Rural broadband advice...

[Dave.]

I have finally managed to sell my house and have bought a new one that I have had my eye on for a while...

I have spoken to the neighbours and because it's in the middle of nowhere the broadband is shite I.e. Around half a meg.

Are there any other affordable options??

Mobile phone signal is terrible too

 

[Rob]

Checked that there's no Virgin or BT's new Fiber Optic they're laying everywhere?

 

[Dave.]

Nope no such luck mate!

 

[Rob]

If mobile signal on all networks is terrible, then you're pretty much fucked, if not, mobile BB dongles can give 2.2mbps

 

[SamP]

Dedicated fibre installation can be done, cost depends upon distance from the exchange.

 

[Kam.]

sky offer something dont they?

 

[Gally]

I know Virgin offer to install BB cables at a cost.

 

[word_easy]

How far from the exchange is the house? It could well be that your new neighbours have an undetected line fault...

 

[Dave.]

It's the whole estate unfortunately. How can I find out how far from the exchange it is?

I think the exchange is in a village around 2 miles away...

 

[word_easy]

They should be pushing more than 0.5meg 2 miles from the exchange!

I live in a village that has an exchange, when I first moved in I was told I couldn't have broadband because I was "too far from the exchange". Its only down the road, turned out to be a fault on my line. Its worth investigating.

 

[richy22]

It's the whole estate unfortunately. How can I find out how far from the exchange it is?

I think the exchange is in a village around 2 miles away...

Gimme the post code (pm??) and Il tell you..

OR just go on here..

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_mapping

Type in postcode and it will show you. (you may need to zoom out a bit to see the exchange) you can then click on the little house and select "show/hide exchange coverage" and it shows the area it covers.

Yes "In theory" at 2 miles you should get more then 0.5mb but it depends on the cable running to the estate itself. Im the same distacne from the exchange as my parents who live out in the sticks (im in a new build) and my speed is 4.5mb as opposed to their 2mb. All down to the 1960's overground cable thats running up to their's. BT aren't in a hurry to replace/upgrade rural areas (despite what they say about their 21CN network)

 

[Dave.]

It's 2338 metres from the exchange, much closer than 2 miles. Why's the whole estate so crap then??

 

[richy22]

Because its a secondary exchange not a main exchange. (I know its an exchange but BT have a whole list of "main or priority" excahnges and "secondary"/"third" exchanges.

Also factor in the fact the the cables are likely to be 50 years old and probably cannot support any higher speeds without getting dropouts. Rural areas are low down on the priority im afraid!

They probably also have old Dslam's in there and dont want to upgrade them. If the whole estate is like that then you can pretty much be sure that there is no fault on your line. Having said that there could well be an issue with the line to the actual exchange itself.....but they will never admit that!!

 

[Gally]

My one is about 100 yards from my front door but i'm getting 1/2 meg less than my old house.

Any reason that could be? Same provider same package.

 

[Greeny.]

Really no point in using mobile 'broadband' not sure why that was suggested, I think its just unlucky mate, just do all the things possible to make your connection the best it can be. Use the main socket, disconnect the bell wire/replace the socket, dont use any extensions from the wall so your router, get a half decent ISP. My mate lived in the middle of nowhere and gained an extra mbit from moving from Sky to the Plusnet pro package.

 

[Greeny.]

My one is about 100 yards from my front door but i'm getting 1/2 meg less than my old house.

Any reason that could be? Same provider same package.

Doesn't mean the cable to your house is straight! Tested at the same times of day etc? best time to test normally is in the middle of the day or late at night out of peek hours. Your ISP may just of oversubscribed its pipes and hence they're not performing as well at peek times.

 

[Gally]

Yeah cheers Greeny. It's a very popular area aswell so there's quite a few houses on that exchange and no doubt a few using my provider.

It sits at no lower than 5mb but I was used to 7mb. That's testing it wirlessly through the laptop on speedtest.net

 

[Greeny.]

Mine used to peek out at 7mbit and my exchange is just down the road but normally sits around 6.5mbit these days, not complaining though as my ping times are around 10ms which is perfect for gaming, just wish BT would upgrade my exchange to ADSL2

 

[Gally]

Anyway I can lower my ping time Greeny? Sits a little higher than my old property sometimes 51ms and sometimes 71ms.

 

[richy22]

^^^ Probably not gally as its dependant on the connection to the test server. You may have a good ping to your exchange but from your excahnge to the server is the issue.

 

[Gally]

Cool just wondering if there was anything I or the provider could do to help the pings?

 

[Gally]

What's the AC21 or something?

He's going to put my order through for that to improve my speeds.

I can also turn interleaving off like I did at my old property to improve ping speeds. Not sure about that yet though.

 

[DrR]

I feel your pain, no other sensible option.

 

[Rob]

Moving out in Jan, BT Fiber, thank you very much 33mbps

 

[Gally]

I've turned that interleaving pish off and I should be on 21cn or whatever it's called soon!

 

[dr_sybourg]

I live in the middle of nowhere and have managaed to get my speeds from 0.2mb to 3.5mb! It did take around 6 months of hassle to ISP and BT though!

 

[richy22]

Another trick is to remove the bell wire from your mastersocket.

Older BT phones used to have a bell wire for ringing (they would send volts down to activate the "hammer" inside the bell). This is not needed on new phones. From testing here there can be a lot of noise induced in the line down the bell wire even though it is not connected anywhere. Quite a few db's worth of noise too which has a massive effect on maximum speed (between about 1.5-4.5 mb).

BT sell a thing called an "Iplate" which is about a tenner. From my testing here though removing the bell wire has the same function as fitting an Iplate. Although in the "real world" you might not see as much of an increase as I mentioned above, well not all the time, maybe 1-1.5mb Techinically your not supposed to touch any of the wires behind the master socket..but meh who cares huh!

 

[Gally]

Interleaving Richy?

Know much about it? And 21cn?

 

[Dave.]

Well I'm gonna prob leave my line ad tinterweb with sky then as it's the same as all the others. The only othe option is this but is 30 a month.. And I'm not sure if I could hook it up to a wifi router or not

http://vnwww.vnworks.net/what_does_it_cost_what_do_i_get.html

 

[richy22]

Interleaving Richy?

Know much about it? And 21cn?

21CN is a load of bullcrap! Its basically BT's name for bringing the network up to scratch. So replacing all the older crappy cables and changing out the crappy ADSL Dslam's.

My Exchange has been "21 CN ENABLED" since 2009..yet no-one in our town has a speed above about 5-6mb.

An exert from one of BT's gubbins about this..

21CN sees BT do away with the traditional concentrators, switching equipment and DSLAMs that you'd find at BT exchanges. In their place MSANs (Multi Service Access Nodes) will be installed, which will terminate phone connections and DSL connections. Again, note that the physical copper pair between your home/business and the telephone exchange will remain unchanged, as will your internal wiring. 21CN changes nothing in that respect.

Interleaving is basically an error check protocol done by the Dslam. They mainly put people on Interleaved if there is a lot of noise on the line. Sometimes they wont be able to switch it to fastpath as interleaving wont work. Interleaving increases ping time too.

 

[Dave.]

ill miss this....

 

[Greeny.]

 

[jenic]

This is of no help, but after having slow broadband since we got it in 2001 up until just 2 months ago when we upgraded to infinity, broadband is now an important part of house buying when i move out.

Dont want to go back to slow internet ever again.

 

[Mark One]

Dedicated fibre installation can be done, cost depends upon distance from the exchange.

is that actually possible? Wouldn't that be tens of thousands?

 

[Dave.]

is that actually possible? Wouldn't that be tens of thousands?

my thoughts exactly.....

 

[jenic]

Anythings possible with the right amount of £££

We were talking about putting a BT line on a remote site at work today, and a figure of £50 per metre was mentioned. Thats just for a copper wire from the nearest BT box to the site to be laid under ground.

Not sure how accurate that figure is though.

 

[Hutchie]

dave, where i live we h'actually cant get broad band.
they are going to be trialing wi-max???? in the area shortly, if it works well there is a plan to roll it out in all rural area's to conquer the broadband black spots.
ATM i have a radio link to a village down the valley where they are slightly closer to the exchange, within the 5 miles and i get .3 of a meg, whoop.

 

[Dave.]

this is something similar i believe but runs at 5 meg plus..

http://vnwww.vnworks.net

 

[Dave.]

Anyone know anything about the above??

 

[DrR]

Since I moaned previously in this thread they've upped mine to just over 5mb now.