Superfast North Yorkshire beyond end of 2014?

Hi all,
We are currently in the process of selling up and looking at a place out in the countryside .

One of our criteria is, due to the mrs needing to work from home a few days a week (using VPN into her work) we need something semi-decent in terms of broadband (at the moment we get around 11-15mbit).

Really early on we have run into the usual issues which are: poor Adsl speeds in the locations we find (1mbit) and no provision for Fttc from what I can see in the SFNY map ( which isn't exactly detailed!)

I read that SFNY had a supposed target of 100% coverage by end of 2017 which is a bit far in the future to rely on.

I've looked for some info regarding 2015 but hit a dead end, all the info online I can find is related to up to the end of this year....anyone got any suggestions?

Only move to an area that has the speeds you need already available.

Future plans are always subject to change. They do plan for much higher coverage levels but no-one can guarantee speed and when it will be available.

AFAIK the current public map is the phase 1 coverage, the phase 2 map should be published soon.

There are a number of community wireless internet service providers covering significant areas of North Yorkshire using Fixed Wireless Access - see http://www.superfastnorthyorkshire.com/wireless-schemes

Disclaimer - although I work for one of these as I don't know which area of North Yorkshire you are in service may only be available from one or more of the other companies.

Properties I have looked at are in the following areas: Crompton, Thornton le dale, knapton. Also we've looked in the whenby, old byland and huttons Ambo areas as well. The annoyance is that although some of them are close to fttc enabled exchanges their cabinets are not enabled.

I've looked at some satelite options but they look like they have a lot of lag and cost quite a lot for something close to what we want/need.

Frustrating situation I feel almost shallow for discounting properties based on this kind of service.

Yep, I assumed the worst already in that regard. Some of the properties we have spotted have fibre as an option which is great but they are few and far between especially when tied against our other criteria.

The ones which are making the short list have around 5mbit, just feels like it would be a step backwards especially with a poor mobile service in the area (likely)

Fixed Wireless Access is very different to Satellite - it typically uses fixed microwave links in a hub and spoke arrangement back to a POP with fibre access.

With the frequencies used connections are line-of-sight so properties in dips or surrounded by trees can be difficult to connect to.

Andrew this has probably been asked MANY times already (I will refer to the search bar after I submit this) but what is the situation with FTTH/FTTP? I mean generally is it only an option for certain situations or theoretically could a fibre be run to any property?

I guess I'm considering all options, including ones totally unfeasible.......it's good to know where the limit is I guess.

Edited by mrvanx (Sat 11-Oct-14 17:47:06)

In general, SFNY have been installing FTTC, and leaving FTTP until "later".

We are pretty much at the end-date of phase 1 for SFNY, and areas they have labelled for FTTP don't seem to have yet materialised - a pattern which appears to be common wherever FTTP has been scheduled in the UK (apart from Cornwall), whether in a commercial area or a BDUK-funded one.

FTTC cabinets for phase 1 appear to be still being activated; they are definitely not quite finished with phase 1 on that front either.

Although phase 1 should be wrapping up, the council gave the go-ahead for phase 2 to occur a few months ago. According to the council minutes, phase 2 is expected to go on for another year (ie autumn 2015), and will affect 10-15,000 properties; as a previous post says, there has been precious little said about what areas will be included in phase 2 - perhaps because it starts to rely on FTTRN technology that is supposedly being trialled in/near Leyburn.

The funding for phase 2 (an extra £8m) has come from the first BDUK pot, so shouldn't be confused with the second BDUK project, known as the Superfast Extension Project, SEP.

The council has recently run an OMR (open market review) prior to starting the phase 3 project (which will be the SEP project).

The status of both phases 2 and 3 have been due to be reported at the last 2 council executive meetings, but has been postponed both times.

As Mr Saffron says - get somewhere where the work has already been done.

I have 3 tools that help:
1. Lookup localities, exchanges, and find all the cabinets & EO bundles from here:
https://www.telecom-tariffs.co.uk/codelook.htm
It has a fairly recent idea of which cabinets have been upgraded, but it isn't quite up to date.
2. Lookup postcodes for streets at Royal Mail
3. Lookup fibre provision using BT-Wholesale's "address checker":
http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/adsl/ADSLChecker.Addres...

NB: use the address checker, but only put a postcode in. After submitting, it will give you a list of properties, and you can check each property individually.

FTTP has been deployed and is available to order in Whitwell-on-the-Hill, Welburn and Bulmer - AFAIK this is part of SFNY phase 1.

Oddly there are cabinets in Welburn and Bulmer, but FTTP rather than FTTC has been deployed, I can understand Whitwell-on-the-Hill as I suspect EO lines.

There is one pole with shiny new FTTP manifold attached I must take a picture of next time I'm passing for people to have a laugh/cry at...

Around 0.3% of premises in North Yorkshire have FTTP available to order that I know of for sure, Devon with 0.7% is doing a lot better.

Areas have a lot more FTTP to appear, but its almost always at the end of each project, a case of pressure to get as close to contract targets as possible as quickly as possible.

Andrew