GL50 1EF is 4 premises in total so I don't think it makes a huge amount of difference.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Virgin Media on are on the very edge of the estate, so just as easy for them to expand to new builds and gain lots more triple play customers.

Where developers engage them and give them infrastructure they do.

Edited by deleted (Thu 13-Jun-13 15:05:03)

In reply to a post by horeaa:

Competitors? What competitors!? Virgin has no cables in my estate. There is no competition ... it's a monopoly and that is the problem!

But (and I'm playing Devil's advocate a bit here) that just shows there's a problem. Especially since Mr Saffron has pointed out the VM does exist elsewhere in your town. It appears that there are two CPs (Communication Providers) who are unable to justify providing you with a better service.

The point I'm trying to make here is that you seem to be implying that BT are somehow refusing to upgrade your cabinet just because they hate you and that if only you could see the figures you could prove that there was a case force them to do what you want. That makes no sense to me. BT are declining to upgrade your cabinet for sound, well thought out business reasons. Those same reasons appear to also be preventing VM from improving your service.

It's annoying, yes. But I think you need to accept that these companies have good reasons for their (in)actions. I just think you'll make more progress if you accept that and work with them rather than trying to attack and question their procedures

In reply to a post by horeaa:

I couldn't agree more ... just to shame the developer: Taylor Wimpey.

You won't be the first person to shame them

I work in IT so having a good internet connection would make a massive difference: I could work from home, I could run a website, I could start my own business, etc ...

Depending what you actually do you might not need a high speed connection to work from home. For the past two months our office (three software developers) has been in closer than normal collaboration with developers in Poland and the US. We've been forced to do a lot of our work on Virtual Machines in the US rather than using the 'mirror' setup we'd normally rely on.

Despite the fact our office currently(*) only has poor 3.5Mb/s down, 1Mb/s up bonded ADSL connection it's been fine. RDP is a wonderful technology and most of our systems are internet based so it's not been a problem. As for the rest of what you suggest - there's an argument for anything server related being best placed near the edge of the network rather at people's homes. More relevant though is the fact that most people don't need to do any of that. RDP and Cloud working caters for working from home and all you need there is reliability. Raw speed doesn't often have to be an issue.

But that's by the by. I'm not trying to suggest that you shouldn't want something better. I got FTTC even though I didn't need it so you keep pushing. It's just that broadband is fairly low on infrastructure priorities and I can see why. I'd love to know how much its presence or lack thereof actually impacts house prices. I have a feeling it doesn't make much difference.

(*)We now have a leased line with 10/10 and it's active. Just waiting on our IT to find time to come and transfer over our VPN and put us on the corporate VOIP system.

Edited by Andrue (Thu 13-Jun-13 15:18:09)

I live in an estate that stated to be built in 2008 and is nearly completed with just under 500 homes, it is served by cab 31, off Mickleover exchange. Last year the checker started to show RFS date of 30-Sep-12, this came and went and it changed to 31-Dec-12, that also came and went. Then we had 31-Mar-13 and you can guess what happened. Now we have 30-Jun-13 and nothing has been done still so I'm guessing it will also come and go!

I think the whole process is a joke, why give dates if you cannot meet them?

Must be a curse over cabinet 82, had a lot of issues in my own right with one though thanks to a lot of perseverance it became clear Openreach had no good reasons for their inaction this time around and the procedures had failed.

VM's reasons are simple, they budget 300GBP per home passed and above this level don't consider upgrades viable. When I queried VM on upgrading a new estate they gave me their full cost breakdown and showed it to be about 524GBP / home passed.

Ok Andrue, long answer coming ... Virgin Media is known to only offer cable in parts of Cheltenham and as far as I know is the same network they had long time ago. There are areas where there is FTTC and no Virgin cable and other way around. I can't not see why our estate would be less profitable than any other estate in the vicinity. On the contrary, the fact we have tiny gardens and there are a few block of flats it means more households per square mile so should be more profitable than old houses with large gardens and being far apart. I think you trust their business decisions too much, I don�t And that�s not because they hate me, it�s probably because they don�t take all the facts into account.

I'm really trying to work with these companies but that's the main problem ... they don't want to hear from guys like me ... and no useful information is provided. It�s not easy even to find direct contact numbers. You'll be surprised on the kind of answers I got... one that I remember now was from a BT employee that was trying to convince me that the cabinets numbers to be upgraded are chosen randomly


My upload speed is the main issue � I can only get 0.6Mbps reliably (LLU Be). Remote desktop to work kind of works but the lag becomes irritating after a while and it slows my productivity a lot.
Uploading an HD video anywhere takes ages and almost takes offline all my devices while uploading. Even sending photos to family and friends becomes a pain. I�m on almost the same broadband speed as 10 years ago � but in the meantime the size of media increased significantly.
I get what you say about cloud computing and all that but the costs can be tremendous for a start-up especially if it involves video recording and other high data transfers. It�s much cheaper to use some of my existing home infrastructure and once the idea generates money all can move into the cloud. Anyway, I�m daydreaming again.

In reply to a post by horeaa:

I'm really trying to work with these companies but that's the main problem ... they don't want to hear from guys like me

I feel that isn't true. Andrew has already asked you to PM him and I suggest you do so. My development in central London similarly has no access to either VM or FTTC due to being all EO Lines. Andrew asked me to PM him with full details which I did. Since then I have been contacted by BT and they are due to carry out a site survey early next month.

My advice is to listen to the advice you are being given rather than moan, as I did, about BT and their inflexibility.

The dates show that at least it is coming to the area, rather than never coming. Dates change as other areas have delays or you have delays with other elements like power or ducting on your cab.

With some 30,000 cabinets built to date (rough figure) there are always going to be some that are messed about.

I had the email a couple of hours ago, and passed it on, with some comments about what was evident from streetview.