In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

As if by magic

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/5690-bucks-and-he...

The maps on the state aid page are worth a check, and if your area is grey or black then it suggests either (a) a mistake or (b) Openreach (or someone else) has plans to provide service in the area.

Thanks for that. It's quite difficult to see the detail on a a map of such a large area, but it looks to me as if a major High Wycombe industrial estate will still be out in the fibre cold after 2015.

In reply to a post by mr_mojo:

I'd agree. SMEs (but more towards the small end) with internet fall in to one of two camps in my experience:

1) The ones that don't really care, get whatever BT offers them for as cheap as possible [I know a small TV production firm in London that has a ADSL2+ business line and the boss is a bit old fashioned so just pays for couriers to send DVDs and Blurays round London - madness]

2) The ones that do, and go for leased lines.

While I am sure there are people in the middle (who care, but don't want to spend the £k on a leased line for faster speeds), the vast majority don't.

Joe Bloggs accounting ltd might have 20 users, but if all they are doing is sending files round by email (often locally, via a local exchange server), they're not going to be knocking the doors down for BT to install fibre.

Ironically, a small family probably has more demand for broadband than a 10 person office these days. Video streaming, gaming downloads, music chews up a lot of bandwidth, people sitting on salesforce and excel all day don't.

PS: I am definitely aware of exceptions, especially small creative businesses which are really hurt by bad ADSL upload speeds and often will not have the money for a leased line.

I think that's broadly right. However, two things:

1) There are those who care who really cannot afford the cost of a leased line for their size of business/turnover. It's can't pay rather than won't pay.
2) If there is a national policy of connecting up the country with fibre, why should any small company have to pay leased line costs to get decent connectivity?

I work for a haulage company, and manage the workshop. We've had broadband for a long time, about 3 to 4 Mbps, but the low speed doesn't really affect us, nothing we do is time sensitive, even when I have to update the diagnostic software which is about a 2GB download I just leave it going.

It used to be annoying sending large emails, but now we have our own email server, they appear to the end user to go instantly but of course are slowing uploading from the server.

We do actually have FTTC available (36/6 estimate) , but our ISP doesn't actually offer it, although they are supposed to be soon, so when they do I'll get costs put together and see if we can get it upgraded, might as well have it if we can.

I doubt anyone else here even realises it's available and I think that would be the same for a lot of company's.

Edited by R0NSKI (Thu 31-Jan-13 13:31:59)

In reply to a post by jimsym:

It seems to be an irony of the current strategy for high speed broadband that businesses are treated as lower priority than domestic users, when they need it every bit as much, if not more.

The targets for high speed broadband coverage are expressed in terms of population coverage. BT/Openreach seems to set its FTTC priorities in line with this, not to mention the fact that a cabinet serving an industrial estate is likely to be much less lucrative than one serving a residential area (which has many more potential customers).

Businesses in this country and particularly smaller ones are being held back by this, which is perhaps a case of the law of unintended consequences.

How can this be fixed?

Businesses should have a leased line, if the rely on broadband that much.

In reply to a post by dave2150:

Businesses should have a leased line, if the rely on broadband that much.

What about businesses that dont NEED and cant afford leased lines but none the less would be far more efficient and profitable if they had access to FTTC? Should they be overlooked?

At the end of the day BT will only do it if it makes commercial sense for them to do so, I understand that. However I think there would be very high demand for business based FTTC services from small businesses that cant afford leased lines and I think it would benefit the country's economy as a whole if small businesses had (relatively) cheap access to fibre.

Cant help but think we're missing a trick here.

I take it you did not look at the 2 links i posted back on the previous page at the bottom, as BT wholesale does have a FTTC package for small business that cannot afford a full leased line.

In reply to a post by ccxo:

... on the previous page at the bottom ....

I've only got one page . It depends on your personal preference settings.

Okay then my first post on this thead, does that solve it Bob

Yes. All very well if you have FTTC in the first place - which is what this whinge is all about.

Well Openreach may return to these areas and do infill possibly, though the real interest will be in the BDUK areas if they target the Industrial estates etc.