Shropshire - BT hate the County

I know its down to rural area etc etc but comon...we have 80 exchanges with a good coverage. How many exchanges is on the roll out inc future exchanges..

3...YES 3 for the whole County which is pritty big.

So we have Shrewsbury, Baschurch (race to infinity winners) and Oswestry.

Everywhere else...nothing...nada...not even VM.

Must be really unlucky to live here....great countryside...high petrol prices and bad internet.

Edited by deleted (Thu 16-Jun-11 01:14:22)

Need to get onto you're MP and councils for the region to make funding avaliable, that will speed up the rollout.

We are only in 2011- rollout goes till 2015 when the target of 85% is expected to be reached, so will proably see more exchanges out the 60 done in the next few years.

Hi Lemzip,

As a company based in the county, we do understand more than anyone the problems and the delays being faced. However, we agree, the county actually has exchanges (unlike Herefordshire) that are located in good placements, with a return on investment better than most rural counties.

That all said, we are making some progress in south of the county. We are working with our local MP and BT account managers to push hard for Bridgnorth and Ludlow to be progressed in some way. Bridgnorth did appear briefly on BTs FTTC plans, but got removed within weeks.

Lets hope something happens, i know the bid for the latest cash from BDUK was not secured (what do they want the Council to show them? The map is pritty clear to me!)

http://connectingshropshire.com/

If you look at the map, you can see the issue we have in this area. No cable either across the whole County.

Edited by deleted (Sat 18-Jun-11 22:54:44)

Telford and Newport both fall into Shropshire.

Donnington
Stirchley
Newport

Shrewsbury also listed for FTTC/P so they are investing heavily in Shropshire.

Sorry, should have clarified...i mean Council wise (as thats where the money will go from BDUK)

Donnington, Stirchley, Newport all fall under Telford and Wrekin Council (even though Telford is classed as Shropshire)

Telford and Wrekin Council will not be given cash to get a Shropshire Council exchange done that they get given from BDUK.

So you saying that the 3 out of almost 100 exchanges in the Shropshire Council area is still satisfactory coverage for this Council area (Shrewsbury, Oswestry and Baschurch)?

Edited by deleted (Wed 22-Jun-11 01:52:41)

In reply to a post by Lemzip:

Sorry, should have clarified...i mean Council wise (as thats where the money will go from BDUK)

Donnington, Stirchley, Newport all fall under Telford and Wrekin Council (even though Telford is classed as Shropshire)

Telford and Wrekin Council will not be given cash to get a Shropshire Council exchange done that they get given from BDUK.

So you saying that the 3 out of almost 100 exchanges in the Shropshire Council area is still satisfactory coverage for this Council area (Shrewsbury, Oswestry and Baschurch)?

Number of exchanges is not important, what % of the population is covered?

I understand and although TAW have Newport, Donnington and Stirchley all listed Oakengates and Wellington especially, the two big exchanges have been left out.

Telford does have excellent Virgin coverage although I know a Virgin tech who says the network is old and the fiber links to Wolverhampton need upgrading. It's hit and miss in some areas.

It was offered to Shrewsbury but Shropshire council rejected all planning permission. Same thing happened in Chester.

I guess if Virgin would have cabled Shrewsbury then it would have been easier for them to get fiber to places like Oswestry.

I would expect places like Bayston Hill, Harlescott and Wem to get Infinity eventually.

In reply to a post by Lemzip:

Sorry, should have clarified...i mean Council wise (as thats where the money will go from BDUK)

Donnington, Stirchley, Newport all fall under Telford and Wrekin Council (even though Telford is classed as Shropshire)

Telford and Wrekin Council will not be given cash to get a Shropshire Council exchange done that they get given from BDUK.

So you saying that the 3 out of almost 100 exchanges in the Shropshire Council area is still satisfactory coverage for this Council area (Shrewsbury, Oswestry and Baschurch)?

I know in my county, my particualr part of it will see 85% roll out by BT by 2015 which would cover 16 out of the 19 exchanges, if 2m could be raised by my local cc then the coverage would rise to 96-97% with the remaining area's needed wireless or satelite connections as they are not economicaly viable for fibre.

Have to rember BT's roleout goes till 2015 as i have mentioned before, you will have to wait a while as BT is limited by the manpower it has in each area where they will do the most viable exchanges first and then move down the list in their areas through their own funding.

Edited by deleted (Fri 24-Jun-11 03:42:52)

I totally agree with you on this one.

I moved to Ludlow from Warrington back in December, it was due to my mum having health issues with all the pollution in Warrington.

I couldn't believe it when we came here and I asked about Virgin and was told I'm in a virgin no-go area. I'm 1 mile from Ludlow in Middleton - that's an absolute joke.

If you want Virgin media to consider Shropshire we need to bombard them at this address with requests - [email protected]

I sent one but was told they have no plans at present to install in this area, maybe if enough people sent there postcode in they would consider it.

It's annoying 'cos I've found Ludlow to be a really nice place to live and it's just the lack of superfast broadband that is killing it.

I know one major problem would be the routing of the fibres because for superfast broadband you'd need to take it from somewhere, and I presume most companies are looking at the fact they'd bring it out from Birmingham, which would mean taking it through the Shropshire hills, which I suppose would be a major problem, however there is a better option, they could lay it down near the A49, bring it straight down from Warrington, and then cover numerous towns and villages on the way down like Whitchurch, Shrewsbury, Wem, Craven Arms, Ludlow, and even onto Leominster and Hereford.

Shropshire could do with some company founding it's own cable company here, that is exactly how most of Lancashire got cable - Telewest founded themselves in Preston and covered most of Lancashire in fibre, in Shropshire we need a similar company, would love to do it myself if my PC repair company got big enough.

Another option for super-fast broadband is Too-way satellite broadband but that does come at a really hefty cost - £24.99 per month for only 4Gb usage, if they sort the usage out it would be fine, but I pay less than that for Plus.net and get far more usage, it might be slower, but I'd easily go through 4Gb.

Another option for super-fast broadband is Too-way satellite broadband but that does come at a really hefty cost - £24.99 per month for only 4Gb usage

And therein lies the problem. No company is going to be able to afford to cable / fibre an "outlying" area when the consensus is that £24.99/month is a "hefty" cost. The economics just can't stack up, particulalry for a town of 10000 people.

£24.99 isn't a "hefty cost" I was paying £25 a month in Warrington for Broadband, what is hefty is the very limited usage - 4Gb a month is really lame when I was used to having unlimited broadband in Warrington, and now in Ludlow with Plus.net I get 40Gb plus unlimited usage at night, even though it's slow, 4Gb at high speed just really wouldn't be any use 'cos you'd just use your data usage too fast, where as £25 a month for super fast 40Gb internet would.

I've found Ludlow to be a really nice place to live and it's just the lack of superfast broadband that is killing it.

Or maybe preserving it?

Telewest founded themselves in Preston and covered most of Lancashire in fibre

Then went bust because of low takeup. Even Openreach are complaining about low takeup.

It's a pity you are a fair way from the exchange, otherwise TT would be faster than Plusnet, or one of the TT resellers.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-...

Shropshire has just received £8.2M for Next Gen BB.

So it's all up to your councillors to see how it is spent.

I hope they FTTC our exchange - all the resedential lines around here are long.

thats with Telford and Wrekin and the figures needed to provide FTTC to just the Shropshire county side was around 36-40million.

so still short some 30million + to just do Shropshire County area

4million will get wasted by bids, admin and various other nothing and i bet a useless air based service will be supplied to the Ludlow area.

Edited by deleted (Tue 23-Aug-11 01:22:25)

In reply to a post by aquiss:

Hi Lemzip,

As a company based in the county, we do understand more than anyone the problems and the delays being faced. However, we agree, the county actually has exchanges (unlike Herefordshire) that are located in good placements, with a return on investment better than most rural counties.

That all said, we are making some progress in south of the county. We are working with our local MP and BT account managers to push hard for Bridgnorth and Ludlow to be progressed in some way. Bridgnorth did appear briefly on BTs FTTC plans, but got removed within weeks.

Wish I had access to BT account managers

There is various fttc blackspots around the country where only a few exchanges in entire counties (including city areas) are been picked.

Interestingly when ofcom released their broadband take up data it shows my region having higher take up than areas chosen for fttc, such as liverpool, manchester, and wales.

The ones that have been picked in my county except one (i think) are all non market 3 and in affluent areas.

Edited by Chrysalis (Tue 23-Aug-11 14:04:18)

I live in the Shropshire Hills and have spent the last 5 years ensuring I can run my IT company from my home office via terrestrial microwave, providing broadband to the local valleys in the process.

I have just spent the last 10 months constructing a terrestrial microwave broadband solution across the whole of Shropshire. It will provide standard 5/10/20 Mb/s ADSL package solutions at competitive prices, although faster Asynchronous and Synchronous bespoke connections will also be provided.

Unfortunately, I can't advertise this service on this forum but you can contact me to discuss further or watch out for an advert in your local village news letter or the Shropshire Star!

Cheers,

Chris

In reply to a post by Lemzip:

Must be really unlucky to live here....great countryside...high petrol prices and bad internet.

I feel your pain brother. I've lived in Shropshire most of my life and was ecstatic a couple of months ago when the government announced "rural broadband improvements." Then of course I realised I wouldn't see a single kb from the new system and went back to lagging out of Xbox Live...

[edit] Just read down and saw aquiss' bit about Bridgnorth being removed from the list, of course that's the bit of Shropshire I live in...

Edited by deleted (Tue 06-Sep-11 10:55:06)

BT also not that keen on your Neighbouring over the Border county of Powys, although Sky and TT have LLU'd in the last year on the exchange I use. See if the drop in market share forces a hand!

Nailed on the head.

I've already had quite a heated debate with so called "advisory" people within the council. There only focus seems to be on Shrewsbury and Telford as it allows targets to be met, but totally forgetting we have a large amount of market towns in the county that have not even seen 21CN yet. Surely bringing forward the overall county wide network would be better, thus allowing deployment of ADSL2+ and future FTTC.

Sadly when you have people advising in the county who sadly don't even know what an IP address is (I won't mention names!) then I have to question yet again why Shropshire Council is even fit for purpose!

Frustrating!

In reply to a post by wolvesmad:

I hope they FTTC our exchange - all the resedential lines around here are long.

You got no chance mate!

It looks like the fibre twin cabinets are going in across Ludlow town, courtesy of Openreach contractors, Carillion Telent.

There is a Google map here of the newly installed cabinets, and the original PCPs, including those that have yet to get a fibre twin.

http://goo.gl/maps/apdLt

If anyone spots any of the missing cabinets, please let me know!