BT Openreach effigy set alight by villagers

[Fishbait]

Bloody good idea

https://www.welnews.com/bt-openreach-effigy-set-alight-by-villagers/

Frustrated villagers say they were promised superfast broadband three years ago, but they are still waiting

A giant effigy of a BT Openreach van has been burned at a village bonfire in frustration over slow broadband speeds.

Templeton residents chose to turn up the heat on the telecommunications company as many are struggling with speeds of less than 1 megabyte.

Roger Linden said villagers were told the problem would be looked at three years ago, but nothing has happened.

BT said Templeton in Devon is extremely rural, which made the rollout of fibre broadband “more challenging”.

It said it was working hard to find alternative ways of bringing faster broadband to residents, including a community fibre partnership and a mobile broadband solution.

But Mr Linden is not convinced the company will be able to deliver.

“They managed to get a cable to the nearby hamlet of Nomansland, but just eight kilometres further and there’s nothing.

“It’s incompetence of the first order… but we all had a great evening watching the bonfire.”

With a speed of 0.7 megabytes per second, Mr Linden says – like many others in the village – he cannot stream anything and is only able to look at emails and occasionally browse the internet.

Adam Short, who moved to the village about 18 months ago, said he helped create the van effigy – marked with the words “won’t reach” – on the floor of his barn.

“We knew it was terrible before we moved, but we hoped there would be a solution,” he said.

“Trying to run my business from home is nigh on impossible at times, and I’m one of the lucky ones because I have a 4G signal on the roof with some specialist kit.

“It also has an impact on the children in the village as it’s restricting their homework.”

 

[LabR@t]

Classic

 

[Hotwired]

So BT Openreach rolls out a cable to Nomansland, apparent population 150 and having reached that no mans land they come to their senses and cancel digging then burying a cable for another 8,000m to another place in the middle of nowhere (west wales).

 

[Malevolence]

I ******* detest BT and their haphazard approach to internet infrastructure. I live in a large City and am still stuck on a crappy ADSL connection because BTw keep on pushing the date back for fibre installation at the cabinet.

 

[Scania]

My old man lives out in the sticks, he’s just “upgraded” to BT fibre, his speed has gone from 2.5 mpbs to 0.95 mbps, they say there is no fault with his line!

Pathetic company who treat their customers with contempt.

 

[Caged]

I'm not really sure what people moving into a little cluster of houses in the middle of nowhere really expect. I did enjoy the guy talking about an eight kilometre fibre run as though it was a short distance though, rather than a commercial decision that concluded it wasn't worth several tens of thousands of pounds to link up about eight houses.

 

[Avenged7Fold]

I wonder what the rest of the world thinks of the UK when they hear about fireworks night.

'So this one time of year we spend horrendous amounts of money on fireworks, have a bonfire and then start burning effigies of people/things we hate or find funny like BT vans, major politicians (usually naked), famous actors or directors'

'You ask me why we do it? Obviously to celebrate the gunpowder plot: a time a domestic terrorist tried to destroy the government but no one is really sure or cares if we are celebrating his failure or attempt, we just like a good fire.'

 

[SiD the Turtle]

I'm not really sure what people moving into a little cluster of houses in the middle of nowhere really expect. I did enjoy the guy talking about an eight kilometre fibre run as though it was a short distance though, rather than a commercial decision that concluded it wasn't worth several tens of thousands of pounds to link up about eight houses.

See this is the problem with having key infrastructure privatised. Who cares if it's profitable? It's a utility just like water or gas and they should have access to it.

I'm very much against re-nationalisation but Openreach pushes my buttons! Lived in very much not the sticks (Newham, London) and it took them years to get round to installing fibre, and only did it when the expensive new builds went up down the road.

 

[Caged]

If you want universal coverage then it either involves public money being transferred into private companies, or public money being used to build an asset that remains public.

I’d rather that when public money is used to fund assets they remain under public ownership, but that ship has sailed.

 

[FoxEye]

One big problem we have in this country is that after FTTC, there is.... nothing. BT will absolutely not roll out FTTP in places that have FTTC, and have said so many times.

So once you've got ~76 Mb/s that's all you're going to get from BT. It's all about sweating that copper/aluminium last mile. Maximum profit.

 

[Caged]

You could have said the same thing about ADSL. There’s always something new coming along, there’s a lot of value in selling bits of kit to shove data over copper pairs at increasing capacities, just as there is in the cable TV world with DOCSIS.

 

[jpaul]

How much speed do you need though ?
the thread about broadband speeds should also disclose how much data those folks actually consume - ADSL with >6Mb/s is fine.

I'm not really sure what people moving into a little cluster of houses in the middle of nowhere really expect

agree
some of these folks were naive not to consider BB availibility when they moved there, and nonetheless have the option of funding this amongst themselves if it is key, like
Payhembury village, also in the news recently.
I have sympathy for folks like farmers, who need broadband to efficiently fill in online forms for animal movements (and EEC subsidy requests)

 

[FoxEye]

You could have said the same thing about ADSL. There’s always something new coming along, there’s a lot of value in selling bits of kit to shove data over copper pairs at increasing capacities, just as there is in the cable TV world with DOCSIS.

Nope, only GFast. That still leverages copper (etc) last mile, and gives you speeds of ~100 ish Mb/s, but drops off very fast as cable length increases.

The trouble is, BT will never lay fibre to the prem if you have fibre to the cab.

We might well have to wait for fixed wireless to move beyond FTTC speeds. BT just won't do it because the cost of FTTP is way too high for them. They will only do it if the government pays for them to do it, basically.

And that won't happen till 2050 or whatever. FTTC is literally a dead-end. Once you've got it, you're not getting anything better.

 

[Hotwired]

See this is the problem with having key infrastructure privatised. Who cares if it's profitable? It's a utility just like water or gas and they should have access to it.

Access to what? An improved connection? Bit grey to say it's a right to an improved connection.

Also people do live in places that do not have piped fuel or water or sewage. Oil deliveries, gas cylinders and cesspits are a thing. Thing you know about before going to live in the actual sticks.

Always technically possible to connect all these things, it's not high tech. Just a question of digging an immensely long trench and throwing someones money at it.

 

[diamount]

Sorry, they used that money to acquire EE.

 

[jon86]

... FTTC is literally a dead-end. Once you've got it, you're not getting anything better.

Just wait for 5G mobile broadband. That will deliver true gigabit+ speeds over a cellular network. Parts of South Korea are getting 5G in 2019.

 

[NoobCannon]

“Bt wont reach” had me in stitches lol

 

[Caged]

Nope, only GFast. That still leverages copper (etc) last mile, and gives you speeds of ~100 ish Mb/s, but drops off very fast as cable length increases.

The trouble is, BT will never lay fibre to the prem if you have fibre to the cab.

We might well have to wait for fixed wireless to move beyond FTTC speeds. BT just won't do it because the cost of FTTP is way too high for them. They will only do it if the government pays for them to do it, basically.

And that won't happen till 2050 or whatever. FTTC is literally a dead-end. Once you've got it, you're not getting anything better.

I feel like you have missed my underlying point, which is that developments on what can be done over a copper pair will continue to push the attainable speeds higher, because there's a lot of value in companies making the developments. Fibre will make its way deeper into the network (and the difficult work has been mostly done), but fixating on having the fibre optic cable coming right through your door is a waste of energy because what matters is the access speed relative to the end user requirements, not the medium over which it is delivered. Hyperoptic customers aren't complaining that the fibre bit ends in their basement, for example.

 

[Sasahara]

With a speed of 0.7 megabytes per second, Mr Linden says – like many others in the village – he cannot stream anything and is only able to look at emails and occasionally browse the internet.

That should be fine for normal web surfing and emails.

If you want to stream video don't move to an area with low BB speeds. When I was looking for a house BB speed was one of the first things I checked.

 

[FoxEye]

I feel like you have missed my underlying point, which is that developments on what can be done over a copper pair will continue to push the attainable speeds higher, because there's a lot of value in companies making the developments. Fibre will make its way deeper into the network (and the difficult work has been mostly done), but fixating on having the fibre optic cable coming right through your door is a waste of energy because what matters is the access speed relative to the end user requirements, not the medium over which it is delivered. Hyperoptic customers aren't complaining that the fibre bit ends in their basement, for example.

Depends on the length (and material) of your local loop. Anyone on aluminium cable is screwed, for starters. VDSL and G.Fast can even be slower than ADSL.

Then if you're >250m from your cab, G.Fast and future refinements are actually slower than VDSL2.

For a large number of people the only way forwards is FTTP, and BT just aren't going to do it without government money.

We're fannying around giving BT every excuse not to lay fibre, when everyone knows that is the best way forwards.