Superfast Berkshire

Berkshire's superfast website has finallly gone live

http://www.superfastberkshire.org.uk/index.aspx?arti...

Broadband providers are scheduled to roll out superfast broadband to 80% of premises in Berkshire before the end of 2015, but this will leave over 37,000 premises without this valuable utility.

iI wonder if they can reach the 80% target.

The BDUK pot is 1.43 million which most will go to West Berks as its the most rural area of the county.

Looking at West Berks has 19 exchanges of which 3 have FTTC or be finished by December.

Newbury
Thatcham
Hungerford.

These are the next largest exchanges which i would assume be targeted for BT's rollout,

Burghfield Common 2983 TT live/ BT 03/12
Pangbourne 2422 TT live
Hermitage 1759 TT 12/11
Lambourn 1744 03/12
Woolhampton 1739 BT 02/12 TT 03/12
Theale 1625
Kintbury 1601
Mortimer 1590 BT 31/01/2012

All except Kintbury/Theale (VM) have LLU or dates for TT or BT.

I can see Burghfield and Mortimer being done at the same time as both villages are next to each other.

No more dates for exchanges for FTTC announced yet, hopefully in the winter update by BT.

What are peoples thoughts?

Edited by deleted (Fri 11-Nov-11 19:38:26)

It would be nice to see Burchetts Green get something ...

Currently the really lucky ones get 1Mb and most of the rest 500k ...

And it is only just outside Maidenhead.

Burchetts Green is served of Littttlewick Green (Market 3 ) exchange

Oh how clever of you ... The next thing you will be saying is that trees are loosing their leaves.


Does it matter whether is Market 1,2,3 or whatever? No, and the Superfast Berkshire project will probably deliver nothing.

and all Berks to the East?

Why your bias towards West Berks when that site covers the whole of Berks?

Note also that the website refers to "Superfast Broadband" as "24Mbit/sec or faster"

They may only be referring to ADSL2+...

In reply to a post by izools:

Note also that the website refers to "Superfast Broadband" as "24Mbit/sec or faster"

They may only be referring to ADSL2+...

I'd love to see anyone get 24Mb/s+ on ADSL2+

In reply to a post by kasg:

In reply to a post by izools:

Note also that the website refers to "Superfast Broadband" as "24Mbit/sec or faster"

They may only be referring to ADSL2+...

I'd love to see anyone get 24Mb/s+ on ADSL2+

I did

Reading South, Caversham, Earley and Woodley have had FTTC for around a year, Reading Central has been live for a while, and Tilehurst has just gone over. Virgin available in all those areas also, so it's pretty much sorted.

There seems to have been a couple of glaring omissions on enabled cabs. 40 in Hunters Chase in Caversham. Serves an area of high density housing so would have been ideal.
66 off Reading Central, just by the Cunning Man on the Burghfield Rd. This should have been done just as a 'sorry' to the poor folk out in the boonies, who get virtually diddly-squat, sync wise.

No FTTC for them, but apparently you can get a free banjo !

High Six !

In reply to a post by MHC:

It would be nice to see Burchetts Green get something ...

...And it is only just outside Maidenhead.

About 6km from the centre which may explain the lack of speed?!?



A

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Woodley have had FTTC for around a year,

My parents are in Woodley, and converted about a year ago, but a speedtest.net test last week only got to 13Mbps download

Its BDUK definiton is what you should take, and this excludes ADSL2+

1km from the exchange as the crow flies!
8km line length

Use some funding to refute the cables

The ofcom maket tye is a good incicator of whether it is llikely that superfast woud be provdied under a commercial business case rather than under any intervention funding -- so it is quite important when you start to analsye where you intevention area might be and how much BDUK funding you might need to cover it

In reply to a post by MHC:

Use some funding to refute the cables

Did you mean re-route !?!

I would agree with that!

Yes, Reading is fortunate but not so much Berkshire to the east and south of Reading.

So where is the justification that most of Berks' £1.43M BDUK pot will go to West Berks? It's not on that website which links to

2. Berkshire
Bracknell Forest, Reading, Slough, West Berkshire, Windsor and Maidenhead, Wokingham 29,027 364,543 8.0% £1,430,000

So get them to check the obvious things, is that speedtest done through a wired or wireless connection ? Is the machine performing it up to scratch, good chance they have an original 2V modem which is, unknown to them, trashing the sync profile.

I live in Woodley, and still happily sync at 40/10.

West Berks has the most rural exchanges, out of the entire of berkshire, under bduk funding rules the money goes to the white area's where the market wont go to provide the required 2mb.

Most of the largest urban area's in Berkshire have been covered by FTTC or are soon to be enabled, so it will be interesting to see how far the reach extends from the main towns out in the rural areas both in the east and west of the county.

Hi ccxo,

I live outside Newbury on the B4009 and sit between two exchanges - Newbury (some neighbours connected with faster broadband!) and Hermitage (my connected exchange at <2Mbps).

I read in the past that someone was talking with BT about speeding up the rollout of FTTC to Hermitage - do you have any further details or will Superfast Berkshire come to the rescue?

I get faster downloads with 3G on Vodafone!

Best regards
Ian

Hi Ian, im on the Hermitage exchange as well. At current superfast berkshire website has only just gone up so will be waiting to see what there plans are for the area.
From what ive heard from superfast berkshire there targeting areas where there will not be any market investment, Hermitage will have TT llu by December 12 so there will be a improvement in speed for those with short lines.

At curernt in West Berks both Hungerford and Thatcham are still due to go live come Dec 11, once this has been done hopefully we will see other exchanges in the area planned for 2012.
Newbury exchange which as been live for a while is still having cabinets upgraded, both 14 and 47 which are at the shaw roundabout have been upgraded with fibre cabs.

As for speeding up Hermitage there is a local group in contact with BT, currently waiting on a update as the BT contact has been away.

There is a meeting planned for the end of Nov with the local reperenstives from each of the villages connected to Hermitage, head of WB IT will be there to make a presentation so will be able to see what our area WB has planned.

Thanks for the quick and detailed response!
Lets keep fingers crossed for that meeting at the end of November.

Sorry for my naivity but TT - is that TalkTalk and how does that improve the speeds for BT lines or am I missing something like it adds more overall backhaul capacity?

Best regards
Ian

Be interesting to see what happens at the meeting, im hoping to attend with others from my village.

Yes TT is talk talk llu service which will allow for a asdl+2 service via them and resellers of their product, they take over the backhaul from the exchange rather then via the BT network.

ASDL is up to 8 meg, ASDL+2 is up to 24 meg

It means a faster service for those with short lines back to the exchange, if you're line is long then you wont see a improvement.

If you make a post in which isp (residential) with you're router stats, people will be able to say if you will benefit from TT llu service, if you can there are re-sellers of TT un-bundled product that are alot better recomended isp's.

Edited by deleted (Wed 16-Nov-11 00:19:10)

Cool - thank you!

I am going to see if I can move onto a NEWBURY EXCHANGE when they are fully upgraded to FTTC but not sure it will be that easy to explain to BT... I don't mind about keeping my current number. I sit between the exchanges so I hope the cabinet nearby will serve both.

All the best
Ian

Well depends where exactly you are on the B4009, are you between long lane village and the bottom of fishers lane? Or down in the hosing at Grange farm?

As the cabinets that serve those area's have very long lines, the Newbury one has not been upgraded yet number 88.

BT does not really offer a exchange change, as we tried it in cold ash for the north end but BT said the cost would be too much amoung other reasons though its fesiable with FTTC via handover.

Hermitage may get upgraded come 2012/2013 though its a case of waiting to see what BT do next in West Berks.

I'm another one in the Thatcham/Hermitage interzone - I'm in the Alley. Anything more we should be doing at this stage to increase our chances of action?

Hi Ivy at current just to register on the superfast berkshire website is needed at the moment. There are various meetings coming up which i will be able to update what the situation is and what more can be done.

Hi,

We are down on the B4009 near the Grange Farm road!
Oddly I don't see any green boxes around here but there are a couple of old dirty looking grey ones (smaller than the traditional green box).

Fingers crossed!

BR
Ian

Hi Ian i believe the grey box is for the BT phone box, cabinet 86 does look to be upgraded so could have a fibre twin next to it in the next week prehaps.

There is a section of roadworks going along the B4009 from fishers lane to sandy lane though is currently near you, whats interesting is the contrator has its cabling division. Not sure what cable they are putting into the BT ducts possibly fibre, work carrys on till the 14th of December.

Ivy/Ian, you can also register you're interest with openreach below,

http://www.openreach-communications.co.uk/superfast/...

Similar to the 'race to infinty' hopefully with enough demand being shown we will be able to see a date soon.
The information should hopefully be going around to all villages connected to the Hermitage exchange to get residents and buisness to register their interest. Getting neighbours as well is a great help as the greater the interest the more likely Openreach will either announce the upgrade or bring it forward.

Thanks, ccxo. Have registered as you suggest with Openreach. I recall after the RaceToInfinity raffle-thing, Hermitage came surprisingly high up the results table, so conventional marketing wisdom would suggest that implementing superfast at Hermitage would be a sensible commercial decision.

I did discuss the broadband speed subject with an OpenReach engineer who was up a pole in nearby a few weeks ago. He said that he lives in Hermitage village, so has a personal interest in the subject. He also said that they have in fact started pulling fibre for FTTC. So, surprised it doesn't appear in the OpenReach programme lists.

Hi Ivy, there is work going on along the B4009 at current where a cable contracter is pulling a cable through the ducts, this could be the fibre.

If there is another exchange annoucement list this year, hermitage may well likely appear in it as Thatcham has now gone live on Openreach's list and Hungerford is still set at the 12th of next month.
So if Hermitage doesnt appear this year it will likly appear on the list early next year.

Local Parishes have been informed about the registering on the superfast berkshire website and the openreach website, so this will help alot.

I attended a meeting between various parishe representives and West Berks lead on the Superfast Berkshire program, things are moving forward at current as each CC needs to make their local broadband plan and raise match funding to double the BDUK funds avalible. Then a tender will go out in 2012 with work starting that year. So come 2012 things will move forward and work will begin.

Ivy, Ian Hermitage has a 21CN WBC status:RFS date set : 31/05/2012, so will hopefully see FTTC in 2012.

Which follows the Fibre being blown up the b4009 to the exchange.

Great news!

There were traffic lights on the two mini-roundabouts at the bottom of the hill in Shaw with BT Openreach engineers working this weekend (17th Dec).

Could be good news and seeing a 21CN date is also positive news... fingers crossed.

Thanks ccxo and Ivy! I also registered on superfast.

ATB
Ian

Thanks ccxo for the heads up on the 21CN WBC dates. I see it is now also published elsewhere, e.g. SamKnows. For the uninitiated (i.e. me), is there any experience about how long it typically takes to move from 21CN WBC RFS to FTTC availability?

Good to hear from anonymous about the work this weekend.

Rgds

Ian, the work on the double roundabout's may allow you're neighbours to recieve a FTTC service, will need to check on the BT wholesale checker.
Though they may more likely be connected to cabinet 86 which is up the hill from the double roundabout.

Ive seen at least 3 new cabinets go live in Newbury in the last few weeks so total coverage is increasing.

TT has unbundled the hermitage exchange but the work still needs to be signed off which has taken a week+ so a bit of a wait but hopefully a better service once it goes live via TT resleers.

As for the 21CN date and the time between that and FTTC its unknown as the exchange could just likely be enabled for 21CN. FTTC does not need the fibre to go back to the Hermitage exchange as handover nodes have been used where the fibre goes back to a larger exchange say newbury as its cheaper.
However with the superfast berkshire plan being submitted early next year before the DCMS deadline, we may likely see BT win the tender which would if there plans dont change give a 90% coverage across west berkshire.
Hermitage enablement date could be anytime between mid 2012 to the end of 2012 as a likely date.

Unitl we see the next new Openreach exchange list, which is likely to be late January/Febuary wont know a date till then.

Edited by deleted (Fri 23-Dec-11 12:57:13)

Thanks ccxo!

BT are reporting FTTC is available in your area on their tool for those on Newbury exchange... however not sure if we are too far from the cab for it to work here. I need to find a friendly OpenReach engineer and ask them how the lines are fed to the houses. Perhaps they'd swap the phonebox (Newbury exchange) for my line if I asked nicely

Happy New Year to you all!
Ian

Hi Ian thats good to hear, does look like BT have bypassed cabinet 86. Its unlikely BT will move you to another exchange but it could happen.

Anyone got an update on the Woolhampton exchange. I see we are due for ADSL2+ at the end of the month. Not sure if this will make any difference. There was a major outage on the exchange last week with a number of my neighbours disconnected for about 8 hours.

Theres not really any updates on BT's progression with 21Cn exchanges, have to wait for the date to come and see if you can place a order.

Hungerford is the last known exchange to have gone live, waiting on Mortimer to go live as that had a date of 31/12/2011. hopefully should be live now or soon.

31/01/2012 Woolhampton
29/02/2012 Burghfield Common
31/05/2012 Hermitage

All of the exchanges have been showing as amber though hermitage is currently red, over the last few months for their VP capaicty, hence the upgrades.

The disconnect you had was on the 5th of January, there was a major service failure which mostly effected people on the 21CN platform in the SE of England.

When a exchange is enabled for 21CN, you will see a improvement in upload, download depends on you're line stats and distance from the exchange.

I'd swear blind I have run jumpers in through 21cn ties in Woolhampton exchange a few weeks ago ??

BT could posibly be ahead of itself with that exchange, just checked using a postcode from one of the local pubs in the area and it shows that asdl+2 is enabled.

Seems the dates on sam knows may be behind.

Gigtek can you try you're details on the bt asdl checker.

Here's the quote from BT Wholesale:-

"Our test also indicates that your line currently supports an estimated ADSL2+ broadband line speed of 3Mbps; typically the line speed would range between 1.5Mbps and 5.5Mbps. Our test also indicates that your line could support an estimated ADSL 2+ Annex-M broadband upstream line speed of 500Kbps and downstream line speed of 3Mbps; typically the downstream speed would range between 1.5Mbps and 5.5Mbps."

So if I read that correctly it would suggest we are already upgraded. Lots of people are getting better speeds inclusing myself in the last couple of weeks so not sure if it is related. Been a lot of Openreach activity at cabs and up poles.

Yes you have been upgraded, if you are with BT or one of their resellers you should see the improvement in being switched over to the 21CN network.

Update for the Superfast Berkshire LBP, funding from the 6 Unitary bodies is coming soon to completion, so will make the end of Febuary deadline.

Also on a local note more road works on the B4009, workmen have been digging into the road between the ducting between access covers. All work sites so far have been by BT on the elgin website.

Edited by deleted (Tue 24-Jan-12 14:37:08)

Update for Hermitage/Woolhampton the TT dates have no disapreared from Sam Knows, may possibly return though unsure if they will.

I have always assumed that Fishers Lane and Bucklebury Alley users of the Hermitage exchange route through the cabinet by Downe House School at the corner of Slanting Hill. But I have noticed another cabinet in the hedgerow at the top of Bucklebury Alley. How do I find out if this is still in active use or whether it has been retired?

Hi Ivy, im not to sure i have a look and see what i can find out. Ive never seen the cab is it quite buried into the hedgerow?

There is ment to be another cabinet down in the south end, near to where collory road meets the rise but it may be the case of that the cabinet like the one in buckleberry alley has been retired.

Thanks, ccxo. The cabinet is in the hedgerow, backing on to the school playing fields, reasonably close to the top of Bucklebury Alley where it meets Hermitage Road. It would be great if any FTTC could be located there - it would hugely shorten the distance from the cabinet for so many of us!

I note that on the first post of this thread, the Lambourn exchange is mentioned, and has what looks like a date of 3/12. As Lambourn does not seem to be mentioned in the rest of the thread, what does this "date" mean, and does anyone have any news about what is and is not happening at the Lambourn exchange.

Cheers

Paul

Hi Ivy i was up buckleberry alley and found the cabinet, the ground around it has been cleared up though i think this is mainly for drainage, will see what i can find out.

Hi Sticko the date for Lambourn was for a upgrade by Talk Talk, however the date has been removed alongside 2 other exchanges in west berkshire.

There is nothing currently planned to happen at the Lambourn exchange at current, BT may inculde the exchange in its 21 CN WBC rollout but it is a case of waiting to see if its announced.

Lambourn like other Parishes across West Berks have been commiting funding to the Council to meet West Berks part of the funding for Berkshires local broadband plan. The first draft will be ready by the end of this month and then the final plan submited by April 12th for final approval. Once the BDUK funding is approved it goes alongside the equal amount raised by the Berkshire councils, this goes to tender where the winning company likely to be BT will match fund to bring the pot to about £5-6 million.

If BT do win the tender for isntance you would see Lambourn and other exchanges be upgraded to FTTC etc.

Thanks for that. I'm aware of the discussions re Parish and other funding (my wife is a parish counsellor) but wasn't clear on the timescale. Is there any understanding about whether the current BDUK approach will also bring in LLU to allow the likes of Sky to offer services, It will be only a partial victory if the next broadband step does not facilitate genuine competition (i.e not just reselling). I'm fed up with watching Sky ads for their various broadband based packages and services that I'm never likely to be able to use.

BDUK funding really gives both responsibility and control to the local council, provided they put matching funds in too.

The combined funds are then available to any commercial partner that the council chooses - so it depends whether the council are attracted to the idea of extra competition.

Of course, it won't really be competition... as it is likely to be just a single partner still, if only on a wholesale level. Once deployment gets going, the choice to the consumer will almost certainly be Hobson's.

Are we confident that the Berkshire bid for funding will be brought together and submitted satisfactorily in the correct timescale or is there something more that we can do and need to do to make it happen? It would be galling if, this time next month, we discover that there has been some omission which we could all have done something about.

In reply to a post by stricko:

Thanks for that. I'm aware of the discussions re Parish and other funding (my wife is a parish counsellor) but wasn't clear on the timescale. Is there any understanding about whether the current BDUK approach will also bring in LLU to allow the likes of Sky to offer services, It will be only a partial victory if the next broadband step does not facilitate genuine competition (i.e not just reselling). I'm fed up with watching Sky ads for their various broadband based packages and services that I'm never likely to be able to use.

Hi, the timescale between April once the plan has been approved and December 2012 is when the tender will go out and be awarded. Work will either start end of 2012 or by 2013 depending on how quickly the tender process will take.
BT as i have mentioned before will be the likely winners as the other compeitors have dropped out in a lot of tenders due to not wanting to invest the required amount.
LLU providers are unable to bid for bduk funds as they do not provide wholesale access, but what you will have if BT win, will be their FTTC service which you can buy from any isp that resells it- sky have announced their first FTTC package which will come live this year.

The main problem for genunie comption in this country is few isps are willing to invest the amount needed to create a 2nd local network, as BT's expansion gathers pace the majority of the country up to 90% will have a fibre service.
It has been estimated to cost about 29 billion pounds to create a full FTTP network in this country, at current there is no single isp with that amount of funding willing to commit to such a plan. Goverment has only made up to less then a billion in investment for next gen broadband, a small amount to encourage the market to deliver further. The other main problem is that their needs to be a demand for 100Mbps and faster packages from the public, which is very small as the majority are happy with lower speed packages.

Ivy at current all 6 unitary bodies will meet their individual financial commitments to the program, so it is unlikely to not make the deadlines. Their are safeguards to ensure funding if not all can be raised before the deadline, if its needed to be used.

The majority of parishes have commited their funding but their are those that are still to come in and others that have refused to fund the program in west berkshire.

Just a small update, things are progressing on time with the LBP and are likely to be early for the April deadline for the main submission.

Thank you for all these updates. I live in Curridge and Hermitage is my local exchange. If I can typically get 5.5Mbps down and 380kbps up now, what am I likely to get once upgrade is complete and improvements implemented?

On 21CN will likely see about 6-7 Mbps down and about 1Mbps up.

With FTTC which will likely come to the area with the superfast broadband prodject- the distance from the cab to your house will determine the speed, i would assume you are either on the b4009 or on curridge road the closest cabinet is number 2 which is at the junction of the b4009/curridge road.

If you are within about 600 meters then you will likely see 40 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up- this is moving up to 80/20 on April the 10th, so FTTC will give vast improvement to lines in the area.

In reply to a post by ccxo:

On 21CN will likely see about 6-7 Mbps down and about 1Mbps up.

With FTTC which will likely come to the area with the superfast broadband prodject- the distance from the cab to your house will determine the speed, i would assume you are either on the b4009 or on curridge road the closest cabinet is number 2 which is at the junction of the b4009/curridge road.

If you are within about 600 meters then you will likely see 40 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up- this is moving up to 80/20 on April the 10th, so FTTC will give vast improvement to lines in the area.

Many thanks -- we are about 2,300 metres from the Hermitage exchange and about 600 metres from the junction of Curridge Road/Long Lane. FTTC sounds great, when is that coming?

Edited by deleted (Thu 15-Mar-12 18:23:07)

Well at current their has not been anymore FTTC deployment in West Berkshire, only Newbury Hungerford and Thatcham have been enabled.
Tadley is the next closest exchange to get enable but thats Hampshire, the eastern parts of Berkshire are quite well served.
Coming back to West Berks, unless BT continue to rollout commerically which they may, we will have to wait for the superfast berkshire program to go to tender once the final plan has been approved by BDUK.

The final plan has been submitted so approval should not take long and into procurement which will select a winning tender.
This will likely BT who will then with discussions with the council decide where the spend the funding and then begin upgrading which will likely start in 2013 though we may see work start this year.

I'd have thought that Berkshire would have been a prime area for BT to install superfast broadband to considering the number of technology companies in the area and presumably the number of people living in the area who work for said companies and could work from home a lot of the time.

Well at current as mentioned above the main population centres have been upgraded for FTTC and the tech companies would have their own buisness lines.

As for the area's outside of the main urban centres progress has been focusing on 21CN upgrades for 4 exchanges recently, so a possible sign that BT sees them as good areas for investment of FTTC but they may just wait for the Berkshire tender to go out.
As the money is for the white area's where BT has not yet gone, if i were BT i would wait and win those tenders to take the rollout further.

Oddly I got an email today from Openreach Marketing:

<snip>
We're really pleased to let you know that your local exchange, HERMITAGE, has been added to our rollout plans.

You can get more details about the current status of the HERMITAGE exchange, and find out when superfast fibre broadband will be available, using our new interactive map at www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/where-and-when.
</snip>

I couldn't find the details as they probably haven't been updated yet but sounds positive.

Regards
Ian

Interesting, would go with what i have been expecting though have to wait for the new exchange lists to appear.

Have to see if i and others get a similar email.

Edited by deleted (Fri 16-Mar-12 23:38:35)

Yes interesting ... who would I contact to ask about Hermitage at Open reach?

Openreach will not answer your question, all you will be given is the standard response to ask your current isp.

As Hermitage did not appear on the new set of exchanges, it may appear in the final set in the summer which will be the end of the commercial rollout bt BT.

More then likely we will have to wait till the BDUK and Berkshire prodject goes to tender, this will not be till mid/end of year and any work will likely be 2013 onwards.

Though what is interesting to see is that their are no more Berkshire exchanges to be enabled, now to wait till the summer list.

Ian sent you a pm

Edited by deleted (Tue 20-Mar-12 13:58:56)

Anyone have a rep from TT knock on the door this evening, has one just after 9pm asking i was aware of the planned upgrade.

Looks like TT will have the exhcange unbundled as well as BT, not sure on a date for TT.

as part of state Aid and OMR (open Market Review) condudcted by procuring authrity operators have to share forward plans (going / not going) in next 3 year as part of commercial deployment to determine Black / White / Grey and that is at postcode level -- so have to advise local authoriy of your White in advance on any bidding area and that is fully audited (and the decisioning view) and can be checked up to a number of years later

In reply to a post by whiteduck:

Oddly I got an email today from Openreach Marketing:

<snip>
We're really pleased to let you know that your local exchange, HERMITAGE, has been added to our rollout plans.

You can get more details about the current status of the HERMITAGE exchange, and find out when superfast fibre broadband will be available, using our new interactive map at www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/where-and-when.
</snip>

I couldn't find the details as they probably haven't been updated yet but sounds positive.

Regards
Ian

Hi Ian - is it worth getting back to them askkng what's happening? Clearly it's not on any available future list roll out plans at the moment so was wondering what they're talkkng about.

The Cable laying guys were out working yestersay in Long Lane, near Fishers Lane.

Theirs nothing on Elgin but prehaps its for TT that they are laying the cable, only planned work is in April at the double roundabouts in shaw.

In reply to a post by ccxo:

Theirs nothing on Elgin but prehaps its for TT that they are laying the cable, only planned work is in April at the double roundabouts in shaw.

Ah ok -- what is Elgin?

http://roadworks.org/index.cfm

Basicaly a site that shows all roadworks in a county that has signed up for it, can see what roadworks are coming up etc.

Yes - I will try. I think it is an error and probably is referring to Newbury which serves some of the houses in my postcode.

BR
Ian

Good website - thanks for that.

BT Openreach sent me a generic response and so far haven't replied to my request.
I am tempted to try to order a new FTTC line and see what happens since I am on the border of the NEWBURY and HERMITAGE exchanges...

white duck -- put your nnumber in www.samknows.com that will confirm what exchnage you are on -- once you have that answer that may aid you in your netx decision

Thanks for that - I am on HERMITAGE - that is the problem - if I was on NEWBURY (phone box near by is) then I would be able to request FTTC (I think).

Regards
Ian

The order wont go through as all it will say is you are currently unable to recieve a FTTC service.

In reply to a post by whiteduck:

Yes - I will try. I think it is an error and probably is referring to Newbury which serves some of the houses in my postcode.

BR
Ian

BT Openreach roadworks taking place today in Long Lane - near Fisher's Lane.

Their was work scheduled for last week, went by earlier and their was nothing though since the ducts have been cleared any cable laying would only be held by moving the traffic lights further down the road.

Edited by deleted (Thu 12-Apr-12 16:11:39)

Ian their is power work going on at cabinet 14's fibre twin on the double roundabouts in shaw, this cab should be going live soonish.

Also noticed that theirs power work on cabinet 70 junction of love lane and oxford road.

3 cabinets are being installed in the town centre, one by the postoffice, one by liquid and 26 which is on the junction of St Bartholomew and St Michael road.

Oddly the 3 cabinets above where phase 5a, seems to be a mixture of cabinets appearing after the phase has completed in short groups.

I've been reading these posts today and it is very informative, although I confess i don't know what all of the terms mean yet. I too live on Bucklebury Alley and just invested in a new home office. Using powerline adapters to get the network which as Ivy will tell you is not good enough for MOC conference calls from the PC to other users on the company exchange. Listening is great, but speaking is heard in patches. We get between 1 and 1.8mbps down and 150-300up down here. Can't wait for it to improve. What is it like to go to with the ADSL2 and Annex M upgrade capability May 31st? Any ideas?

If you enter your details into this checker, it will give a rough estimation of what you can expect to see on asdl2

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/adslchecker.php

While the upgrade to 21Cn by BT wholsesale will be a improvement for most people connected to the exchange, asdl2 and asdl+2 services are of greater benefit of those on short lines.

Once Berkshire has its local broadband plan approved, which will be the end of this month, Berkshire will start the tendering process.
If for instance BT win the tender, as they are expected to win alot the white area's which Bucklebury Alley is part of will likely see the cabinet at the top of the road have a fttc twin installed.

Speeds on BT and other providers that offer 80/20, which is a vast improvement over current asdl and possible asdl+" speeds.

As to when this work wil likely start, it will be either end of 2012 but more likely 2013-2015.

Kitz currently doesn't seem to give an ADSL2+ projection, but the BT site https://www.btwholesale.com/pages/static/Community/B... does do.

Both sites do, i suggest you enter your details as kitz does give a result under 21CN.

Has been a while since i have updated this thread.

Hermitage exchange is still due for a 21CN live date of the 31st of May, it may be sooner BT wholesale asdl checker is the best place to check.

While in the East of Berkshire Hungerford, Newbury and Thatcham have been live for a while, more cabs have been appearing in Newbury and Thathcam across the towns.

Most of the work is in Newbury with at least 7+ cabs getting fibre twins that where planned back in phase 5a, delay proably due to Hungerford being enabled. So a pause in Newbury cab enablement and now a return to finish the job.

Cab 14 on the shaw twin roundabouts got power a few weeks back and should now be live, the newer cabs in newbury will have to wait for power but should be quick.

As for Superfast Berkshire the local broadband plan is completed, aside from the delivery section as their are talks atm between Berkshire and another Authority about a joint tender process which would be a faster process for both Counties.

In west berks most parishes have commited funding, some are still to decide and a few more have refused but these are being talked to about joining the project.

As for a timescale for when the tender will go out and a winning bid chosen is still unkown, but i would expect this to be completed over the next few months certainly before the end of the year.

Chris here - many thanks for the update and look forward to any more details.

With Hermitage due to be upgraded this Thursday, how quickly will customers see boosts in their broadband speed?

As long as the work is all completed it depends on what package you are with for your isp.

Some isp's will do bulk migrations and others will do it as customers ask to be upgraded to asdl+2.

Greetings All,

I'm way late to the party here, as I have just discovered this forum as well as the Superfast Berkshire site, but am very pleased to have done so -- a wealth of information and some very knowledgeable posts.

Having lamented the state of Broadband in Pangbourne for years, (getting about 5 Mbps via my ISP), and a bit fearful of casting my lot in with TalkTalk, (one hears things) despite them advertising roughly triple that speed, it was with great surprise that I came across this News Release from BT dated Wed 23rd May 2012, in which it states that Pangbourne (and Wargrave) are now scheduled for an upgrade to 20Mbps by Spring 2013:

http://www.btplc.com/News/Articles/Showarticle.cfm?A...

I'm guessing that this means that the Pangbourne Exchange will be upgraded to CN21, though whether that extends to FTTC is something I'm not clear about. Given that the News Release talks about this development bringing the coverage in Berkshire to 87%, and it talks about the need to "work with the public sector" to reach further, it kind of sounds like this may be where they're drawing the line in terms of commercially-profitable development. Presumably that's where Superfast Berkshire will move things beyond that point.

On a practical level, while the speed quoted will be a huge benefit, just up the hill in Tilehurst there are folks reporting upwards of 40Mbps and beyond, through both BT Infinity and Virgin. Presumably that's the sort of speed one gets from FTTP, and not just FTTC + copper, but I must admit that I'm still trying to get to grips with the differences between ADSL/ ADSL2/ ADSL2+/ CN21, etc., and how that translates into performance. My house is 400-600 meters from the exchange according to Kitz, so we'll see.

Anyway, really pleased to have found this forum, and thought I'd mention the good news for those who happen to be in Pangbourne or Wargrave.

HTH/FWIW/YMMV.

OK Mac,

firstly welcome to the boards.

21cn in both Pangbourne and Wargrave, will mean BT Wholesale installing their 'up to' 20 meg service in the exchanges. These will mean, if your chosen ISP uses a BT Wholesale based service you will be able to acheive higher sync rates (presuming your ISP puts you on the new kit).

21cn is a different product to FTTC.

Yes, the speeds up the road are through either FTTC or Virgin, no FFTP in Reading yet.

If you are only 600m from the exchange (Horseshoe Rd, nearest the town centre) You should be seeing higher speeds than that. Are you able to post the stats from your router ? It could be that you can squeeze a fair few more Kbps whilst you are waiting for the upgrade !

Hi to answer your questions.

Pangbourne is already live for Talk Talks LLU service, their are many resellers of this product and have good customer support.

BT Wholesale have been enabling exchanges for 21CN, which allows for asdl2 & asdl+2, this will allow for speeds up to 20Mbps download and about 1Mbps upload.

Since you are very close to the exhange you will see a good speed on asdl+2 as it is only a short run of copper.

The Pangbourne upgrade will not relate to FTTC, the % figures in the news statement reffer to coverage of 21CN across Berkshire.

The Superfast Berkshire project once it goes to tender it will likely be won by Openreach, they will then deploy FTTC across the whole of Berkshire, this will be between 2013-2015.

In Tilehurst both Virgin Cable and Openreach FTTC is deployed so that is why you see the higher speeds, ive put all the products below to show what they can do.
The speeds seen in Tiehurst are from Fibre to the cabinet and copper/coax services.
Also do note BT infinity is just BT retails name for their FTTC package, their are many other isp's offering services over Openreach's FTTC network.

BT Openreach products

ASDL - uo to 8Mbps
ASDL 2/ASDL+2 - uo to 20Mbps and 1-2Mbps upload
FTTC two products 40Mbps download - 10Mbps upload or 80Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload
FTTP- two products 100Mbps download and 10Mbps upload or 330Mbps Download and 30Mbps upload

Virgin- Cable fibre coax network delivers 10/30/60/110 Download and Upload between 1-10Mbps depending on package.

The only Openreach FTTP deployement that i know of in Berkshire, are the Newbury Racecourse development and Mitford Fields in Reading.

My reply took a while to type, their is FTTP planned for Berkshire by Openreach in Newbury and Reading.

I heard Spencers Wood also.

Mitford Fields is at Three Mile Cross.

http://goo.gl/maps/Zfut

Is the google link from the Openreach FTTP enabled new homes. rollout list.

Their is also a site in Maidenhead, at St Mary's Park- SL68RH

Edited by deleted (Tue 29-May-12 22:21:14)

Ah,OK, talking about the same place, that is off of Spencer's. The cab serving that location is FTTC already, and would only a couple of hundred meters from it.

I've put my name down for training, for the install work. We'll have to wait and see.

I live in Hermitage and just called BT Broadband to find out if there was anything I needed to do tomorrow, to prepare for the exchange upgrade tomorrow. All my hopes of high(er) speed broadband were dashed in minutes when the lady on the phone told me that the upgrade has been delayed and won't now be happening until 29th August 2012.

Well done BT - Grrrrrrr...!!

I would wait and see if it goes live tomorrow, the checkers all maintain the 31st of May, though they may need to update.

A delay to August is not so much of a problem, though without speaking to a Openreach Engineer working at the exchange it could be a number of possible delays.

Also have you contacted the parish council in Hermitage to voice your support for the parish commiting its allocated funding towards the West Berkshire Parish funding program for the Superfast Berkshire project.

The first decsion taken by the parish council was to refuse, however after the public suvey their is a strong demand for faster broadband, the more support for it, the more likley the PC will vote in favour at a full meeting- orginal decision was taken wilth only half a PC in attendence.

What it will mean for Hermitage, is that Openreach (only likely bidders for tender) will install fibre twins to the various exisiting cabinets in the village. Allowing for speeds of 80/20 to those closest to the cabinet and slowing the further away- about 22Mbps download is possible at 1400 meters away.
Most properties will be within about 600 meters of a cabinet.

I have registered now

Thanks ccxo, I have been following the Parish minutes since last December and have to say that they have been less than positive, regarding the proposed upgrade. What's the timescale for improvement if they do decide to get behind it?

Well at current the Superfast Berkshire program is moving ahead, a short term loan is covering the missing parish funding for west berks contribution.
Any missing funding will results in cuts by West Berks Council to cover the loss, why its important to get all parishes to contribute.

At the current stage the local broadband plan is completed, the last part is delivery which requires a team.
The project manager has been recruited, so the current time scale is for the tender to go out and the contract signed by the winning company by 31st of December 2012.

Work will then begin in 2013 through till 2015, as to what area's will be first thats a good few months yet, the winning tender will likely be Openreach as other companies are unlikely to bid for the money.

Edited by deleted (Wed 30-May-12 21:07:59)

I see this morning that the BT Wholesale ADSL Checker has changed the date for ADSL2+ on the Hermitage exchange from 31st May (today!) to 30th June. So if the conversation which Anonymous of Hermitage had with BT Broadband is correct, we will probably see a slippage of one month every month! Yours, Cynical of Cold Ash.

In reply to a post by Ivy:

I see this morning that the BT Wholesale ADSL Checker has changed the date for ADSL2+ on the Hermitage exchange from 31st May (today!) to 30th June. So if the conversation which Anonymous of Hermitage had with BT Broadband is correct, we will probably see a slippage of one month every month! Yours, Cynical of Cold Ash.

Current date on BT wholeslae ASDL checker is the 2nd of July- for BT 21CN

TT have finally gone live on the Hermitage exchange- so either go directly with them or one of their re-sellers such as Vivaciti.

We really need to improve upload speed. We are in Pangboure, Horseshoe Park area, but it seems the only upgrades will involve better download speed. I'd be prepared to sacrifice download to have better upload. We have to shift GBs of data and it takes an age to upload. We currently use Star Internet and Zen.

Has anyone had experience with bonded ADSL? We could have Leased Line of 2Mb up, for the price of 2 ADSL lines, but that also means 2Mb down.

Has any one got any suggestions?

Our ADSL averages ~6.5Mbps down/400kbps up.

Thanks in advance.

Edited by deleted (Fri 15-Jun-12 01:46:10)

I beleive Talk talk have unbundled the exchange, so should be able to get at least 1mb upload as you are pretty close to the exchange- BT wholesale has plans to upgrade the exchange to 21CN but again its only 1mb upload.

The Superfast Berkshire program wont select a tender and sign the contact before the end of the year but once into deployment should provide a upload between 1-20Mb if the cabinet is upgraded.

Is the Horseshoe Park on its own cabinet- should be number 7 or it connects into number 6 to the left of the onestop.

BT engineers at the bottom of Cold Ash hill this morning and they said that Hermitage was now "wired up" with 21CN.

I'm unsure which box we are connected to, but box 7 is closer to us than box 6.

Cheers

The go liive date is still the 20th of July, TT has already gone live just a case of waiting for BT wholesale.

Pangers it proably will be pcp 7 and its likely to be upgraded though nothing is 100% until the rollout starts which wont be till 2013- things are moving foward faster now.

Burghfield Common has appeared on the latest Openreach rollout list for phase 10- date on Openreach where and when is end of 2013.

Is very interesting as it was not expected to appear, while it is one of the largest exchanges it only has a small number of cabinets, which if all upgraded by Openreach commerically would technically remove Burghfields parish commitment to the superfast berkshire project, will have to see what happens.

Edited by deleted (Tue 26-Jun-12 18:42:22)

while it is one of the largest exchanges it only has a small number of cabinets,

It has some ma-hoos-ively D sides. Cab 3 especially, you can spit to the exchange, just down the road, opposite the garage (covered in spit). Yet feeds a huge area.

It would be better for Openreach to wait and bid on the Berkshire tender as alot more improvements could be made to the D sides as their is greater funding avalaible.

Though both Burghfield Common and Little Greenwick are currently end of 2013, so the Superfast Berkshire tender and contact should be signed before the start of 2013, so adjustments hopefully will be made before openreach begin installing FTTC.

Hmm, not sure what 'improvements they could make. The network is OK, just real long pairs, cancelling out any gain FTTC might bring to those on the outskirts.

Hey look what I found today The missing no.5 !

I found that one a few days ago, it will be interesting to see if Mortimer gets upgraded as well since its between Tadley and Burghfield both will eventually have FTTC, though it may have to wait for the Superfast Berkshire project.

Well with the project the main aim is to use FTTC and enable as many cabinets as possible so their will likely be new cabinets installed further out if its viable.

Chris P here -- just heard some very bad news for Hermitage exchange: according to BT Technical support it won't now be upgraded for 21CN until October 20th. First it was May 31st, then July 30th. Extremely disappointed.

Thats interesting i wonder what the hold up is prehaps something keeps breaking, the asdl wholesale checker still has the 22 July.

A neighbour of mine on Hermitage exchange had his telephone line brought down by a tree in high wind. Two OpenReach engineers independently told him that his cabinet (7 on the corner of Hermitage Road and Slanting Hill) would be getting connected to fibre. I'm curious as to whether this means OR are going to go ahead with Hermitage without waiting for the Berkshire contract or whether they are just assuming that the Berkshire contract will be signed. Anybody else had any OR inputs?

Where is your neighbours house can pm me the location if you dont want to post it on the forum.

Ive not heard anything about Hermitage exchange being upgraded to FTTC, its possible that it may happen though at current the only exchange Openreach has announced is Burghfield Common (end 2013 date)- its unknown how many of the cabinets they will deploy FTTC to.

Things are progressing alot quicker now with the superfast bekrshire program and i have been helping with certain aspects of the project.


Their is a update meeting on the 17th of July if you are not aware of it.

Dear All,

You are invited to attend a session for all Parish Councils, Parish Planning Groups and members of the public, to inform you of progress the Council has made towards achieving Superfast Broadband in Berkshire.

Come and find out more about the key stages and what communities need to be doing right now to help achieve faster Broadband access in West Berkshire.

This session will be held on Tuesday 17th July 2012 at 7pm in the Council Chamber, at West Berkshire Council's Market Street offices.

This session will cover:

How your local community is likely to benefit
The next stages of the Broadband Delivery UK Programme - including timescales for delivery
Key steps and actions required of Parish Councils and community groups NOW
The critical importance of registering your interest in receiving Superfast Broadband services
Meeting the new WBC Project Manager for this project.

Edited by deleted (Fri 06-Jul-12 17:27:50)

Hermitage exchange has WBC 21CN live now.

Awesome! When will we get faster speeds then?

If you are on a BT supplied package or a re-seller of BT you may be automatically upgraded but its best to contact your isp and check with them.

Normally Isp's will do batch moves over a few weeks or they will not change as the package may only be up to 8Mbps.

In reply to a post by ccxo:

If you are on a BT supplied package or a re-seller of BT you may be automatically upgraded but its best to contact your isp and check with them.

Normally Isp's will do batch moves over a few weeks or they will not change as the package may only be up to 8Mbps.

Just contacted BT Technical Support and they were pretty hopeless. Call centre operator claimed she didn't have access to what exchange I was on (this was an offshore call centre). Someone back in UK is due to call me back but they still claim -- to their knowledge -- that the exchange hasn't been upgraded.

When you speak to the person from the UK do say that the 'BT wholesale asdl checker' is showing asdl+2 live, their could be a delay in the exchange showing up in BT's database's it does take a while for information to get around the BT group.

Just been to the Superfast Berkshire broadband Event where a general update on the project was given to people across west berkshire.

The presention will be sent out via email soon, so ile just provide a quick update here.

New project timeline announced:

Earliest start to the procurement process is Nov 2012 and it is anticipated to begin Feb 2013 due to Berkshire being in 22 out of 43 places in the bduk process.

The response/evaluation will take 10 weeks and the contact should be awarded May-August 2013.

Phase 3 Improvement Rollout

Contract Mobilisation May-August 2013 (Estimated)

Delivery will being after this and should be completed by 31/05/2015.

This new timescale is more reasonable and shows the delay that BDUK causes

I did speak to some people from lambourn and gave a incorrect email address- could they please pm on here and i will provide the correct address.

Edited by deleted (Tue 17-Jul-12 22:56:40)

I live in the Long Lane "hamlet" on the B4009 connected to Hermitage exchange. Sync speed has recently increased to around 3008kbps recently - upstream dropped to 224k but a router reboot resolved this back to 448kbps. Now speedtest.net is suggesting 2.3Mbps down which is better than the 1.8Mbps I previously saw.

Very good update, West Berks residents have lots of work to do to not be caste into the dark ages by getting left behind. ALL small business need to register interest to persuade BT etc that this is a priority area and the future is welcomed . Please can you keep us updated with registration numbers as a matter of course.

Best
Andrew
East Ilsley

The registration map will go live in the next few weeks and i will update with figures but hopefully the digital champion's will get out and get registrations up, could even overtake hampshire.

It will be interesting to see where greatest demand will come from first.

Some great News for all those connected to the Hermitage exchange, at the Hermitage PC meeting tonight their was a large public presence thanks to some great community organistation.

There was a vote, 2 abstentions and all the others voted for..

The PC voted again to support the project and a majority carried the decsion, so Hermitage will be contributing its part to the Superfast Berkshire project.

One thing i will ask is that anyone that lives in the Berkshire area and lives or either knows someone that lives in the rural parts to please go to

http://www.superfastberkshire.org.uk/index.aspx?arti...

and register your support or get those that you know to, as the more votes the stronger the demand the market can be shown for the desire for superfast broadband.

In reply to a post by ccxo:

Some great News for all those connected to the Hermitage exchange, at the Hermitage PC meeting tonight their was a large public presence thanks to some great community organistation.

There was a vote, 2 abstentions and all the others voted for..

The PC voted again to support the project and a majority carried the decsion, so Hermitage will be contributing its part to the Superfast Berkshire project.

One thing i will ask is that anyone that lives in the Berkshire area and lives or either knows someone that lives in the rural parts to please go to

http://www.superfastberkshire.org.uk/index.aspx?arti...

and register your support or get those that you know to, as the more votes the stronger the demand the market can be shown for the desire for superfast broadband.

Got my username back

Excellent news and well done to the parish council. I wrote a letter to councillors a week ago too so hopefully that had some effect as well.

BTW, Hermitage is still not showing up as 21CN?

Where are you looking, as it shows asdl+2 services live on the BT wholesale asdl checker.

Superfast Berkshire Registration map is now live

http://www.superfastberkshire.org.uk/index.aspx?arti...

If you click on a parish in west berkshire it gives the break down of the registrations into Residential/Business and Organisations.

The more votes that are registered to the site shows the demand for faster broadband in each area to the project team and Companies that are likely to tender for the project.

So please do get anyone you know in the rural areas of Berkshire to register their interest on the site.

As for why West berkshire shows the parish break down, this is due to Parishes being asked for half of West Berks funding requirement to match the BDUK pot, all other authorities paid from central budgets.

Hi

Can we get the map updated, its impossible to know if initiatives we are undertaking to increase take up are working without regular updates. Forgive me for hassling but I thought time was of the essence wit this.

Best Regards

Andrew
East Ilsley

Hi Andrew as far as i know the map is updating, as certain areas have seen a increase in registrations, i will check further.

As for the time frame, ideally its before the project goes into tender which will likely be in early 2013 due to EU and BDUK delays.

Hi Map

Not updating and says it hasn't been updated since Aug 1. I know our figure has gone up but it hasn't moved from when I wrote note. Hope you can fix it its vital.

Best

Hi im still waiting on a reply as most of the team has been away on holiday and are due back this week.

Since the map has not updated its very likely that the team goes through the registrations and then they are added to the database and then the map updates, should see the updates this week.

Got the email updates today, their was a error with the map which left it blank and had to be manually updated, the team is not back from holiday and the map was updated asap.

The map gets updated twice a week so any updates you have for your parish will appear, Kintbury and Inkpen are the highest registration numbers at current.

Hi All,

Thread started quite a while ago so suggest a Part Two be started if needs be.

Closing for refurbishments.