You don’t gave to be very remote to be far enough from a centre of population as to have either not been a priority, or for it to be considered not cost effective running fibre close enough to your locality, to get high speed broadband. The numbers game has been aimed at getting an impressive percentage of population up to a reasonable speed, not getting that percentage of country area up to it (83% of UK population live in urban areas covering just 8% of the land).
According to OFCOM, as of this time last year 95% of population had broadband speeds of 30Mbps or more - that means 3.3 million people had slower connections - and some apparently a lot lower. And of course the speed quoted will be that declared by the service providers: at busy times it is not uncommon for people to find speeds can drop by a factor of 2 or more.
I am a bit isolated - a farm surrounded by farms. I can see the other houses, but only just. Well, actually only one of them. A bit.
It does seem a bit galling, though, that although we pay the same taxes and rates and other things that others do, we get very few services. Yet millions is spent on increasing other people’s speeds from what I would regard as very fast (20 to 50 Mbs) to stupidly fast. Yes, it would cost more to get my speed up a bit than it would for some others - but there are really not a great many of us in this situation.
We get very strange situations. In theory, every £ spent per person in London (for instance) on things like transport etc. gives a greater bang-per-buck than, e.g., in the North of England - and so more is spent per head in London (much more) than in other parts of the country. It makes not sense.
Yes - I suppose because most people just assume that the internet speed is adequate. And they should be able to assume that.
For many years I was a computer programmer, and for much of that time I worked from home. But here it is quite difficult to do, because of BB speed. So I am at something of a disadvantage compared with others.
Well in the UK there is the 10 Mbps universal service offering. Contact BT or KCOM depending where you live, and have your situation is assessed. It might be you can use wireless broadband or fixed line.
There is upto a max USO installation of around 3K for very remote properties miles from a neighbour. with the government funding the rest.
Alternatively if there a few of you contact your Parish Council as they can channel and prioritise Better Broadband funding.
The latter is what I did in my parish including the village and outlying farms and properties. The village and some farms got FTTC, other outlying farms and properties got FTTP… so the remoter properties got the direct fibre.
My sync rate went from 3.5 Mbps to 47 Mbps, some in the village went from 1 Mbps to approx 40 Mbps… all through the Parish and County Council.
Well I never…! I’ve just sold a property and had never noticed that. 900 Mbs, no wories! Seriously, I know it doesn’t help those left behind in recent years, but for those moving or who have moved in the last year or two, it has to be a case of ‘caveat emptor’. I would love to have the Virgin style fibre connection I enjoyed in Essex (albeit they’re not a good company to deal with), but knew when looking to move to Cornwall that was never likely to happen. I wanted natural gas connected to my property, and had to pay a significant sum for that to happen. I didn’t expect it to be subsidised by other users or tax payers. Contentious topic I know, but Simon in Suffolk points out some viable solutions.
Well there is no choice, it is a legal requirement… so whether they are interested or not is kind of irrelevant…
The page on BT’s website https://www.bt.com/broadband/USO
Interesting. I will try again. Maybe whoever I contacted knew nothing about it. The last time I spoke to someone at BT about it they said yes, they can do it, and it will cost me a rediculous amount of money
It will cost you upto 3K … where it’s capped. otherwise it could cost you 10s of thousands in extreme circumstances… .the Ofcom site says the details on the USO.
Yep, that may be the best option in which case you are fortunate to have 4G, but remember many very remote locations have marginal if any GSM, let alone 4G, and 3K could come in.
Satellite broadband can be a good option, you just need to understand its latency limitations. I had neighbours who used that here before we got our parish superfast sorted out under the government subsidised BDUK programme.
I have to use my broadband to get any mobile phone connection at all - which doesn’t work very well, but it does limp along to an extent. So no, not an option here, unless they can put an aerial up somewhere.
I made enquiries with Openreach on behalf of our hamlet and was advised that we are included in the FTTP roll out. I was also told that the project is due to start in April 2021, but at the time no completion date was available. That means that we could still be waiting a long time.
Yes, that sounds like it’s part of BDUK. Contact your parish or county council for more info. They will have more they can share compared to Openreach, as the county council will be most likely owning the project contracting in part Openreach. Though this week the chancellor announced emergency funding changes for broadband due to COVID 19, so might need to check its not delayed.
I’ve just talked again to BT. It isn’t that it may cost up to 3K - it is they will pay up to 3.4K, anything over that and I pay - or payment is shared out between anyone else who could benefit. So it’s an open amount (obviously I would get an estimate, or possibly even a quote). Last time I investigated it was expected that it would be in the 10s of thousands of pounds. It looks like the legal obligation is that they will supply it if I pay for it, and they will put £3400 + VAT towards it.
I have a couple of OFCOM numbers I will try tomorrow, though I’m not holding my breath.
Ok thanks for clarification… I would try the council BDUK angle as well then. BDUK is accessed via the County Council, often by your Parish council. I am not sure you will get much joy from Ofcom tomorrow being a Saturday. If you are still left out unless you pay for significant infrastructure to your homestead and many many miles from the nearest infrastructure then satellite is an option. There are or at least were some attractive options. The price tiering is based on the contention.
KConnect can provide 22 Mbps average anywhere in the UK for £30 ppm. If I had no metal or fibre connectivity I would use one of these or a higher tier satellite packages, assuming you can position the required dish in the clear away from trees.
When I was involved with satellite broadband solutions a few years ago, I seem to remember the only part of the British Isles that was marginal was far the very southeast tip of Kent with the transponders we were using.
Spec for mine is download 80, upload 10 - the best abailable where I live . Actual: Ping 30, Download 52.99, Upload 9.48. It is about normal for this time of the evening, sometimes download drops to 40 or so, and ping can go up to 50.
Overall I consider it to be a pretty good speed - but of course it always depends on what one is used to. In my case what we have currently is the best I’ve experienced, so of course good!
