people in each local authority area to "superfast" broadband speeds (not that those will be achieved with the current "fibre the cabinets" plan, but anyway) leaving 10% with just 2Meg narrowband speeds.

As our exchange has been upgraded to ADSL2+ now, this tips the speed estimate for lines like ours, which used to be 2Meg, but actually thanks to overheads only ever actually attained about 1.5Meg of throughput, to 2.5Meg.

So in terms of a "tickbox exercise" this area would appear to be - to use your expression - "not rural enough" to warrant upgrades. And dreadful though all the speeds are with the exception of the one line that manages 6Meg, actually, it's nowhere near as bad as a stack of rural and urban areas.

And, for an area like this with low population density - I'd have said that the Isle of Skye approach using Wi-Fi and possible partial FTTP where justified would be ideal.

Fibre to the cabinet won't work because the two cabinets are too far away from most of the properties to deliver modern speeds (again that's not a rural issue), only 30% of people would see "superfast broadband" with others getting almost nothing. However depending on the cabinet locations where you are, it might suffice.

We have run a full survey of residents the results of which are only just coming through, a third of residents say that broadband speeds are "a serious problem" with almost all the responses scoring the lowest two scores for performance. So at this point I'm in a similar situation to you wondering if the BDUK "plan" will simply pass us by because the "average" of 2Meg "ticks a box" or not and if the village will need to fund a broadband network 100% privately.

As regards Virgin Media we're only 9 miles from their Head Office, but the nearest point of presence for the cable network is 16 miles away in Aldershot. In your case, though, I'd have thought it might be nearer and that's probably a significant part of the cost as well - getting the connectivity to the village. Ironically the proposed State Aid for BT probably makes Virgin even more reluctant to invest in servicing new areas.
 
Mark2, the nearest area to our village that is served by Virgin Media's cable network is Farnham. Closer than Aldershot, but still not very close.
 
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