Tag Archives: BT
Posted on July 19, 2016 by Editor Posted in News	Leave a comment
In its second report, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee says BT is "significantly under investing" in Openreach, its infrastructure subsidiary. Based on a report commissioned from a panel of independent experts, the Committee concluded the shortfall in investment could potentially be hundreds of millions of pounds a year.
Establishing world-class connectivity throughout the UK (PDF 1,4MB)
A few snippets: –
"At present, a sizeable number of people and businesses lack access to good, reliable and affordable broadband communications; and without that they are at risk of being digitally excluded and left behind."
"The UK is a laggard by international standards in providing fibre connectivity. This could result in a widening, not a narrowing, of the digital divide; especially as demand for faster services escalates after 2020."
"UK broadband access infrastructure is dominated by BT's local access network subsidiary ….. but one consequence of this rapid rollout has been that the programme appears to have tackled the easier-to-reach premises within the interventions areas first and has not delivered coverage to whole areas. Instead, it has left a patchwork of premises that have not been reached, and created much uncertainty among local residents as to whether or not they will be connected or receive improved speeds."
"A further downside of the BDUK programme has been the lack of transparency in Openreach's costs and deployment plans, the apparent effect of which has been to stifle local competition and thwart other network providers' planning. At the same time, Openreach's historically poor service record has failed to improve in the face of escalating demands on the network."
BT Openreach
Broadband from the Bell Tower
Posted on September 29, 2013 by Editor Posted in News	Leave a comment
Reproduced from The Guardian, Sunday 29 September 2013 16.34 BST
It was 4am on Thursday when Paull Taylor turned on BBC News to be greeted with a BT spokesman making grand promises about superfast broadband in rural areas. The telecoms man was insisting his firm had not "exploited" £1.2bn of public funds – an accusation made by the Public Accounts Committee this week – and promising that most country-dwelling Britons would receive 2MB broadband by 2015. Despite the early hour, the 20-year-old electrician was lucid enough to provide a pithy response:
"Bollocks. Absolute bollocks. He said the process was 'transparent'. 'Thoroughly transparent'. And yet we ask them whether they're going to get a cable to our house and they reply saying 'oh, we can't tell you'. Anyway, two megs is rubbish. Absolutely naff. Meaningless. You can't do anything with two megs."
Paull and his family live by a creek in the reclaimed marshland of Holderness, East Yorkshire, 10 miles south-east of Hull and six miles away from a main road. "No way are they going to dig a trench to lay fibre optic cable to our house, but they won't admit it," said Paull, as his dad, Simon, nodded enthusiastic agreement. "East Riding council have just given BT £14m to improve broadband provision in our area, but we understand we won't see any of that," said Simon, a moustachioed eccentric with bright eyes and big ideas.
Luckily, the Taylors predicted this at least a year ago and decided to take matters into their own hands. Fed up with waiting 20 minutes to download any email with an attachment, and cheesed off with not being able to stream the BBC's iPlayer, Paull and his dad came up with an idea.
They bought an off-the-shelf radio transmitter and receiver for about £80 and, along with a neighbour, persuaded St Andrew's, their local church in the village of Paull (where the young man got the unusual spelling of his name), to let them install the equipment on top of the bell tower.
After tapping into a nearby fibre optic cable, they were able to equip the church with a galloping internet connection. The church soon exploited this to turn their ad-hoc coffee shop into a cyber cafe. Suddenly 100 people were coming through the church doors each weekend, compared to perhaps 10 (on a good day) sitting through the Sunday sermon. "We have to find new ways to make ourselves relevant in this day and age if we want to stay open," said one church member.
Thus began the not-for-profit Hubb project. "Hubb because our postcode begins HU, and also because we want the church to become the hub of the community," explained Simon, not a God-fearing man himself.
The enterprising Hubb trio, all unpaid volunteers, made leaflets to give to parishioners proclaiming: "Let there be wifi!" (An earlier draft was deemed too edgy, declaring: "And on the eighth day God made broadband – and it was fast".) A pilot began while the men waited for planning permission from the diocese for the equipment to be installed permanently on the roof.
A rudimentary broadband network began to take shape as locals agreed to have wireless radio equipment attached to their chimney breasts which received signal from St Andrew's. They were delighted with the results – especially the chap who'd bought a £1,000 smart TV two years earlier which was all but useless until the Taylors came along. Two weeks ago, planning permission was granted and last Saturday the service went public.
Debbie and Lynne Easton, living in the nearby hamlet of Sunk Island, signed up straight away. They claim Talk Talk used to charge them £20 a month for a broadband connection which only worked between 8.15am and 8.45am – if they were lucky. "We tried a dongle," said Lynne, "but we could only get that to work occasionally, by sticking stuff to the windows, putting one leg in the air and if the wind was blowing the right way from Grimsby." They paid the Hubb team £50 set-up costs and say they are happy to fork out £25 a month for reliable broadband which enables the family to Skype friends in Canada and stream music and video.
News of the Taylors' technical wizardry has spread 17 miles south-east from Paull to the village of Easington, where Simon on Friday climbed the vertiginous steps of a pigeon poo-encrusted church tower to fit radio equipment in another pilot scheme. This pretty coastal settlement is home to some of the most high-tech and fiercely guarded technology in the country, at the Easington gas terminal, which collects gas via the North Sea pipeline. Pylons provide the site with tip-top communication facilities, which somehow do not extend to the village, where most locals can't get a mobile signal, let alone decent broadband provision. "Very frustrating," said Ian Rutter, warden of the All Saints church, who is hoping the Hubb set-up can be replicated in his parish.
It's a problem replicated all over the less populated parts of the country, said Tim Farron, MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale in Cumbria: "Every day I get a phone call or a letter from a constituent who is dealing with internet access that is non-existent. It makes it difficult for people to access services or run a business. Decent broadband is key to creating more well paid jobs and more investment and at the moment BT and the government's broadband roll out is failing rural areas. Even many of those areas that are supposedly getting support are only going to get 2MBps download speed and less than 1MBps upload – this is completely inadequate; we need broadband infrastructure that is future proof, not a sticking plaster."
BDUK BT rural
Posted on September 9, 2013 by Editor Posted in News	Leave a comment
Superfast West Yorkshire – £21.9 million to enhance broadband
Official Press Release
A new £21.96 million contract between the four West Yorkshire local authorities and BT has been agreed to transform broadband speeds across West Yorkshire by the end of Autumn 2015.
The new project, "Superfast West Yorkshire" plans to extend high-speed fibre broadband to 97 per cent of households and businesses across the majority of West Yorkshire. As well as providing high speed fibre, the partnership aims to upgrade 100 per cent of premises in this area to speeds of more than 2Mbps. [FibreValley – can't wait to see you do that in remotest upland areas, currently with no broadband or mobile signal].
Superfast West Yorkshire builds on BT's commercial investment of £2.5 billion to roll fibre broadband out to two-thirds of UK premises by the end of Spring 2014. Leeds City Council, Bradford Metropolitan District Council, Wakefield Council and Calderdale Council will work with BT to bring fibre broadband to premises in West Yorkshire which are not currently included in commercial roll-out plans and could otherwise have missed out on this opportunity.
Together with Kirklees Council, a demand stimulation and business support programme will be developed to demonstrate the benefits of high speed internet to residents and businesses. This part of the project has already registered demand from over 780 businesses and residents across West Yorkshire through the website www.superfastwestyorkshire.co.uk. [We've 100+ on our site just from the Worth Valley].
BT was awarded the contract following a procurement exercise through the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) framework. BT is contributing £12.58 million towards fibre deployment in "non-commercial" areas, with the four local authorities contributing £970,000. Alongside this partnership, the project has received £4.62 million of funding from BDUK and the remaining £3.79 million from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
Ed Vaizey, Communications Minister, said: "This £21.96 million project will deliver an incredible transformation in broadband speeds for thousands of homes and businesses in West Yorkshire. It will be instrumental in driving growth, boosting the local economy, and achieving the Government's objective of reaching 95% of all UK premises by 2017." [FibreValley – the Government target was/is actually to do that by 2015]
Fibre broadband will be of particular benefit to local businesses which can use the high speed technology to improve their competitiveness both nationally and internationally. This investment in infrastructure will enable a level playing field for small businesses to compete with multinationals on new business opportunities and aims to create and protect local jobs by attracting inward investment. Fast upload speeds will mean businesses can enable their employees to enjoy the flexibility of working from home to reduce office costs and encourage a good work-life balance.
The project will also be of significant value to local residents who will have improved use of daily online activities like shopping, banking and catching up on their favourite TV programmes.
Councillor Keith Wakefield, chair of the Association of West Yorkshire Authorities (AWYA), said: "This is an important day for West Yorkshire as we take a vital step forward in the digital age. Fast and reliable internet is becoming crucial to daily life and for residents in West Yorkshire, it will provide an equal opportunity to access essential online activities such as council services, healthcare and other public services as well as offering new leisure and educational opportunities.
"I believe it will help us strengthen our economy by giving small businesses a means to develop their potential and achieve their ambitions as well as encouraging new start-ups and job creation.
"This pioneering project will be of real benefit to many residents and businesses in West Yorkshire and we are continuing to work hard to bring the whole of West Yorkshire up to speed."
"I encourage all businesses and residents in the region to take full advantage of this exciting opportunity and put West Yorkshire on the superfast map."
Bill Murphy, BT's managing director for Next Generation Access, said: "This project is vital to the future economic strength of all the local authority areas involved in this project. It will go beyond BT's commercial roll-out of fibre broadband and take faster broadband to areas which are technically and economically more challenging."
"An enhanced digital infrastructure in West Yorkshire will help consolidate the area's reputation for technology, innovation and enterprise and make this large part of the Leeds City Region a more attractive proposition for business re-locations and start-ups – including the creation of new, high-tech jobs."
"Broadband is completely changing the way we use the internet at home with existing and new services being increasingly delivered on-line. These services, whether for entertainment or education, are becoming more sophisticated and content-rich and depend upon fast reliable higher speed broadband."
BT's network will be open to all communications providers on an equal wholesale basis so consumers and businesses will benefit from a highly competitive market as this was an important stipulation to the tender process. Currently more than 80 service providers across the UK are trialling or offering fibre broadband over BT's network.
Fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) will be the main technology deployed which delivers wholesale downstream speeds of up to 80Mbps and upstream speeds of up to 20Mbps.
Openreach has also started to make fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) technology, where the fibre runs all the way to the home or business, commercially available on demand in certain areas where fibre broadband has been deployed, and plans to expand access in due course. FTTP-on-demand offers the top current download speed of up to 330Mbps.
Fibre broadband at home means everyone in the family can do their own thing online, all at the same time, whether it's downloading music in minutes or watching catch-up TV; streaming HD or 3D movies in the few minutes it takes to make popcorn; or posting photos and videos to social networking sites in seconds. Fibre improves the quality of online experiences and supports exciting new developments in Internet services.
Superfast West Yorkshire will be announcing the installation schedule in the coming months and communities across West Yorkshire can look forward to improved access to online services and better connectivity for businesses from 2014 onwards [FibreValley – you mean 'some' communities can look forward to that].
BDUK BT superfast west yorkshire
Fibre is here – or is it?
Posted on January 20, 2013 by Editor Posted in News	Leave a comment
Ken Eastwood, Oxenhope resident and founder of FibreValley, shares his recent experiences.
BT have taken note of our campaigning and fibre broadband is now available in parts of the upper Worth Valley, via cabinets served from the exchange at Crossroads. We had always hoped that FibreValley would have some influence and it seems we now have.
So after a little research I decided we should to return to BT and they confirmed that unlimited Broadband Infinity 2 (up to 76Mb/s) would be available at home. Our phone line connects to a telegraph pole just a few feet away from the new fibre cabinet at Muffin Corner in Oxenhope, so we placed our order expecting to receive a fantastic service and eagerly awaited our installation date.
Sadly, there was no knock on the door on the scheduled date and a telephone call revealed that there were technical issues and inevitable delays. The following few weeks involved numerous follow-up calls and our broadband service subsequently went off all together. Hardly the 'seamless transition' advertised and a complaint was lodged, resulting in a commitment to accelerate installation and to pick up the cost of mobile broadband in the interim.
After three weeks with no service, we were told Infinity 2 would not now be available because of "capacity issues" at the local exchange. A downgraded service was offered that would not include an unlimited data allowance.
With no resolution in sight we contacted BT Group CEO, Ian Livingston, sharing our tale of woe. After a further three weeks we were informed that because our line actually connected to a cabinet up on Marsh Lane (about a mile away) there was nothing that could be done. Requests to be connected to the nearest cabinet fell on deaf ears.
To date we have had no technical explanation, other than that the underground infrastructure was built to provide telephony, sometimes does strange things and can't always meet the needs of broadband customers. It's so frustrating, especially as houses across the street are connected to 'our' cabinet.
We finally returned to TalkTalk and were connected to an unlimited fibre service last week. We're now getting 12Mb/s download, which is a marked improvement over ADSL. The BT Openreach engineer who installed the service observed, "It's a shame you're not connected to that cabinet on the corner you know. You'd be getting 70Mb/s + if you were." If only he knew!!
My dealings with BT have reinforced previously held concerns about their monopoly stranglehold and apparent disregard for customer care. It has also reinforced my belief that further investment in infrastrucure to develop fibre to the home is essential if the UK is to avoid falling behind the rest of the world. It's clear that the legacy copper wire telephony infrastructure simply isn't up to the job.
This matter is currently the subject of a complaint to the Ombudsman and OFCOM.
Have you had similar (or better) experiences in the Worth Valley? If so please comment below or get in touch. We'd love to hear from you and don't forget to take our speed test and share your result.
Missing Link? A short length of cable is all that's needed – surely?
broadband BT fibre