Fibre-optic availability vs. high speed alternative

Hi TBBers,

I live in Hemel Hempstead town centre which is obviously a commercial area because there are quite a lot of shops here. Apparently that means fibre-optic internet is not required here because it would only be for shops, etc. Well it's not just shops here and why would businesses not need it anyway?

BT and Virgin who are of course the 2 companies who have fibre-optic networks in the UK alledgedly have no plans to include this area in their networks yet. I know because I've asked both. So for now I'm on a BT DSL internet connection which is up to 20Mb download, 1Mb upload (pathetic) and with a latency of about 8ms according to a few speed tests.

Does anyone know if there's another way I could have high speed internet here? Where I lived before I was used to 160Mb download + 12Mb upload on Virgin and 80Mb download + 20Mb upload on BT Infinity 2.

For example, is there such a thing as a 4G contract with unlimited data? I know 4G data tends to be expensive but if there is I'd definately consider it because "pay as you go" would be ridiculous at about £30 for 10 gigs. Or is there some other alternative?

Thanks.

I've just noticed 3 do an unlimited 4G data contract, but I didn't pass the credit check when I tried to order it.

Any other solution I wonder.

Edit: Turns out the credit check was a false alarm but also if the mobile data is tethered to a PC for example it's capped at 30 gigs per month. Not adequate for my usage.

Edited by Calv (Tue 06-Sep-16 13:04:45)

In reply to a post by Calv:

Well it's not just shops here and why would businesses not need it anyway?

Well businesses (especially if they can afford the rental costs of a town centre) can have a leased line installed.So I think BT have a point. It's only private residents such as yourself who suffer. Sadly if you're in the minority it may just not be worth BT's while. This is especially true as there's a risk that it might damage their leased line sales in that area since some business might switch back to broadband if a decent service were available.

Edited by Andrue (Tue 06-Sep-16 13:37:52)

In reply to a post by Andrue:

Sadly if you're in the minority it may just not be worth BT's while.

Ah so if there's quite a few leased lines being rented here, supplying residential fibre-optic broadband would then swallow those and they might be worse off unless they had a lot of new customers here. What about Virgin competing with this though or do they provide leased lines for businesses aswell?

In reply to a post by Calv:

Ah so if there's quite a few leased lines being rented here, supplying residential fibre-optic broadband would then swallow those and they might be worse off unless they had a lot of new customers here.

Possibly. It's not quite as simple as comparing speeds. A 40Mb/s leased line is likely to be better on balance than a 70/20 FTTC connection (lower latency, SLA and probably symmetric). But yes high-speed broadband can impact leased line sales and that means less money for BT.

What about Virgin competing with this though or do they provide leased lines for businesses aswell?

They are in more or less the same position although their costs are likely to be higher. BT 'only' has to install a handful of cabinets which prolly costs less than £100k. VM would have to lay cables in the ground as well install its version of cabinets so probably looking at five, maybe ten times that cost.

I'm also not sure if VM's business service is delivered over coax like their residential service or FTTP. I'm sure I've heard that it can provide FTTP.

Edited by Andrue (Tue 06-Sep-16 15:16:50)

It's also worth noting that with wireless you are sharing the mast bandwidth with everyone else attached to that mast. That can mean significant slowdowns at peak times and is why they have a usage cap. Wireless is always sold on attention grabbing headline figures but when you're fighting for your share against dozens of other users the service often deteriorates.

Edited by Andrue (Tue 06-Sep-16 15:19:29)

Plus, on VM, they may not be allowed to install in an area - local councils may refuse permission for them to lay the necessary infrastructure (certainly what happened here in the 80's - cable telco wanted to install but local authority rejected permission to do the necessary ducting).

Is you line via cab now, what number?

In reply to a post by Andrue:

It's also worth noting that with wireless you are sharing the mast bandwidth with everyone else attached to that mast. That can mean significant slowdowns at peak times and is why they have a usage cap. Wireless is always sold on attention grabbing headline figures but when you're fighting for your share against dozens of other users the service often deteriorates.

Yeah, when I was talking to a rep from 3 earlier he was saying the same sort of thing when I questioned the 30 gig per month tethering cap. There's unlimited 4G data when just using a mobile with 3 but there's only so much you can fit on a smart phone I suppose and streaming tends to use much less bandwidth.

In reply to a post by ian72:

Plus, on VM, they may not be allowed to install in an area - local councils may refuse permission for them to lay the necessary infrastructure.

The frustrating thing is there are a couple of green VM cabinets just down the road from me (only about 50 yards away) but they're just not interested in connecting to my block yet. This must mean though that the council here wouldn't have a problem with it.

In reply to a post by Ribble:

Is you line via cab now, what number?

No it's ordinary copper wiring and it's an 01442 number.

Edited by Calv (Tue 06-Sep-16 23:08:34)

What cabinet number?