Broadband and mobile coverage in "hard-to-reach" places

aughtonb4rn

Tim_Vanstone wrote: »

I live in "rural" Cornwall (but 3milesfrom a major trunk road). Our broadband service is with BT partly because there is very little other option. Our exchange (Widegates) has superfast broadband and is only 1 mile away but our service is provided by telephone wires across fields serving the 7 properties in our lane. The service is extremely slow and frequently breaks down. I appreciate that it is not cost effective to upgrade our service but how are we ever going to get a good service ?

You could get together with similarly afflicted properties and make a case to Gigaclear (for instance) to come and put fibre in. It'll be futureproof and you'll never have to worry about the internet again!. We are on B4RN here in Lancashire where we get 1000Mbps (yes 1Gb) download and the same upload for £30/month. We as communities coming together have done it ourselves but there are commercial operators such as Gigclear who can do it.

CCP

I live not far from the centre of a major UK city (Portsmouth) and even my parents, living in a rural area of the Isle of Wight, get better broadband speed than I do - I was sold an 'up to 8Mb' package but am lucky if I get half of that. The cheapest providers (the ones who generally top the MSE price league tables) can offer only 0.5Mb. :eek: I get calls advertising fibre broadband but, when I express an interest, I am always told that this is 'coming soon' and not available yet - this has been the case for at least the last five years.

I'm not sure that more competition would help, but getting providers to contribute to the costs of upgrading the system so that a faster connection is possible would definitely help, as would more honesty about the speeds that can be expected (I still see adverts for 'up to 25Mb' speed in my area, which I know is impossible).

Lpg

potbelly wrote: »

My request is not just for myself but for a load of friends and relatives who don't want to use broadband or mobiles to communicate with suppliers. I would request that the government force all services to still be contactable by landline phone and post. They have worked for years and it is extremely frustrating when they are not available. For example, an elderly, disabled friend has just had his electoral registration form. He has some questions he needs answering. The form offers a website, or text messaging service, or a landline that is just an automated answering service. He is 78 and considers himself too old to start learning to use new technology, nor can he justify the expense. Remember going online is not just the cost of the internet service provider, there is the cost of the computer, and the lessons to learn how to use it. Similarly with mobile phones, they are not free, they have a monthly cost. Why are we ostracising large numbers of our population by removing tried and trusted means of personal communication?

Fully agree...I use the internet my wife does not.

When I am asked to sign up for something that is internet based like Electric company/online bank, I tell them it is no good as my wife does not use the internet so if I pop my clogs first she would have no idea of what to do.

I heard the other day that the next census will done on the internet only.

sdhughs

we live in newton harcourt leics with no fibre and poor connection all villages surrounding us have been upgraded but bt consider it to costly to do ours

starlucent

We live in a small rural village, and BT Openreach have installed a new fibre-enabled cabinet on the other side of the road outside my house over the last few months. I'm told the cabinet has been enabled, but that I can't get superfast broadband because I live too close to the exchange. I have an exchange only line - and so, it would seem, does everyone else in the village that I've spoken to. And when I call BT, their representatives (sales, upgrade and technical teams) don't know what an exchange only line is or how to change it.

I had no idea about exchange only lines either until I came across this problem. But it seems there are many thousands of us across the country in this situation.

I'd like you to ask what the superfast rollout teams plan to do about enabling the thousands of exchange only lines...

dgreenlees

I live in a small town in Perthshire. My broadband speed is appallingly slow. We can't watch YouTube videos. I tried - perhaps a dozen times - downloading the new Windows 10 upgrade, which is a massive 3GB download, but each time the connection just cut out. Once after just 90MB, once it got up to 890MB. I tried emailing Microsoft if they would sell me a DVD of the ISO file, but they never replied. In the end I just gave up.

It's just so frustrating to have such an unreliable 'service'.

Despite being able to choose from any number of ISPs keen to take our money, there's no real competition here as the town's too small (population around 7000) for alternative suppliers to install their own equipment. So despite many middle men, in effect BT's the only game in town, and unlikely to change any time soon.

christine-ed

I have an intermittent Vodafone mobile signal even though I live on the edge of a village very close to Basingstoke. If you complain you get fobbed off. The signal comes and goes.

Dangerous78

I live in a small village in Surrey where we have just had superfast broadband installed, happy days! Our mobile reception however is non existent. I both run my own business and act as a director for another. My employers mobile supplier of choice is Vodafone who have the audacity to try to charge £100 for a sure signal unit. As far as I'm concerned the company already pays a significant fee for a contract. Why should anybody have to stump up for a signal booster to compensate for a phone company's poor coverage? The joke of it is that if I lived in the Scottish Highlands I'd be equally upset but perhaps understanding. As it is, I live 25 miles south of central London and 19 miles from Gatwick. The Scottish Highlands where I regularly do business enjoy near perfect signal. Go figure why this can't be replicated in a part of the country that is the so called hub of the country?

Quasi48

We live in rural Suffolk but just 8 miles from Bury St Edmunds, the broadband speeds are only just adequate at around 5mb sec but the mobile phone signal is frankly pathetic we are only able to receive a 2G signal and that is only on Vodaphone ( which limits our choice of provider completley ) there is no signal from any of the other providers such as 02 or EE and 3G & 4G reception is non existent

kirky2552

We moved into our house 1 year ago in Lancashire and had a slow internet connection, approx. 2Mb/s. The location is best described as a small town suburb.


I have checked the openreach website and all the houses and estates around us have had cable run to their cabinets. I asked BT about this and they said they had no plans on installing it to our cabinet as didn't make commercial sense. The estate has approx. (300) 3/4 bed houses. We won't fall under the 'Superfast lancashire' rollout as not deemed to be in a rural location


I wrote to my local MP who sent a letter to BT but I got no response and my MP has made no attempts at further communication.


I feel we are getting overlooked by BT and the government and nobody seems to be able to do anything about it.