Moving to a semi-rural area-what BB options are there?

clarabelle41

Hi

I'm a real techie novice so please bear with me. We are moving to a semi rural area in Essex - postcode is CM1 area which covers part of the town as well as this semi-rural area. We currently live in the same postcode but in the town.

Currently we use Virgin for broadband & phone (teenage son does alot of gaming) & Sky for TV. We changed from Sky's BB as service was slower at that time, I was told this was due to the old phone lines.

We had just checked both Virgin & BT. Virgin don't offer fibre optic in the new area and BT's service is around 8mbs.

Do I have any other options for a faster broadband?

zymotik

I noticed if I plug my router (normally in Birmingham, 6-8mbps)into my brother in laws connection out in the sticks (he gets 6-8mps), my router with my login details gets 21mbps! We both use TalkTalk. How can my connection be so poor when the exchange is so near and I'm on a brand new estate?!

System

zymotik wrote: »

I noticed if I plug my router (normally in Birmingham, 6-8mbps)into my brother in laws connection out in the sticks (he gets 6-8mps), my router with my login details gets 21mbps! We both use TalkTalk. How can my connection be so poor when the exchange is so near and I'm on a brand new estate?!

It sounds like your exchange isn't ADSL2 enabled thus limiting you to 8MB max but your BIL's exchanged is enabled but his router doesn't appear to be set up correctly to utilise it.

macman

clarabelle41 wrote: »

Hi

I'm a real techie novice so please bear with me. We are moving to a semi rural area in Essex - postcode is CM1 area which covers part of the town as well as this semi-rural area. We currently live in the same postcode but in the town.

Currently we use Virgin for broadband & phone (teenage son does alot of gaming) & Sky for TV. We changed from Sky's BB as service was slower at that time, I was told this was due to the old phone lines.

We had just checked both Virgin & BT. Virgin don't offer fibre optic in the new area and BT's service is around 8mbs.

Do I have any other options for a faster broadband?

A part postcode does not tell us which exchange, so do an exchange search on www.samknows.com for your LLU options.
It is likely that BT's FTTC services will be available to you at some future date, and from their resellers such as Plusnet and Sky.
PS: if you are on the Boreham exchange, FTTC is now available in some areas, and your LLU options are Sky, 02/Be, and TT. Samknows will reveal all.

System

clarabelle41 wrote: »

Hi

I'm a real techie novice so please bear with me. We are moving to a semi rural area in Essex - postcode is CM1 area which covers part of the town as well as this semi-rural area. We currently live in the same postcode but in the town.

Currently we use Virgin for broadband & phone (teenage son does alot of gaming) & Sky for TV. We changed from Sky's BB as service was slower at that time, I was told this was due to the old phone lines.

We had just checked both Virgin & BT. Virgin don't offer fibre optic in the new area and BT's service is around 8mbs.

Do I have any other options for a faster broadband?

You need to check the exchange that you will be on in the new location at https://www.samknows.com. This will indicate whether any provider has installed their own kit and will be able to offer better than 8MB max. However being rural I wouldn't expect anything but the basic 8MB ADSL to be available.

clarabelle41

Thanks for the info. We will be on the Roxwell exchange (EAROX). The website says "BT wholesale ADSL Max (up to 8M), cable services: none, LLU services: not available"

So it looks like upto 8MB is the best we can hope for?

System

I'm afraid so. Join the rest of us ruralites. If we are lucky our exchanges might get upgraded to 20MB in the next 10 years.

macman

Tiny exchange, only 650 subscribers, so no chance of any future LLU I'm afraid. FTTC maybe at some future date...