Whilst government and various authorities are in the news promising superfast broadband to rural communities, reality is many are still on slow, inconsistent and unreliable connections to the internet.
The distant to the exchange we are connected to ‘Stevenage’ restricts the speed of connection we receive, but this is not the only problem. Faulty equipment in the home and exchange, faulty lines, and poor extension wiring can also have a dramatic effect on your connection.
When complaints are made about the ‘slowness’ of connection, broadband providers initially will always question your own equipment and wiring before even looking at things their end.
Having switched broadband twice recently varying levels of customer support has shown up. The first time I switched the company actually sent me three different routers, two BT engineers, supplied and re-wired new sockets in my home and still failed to fix the problem. A move to a new supplier see’s me with a reliable connection from day one.
The tests I have done myself show Graveley should be capable of around 2mb broadband (I am currently on 1.5mb while some more tests are carried out). When I check some other numbers in Graveley I see the speed suggested is less at around 0.5mb.
Try it out, check your number and postcode http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker
If you are getting less that 1mb broadband on your home connection, please get it checked. Broadband providers have a habit of supplying very slow broadband to make it stable, rather than look to fixing the problem.
FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet)
FTTC is being rolled out at the Stevenage exchange right now. You may seen many BT Openreach vans and works going on around the green boxes at the roadside. The BT Infinity advertising campaign is also running on TV at the moment.
FTTC significantly increases the speed of broadband by making a fibre connection from the exchange to the local green cabinets. The fibre connection is much faster than the copper connections we use at the moment. Theoretically this moves the distance to the exchange, to the distance to the green box.
The problem with FTTC is that it is not being rolled out everywhere and depends on demand. In a recent chat with a BT engineer, I was told the Graveley green box is quite small with not many connections thus not a priority to be FTTC enabled. This is ironic really as most rural situations will be under the same circumstance, and it is the rural communities that suffer the most wit poor connections and probably have the most to gain.
The FTTC will not just be for BT connections, with SKY and TALKTALK also looking into supplying fibre connections.
If you check your BT phone number on http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/consumerProducts/displayTopic.do?topicId=29017
You will see it states that BT Infinity (FTTC) is not due to be rolled out. It also says you can register your interest. It is this that may be crucial to getting FTTC in Graveley, the more people registering may well give BT a push to get a decent broadband connection in our village.
If you have any thoughts on the broadband availability in Graveley, or would like to share the speeds of your connection please email me at andy@sears-online.co.uk
