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

markjprobert

I live in TS20 area which is far from rural, lived here for 6 years in October and we bought from new. We only get approx 1MB on our broadband. Mobile signal is terrible too and often drops calls in the house. What is most frustrating is there is an exchange about a mile from our house that IS fibre broadband and people across the road from us (I'm talking directly opposite but not part of our estate) are connected to this (they also get cable TV etc whereas we can't but that's another story!) whereas we are connected to an exchange 4 miles away which DOESNT have fibre and there are no plans to upgrade it either. As I can see others have posted, one would think when buying a new home that it would be future proofed and at least up to date with current technology. Unbeknownst to us they also got a 3rd party supplier to lay the gas pipes on the estate so we now pay extra on our bills for a "gas transportation charge" - I must stress, we are NOT rural and in fact live on one of the busiest roads in the village/town

Scooternut

My property in Pyworthy, Devon, has been connected to a "live" cabinet (Holsworthy 5) for at least nine months, but I am still unable to get fibre broadband. An enquiry to "Connecting Devon & Somerset" revealed that my property is in the last 5% of the rollout, and that my speed, currently 2.5Mbps on a good day, will not be improved in any form until 2016 at the earliest, when the next stage of the rollout "will be looked at". Why should rural properties be penalised just because BT say it's not commercially viable? They, or another provider, should be forced to supply a reasonable speed by the government, subsidised if necessary, or am I and the many others like me condemned to life in the slow lane.

Scottish_Saver_2

I live in the Scottish Highlands and am lucky to get a speed of 0.5Mb, mostly it's around 0.2Mb. I don't have any option as to supplier, only BT so can't even think of changing.
I see some comments about only having "slow" 2Mb or so broadband, that'd be sheer luxury and can only be dreamt of!
I don't have a mobile signal at all so only turn the phone on when I’m out and even then the service is poor.
Friends 7 miles away enjoy 7Mb but BT just can be bothered to extend their network as there wouldn’t be any profit in it for them.
:mad:

Bottyboo

We live 3 miles outside of Worcester and have variable speeds of broadband with the max about 1.2mb. It regularly drops out and impacts our mobile signal too as we have a signal booster. Not only is it frustrating when 3 miles down the road Superfast fibre is available but we are trying to run a business.

Please, please can we have a reasonable level of broadband service, even if it's not superfast fibre. We would like to have a consistent, reasonable broadband service.

Watty_G

We live in north Somerset, our 3 mobile signal is for ever dropping off. I have contracted 3 who inform me its not their fault as the mast they use is BT's, which is, according to them, the cause of the problem.
Well, my contract is with 3 so it is 3 that I expect to provide coverage as per their coverage map. If their contract with BT is such that they can't resolve what ever issues there maybe doesn't exonerate them from the contract with me.
What's needed is legislation to penalise these company's if they cannot maintain coverage as advertised.

mamaduke

Hi we live on the outskirts of Huddersfield.
We get around 2Mbps download & only 1Mbps upload if lucky.
There is no fibre here.
We live at the end of the line so the connection is very poor too & often drops.
I would love just to have reliable fast broadband not even superfast.

OneLou

I live in Wembley, Alperton.. and even though streets have been cabled for the past 4 plus years, yet BT has refused to connect the cabinets, on my street the top 5% of the road is active but the rest remains on slow net.

How is the market competitive, if only BT has the power to activate area's

Keltoiboy

I live in N Ireland in a rural area and we have always had a reduced broadband signal. For the past 3 weeks we have lost internet completely. We have called BT faults over 15 times, had one engineer out and another on the way!! My complaint is more about BT and their awful service. We have no option but to use BT as they own the line. All this time we are being charged the same as those with a full signal. Why is it so difficult in our high tech world, to get this fault fixed and/or a satisfactory rate of broadband?

pedant1

A long time ago BT was willing to invest billions and put fibre everywhere. Unfortunately, the government at the time would not then let it capitalise on its investment. Other small telecoms companies were allowed to use BT's lines for free until they reached a certain market share (9% I think, Mercury was one of those).
Competition may sound a great idea but when a state monopoly is privatised and then made to "compete" by giving away its service, things don't work out for everyone. All the major providers are willing to go for the easy market in urban, well populated areas. This is the government's idea of competition! None of the others are willing to invest billions (like BT are now doing) to reach the more remote areas.
If the Government is really serious about "fast broadband for all" then it should be prepared to pay the cost. BT is best placed to put the infrastructure in so the government should pay them to do it 100%. As others have said, we all seem to pay the same amount for broadband, whether we get good speeds or not. Even the government now expects us to use the internet to communicate with it so it must provide the funding. It is not all right to claim 95% coverage as being nearly there or good enough. I wonder what the government would think if the other 5% of us said that were are not significant enough to pay our taxes!

When my BT contract was last up for renewal, I went to EE to get their (much more competitive) package. Unfortunately, because I want to keep a phone, broadband and TV package, they were unable to supply me. This is because of the 95% rule and BT is allowed to to be the only one to provide internet TV through our local exchange.


Incidentally, I live in rural Lincolnshire (PE22 area) and in sight of a phone mast. So I get 3G coverage and a good signal from EE. Also thanks to the good old copper cable running 2 miles from the local exchange, I get up to 6Mbps download speed although throughput drops quite a lot at times. BT has put superfast into our exchange but my cabinet is not covered in the current phase of roll-out. I have been told that it is "under consideration" for the next phase! Probably in two years time. Yes there is a "wireless" solution in the area but why should I have to pay a premium for that and still not be allowed to shop in a competitive market.

If BT give me superfast then I will happily stay with them for a fair price to support their efforts - there has to be some sort of quid pro quo.

I appreciate that others are a lot worse off than me but then I do get sick of the constant ads inviting me to go superfast with Virgin, Sky, TalTalk, etc. which I cannot do, so I am still getting a relatively poor deal! The technology is there to give fast broadband to all of us, it is the lack of proper funding that is the problem.

Biggles22

What makes me really cross is that the government has basically given BT milions of tax payers money, matched by county councils also giving BT tax payers money to provide a superfast broadband network that it fit for purpose for now and future through the BDUK programme, but BT are taking the funding and upgrading areas that they would have done anyway. I thought the government money was to ensure that the harder to reach areas were covered, and the easy to reach areas would get superfast by the usual market forces... this doesn't seem to have been the case.

Why haven't BT invested in upgrading the infrastructure properly rather than relying on old copper networks and going purely upgrades in areas where they can make a profit on the back of receiving government money?

With regards to mobile networks, there is no one network that covers everywhere, to provide a universal service, couldn't the networks be forced by Ofcom to share their masts and coverage, this would give people in rural areas a real choice of network providers, rather than having to make the best of what is available coverage-wise. This way, people could benefit from choice and could choose on a basis of customer service, price, etc., and not just the one network you can get when you stand at the bottom of your garden or hang out of an upstairs window on a good day!