I purchased my house 5 years ago, at the time I did enquire to openreach about fibre and they said we would be part of any role out in the area. Never knew about EO lines and to be honest I dont think openreach gave it a second thought. Hindsight!

The BDUK here seems to be run by Digital Scotland, and they are dreadfull at getting back to any enquiry.

I shall pester the local council. The MP was useless, she sure lost a vote there! I also have 150 letters to distribute with a letter of complaint to the local MP.

I can only suggest you try to get a petition going with your local Parish Council and for them to show your County Council why the investment is needed in your location, as you state, if there is a collection of houses near each other on EO lines does make the upgrade simpler, but not simple.

In reply to a post by godsell4:

I can only suggest you try to get a petition going with your local Parish Council and for them to show your County Council why the investment is needed in your location, as you state, if there is a collection of houses near each other on EO lines does make the upgrade simpler, but not simple.

I dont live in a village so Parish council would be no good. I will letter all prompting to send a letter to the local MP, I will also investigate the local council and start demanding answers in writting.

You will have a local council that should comprise of people locally, the MP generally have an over view with little precise detail - collecting something at the local council level before going to an MP makes things look more organised, i.e. serious

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

To call Openreach engineers Internet engineers is a MASSIVE stretch of the imagination, then have no concept and no need to know how the Internet works, not even the complexities of how backhaul is handled from the cabinets.

They are trained on the topics they will encounter, but willing to bet not one Openreach engineer doing the normal day to day home visits knows what BGP, OSPF and other key things to running the Internet are about.

Wow how arrogant is that statement? And you'd be wrong actually.

In reply to a post by Icaras:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

To call Openreach engineers Internet engineers is a MASSIVE stretch of the imagination, then have no concept and no need to know how the Internet works, not even the complexities of how backhaul is handled from the cabinets.

They are trained on the topics they will encounter, but willing to bet not one Openreach engineer doing the normal day to day home visits knows what BGP, OSPF and other key things to running the Internet are about.

Wow how arrogant is that statement? And you'd be wrong actually.

I disagree, many people are called "engineers" when it is neither warrented or earned. My degree is in Software Engineering however I would never be so arrogant as to lable myself as an engineer.

Openreach being engineers is exactly the same as binmen being refuse engineers (no offense to binmen)..

This is one of the many terms overused in all the wrong ways without the expertese or knowlege which should merit the title.

There is an aspect of the issue that is rarely discussed by enthusiasts for faster speeds but which is a crucial consideration for anyone spending real money. General experience - from large to small operators - is that the initial take-up rate for faster broadband is only about 20% of those to whom it is offered. Gradually, the take-up will increase but there are plenty of people who are not that concerned about slow broadband speeds and remember that 20-25% of premises don't have any kind of broadband connection.

Now, do the maths concerning the return on investment. If you spend £50,000 to offer SFB to 200 properties (£250 per property), you need to generate extra net revenue (after operating costs & VAT) of £6,000 per year or at least £9,000 gross in order to earn a reasonable return on investment. That is £30 per month with an initial take-up rate of 25%. This would fall to £15 per month when the take-up rate is 50% but that is likely to be 3-4 years away.

In practice, the additional revenue from a SFB connection is much lower - probably less than £10 per month (excl VAT). This is declining over time because prices are set in the most competitive (and lowest cost) segment of the market. On reasonable assumptions it will take up to a year to simply cover operating costs and cumulative recovery of the investment may be less than 50% after even 8 years.

If the cost of investment per property is (much) higher for small cabinets or difficult locations and/or the prospective additional revenue per subscriber is lower, it is obvious that the gap to be filled widens very rapidly. Either cheaper ways of extending coverage of faster broadband have to be adopted or some form of cross-subsidy is required.

It is a standard principle of regulatory practice that charges should at least cover operating costs - not just billing, support & maintenance but also backhaul, transit & peering costs. As the premium commanded by faster broadband is squeezed, the margin over operating costs earned by serving more customers in expensive locations becomes so small that it is barely worth extending coverage even when most of the capital costs are covered by public subsidy.

One basic conclusion: Lobbying, etc is mostly pointless unless you can ensure a high take-up rate from the beginning - and not at the lowest level of charges. Whether it is BT-OR or the smallest altnet, what matters to the operator is the revenue that can be more or less guaranteed within 6 or 12 months of starting up. Remember too that statements of intent aren't worth a lot - what people say and how they act are rather different. In my experience, most people who say that they are willing to pay for faster broadband will, eventually, do that but it may take them 12 months or more to sign up. That period is critical in terms of the pay-off on the investment.

A well constructed argument! Add in the fact that in many cases broadband provision is a loss leader for the lucrative Line Rental and the waters muddier further..........

In reply to a post by gah789:

One basic conclusion: Lobbying, etc is mostly pointless unless you can ensure a high take-up rate from the beginning - and not at the lowest level of charges.

Without a doubt and Openreach came out straight away and said to many people with similar enquiries that they will not be providing fibre due to it not being economicly viable. They advise that you show expresion of interest and I have no doubt if that is high enough then they will provide, even if its a break even situation, it does future proof. However no business will ever invest in a loss.

It would seem that "wave 1" is now complete, I would love to know what wave 2 is in my area and the final wave. Just seems no one actualy wants to share that info.

But yes you are definately correct.

In my area there are 8 waves. Think they have already done a couple and I think they also overlap (ie doing build for wave 1 whilst planning is underway for wave 2, etc).

The response I got from our local BDUK for my brother was that they would begin surveying in Autumn 2014 for his phase and assuming the results were ok then would be able to get the service from Summer 2015.