Villagers express their frustration

Some villagers have expressed their frustration with Openreach by buring an effigy on bonfire night. Mentioned on Radio 4 this morning. One complaint was the difficulty of making contact with Openreach themselves.

Devon council made it clear when they rejected BT from phase II I thought

So do these residents want the council to get BT back and sign more contracts

Robertos linked to this news item yesterday ...........

I personally find it somewhat unpleasant that they chose to do this.

If I chose to burn an effigy of something typically to do with Devon in protest I daresay I'd be shouted down pretty quickly.

If you used a Devon Cream Tea, the Cornish would approve .

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Devon council made it clear when they rejected BT from phase II I thought

So do these residents want the council to get BT back and sign more contracts

What makes me laugh (a bit) is that the Andy mentioned in that article appears to work for the NHS. So this Network Architect who moved to a remote part of the country hoping to telecommute is presumably helping design and maintain N3.

Hands up those of you surprised by this :-/

Edited by Andrue (Tue 07-Nov-17 09:06:52)

A point also noted by Adrian Kennard with this blog article:

http://www.revk.uk/2017/11/burning-openreach-van-eff...

With regard to contacting Openreach, the latest OTA2 bulletin ( http://www.offta.org.uk/updates/otaupdate2017October... talks about "The FTTC PCP trial which allows engineers to contact the customer in certain circumstances has shown a sustained improvement in the Early Life Failure rate by around 1%. Openreach are now proposing to include this as a standard approach for this product variant and will be making proposals to Industry.( My underlining)

So if CPs take this up at Least OR engineers will be allowed to contact the customer!

I have just read the article using the link.

I think it makes some very reasonable points. BT is a business, not state owned, so it is simple economics.

Zarjaz also makes a valid point. Burning an effigy of certain other things may well have got a visit from the hate police!

At least they are burning an effigy of an object that represents an organisation - Lewis quite regularly burn effigy's of living people which is a whole lot less acceptable.

In reply to a post by Sylcol:

I have just read the article using the link.

I think it makes some very reasonable points. BT is a business, not state owned, so it is simple economics.

Zarjaz also makes a valid point. Burning an effigy of certain other things may well have got a visit from the hate police!

Your one line says it all ... and what people also conveniently forget is that BT do go out of their way to help small communities and villages often installing equipment or providing services that with never present a payback (example below *) - but other providers will often say no and not even do any basic cost and return calculations, just a straight NO.

* In the North of Scotland you will often see a red BT phone box. These are maintained to provide an emergency contact facility for the village or hamlet and a BT Technician may visit every 3 to 6 months. The cost of the visit could be £200 or more when time and travel are considered - the revenue from some of those phone boxes is often measured in pounds per year. not even tens of pounds, just pounds.

In reply to a post by ferretuk:

A point also noted by Adrian Kennard with this blog article:

http://www.revk.uk/2017/11/burning-openreach-van-eff...

A very good read and also all points have been made...

I'm actually going to have a look at this area now and find the alternative options.

OK, so straight away, all networks excluding Three have outdoor coverage available of 4G, all networks have 3G coverage with O2 actually having very good 3G coverage.

So using a 4G router and external antenna getting better speeds shouldn't be impossible.

In reply to a post by MHC:

* In the North of Scotland you will often see a red BT phone box. These are maintained to provide an emergency contact facility for the village or hamlet and a BT Technician may visit every 3 to 6 months. The cost of the visit could be £200 or more when time and travel are considered - the revenue from some of those phone boxes is often measured in pounds per year. not even tens of pounds, just pounds.

The local phone box near where I live in Kent has been disabled. No doubt because of lack of use. Perhaps BT could use the money saved towards the cost of connecting the properties in Templeton to the fibre cable which was laid through their village.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

I personally find it somewhat unpleasant that they chose to do this.

Bonfire societies burn stuff. Get over it. Of course the council has signed contracts for BDUK phase 2 with Gigaclear and Airband. Other wireless is available.

Yet what do the people demonstrably want? They want Openreach and the providers they offer at the price they want to pay.

I've heard the same story in Gigaclear areas elsewhere . Too expensive. Ultrafast has to be ultracheap to sell and for that you need the firms on the Openreach platform.

Virgin did well this year as they have been digging up the home of bonfire, Lewes, all year and didn't feature in the bonfire.

The Lewes forum tells a different story though and the council withheld permits for a time. Not because of my concern of cheapskate shallow trenched, short sighted, direct in ground unprotected tubes but the general mess they made.

I'd stick unprotected, short sighted, shallow trenched tubes on the bonfire myself but some other utility will probably damage them before I get there.

Edited by deleted (Tue 07-Nov-17 22:07:34)

In reply to a post by partial:

Bonfire societies burn stuff. Get over it. Of course the council has signed contracts for BDUK phase 2 with Gigaclear and Airband. Other wireless is available.

It is not clear to me that Templeton is included in these contracts. Can you demonstrate otherwise?

If the price people want to pay is way below the cost of provision, then it's up to the people to change their mind.

How many businesses deliberately trade at a loss? Even local buses now try very hard to avoid it on every under-used route, by cutting it out.

I guess the best they hope for is some of the claw back money being used to either bring new fibre into Templeton , or for OR to extend their existing FTTP into the area as it gets ever closer.

I work in Lewes 3 days a week and yes the Virgin's contractors did make a mess.

There's a cabinet just up the road from the office and I'm not sure what they were trying to do with the ducting but li looked like they were trying to link up with some ductwork that ran under the road about 10m away. The trench started off OK at the cabinet but sudden flares out to around 8 feet wide by the curb where it crosses the road.

They had most of one carriageway closed off for almost a week with no traffic control by a very busy mini roundabout to do the work.

Have you been to Templeton? and stood with a mobile phone to see what networks are available? Looking at maps on the internet is all very well but in this part of the world means very little.... this isn't a village but a hamlet with a cluster of around 20 houses and others spread around a wide area.

I believe that Openreach recently ran fibre along the B3137 from Tiverton to Nomansland and that FTTP is available to some properties along this route so its not exactly the case that there is unreasonable expectations about the the provision of faster broadband when locally other hamlets are receiving FTTP. Escpecially when villagers are given vague promises by Connecting Devon and Somerset which before the Phase 2 announcements used to quite often say that your area is due to be upgraded to superfast broadband without any premises level detail.

So it would be quite legitmate to think that your village or hamlet to be upgraded soon only to find out that the plan had changed or that the cabinets that were installed were too far away to provide superfast speeds to most people.
For instance in Oakford, Devon (not too far from Templeton) between the 2 fibre cabinets funded under BDUK phase 1 only 25% of people can now access 24+mbps speeds and phase 2 has completely ignored the 75% left. Even though the CDS stated that superfast would be available just 18 months ago....

The Connecting Devon and Somerset website shows Templeton as being excluded from current plans. The post code I used was EX16 8BL

I've heard the same story in Gigaclear areas elsewhere . Too expensive.

The main complaint I've heard, and made myself, regarding Gigaclear areas (esp. Fastershire) is that once Gigaclear have been awarded a contract the BDUK body treats it as job done, while Gigaclear don't obviously do anything. I can't even get them to tell me which decade they may get to my village. None of the Fastershire Phase 2 areas even appear on the Gigaclear rollout schedule. By digging around in various Parish council meeting minutes I've discovered that the first 5 Gloucestershire areas are due to start the build March-May next year - that's well over a year after the contract was signed (and the bid was premises level so they must have had a rough plan in order to bid).
There are 53 areas in the Gloucestershire lots (and about the same in Herefordshire), so there is no way they can meet Fastershire's target of end of 2018, but Fastershire won't comment.
Price is an issue, particularly for businesses - I've had a leased line quote for only twice Gigaclear's monthly charge, and given the Gigaclear contention ratios and SLA the leased line is a better proposition. But until they actually get to an area price is moot.

Complaints about contract signing to start of delivery were rife during the 2011/2012/2013 era when BT often had a 6 to 12 month gap between signing and getting things changing and going live for people on the ground.

If looking at business Gigaclear pricing, the reality is that the better guarantee for the business service is pushing pricing closer to leased line. If you want free bandwidth then dark fibre from CityFibre is the way, as you can light it up at whatever you speed you want, but be prepared for the shock when you go searching for a breakout point to the wider internet rather than creating a building to building link.

What point of a contract signed to deliver X,000 premises where the money going in was fixed at contract sign date is so hard...i.e. unless that X,000 took a local authority to 100% then there is and was always going to be some missing out.

All BT can do in the contract terms for BDUK is deliver to contract, and then if spare money left (which often there has been) and gainshare returns they need to get direction from the local authority as to what to do next. If BT had won phase II then in CDS gainshare expansion might have been a bit simpler.

So question to ask elected officials is what is the county going to do with its gain share allocation?

NOTE: There is https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/7847-mid-devon-o... which is talk of a council bit network with full fibre for some and fixed wireless for a wider area. It is to the area south of the effigy area I believe but there seemed to be some hope that wireless would reach a much wider area. Locals very much need to listen to that meeting and make their minds up as to whether they want that path, or another, e.g. Gigaclear expansion or pester Openreach via council

The rejection of BT for phase II I am willing to bet got peoples hopes up for a significant change in what happened in phase II and while the full fibre for the areas that will get Gigaclear is great, there are as highlighted still plenty of areas that are missing out.

Maybe one day someone will stand up and say 'look we cannot reach all of you with the service you would all like with the budgets we are able to spend, so there is going to be delays and some of you are going miss out'

Doing that at a public meeting is not going to make them popular, but its more correct than some of the rousing speeches we've seen.

BTW on Oakford, cabinet 1 makes sense but the area of cabinet 2 looks more like FTTP would have been a better bet, but question then is cost.

The council has signed phase 2 with Gigaclear and Airband is what I said.

What the council and their contractor has agreed is up to them.

Burning effigies of Openreach may well make everyone feel better and may well be that Openreach is the residents preferred supplier but the residents really need to put pressure on the council and their appointed supplier.

Clearly this place is not viable for commercial deployment in the short term. Long term it will become viable when it prevents closing the local copper main side network.

Your right about BT only delivering to contract, they are doing what is expected of them that's fair enough...

One of the main problems is the information coming form CDS and DCC does get peoples hopes and expectations up as in the news thats what people read about when theelected officials are blowing their trumpet about how amazing they are doing. When the reality a lot of the time missed deadlines, waffle and mis information.

The there are no gainshare plans at the moment probably due to the amount of time its taking CDS to work out phase 2 plans with Airband, but thats only a guess as there has been no information given out.

On the CDS website it state "We hope to have a much clearer picture by the autumn and we will keep you informed of developments"
Well its nearly winter now and no one is any clearer and no updates have been provided, even if they just were to say "its Autumn now and sorry but there is no news" would be something...

"So question to ask elected officials is what is the county going to do with its gain share allocation?"

The questions are being asked but this the bit where it gets harder as CDS and Devon Country Council now hold meetings behind closed doors with no minutes taken.....draw your own conclusions from that...

Yes I think it would be incredible useful if someone did stand up and say" look we cannot reach all of you with the service you would all like with the budgets we are able to spend, so there is going to be delays and some of you are going miss out" .. At least people would know where they stand.

As for the Oakford 1 and 2 cabs, of course cost is a factor but when other areas nearby that are seemingly even more rural get FTTP such as Anstey Mills exchange, its easy for people to think why them and not me? and for most people in these areas anything to do with broadband = BT

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Maybe one day someone will stand up and say 'look we cannot reach all of you with the service you would all like with the budgets we are able to spend, so there is going to be delays and some of you are going miss out'

Doing that at a public meeting is not going to make them popular, but its more correct than some of the rousing speeches we've seen.

Hear, hear.

Devon seems to be a hotbed of feeling regarding the BDUK rollout, but Devon doesn't come out of the process in any way deficient compared to other largely rural counties.

You have to wonder why Devon has such a large amount of anger - and all focussed on BT (or Openreach).

I've come to think that it is down to the way local elected officials have gone about things. Not just passing on blame to BT, but actively instigating it, instead of setting proper expectations.

CDS themselves could have informed the public better (taking a leaf out of CSW's book), which might have taken the wind out of the sails of the councillors/MPs. However, with such vitriol flying around, I'm not really surprised that they stayed out of that particular limelight.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

The rejection of BT for phase II I am willing to bet got peoples hopes up for a significant change in what happened in phase II and while the full fibre for the areas that will get Gigaclear is great, there are as highlighted still plenty of areas that are missing out.

People's hopes went up and up ... but still nothing attempting to set proper expectations.

The provisional Gigaclear maps (I think I linked to them on that news story) show that Mid Devon, and the area around Tiverton, is not getting much consideration.