Whilst I have some sympathies with your problems, I'm also in London (SW9) and formerly on an EO line but now have FTTC due to our development gap funding the installation of an AIO FTTC/PCP by BT Openreach, I feel that you have to understand that BT Openreach, Hyperoptic and Community Fibre are all commercial operations answerable to their shareholders and invest where their bean counters have determined that they are most likely to see a realistic return on their investment.

Your logic would suggest that no other Telco should invest where VM has a presence, or that VM should not install where BT or others have a presence. That simply is not how a commercial enterprise operates.

I know of one rural area that supplies around 35% of the natural gas for the UK via 2 deep water LNG terminals, has one fo the largest most complex oil refineries in Europe along with huge fuel storage facilities and a power generation plant (with one other planned and another being "discussed"). Thats without the 2 ferry terminals linking the UK to Eire. It also has facilities involved in the development of tidal power.

Hardly an area *not* making money - This area powers the economy to a great degree, despite its isolation from amenities and a lack of good transport links - Or decent roads/rail. With increasing centralisation of services and administration in major urban locations, a good communications service has become vital to rural areas.

In reply to a post by MCM:

Whilst I have some sympathies with your problems, I'm also in London (SW9) and formerly on an EO line but now have FTTC due to our development gap funding the installation of an AIO FTTC/PCP by BT Openreach, I feel that you have to understand that BT Openreach, Hyperoptic and Community Fibre are all commercial operations answerable to their shareholders and invest where their bean counters have determined that they are most likely to see a realistic return on their investment.

Your logic would suggest that no other Telco should invest where VM has a presence, or that VM should not install where BT or others have a presence. That simply is not how a commercial enterprise operates.

First of all that wouldn't apply in my case. There would be a realistic return on investment simply because the residents demand of my building is high. This thread was originally started by someone else also living in Bishopsgate Exchange. It's no secret that immediately when the BT Checker changed to FTTP plan many of us became excited.

Hyperoptic had strong interest in installing their fibre in my area as I've said previously. The problem is wayleave from the local building authority. The residents are demonstrating high interest and demand but the authority is simply not making the agreement happen.

This is a different situation to the returns of investment that you're talking about. 30+ residents registered their interest within less than 6 months. I only informed 15 of my residents/neighbours to register their interest with the rest of word of mouth spreading across all the other residents in the building. I couldn't believe how quickly the registering interest was completed as observed in the Progress of registered residents in Hyperoptic property page.

But authority does not appear to respect this demand. That doesn't mean there would be no return of investment. It's simply that the installation cannot be proceeded without permission being granted.

The case with Southwark and Avondale Square is not necessarily that they'll have better return of investment. It's simply because the the authority was more lenient to provide wayleave. Thus as we can see the result meant that both Fibre providers managed to have the opportunity to install their service to these areas.

I've never had any doubts about my area not having any return on investment. Because buildings and even more ordinary looking buildings just 5 minutes walk from my building have Hyperoptic supported and agreements being made. They are under a different authority that simply granted the wayleave more easily.

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Plus rural areas are more boring and depressing to live than urban cities so I guess they deserve better internet...

You really must have led a sheltered life to make that statement, and just to clarify I live in an urban town area. I find rural areas far from boring, there's so much to do & see - walking, biking, exploring, fishing, canoeing, etc. Not to mention the peace and quiet, you can actually walk down a road in a village without fear of gangs and knife crime, you can't do that in a lot of city areas, now that's what I find depressing!

There's no way I'd want to live in a city, all that traffic, crime and tensions, I'll take rural any day over that, but I'd still want a decent broadband connection.

You really must have led a sheltered life

I guess they are feeling a little bitter and resentful at the moment

In reply to a post by R0NSKI:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

Plus rural areas are more boring and depressing to live than urban cities so I guess they deserve better internet...

You really must have led a sheltered life to make that statement, and just to clarify I live in an urban town area. I find rural areas far from boring, there's so much to do & see - walking, biking, exploring, fishing, canoeing, etc. Not to mention the peace and quiet, you can actually walk down a road in a village without fear of gangs and knife crime, you can't do that in a lot of city areas, now that's what I find depressing!

There's no way I'd want to live in a city, all that traffic, crime and tensions, I'll take rural any day over that, but I'd still want a decent broadband connection.

So you say you also live in an urban area. You wish to experience village life because you think it is quiet and peaceful?

This statement I've made is not out of experience. In 2003 I lived in Rochdale for 6 months. 2002 in Grimsby for a couple of months. The same year I went to Ashford for a couple of months as well. In 2004 I lived in Newcastle Upon Tyne and in 2012 for a few months after graduating Uni I lived in Clacton-on-Sea again as part of stay as my dad worked in Hospital as a Locum Doctor.

In total I've lived briefly for more than 20 towns and rural areas in the UK. Nothing can replace for me urban cities. It was a sigh of relief when I left Rochdale after my dad had completed his 6 month contract as an NHS Hospital Doctor in Rochdale Infirmary Hospital.

Sure there are lots of these positives that you mention. I've also heard from one Clactonian nurse who told my dad she couldn't leave the sea for London. But when winter approaches that sea becomes depressing and useless.

Think again after you visit and live there for a more extensive period of time, you'll want to return to where you are! People wish things before they visit thinking they'll find happiness.

And in those years I had Dial-Up internet and we were discussing back then if only the internet speed had been a little bit faster than it would've made life a little bit less boring here. While the same discussion never arose while we lived in London even with Dial-Up.

My dad has worked in over 100 different hospitals in the UK including rural Lancashire where B4RN is available. He told me Lancashire is so depressive that he wouldn't want to go to live there even if he had access to Fibre Optic Broadband from B4RN. He would prefer Central London living even without Fibre. It's no wonder B4RN project initiative was taken. These villagers felt bored and so they had a motivation to lay the fibre optic cables themselves!

I'm guessing I'm about 25 years older than you, so I have a lot more experience of life, and yes we do get used to where we live (me included), that makes us blinkered, there is so much more. I wouldn't want to live in a small village, unless it was reasonably close to a bigger town with a good selection of shops - I'm used to having amenities close by. I'd never want to live in a city, full stop, too busy and to noisy for me.

What we do in our lives makes it exciting, our hobbies, friends, activities and holidays. Normal day to day life can be monotonous wherever we are, what we do with our free time makes the difference.

Having fast internet doesn't make for an exciting life, just ask my daughter who's on summer break from school, and constantly tells us she's been bored having spent most the day on her phone or tablet, instead of getting out and enjoying life or getting a job.

I honestly prefer living in the city. Everything is close to you i have got so many supermarkets and retailers just a 10 minute walk away and a massive train station. It just so convenient and saves me the money of having to buy a car and all its other expenses. I do agree about the peace and quiet part but when i visited rural areas it just seemed very outdated and boring. Each to their own i guess.

In reply to a post by Sammm_:

I honestly prefer living in the city. Everything is close to you i have got so many supermarkets and retailers just a 10 minute walk away and a massive train station. It just so convenient and saves me the money of having to buy a car and all its other expenses. I do agree about the peace and quiet part but when i visited rural areas it just seemed very outdated and boring. Each to their own i guess.

Exactly my feeling! I also have many shopping facilities and an underground station that is within 2 minutes near the city along with several bus stops. I also have River Thames, Tower Bridge, London Bridge, etc and regularly go for long walks there.

R0NSKI mentions about noise or knife crime. I live in a high rise building and there's no noise up here. No rats, insects, flooding problems, etc. I've never felt unsafe walking in Central London my whole entire life. Maybe it depends which part of London you live in. If it's places like Hackney or Plaistow then there tends to be higher crime rates. But here near City of London I've never seen youth gangs operate or read any crime incidents happening. It depends on the area. London is a big city and crime rates differ drastically from one area to another depending on factors such as employment figures, law and order, etc.

But for example in country side areas including towns like in Rochdale there's less CCTV camera and active police to protect you should you be attacked in the streets.

Rochdale has one of the highest levels of poverty in England along with levels of crime. It looks peaceful on the outside but inside is not so safe as it may look.

However, having said that our tastes do differ. I'm 29 years old and adapted more in an urban environment from childhood. It's not as easy for me to re-adapt to rural environments compared to others who have been brought up living there from childhood. These same people who once were brought up in rural areas will have difficulty adapting in urban cities. Also access to finding jobs and within short travelling distances is limited in rural areas compared to urban cities.

And for this reason I too don't need to drive a car or pass a drivers license. My working place as a designer is 20 minutes walk from home.

Of-course fast Internet speed won't make life suddenly a lot more exciting, but it will definitely improve quality of life even further. I remember dial-up days and it was not a good time with 56Kbps the internet would drop out every 2 hours and required waiting for over 2 minutes to connect. Technology was very primitive back in the days that I was even happy to use a Nokia phone just to play a snake game. But I'm sure modern kids nowadays won't be happy with that, they'll be demanding a lot better tech.

Having fast internet doesn't make for an exciting life, just ask my daughter who's on summer break from school, and constantly tells us she's been bored having spent most the day on her phone or tablet, instead of getting out and enjoying life or getting a job.

Bang on the money there RONSKI