In reply to a post by MCM:

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.

My earlier post referred exactly to Lambeth. Apparently Lambeth has a huge problem due to many EO lines going to many post-war flats.

Virgin Media in council estates? If only! FTTC on EO lines? Again, if only!

There is a cabinet right outside my building, but my line goes straight past it to the exchange. There are no plans anyway for my estate to be updated. Ever.

Top 10 areas in descending order for Openreach FTTP coverage (as percentage of households in area) are:

Cornwall
Waltham Forest
Milton Keynes
York
Lewisham
Redbridge
Newham
Sir y Fflint - Flintshire
Surrey County
Brent

Top 10 for amount of VM cable
Luton
Kingston upon Thames
Enfield
Barking and Dagenham
City of Portsmouth
The City of Brighton and Hove
Merton
Sutton
Reading
Redbridge

Top 10 for fibre based (i.e. FTTC/FTTP/Cable)
Oldham District
Bracknell Forest
Havering
Isles of Scilly
Surrey County
Enfield
Ealing
Kingston upon Thames
Barking and Dagenham
Harrow

Top 10 when you add a superfast of 30 Mbps qualifier (i.e. exclude long FTTC)
Enfield
Havering
Kingston upon Thames
Oldham District
Harrow
Barking and Dagenham
Luton
Ealing
Sutton
Hackney

The bad areas, i.e. thought to have most lines under 2 Mbps as a percentage of premises
Isles of Scilly
Sir Ynys Mon - Isle of Anglesey
Cornwall
Shetland Islands
North Yorkshire County
Gwynedd - Gwynedd
Moray
Tower Hamlets
Sandwell District
Aberdeenshire

Some of us spend a disproportionate amount of time trying to keep track of all of these sorts of things.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

Obviously they a business, they need to be somewhat sensible with what they spend, with that said I think there has been political intervention, lots of the early rollout was in villages and rural towns, which doesnt make sense, there is a reason why just about every other country leaves rural alone and invests only in densely populated areas, BT seemed an exception to that rule for some reason which only they know why.

I know someone told me the cities came later because they were originally planned to be FTTP, but I find it hard to believe parts of london are less of a business case than some village with a few hundred people.

One thing to remember is that in a village there might be all of them (a few hundred) connected to a single cab, whilst in London, less than that connected to that specific cab.

For BT, it's all about potential ROI.

For BDUK? Maybe keeping the local MP's hearing intact

In reply to a post by Desmond:

Given that there are no plans at all for thousands of homes (including those in the building the poster was attached to) within earshot of Big Ben (even in sight of it from the fourth floor upwards), this can only be an outright lie.

In reply to a post by Desmond:

VM is only available where the council allowed it to be installed over their land and Southwark often did not.

In reply to a post by Desmond:

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.

It seems unclear to me where exactly you are trying to apportion blame.

In your OP you seem to be saying the Government is "lying", whereas statistical evidence in this topic shows they aren't.

Then in another post you say it is Southwark council who is at fault for not allowing VM to cable estates in the past in that particular area.

Out of interest what is the Government (by that I mean any Government of any political persuasion), supposed to do if local councils put spanners in the works?

In reply to a post by Desmond:

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

Lanfranc Estate, Bow, E3. That is one I know of. That is a sprawling rabbit warren of about 1000 flats.

Lanfranc Estate had VM cable, but the opposite of Roman Road (where all the shops and businesses are), wasn't wired up to cable initially (it may be now though).

My earlier post referred exactly to Lambeth. Apparently Lambeth has a huge problem due to many EO lines going to many post-war flats.

I do not believe that to be the case. For example SW9 Stockwell which is part of Lambeth has just 3 significant EO clusters none of which are council estates. 5.5% of the phone lines in SW9 did not have access to fast broadband in 2013, this includes many that are not EO.

Virgin Media in council estates?

Yes, Myatt's Fields for one of many although some of the newer properties on MF do not have VM however they all have access to FTTC.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

Some people are unable to comprehend how large a project is needed for anything close to a national rollout. If they, and their mates down the pub, don't benefit, the numbers must be wrong and being fudged. Its all a conspiracy!

Even a 90% target leaves out nearly 3 million properties. You could do the rest of the country, and leave London entirely unserved, and get that result.

There are probably many people in rural UK who think that should indeed happen...

The upshot is that it is a lot of people to be left out.

London is over 12% of the UK population, so that is a lot more than 3%

People do understand the magnitude of the project, whats in question is the lack of accurate and meaningful information. Lets leave aside who discussed what down the pub and look at what many people want to know. Currently they are giving little to no information. I am sure I am not alone in having many enquiries ignored at local level BDUK.

It is public monies that is being spent yet the manner in which it is being spent is extremly cloak and dagger. They must know by now exactly what the in fills will be yet still nothing is said. Is that due to incompitence or the fact their is an election round the corner?

I am resigned to what speeds I have, now it is the mere priciple of yet another fiasco.

People want information and yes the vast majority of those people who want information are those who are left out (obviously), and that is the information that is being withheld.

The whole project is broken up into segments (regions) and they do have the information yet are withholding it. So people naturaly fill in the blanks and suspect corruption. I dont think it is a case of "people down the pub" being so stupid that they don't "comprehend" the magnitude of the project.

Simplisity of it is they will know who will be left out yet are not coming out and saying so. Typical politics

Personnaly I think a far greater use of the BDUK monies would have been to upgrade the current infrastructure to a standard that 100% of end users have access to, eliminating all EO lines where psyically possible, upgrading the rural areas then rolling out fibre where not "economicly viable" (ie where the BDUK monies are needed). In a nutshell ensuring everyone has access to usable broadband first then adding the speed later.

I have just returned from Arrochar (near Loch Lomond) and the internet in almost all areas was utterly dreadful, almost un usable for simple stuff like emails. That is where the money should have initialy been ivested, places like that. Not upgrading people who already have fast internet.

In reply to a post by Desmond:

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).

But your modem has been connected to it, yes?

The voice service that you haven't been using has probably been costing you a pound a month. Most of the cost of line rental goes on exactly what the name implies. The costs associated with maintaining the copper link - without which your ADSL service will not function

The seed fund of £530m was not enough to upgrade 100% of people to an equal standard, plus the only tech that can give equal speeds no matter what location is FTTH/P.

A LOT of work has been going on to eliminate EO lines, seeing plenty that are getting cabinets now, with fibre twins following on.

There was no variable sized pot of money from Central Government, it was a simple here is £530m shared out how we think is fair and we want you to hit this target, with the existing rules.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

I am not using my own definition but the governments

if it has city status officially then I see it as city, but I mean only the city not the surrounding areas, so basically inside the welcome to X city signs.

So, for "London" you only include the City of London, Square Mile with a population of 7500 and the City of Westminster with 220,000