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.