Cumbria Superfast Broadband

Hey TBBers! I have been keeping a close eye on the (slow) progress of the superfast broadband BDUK project for Cumbria. Now that BT have won the bidding, I am suprised that there aren't more details around... does anyone know if this will be a similar rollout to the Cornwall project (Mostly FTTC/VDSL, a tiny bit of FTTP)? It's kind of frustrating to not be hearing many details at this stage.

I live in a small village - unfortunately my location is nearly 4km away from the exchange by road (LCORT). I manage between 3-4 Mbps downloads and 0.3 upload on a line with 54db attenuation. I run a business from home and the slow speeds, especially the upload speeds, make it painful at times.

When I heard BT had won the contract for improving the broadband throughout the county, I was cautiously optimistic that the situation may change... But when I did some research to see if I had a green cabinet nearby, the only one I could find was at the other side of the village (about 2km from my location by road). This is concerning! If BT decide to upgrade this area with FTTC, and I am connected to this cabinet, should I expect a big increase in speed? Or will BT perhaps use a different technology in this area?

Thanks, Jamie.

It will be a while before any rollout plans are announced, most likely over the next few months or longer ie 2013 as Openreach will have to plan their deployment and meet with the Cumbria team to meet the targets of the project.

Most area's will have mainly FTTC with some FTTP where it is viable to deploy, wirless/Satellite will be used for the most remote parts, to met the 2Mbps min- very similar to Cornwall but with less funding overall.

What is your postcode as we may be able to find further cabinets near to you- but if your cabinet is 2km away then FTTC will be of not benefit to you as at that distance th VDSL signal drops off.
As for what technology is used-all depends on what Openreach plan and agree with the Cumbria team.

Edited by ccxo (Sat 29-Sep-12 02:27:17)

id like to throw a date out there, sept 2013

Thanks for the info. My postcode is CA10 3XJ. There are plenty of terraced houses here, I'm kind of surprised I couldn't find a closer cab

More information is likely to come at the beginning of next year about deployment and how BT are intending to meet the criteria of the bid.

2km is almost certainly not going to give you an FTTC solution - it seems that upstream would have died over that distance.

The Cornish scheme has quite a good website, and gives considerably better information about progress for each & every exchange. The kind of information that would be good for the standard rollout.

They have an animation that talks about the build, including aspects for FTTP, FTTC, EO, and BET. It seems likely that whatever technology is needed in Cumbria is already being trialled in Cornwall - so it is probably a good place to look.

I hope the Connecting Cumbria website gets updated/redone at some point in the future, it's quite vague and hasn't been updated in a few months. Thanks, I saw the video - do you know if people have been getting FTTH in situations where FTTC won't work and they're far & not directly connected to the exchange? I think that's my only hope apart from Satellite (terrible ping) or BET (Ridiculous "solution"). Although I guess Superfast wireless wouldn't be so bad...

Edited by indigobanana (Sat 29-Sep-12 20:00:42)

I don't think many people have been getting FTTP. Not yet, anyway.

The product has gone live within BT, but has anyplace seen orders beyond the original trial areas, or the odd high-profile PR job (eg a company in Cornwall)? Anyplace with significant numbers?

Maybe we'll get more movement on this side in a year...

That postcode isn't in the Dec 2011 spreadsheets, so can't help sorry.

I'm not suprised, the exchange only has about 650 connections! I don't think any exchanges (apart from Carlisle and some major towns, i.e. the commercially viable ones - Penrith, Kendal, Workington etc) have been announced yet.