Broadband provision and service in Shetland

[marlin13]

Just wondering if anyone else knows of people in Shetland who cannot get broadband yet. It still isn't available in some parts of north yell due to distance from exchange restrictions and many of us are still on 512 thru exchange activate which we are stucck with until someone spends the money to upgrade the exchanges(aint going to be BT anytime soon). In the meantime we are stuck with a very restricted set of ISP's (max of 6 can register on an exchange) Currently BT, Scotnet and AOL are the only ones I really recognise as ful ISP's the other appear to be resellers.

 

As to councillors Ratters recent comment in the ST about the "really excellent broadband we have" well if your on the councils high speed system it probably is, but for me and a significant minority of Shetlanders the IT gap is wider than it used to be. ie 56k dial up v 512 broadband 10x speed difference. now 512 v 8mb broadband 16x speed difference and as newer versions come along this will only get worse.

 

Recently software update on the mac indicated approx 670mb of updates this took at cut o the day we 512 exchange activate broadband, effectively tying up our connection for a while ida day but would have been much faster we the full ADSL thing, probably 1-2 hours.

 

Them Olaberry mushrooms taste magic!

[Wifey]

( ** MOD EDIT ** - Title changed from "Hopeless broadband speeds" to be wider ranging and descriptive)

 

According to BT we should be able to get 1Mb broadband in Gulberwick. I haven't been able to get any better than 512kb (and it's rare it's as fast as that). We're on the same exchange as Lerwick who get up to 8MB but those 2.5 miles seem to make a big difference. Surely BT could do something? An extra sub-exchange maybe (if something like that is possible).

 

Gulberwick's population has grown enormously in the last few years (a trend that will continue) and there must be a fair number of homes with broadband. We shouldn't put up with this. I intend to ring BT this week and see what they have to say for themselves.

 

Any fellow Gulberwegians out there feeling as disgruntled as me?

[peeriebryan]

Give BT stick Wifey. That's a skittery speed considering you're on the Lerwick exchange

 

I'd have thought a population centre like Gulberwick would have pronto broadband

[Mario]

Wifey,

 

I agree with peeriebryan, get on the phone to them and whine your broadband lovin ass off at them. It seems it's the only way you get things done with them.

 

Also, you seem to know you're stuff so don't take any other their condescending crap from them like "check if your ethernet cable is plugged into your router" or "are you sure your ADSL modem is on".

 

Also, please bear in mind that once they logged a fault for Shetland as being a "fault with service: 01594" - enough said really.

[Twerto]

When btoadband first came out in shetland. you ahd to be within 3miles of the exchange to get any use of it. i believe that has been increased to 5 miles now..

 

Im currently about 2.5 mile from my exchange and fromt he website i should be able to get 8mbit connection.. ( ive not actually tested it out as 2mbit is more than enough for what i use the web for.

 

One thing you should ask BT to do is to tourn the volume of your line up ( this does nto mean you turn your phone up.. ) this mean more information can pass through your line. and as default is usually set pretty low.. since it useally jsut used for makeing phonecalls not for gettign info off the internet.

 

after that and things dont improve.. give BT hell

[Muppet]

Not really on topic i know, but right now my broadband speed is zilch!

 

I've just moved house and have been told it could take up to 15 working days to transfer my broadband. A wee bit p***ed off as 'some' isp's have an arrangement with BT to transfer broadband simultaneously, but not wanadoo (orange these days)

 

I even got to speak to their customer care team, who I was told I could not speak to as they only spoke to customers who have asked to stop their account, but I reckon they pretty much lied to me and told me in 99% of cases it was done within a day, but they were legally obliged to warn that it could take up to 15 days.

 

I tried the wanadoo site to see what the best speed they could offer me was as I now live within 100 yards of the lerwick exchange. I couldnt even get an answer as higher than 1 mg is only available in London, Birmingham or Manchester! The BT site says I can expect to get 6.5 mg or higher.

 

My first priority is to get my broadband back, but once I have done that I intend to ask for an upgrade to the highest speed available (and i'll ask for a free upgrade as compensation for all the downtime i've had) I'll let you know how I get on!

 

To get back on topic after my wee rant, I really can't see why the speed in Gulberwick should be so low. Only a non technically minded guess here, but could the problem be that the microwave link into shetland is not capable of handling the capacity requred, and they are throttling back wherever they can? We do seem to lose broadband service more often than we should and it seems to be a capacity problem.

[Twerto]

I am with pipex and have only lost connection twice on the last year and that was fro only a minute as if they were rebooting their servers or somink. they are a bit more expensive than a few other providers, but ive been happy with there service so far. I'll see how i get on when i ask fro my 8mbit upgrade.

[trout]

Finding out how much lit fiber actually manages to reach down and into Gulberwick will be the answer to your question.

 

Remember that 512Mb is just the maximum speed achievable. With a contention of 50/1 users on any one line your speed will degrade to the level of throughput at any one time.

 

I'm not sticking up for BT .. rather just pointing out that their network in Shetland does leave a lot to be desired. Voice transmissionmany debated if it could manage ... data is a wholey seperate equation!

[david]

Always get a really nice 8mb in Sandwick.

[Njugle]

Well done you.

 

Remember folks, there is a thread for general broadband service provider issues too

 

Broadband Service Providers

[technobob]

If ANYONE is able to get any sense out of BT then please let me know how you did it.

 

Have recently moved house. Am a bit out of the way, but am still inside the nominal 6km distance of a prominent Broadband enabled telephone exchange.

 

However, after a visit in June from BT it was determined that the noise level on our line was TOO high and we would never be able to have broadband. However, knowing a little about the subject persisted with the engineer until he revealed that actually the real problem was the age of the telephone line... something to do with it having an Aluminium (rather than) Copper core...

 

Well having investigated the possibility of Sat Broadband (and rejected because of cost against service), decided the smartest (although not cheapest) option may well be to pay for the relevant bad line to be replaced (apparently we would only have to replace around 1.5 k)... Seemed like the best option since BT would never pay for it themselves...

 

So how did we get on... well BT Customer Services are rubbish. Cant get past the Call Centre as we have been marked as 'never gonna get it no matter what'... have written to BT trying to get a Shetland or mainland telephone number... and have had no response whatsoever... If anyone out there happens to have a telephone number or the contact details for anyone in Customer Services Scotland... Would sure like to know...

 

I just cannot believe this company sometimes!!!!

[marlin13]

This is a subject close to my heart, as with numerous others I campaigned to get broadband up here and was invited to meetings we da cooncil about same. However despite best efforts of many a number of exchanges in Shetland were enabled using exchange activate(512k max) a non upgradeable hardware solution. So if we do get a better service in (not within the next 8 years according to what I have heard) the equipment will have to be taken out and replaced with what should have been there all along!

 

Fact - many people are going to be stuck with basic broadband for many years. As services offered increase exponentially they will be left further and further behind.

 

Fact - above people are all in rural areas where increased data transfer speeds is MORE important.

 

Fact - speed difference in services is now wider than the dial up 512k broadband differece of 10x. 8Mb is unless my maths is wrong is 16x faster than 512k.

(Yes I know upload speeds are less differnt but that will change soon no doubt.)

 

Fact - unless either a fibre link or other new technology is brought ino operation fairly soon the whole microwave links sytem will not be able to cope within a few years as more people see the benifits and almost essential nature of broadband communications.

 

Fact - some people in Shetland cannot still get broadband, principally this is due to either old knackered cable or the distance between them and the exchange. As far as I'm aware the current max distance for 512k broadband is approx 8km WIRE LENGTH from the exchange, and some wires take tortuous routes.

 

Fact - Probably the most remote community in Shetland, Foula, DOES have broadband, as does Fair Isle, so distance can be overcome if there is a willingness to do so.

 

As one other poster mentioned there is a solution to taking higher speeds out to more distant locations by using a fibre from the exchange to a "street cabinet" I believe is the term used, and then running the copper from there. There may well be other solutions available perhaps someone a bit more up on this would let us know.

 

I think its about time we found out just how many people/homes in Shetland cannot get broadband. Perhaps a letter to the local rag is due.

 

As to councillor Ratters comment in same rag recently about the "really excellent broadband" we have now. Well if your on the councils deluxe sytem no doubt is is good but what about the rest of us? I leave you to make your own observations as mine would incur the wrath of the moderators.

(PS to Drew if you have been misquoted by the paper flite on them)

 

Shetland as a periferal area needs to be looking to be leading in this field to help give us an advantage to counter our locational disadvantages. If anyone has seen whats going on for instance in orea it make the UK look like were still using two bean tins and a bit of string.

 

We do not need to fight anyone else but BT on this issue and we all need to get together both Public and private sectors and consumers to really push this ahead, we should be encouraging new talent to come forward to develop new technologies here , in the same way that PURE in Unst is developing energy technology. Bright sparks please take one step forward.

[Wifey]

BT say they can't deal with me directly and told me contact my ISP and tell them to to contact BT's wholesale department. Demon (my ISP) were not terribly sympathetic - they've been useless since they outsourced to India. I was told to do 5 speedtests each day for the next 2 days and then phone back. If the tests confirm my speed is slow, they'll speak to BT.

 

Why do I get the feeling this is going nowhere?

[Wifey]

I'm with Demon. They used to be good. But their customer service has been really poor recently and I'm getting fed up. I'm considering switching to BT Total Broadband. Does anyone else use them? What's the customer service like? What do you think of their Home Hub?

[Sparky]

I have just started using BT along with their home hub (which looks incredibly cheap and plasticy BTW!).

Haven't had any problems so far other than the time spent removing all the useless software that they insisted I install

I'm getting just over 2M on my connection which is double what i was used to down South and we haven't lost our connection once. So, no complaints here.

It's not particularly cheap however, 26.99 a month for the top package if you require lots of bandwidth.

Oh... and they are out of stock on home hub phones but they do give you a free twinpack of cordless digiphones until your new one arrives (2 free packs in our case? ).