Faster Internet in Rural Areas - Will it happen?

gemsurf2

I live about 5km from my exchange and have always had slow speeds which I am resigned to, however over the last week we haven't had any internet for hours at a time. Ringing the house phone from a mobile sometimes clears it, but often the line is incredibly noisy. Generally we don't use the landline as it often 'upsets' the broadband. I've had my current router (SpeedTouch ST585v6) for a couple of years - is there a better router I could try or anything else I can do? Stats are below, though I haven't a clue what any of them mean!

Download 0.13mbps, upload 0.34mbps.

Error Seconds (Local/Remote):1,212 / 0

Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]:30.0 / 56.0 SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]:20.0 / 6.5

CRC Errors (Up/Down):0 / 21,716 HEC Errors (Up/Down):0 / 13,624

penrhyn

Assuming you have filters on all your active phone sockets, it
looks like you have a line fault, probably a high resistance joint somewhere.
The fault clearing by going off and on hook a few times suggest this.

First i'd try connecting to your test socket under the master faceplate and see if that improves things.

If not get on to your ISP.

With your stats you should be getting around 4Mbps.

gemsurf2

I have an ADSL filtered NTE5 faceplate but the router runs off an extension. I've done the master socket test before but ISP and BT each want to pass the issue to the other one - what you describe does sound very likely, so thank you for at last an informed and unbiased suggestion from which I can hopefully solve the problem.

penrhyn

How is the extension connected to the prefiltered faceplate?

The filter is designed to isolate the telephones from the broadband signal which goes to the ADSL socket, there will be little or no broadband signal on the telephone socket or extensions.

Try connecting the modem directly to your test socket and redoing your line stats.

eljmayes

I do feel that 4G will accelerate the process of fibre roll out simply from a competition stand point- companies aren't going to want to lose business to other mobile providers in the medium term because of 4G's speed.

That said, 4G likely won't be that quick (5-10 Mps) and it won't be available before 2013 as the legal wranglings are still going on.

LincolnshireYokel

rzlosty wrote: »

Hello,

I live in a rural area with a population of 50 houses. The nearest town is 5 miles away with a population of 4500.

I currently enjoy blistering fast (!) speeds of a whopping 1Mb download and 0.2 Mb upload.

The city folk are getting their slow 10Mb broadband upgraded to 80Mb+ with the help of Fiber Optic technology. While im still stuck with internet that makes it quicker to go to London on the train and get a CD from your friend with that important 1GB file than to transfer it via the superhighway!

"Ah well with prices as they are you cant complain" - Well actually i can.
Most companies are now advertising their plans by prices that only apply if you live in "Our Network" which (surprise surprise) i don't live in (because they wont pay to put there own equipment in the telephone exchange so have to pay BT to use theirs)

So that means, im paying more than inner city folk for 10% or less of the speed they get.

Anyway..
Do you ever think that ill be able to get internet that enables me to watch a YouTube video without buffering at least 4 or 5 times in 30 seconds?

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Will

Thats the price you pay for choosing the peace and tranquility of the3 countryside over the services and facilities available in a city. You cant win them all...............do you want piped gas, broadband internet and cheaper petrol or fresh veg out the fields, clean air and spoce to roam?

Nilrem

eljmayes wrote: »

I do feel that 4G will accelerate the process of fibre roll out simply from a competition stand point- companies aren't going to want to lose business to other mobile providers in the medium term because of 4G's speed.

That said, 4G likely won't be that quick (5-10 Mps) and it won't be available before 2013 as the legal wranglings are still going on.

I wouldn't like to bet on it, unfortunately the cost of improving land line broadband speeds in rural areas is often massive compared to the number of customers it will service, so the likes of BT and VM probably aren't too worried about it (getting fast ADSL to a handful of houses any distance from the exchange is probably not going to be viable for years).

It's the same reason that mobile Telephones outnumber land lines in parts of the world, it's much cheaper to put up a mast (or just improve the box of fun on the mast) than it is to run lots of lines.