"Hard to reach" doesn't mean you need a mountaineering guide in order to get there.

Essentially, it really means "expensive to reach" ... and that is the same problem for these areas of London as it is in the sparsest parts of the UK.

This is especially true for EO lines - where BT has maintained a very consistent stance that subsidy is required to bridge the gap to being commercially viable. I don't recall a single instance of EO lines being handled outside a subsidy programme.

It is vital, to BT, for them to be consistent over that gap: If they suddenly decide to make Shoreditch a special case, they will find 40+ other BDUK projects demanding a re-assessment of the subsidy being paid there.

London has no programme for allocating subsidies for mere superfast speed. If it is to get EO lines upgraded, something else needs to happen - perhaps by taking MCM's example, and organising a community-funded upgrade. This is a process happening in villages across the UK on top of BDUK. Why not in Shoreditch too?

Please feel free to point to a council estate they have ever wired up.

Which London council estates have no access to either VM or a BT FTTC connection? I don't believe there are any in Lambeth but there may be some. One of the worst areas is Rotherhithe in Southwark where there are many EO lines often due to the previous low residential density of the area with few PCPs before the extensive redevelopment of the area.

Mine and many others. VM is only available where the council allowed it to be installed over their land and Southwark often did not. Many estates built over the years (long before anyone thought of the internet) were also put on EO. That is not necessarily the docklands type locations either. The area generally has many of the same issues that affect the West End and City when it comes to EO lines.

I'd add in all of this that I have no bug bear about not having access to fibre. I have no need of it. I am just sick of government hyperbole suggesting the UK is so great and that coverage is so wide, when it patently isn't even right under the noses of the people suggesting it is.

I am just sick of government hyperbole suggesting the UK is so great and that coverage is so wide

That you are in the final 5 or 10% does not mean that the government is lying. The article quite clearly states that the government is PLANNING for the final 5% or so NOT that 95% can currently get faster broadband. The main error being that it then implies the 5% is primarily rural and we both know that to be incorrect. Your original post and its title is disingenuous at best and itself nothing short of a lie.

Out of curiosity what exactly have YOU done about solving your problem of having an EO line? Anything more than post untruths? I live on a late 1980s brownfield development in Lambeth of 75 properties all with EO lines and VM cable running along the street. VM won't connect us. BT, a private company answerable to its shareholders, says a network rearrangement is commercially non-viable. No BDUK for London and the mayor has no funds. So what did I do, rather than complain I campaigned and raised the necessary funds (£18k or so) to pay BT for a network rearrangement and we are by no means wealthy although most are at least in employment. If you were desperate for faster broadband, and you say you aren't, you could always consider doing what we have done.

I don't need to solve my EO line problem as I don't have a problem. I get 19MB and it isn't a problem to me (other than having to pay for a land line that no telephone has been connected to in 5 years). That aside, I suspect that in the grand scheme of things most council estate residents would have other priorities for £18K (even if they could raise such a sum) than a better broadband service. The digital divide in the UK is not the simplistic one about rural and urban that the government would have you believe with their comments about remote and hard to reach..

To suggest Hyperoptic as an alternative is adding injury to insult. Please feel free to point to a council estate they have ever wired up.

From Val Shawcross's blog:
"Because people locally speak well of the infrastructure and service this company provides we introduced Hyperoptic to the Council, in particular the Housing department. They have now made a proposal to potentially install Hyperoptic services to just over 11,000 units where the Council is the freeholder. There are still surveys and some other work to be done before this gets signed off. But potentially this could be a very welcome opportunity for residents on some Council estates."

While it is commendable of anyone to rally round and arrange for re arrangement via BT surely in BDUK areas that should be done as matter of course. That is the type of thing the govenment seems to skim right over.

Lets say we have a town and in the town 3% of lines are EO, the remaining 97% are fibre enabled then they move on. So of that 97% I would love to see the figures showing economic viability and how much BDUK put into the pot to get them enabled. The remaining 3% will have watched their house prices deplete and be entirely left out of the superfast coverage. I find it laughable that the party line for this is to pay for it yourself at 18k.

Desmond is lucky to have good speeds, others are not so lucky. I would put myself in the bracket of usable speeds (slightly over 3mb). Neighbours are between 1 and 2mb. But still not the worste.

As this project rolls on it seems all they care about now is the people in the rural areas which IMHO should have been the first port of call and in fill people based on pure speed as opposed to the easiest fix.

Would be really nice if they came out and said who wont be included and who will be missed out completely. By now they must have the data, and surely the Government should be encouraging local councils to facilitate and arrange for those who are to be left out to consider private funding. As it stands they dont care nor do they have any interest in answering any questions.

The whole project reeks of propeganda and fudged figures.

Potential and will are different things. If only Southwark had allowed VM to cable estates in the past, instead of refusing or demanding money for access rights as they did on the estate where I lived, there wouldn't be so much of a problem now.

the other reason cabinet might be omitted under BDUK and described as the last x% is that its population demographic is not good.
By this I mean the cabinet is situated such that the majority of the residences it feeds in its service area are located a long way from the cabinet. So upgrading it would mean that a much smaller number than usual are able to get a true superfast grade of service and the rest gets...well something less.

So in terms of £ costs per resident now able to get SFBB its a rather expensive project. So they are left off the BDUK program.
To fix such cab areas properly would require FTTrN/FTTdp or a new cabinet in the village/centre of population density.

I agree that lack of fast broadband is far from being just a rural problem and only in part being addressed by BDUK with many major areas such as the cities excluded from such funding however who should pay? Why shouldn't the end users pick up the bill, at least in part? Have we become so indoctrinated by the welfare state that we expect the government, of whatever colour, to do everything for us and have forgotten how to help ourselves?

You mention depressed property prices where fast broadband is not available. This was indeed a driving force in our raising the funds for our network rearrangement. A contribution of £240 or so per property being far less than the potential loss of value for each property. Other such clusters are free to do the same. We considered waiting to see how the final 5% would be dealt with but decided we were not prepared to wait until 2020 and that we wanted faster broadband sooner rather than later or even never.

Would be really nice if they came out and said who wont be included and who will be missed out completely.

Indeed and this will hopefully become available once the Government and others have decided how to approach the final 5% regardless of where that 5% might be, city or desolate moorland.