BDUK was a limited fund pot and it was down to local authorities working with BT to decide on the best places to spend the money. To do 100% seems to be beyond anyone's current budgets - government or private sector. We don't know how much it would cost to get BT into your area but it may well not currently be feasible for anyone to fund it.

OK, well in that case you aren't going to get anything from public funds as you already have available a service that is "faster" than around half the country can get. Public funds are specifically not allowed where there is already an incumbent supplier at the "superfast" level - and Virgin fall in to that camp.

It also makes it more difficult for BT to do a business case as they would already have competition and therefore are fighting over a slice of the pie rather than getting the whole pie.

PS - why won't Virgin provide service to me as the only service I can get is BT wholesale/OR based therefore no real competition. So, I think the government should pay for Virgin to rollout to the rest of the country in order to ensure there is competition in the market.

Edited by ian72 (Thu 01-Dec-16 09:59:18)

Exchange is Fibre enabled, other BT cabs are in fibre enabled in our area.

https://flic.kr/p/PLp6Mk

Blue dots are Fibre Cabs. Red are Cabs 49 and 50.

Not sure what difference that makes? An enabled exchange doesn't necessarily mean anything for individual cabinets as the costs for a cabinet can be excruciatingly high as has already been covered in this thread.

In reply to a post by ian72:

PS - why won't Virgin provide service to me as the only service I can get is BT wholesale/OR based therefore no real competition. So, I think the government should pay for Virgin to rollout to the rest of the country in order to ensure there is competition in the market.

You have a point, but you have competition if you have fibre via openreach - you can chose a number of different fast providers. I can't, Virgin have a 'Speed' monoploy in the area.

In reply to a post by kebabselector:

Yes, had them for 3 weeks and it was utter carp - Highly congested and Virgin wont do anything about it because they don't have to - where else are their customers going to go? I go back to what I've mentioned before about competition.

Have you considered a Virgin Media Business connection? Their blurb seems slightly confusing though they clearly state

Traffic Management is not enforced on business broadband connections but is enforced on others to help protect network resources. To further protect bandwidths and speeds we operate a fair use policy which is detailed within our Acceptable Use Policy and can be viewed here.

http://www.virginmediabusiness.co.uk/help/s/article/...

I imagine users downloading P2P torrents 24/7 would fall foul of their AUP/FUP policy otherwise you've probably got nothing to worry about.

Being in your shoes (with no chance of FTTC in the near future) I would seriously consider them. Might be worth asking VM business users in your area about their experience?

Edit: Also VM Business have signed up to the 'Ofcom Voluntary Business Broadband Speeds Code of Practice' which clearly states that VM can let you leave penalty free if they can't resolve any speeds issues. Might be worth a punt...
http://www.virginmediabusiness.co.uk/Documents/help_...

Edited by deleted (Thu 01-Dec-16 10:49:49)

I was being somewhat comedic but actually I can't - the wholesale level is the same for all so if OpenReach don't perform well then I have no choice. The ISP can affect additional services and their own parts of the network but not the performance of the connection itself.

There are also people who only have a wireless provider or only have a specific fibre operator and none of those are covered either. If the government were to force BT to rollout to you (or fund them to) then Virgin would sue them as it would be against state aid rules and would be subsidising a company to compete with them - that is not how things work.

Quite a proportion of the country choose to have Virgin even though they also have access to BT or other providers - so Virgin can't be all bad.

The upshot of it all is you are not going to get anyone to force BT as you already have a superfast alternative (and a superfast that is significantly faster than most areas not covered by Virgin can get).

Thanks - something to consider. However they tell me no traffic management is only Monday-Friday 8am-6pm. So potentially out of hours it'll be just the same old Virgin congestion.

In reply to a post by ian72:

Quite a proportion of the country choose to have Virgin even though they also have access to BT or other providers - so Virgin can't be all bad.

I do believe some people on Virgin actually get what they pay for. Especially when checked against the ookla speedtest.

Edited by kebabselector (Thu 01-Dec-16 11:38:25)

In reply to a post by ian72:

Not sure what difference that makes? An enabled exchange doesn't necessarily mean anything for individual cabinets as the costs for a cabinet can be excruciatingly high as has already been covered in this thread.

You said 'We don't know how much it would cost to get BT into your area' they are in the area, just not to those cabinets.

If Openreach didn't promote messages such as 'exploring solutions' and were just honest and said no way - it's too expensive then we'd have closure on the matter. But to constantly dangle the carrot of 'it might happen' or as in their latest email to me 'There are projects to be initiated in 2017, however, we do not have a particular timescale at this moment' is taking the pee.

You are honest in your assesment of the situation - maybe if Clive Selley turns round and tells me to sod off elsewhere I'll shut up. Whilst the carrot is there I'm the donkey trying to reach it.