Broadband in Northern Ireland is apparently not living up to the hype?

Foxwood

There was an interesting letter in the Register yesterday, from a reader with some less than positive experience of the 100% availability of broadband in Northern Ireland.

I am orginally from Northern Ireland and my father who lives in County Fermanagh would strongly disagree with the comment "100% Broadband coverage".

Seems that BT like to play on words, 100% of its exchanges are broadband enabled but thats not the case for its customers. If you live too far from an enabled exchange you wont be able to get broadband. Talking to a BT engineer about the issue he told me that BT can install 'repeater nodes', but they are unwilling to do so.

100% suggests that all NI customers can receive broadband, I know for a fact that at least 20 of my neighbours homes and business can not get it. Maybe its 99.9% and someone rounded up !!

All the best, Clive

Urban Weigl

In that case, BT will have to supply 2-way satellite broadband at the same price as DSL. They are contractually obliged to supply 100% of the population with broadband.

What may be the case, though, is that it might take several months (I'm not sure how quickly they need to install), whereas if you're within range of DSL (10km from the exchange), you will get it within a few days.

It would be more accurate to say that if you live too far away from the exchange, you won't be able to get DSL broadband. Further, if you live too far away, they only need to provide you with 512kbps, not the standard 16mbps they might be supplying to people living closer.

1huge1

Urban Weigl wrote:

In that case, BT will have to supply 2-way satellite broadband at the same price as DSL. They are contractually obliged to supply 100% of the population with broadband.

What may be the case, though, is that it might take several months (I'm not sure how quickly they need to install), whereas if you're within range of DSL (10km from the exchange), you will get it within a few days.

It would be more accurate to say that if you live too far away from the exchange, you won't be able to get DSL broadband. Further, if you live too far away, they only need to provide you with 512kbps, not the standard 16mbps they might be supplying to people living closer.

all the same 100% of exchanges being enables is very impressive

probe

Urban Weigl wrote:

It would be more accurate to say that if you live too far away from the exchange, you won't be able to get DSL broadband. Further, if you live too far away, they only need to provide you with 512kbps, not the standard 16mbps they might be supplying to people living closer.

As far as I recall, the fastest BT offer in the so called UK is 8 Mbits/sec. BT's broadband product is drowning in small print! The do add in 250 free WiFi minutes per month which is a good idea, but only for the first year to 18 months depending on product. "Free UK Calls" really means "Local and National calls made over your broadband connection between 6pm & 6am evenings and weekends. Excludes non-geographic calls (0845,0870), premium rate numbers, information services, calls to mobile and the Channel Islands. Other exclusions apply. Calls are charged at 3ppm after one hour."

Broadband traffic allowances are tiny on all but their most expensive package.

While the situation is not quite as bad as in eircom-land, BT has a long way to go to catch up with some of the French and other continental service providers.

BT's loop unbundling (7% of DSL lines) is almost as bad as eircom's (4%)! Same situation as here really only (a) DSL coverage in NI is wider than in IRL and (b) DSL speeds while faster in BT land are still artifically held back compared with ADSL2+ modem capabilities.

.probe

watty

Please stop taunting us with France. It is beyond my commute distance (just) to the office.

Sponge Bob

NI was supposed to be 100% covered with either Wireless or ADSL but BT tried to pull a fast one recently where they attempted VSAT installs instead of wireless. Don't know the latest on this. There was a fuss during the summer but I cannot find a link to an online petition (IIRC) on this issue .

100% of Scottish Exchanges are also done, this is not 100% of households though like NI

100% of Yorkshire exchanges are also done . Not sure about Wales or the rest of England .

Only 40% of eircom Exchanges are done however.

kaizersoze

Sponge Bob wrote:

NI was supposed to be 100% covered with either Wireless or ADSL but BT tried to pull a fast one recently where they attempted VSAT installs instead of wireless. Don't know the latest on this. There was a fuss during the summer but I cannot find a link to an online petition (IIRC) on this issue .

100% of Scottish Exchanges are also done, this is not 100% of households though like NI

100% of Yorkshire exchanges are also done . Not sure about Wales or the rest of England .

Only 40% of eircom Exchanges are done however.

Would this be the one Sponge?
http://www.gopetition.com/online/9274.html

Sponge Bob

The very one, my googling went awol on me .

BT , in fairness, seemed to have reversed their sneaky VSAT policy fairly sharpish .