Comments on: Madingley Superfast Broadband Moves closer to reality

By: Paul M

Paul M — Tue, 08 May 2012 21:23:13 +0000

Although there is one main cabinet opposite the school in Hardwick, I noticed that BT dug a trench across the road to another cabinet near the school, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some equipment in there or at least patching.

I happened to drive down Egremont a while ago and I saw a BT OpenReach person doing what looked like fibre splicing near the sports and social, so perhaps that’s some fttp work?

I would be very surprised if BT can cover the entire village with a single cabinet, I wonder if they intend to put another somwhere near the far end of Limes/end of Egremont?

By: John Library

John Library — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 06:22:55 +0000

Thank you!

By: Coordinator

Coordinator — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:36:35 +0000

The technology that will be used to provide broadband to the rest of madingley exchange communties is FTTP. BT had issues with using more cabinets. So the areas without cabinets are getting FTTP. Which is the better mode anyway, as it will deliver higher speeds up to 100mbps. Cabinet technology improvements should see speeds of up to 80Mbps, instead of the 40Mbps that was originally planned.

It was surprising that only 2 cabinets would be used, and that a larger proportion of the exchange area would get FTTP. Still, that was their choice following surveys/planning etc. More costly for BT, but good for those getting FTTP

The original post did mention the 99 miles of cable being used to get FTTP to the areas not reachable with FTTC.

By: John Library

John Library — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:22:44 +0000

The question was really “what’s the technology that is going to improve broadband outside of Coton and Hardwick”?

This Wikipedia article – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_Infinity – suggests the roadside cabinets would be likely to be getting upgraded in the other villages. Naively, you’d expect the exchange hardware in Hardwick/Coton getting upgraded and FTTC for most of the surrounding area with Fibre-to-the-premises for a handful of businesses and possibly some Fibre-to-the-pole.

I have much more confidence of BT meeting the promise of more than 99% of people having 15Mb/s with this approach than just two FTTC cabinets and some FTTP suggested in the original post.

By: Coordinator

Coordinator — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 07:48:28 +0000

No, not correct! Customers can sign up for superfast broadband service (SFB). They can only sign up for SFB if the service is available to their property, no matter what type of technology has been used to get it there. The cabinets at Coton and Hardwick supply SFB to those villages only. The other villages get their SFB supply via other means, at same or better speeds.

By: John Library

John Library — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 07:09:47 +0000

If I read this correctly, the people of outside of Coton and Hardwick can sign up for FTTP, but won’t see any improvement unless they are within 2km of the Hardwick exchange? Caldecote for instance is more than 2km from the exchange so no speed improvements, but could opt for FTTP?