BT internet off again!!!! what are the alternatives?

[Marvin]

Thanks Ian and Chuck.

 

I was just trying to clarify King of Fun's comment that upload would be bad due to latency. Yes, latency will be worse than 'working' ADSL but the actual speeds of upload are far faster. Even on some of the more budget orientated satellite packages (about £25 per month) upload is 2Mbps. Upload on ADSL is considerably slower. That said, the cheaper satellite options come with a small data allowance compared to ADSL. I guess it's horses for courses and depends on what you use it for.

 

The salesperson that contacted me said that skype and VOIP works fine because the bandwidth available is much larger than ADSL which goes someway to offset the disadvantages of having higher latency. I'm not 100% convinced.

 

I didn't have a chance to speak to NCDC today to see how they are getting on with it.

[Marvin]

Perhaps a post on this tinternet thread on how and if communities can access the new fibre.

 

No problem. We are in the process of getting a new website up and running and we will get all that info on there. I'm sure 90% has been covered in previous threads but its good to go over it again.

 

But in the meantime....and to cut a fairly long and complicated story reasonably short...

 

Basically there are a number of different options depending on where the community is, the size of the community (and how many sign up) and how much money they have to spend.

 

A community could put in a wireless system similar to that in Vidlin and Fetlar. Both these communities are a long way from our fibre network but can benefit from the off-island capacity now available due to Shetland having a PoP (Point of Presence). They use short hop microwave links to connect their community broadband networks to the PoP.

 

Similarly, a community could go down the route of putting in their own fibre to the home network and connect back to our PoP using our exiting fibre or put in a microwave hop from their network to ours. FTTP is without doubt the best solution but also the most expensive.

 

The concept is the Digital Village Pump model… which is a horrible name for a connection point within a community to our network. What happens between the Digital Village Pump and the premises is down to the people in the community and what they want.

 

As a very ballpark figure, a wireless system is ‘do-able’ with about 20 subscribers and some grant funding. This is very much ballpark and prices vary enormously depending on geography. Basically any community shouldn’t be scared of contacting us to see what the possibilities are. Unst, Yell, Northmavine are still going to be a bit tricky but as we build further network going north the more opportunities arise. Fair Isla and Foula will also be tricky due to longer microwave links but any community is welcome to contact me on 01595 744921 to see what we can do.

 

Of course, if you have deep pockets you can put in your own connection to the fibre and pick up bandwidth at the PoP. This, I would think, is only an option for businesses.

[JustMe]

Why, if Fetlar has a high speed broadband system should Yell and Unst "be a bit tricky"?. Both are close to Fetlar after all.

[unlinkedstudent]

How much for fibre optic to all Shetland premises? Anyone got a spare say £230 million lying around? Ditch VE and go telecoms instead.

 

In all honesty Marvin, the average householder is probably fed up with microlinks already and it is sheer madness on the part of SIC to think that householders/communities are going to pay to hook up to the network. You've had it up and running for some time now; what percentage of Shetland households have signed up?

[hairyian]

Why, if Fetlar has a high speed broadband system should Yell and Unst "be a bit tricky"?. Both are close to Fetlar after all.

 

Fetlar is faster than most, but the current capacity is at 100% utilisation.

 

So, it is long haul to nearest real capcity and when you add all the potential users in, it all starts to be quite a project. So, that is the 'bit tricky' part ?

Technically doable, but it is not a 5 minute job nor a £5 one.

 

Being looked at ..... once there is an ST Point of Presence in the Sullom VOe / Sella area next year, one could then start seriously looking at the next leg towards Yell.

[Urabug]

I would also like to get what I pay for. When the system runs slow then we should be compensated accordingly.

 

If I buy a clock & it runs slow .or buy a car & cannot get any acceleration I would surely get the problem solved or recompensed.

 

Now I would not expect Tesco to go & open a supermarket in Fetlar, nor I do not expect BT to spend a lot of time & money in Shetland because if I was on the BT management board this would not look like a good business venture compared to many other highly populated more accessible areas .

 

I’m sure we are a problem they wish would just go away .

 

If I buy a car on monthly repayment ,surely I would get the same performance from that car as everyone else with the same model & similar payments.

 

Why should broadband be any different !

 

Simple every time we go on line the system should do a speed test & charge accordingly

[hairyian]

How much for fibre optic to all Shetland premises? Anyone got a spare say £230 million lying around? Ditch VE and go telecoms instead.

 

In all honesty Marvin, the average householder is probably fed up with microlinks already and it is sheer madness on the part of SIC to think that householders/communities are going to pay to hook up to the network. You've had it up and running for some time now; what percentage of Shetland households have signed up?

 

I would guess 'none'. It is a wholesale delivery point. That means the customer has to make their own arrangements for getting a cable to the POP and then buy in chunks of 100 Mbps dedicated connectivity.

 

Shetland Telecom was never intended to be a retail operater.

 

I can reveal, if that is the right word, that Shetland Broadband takes a 100 Mbps connection, with another 100 Mbps pending, and connects their customers to the cable from six different locations throughout Shetland. We are now supplying a couple of customers with connections that would have been impossible to supply using any other network as they do not have the capacity.

 

Frustrating as it is for households, your broadband will only be improved if an ISP invests in the network, or you do something yourselves.

[hairyian]

I would also like to get what I pay for. When the system runs slow then we should be compensated accordingly.

 

If I buy a clock & it runs slow .or buy a car & cannot get any acceleration I would surely get the problem solved or recompensed.

 

Now I would not expect Tesco to go & open a supermarket in Fetlar, nor I do not expect BT to spend a lot of time & money in Shetland because if I was on the BT management board this would not look like a good business venture compared to many other highly populated more accessible areas .

 

I’m sure we are a problem they wish would just go away .

 

If I buy a car on monthly repayment ,surely I would get the same performance from that car as everyone else with the same model & similar payments.

 

Why should broadband be any different !

 

Simple every time we go on line the system should do a speed test & charge accordingly

 

One of the problems with this way of thinking is that ADSL is not sold to you that basis.

 

Think of it as a time share !

 

You want the whole thing to yourself then you need to pay a whole lot more than you currently do.

 

In simple terms ADSL becomes 'cheap' because it IS a shared resource.

 

Take that expensive leased line to the exchange, then share out the capacity with with how many .... Example, a leased line at £2,000 a month is too expensive for most households. But divide that between 100 users and it becomes much more affordable. But, the downside is that you have to share with others.

[Urabug]

Ok hairyian,

 

But when this £2000 pound line is down or running slow this should be activate a system of recompense to the users !

[Marvin]

How much for fibre optic to all Shetland premises? Anyone got a spare say £230 million lying around? Ditch VE and go telecoms instead.

 

Impossible to say how much it would cost without a lot of time surveying. As for VE, I think there is another thread somewhere.

 

Another thing to note is that even where FTTC and/or FTTP is available uptake is pretty low. I know broadband is of vital importance to everybody on this thread but it does not seem to matter to a lot of people.

 

In all honesty Marvin, the average householder is probably fed up with microlinks already

 

You are mixing up long hops and short hops. Microwave is no use for main backhaul (high capacity) links across many miles of water. They are perfectly able over shorter (lower capacity) hops. The next time you are in a city look up and you'll find most tall buildings will have microwave or similar (radio) links even where there is fibre.

 

and it is sheer madness on the part of SIC to think that householders/communities are going to pay to hook up to the network.

 

We don't. What we are doing is making Council fibre available. If a community wants it, great - we will more than happily engage and help however we can.

 

You've had it up and running for some time now; what percentage of Shetland households have signed up?

 

I'm struggling to explain this any better but Shetland Telecom are not connecting households. We sell bandwidth (backhaul) from our PoP in Lerwick. To date we have customers including Shetland Broadband who in turn have a number of customers across the various areas where they have network.

 

I think the problem arises when I say 'we' and what I actually (occasionally) mean is Shetland Broadband. The bandwidth we sell to them (and others) then in turn is used to provide connectivity for their networks. We (Shetland Telecom) sell backhaul, not access network. Shetland Broadband will happily sell you access but if it is only one connection in area it is going to be expensive if you are outside of the areas where they have network....hence the DVP and community schemes. Maybe I'm so up to my eyes in this I can't really explain it properly....sorry.

[Marvin]

Ok hairyian,

 

But when this £2000 pound line is down or running slow this should be activate a system of recompense to the users !

 

In an ideal world connections should be sold as 'will be no less than' instead of 'up to'.... but this is telecoms and I can assure you it is not an ideal world

 

I suppose here in Shetland we could do it differently but Shetland Broadband would struggle to explain to the average householder that a 'will be no less than 1Mbps' service is much much better than a nationally advetised 'up to 16Mbps" service.

 

I'm not going to confuse the situation any further.

[unlinkedstudent]

I would also like to get what I pay for. When the system runs slow then we should be compensated accordingly.

 

If your speed drops below what BT state in the first letter you received from them (usually it says something like 3.25) then you will get compensated provided you have logged a fault with them and say you wish for it to be forwarded to the complaints team. Once the fault is cleared it then gets forwarded to said complaints team. They will offer you line rental rebate for the days the service dropped below the "3.25" speed (or whatever is in your letter). They can't be bothered to work out how many days so will either offer you a month or (whey hey) a whole quarter rent free off your next bill.

[JustMe]

Sounds good but is that just for business customers like you?.

[unlinkedstudent]

Thanks HairyIan and Marvin, and yes, I do still get Shetland Telecom and Shetland Broadband mixed up.

 

Either way, I'm still of the opinion that connection is too expensive for those living outside town, and I'm still not fond on the idea of microlinks, especially given the amount of fog we get down here in the south end - or are the smaller microlinks not affected by fog and the like?

[hairyian]

Ok hairyian,

 

But when this £2000 pound line is down or running slow this should be activate a system of recompense to the users !

 

If you have a service level agreement, failure to keep to that service level will usually trigger compensation. ADSL rarely has an SLA, and those that do have a considerable premium on the price.

 

What is slow though ?

 

In the good old days service was supplied on a declared contention ratio.

Typically a domestic type connection was 50:1 In a simple world, you take a 2 Mbps leased line and share it out with 50 other users. Now if all those 50 users decide at the same time they want to download from YouTube, then it will get 'slow' about 40 kbps. Now if that is not enough you need to have less folk sharing. Business connections were often at 20:1 , now it is 104 kbps - much better, but that £2,000 a month fee has to be collected from just 20 users instead of 50.

 

Now move on and in places there are really fast speeds. But, due to the nature of ADSL, we also have very slow speeds. Mix those together and it is impossible to market on a 'contention' level.

 

So, instead of having the fastest theorhetical speeds, which in practice drop to a fraction, we should be looking at the minimum speeds. Which is largely back to the old original model.

 

So what should a minimum be? A straw poll here say 2 Mbps, with one saying enough for an HD stream, 5 Mbps.

OK, so 10,700 properties times 2 Mbps = 21 Gbps. I don't know what that will cost ... £2M a year ? Then you have to add distribution costs on, not to mention the cost of getting infrastructure ugraded.

 

The 5 Mbps HD option sort of goes off the scale !

 

100 Mbps fibre to the premises is techically doable, would be nice, but is probably not affordable. We need to lower our expectations. What do I mean by that? Well would you decide that if you can't afford a Rolls Royce, you won't buy a car ?