Hi all,
As an 0117 Bradley Stoker, I have been in touch with BT to check if the BT exchange on Baileys Court Road which serves the 0117 numbers will be getting BT Infinity when Filton exchange goes live in March 2012. And the answer I have just got from them is NO.
They are also unable to say when it might be be upgraded, if ever. Had to send the email via Jack the MP to even get an answer. They just fobbed me off previously. Of the 18,000 + (according to SamKnows website) served via the Filton exchange, BT says just 9,000 will get Infinity. Not good news.
Neilo
Just to clarify, it’s the BT Cabinet on Bailey’s Court Road, not the exchange. The exchange is at Filton. But the local street cabinet has to be upgraded as well for those connected to it to get Infinity.
South Gloucestershire Council has quietly slipped out a statement:
Broadband provision for South Gloucestershire
In short, the Council has done next to nothing so far, missing out on the first two rounds of BDUK funding and now finds itself in the sweep-up phase.
If the statement is to believed, no BDUK-funded work will take place until 2015.
Well dug out Ed, it’s time our elected “representatives” explained their action, or lack thereof, in this matter and maybe to the local MPs too?
Happy to give planning permission for 1000s of houses but when it comes to providing any kind of infrastructure (schools, shops, dentists, roads, doctors etc) are found wanting badly. Their track record is nothing to be proud of.
It never ceases to amaze me the number of time MP’s and other self important officials make a lot of noise about meeting with various bodies in an attempt to resolve issues like this, yet is Bradley Stoke any closer to have faster broadband either through Virgin or BT, no.
Considering our current MP ‘vowed’ to make faster broadband one his top priorities we don’t seem any nearer to this actually happening.
We’ve had this repsonse from Jack Lopresti MP:
“I am pleased that the council has announced its intentions in regard to the implementation of fast and reliable broadband for the whole of the local area. However this is not an excuse for the telecommunications companies to sit back and expect the tax payer to fund the upgrade of their exchanges. We need the private sector to engage and contribute to this process in a partnership with the local authority and customers. Last year the community broadband campaign collected over 1,000 signatures to demonstrate demand for the improvement to the Almondsbury exchange alone. Whilst I appreciate that there are local infrastructure issues it’s difficult to see why the private sector aren’t utilising this demand better.”
If our MP is “pleased” about SGCs performance on this issue maybe he should be setting the bar a little higher and not accepting mediocrity or second/ third best on behalf of the people whose votes he will be looking for in a couple of years time.
I think SGC have employed Alastair Campbell as some kind of spin-meister to sex up their press releases judging by the nonsense they have issued which is devoid of any real plan.
What’s a bit annoying is that I am about to move and it is quite possible it could be to a non-cable area so I have kept a close eye on this sort of stuff.
It just makes all the Spice Roads in the south, and a lot of the middle of Bradley Stoke just out of bounds really. Half or one meg is just now good for work, it’s embarrasing.
The north-west which can get 4mb or so off of Almondsbury isn’t too bad or the other options are the north-east which is all cabled or anything south of the divide excluding the spices.
It just all seems crazy to me. I can’t see anything happening for at least 4 or 5 years for the unfortunate non-cabled areas.
If the governments implements the recall of MPs feature where constituents can force a local by-election if the the local MP fails them, then I can see Jack Lopresti having a stressful time defending his and the governments lamentable performance on this issue.
I see we’re nearly right at the bottom of this little bit of funding from BDUK.
http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/BDUK-Funding-Allocation-16-08-11.pdf
Thanks for the update.
It is a bit annoying that the BSDC did not arrange with BT to build a new Bradley Stoke exchange when Bradley Stoke was built in the 80s/90s, after all it had the money to pay BT, BG and SWEB to lay on the basic services, and a new exchange would have solved so many issues.
Bradley Stoke started life in the 1980s under government policy leaving services to be provided by the market and not the state. Who would have thought that the Internet would be what it is today? I am sure BT didn’t when it cabled us back to Almondsbury and Filton exchanges sometimes using poorer grade aluminium. BT’s only obligation was to provide telephone services. We are not alone – many other places such as Milton Keynes suffer due to a lack of local exchange. I for one (6.5km from the Filton exchange) hope that FTTC solves my speed issues as I have given up on Virgin Media cabling my street. I have seen first hand a roll out document from BT indicating that they will be deploying FTTC from Filton Exchange to Bradley Stoke in March 2012. Not all cabs will be upgraded but I hazard a guess that BT will do those serving non-cabled streets.
Every house sold in Bradley Stoke included a levy for BSDC to pay for serrvices, it is a bit annoying that Cable was not included, and thatr we now have to pay twice (BBC License payer, council tax payer) for what BT should have done.
Anyway, an alternative will soon be here, http://www.reghardware.com/2011/08/17/three_huawei_e586_mifi/, provided three and other Mobile operators provide enough capacity.
The enabling works for this has already started.
I have seen BT pulling fiber through their ducts in various locations around Bradley Stoke in recent weeks.
The Head of BT Marketing has already admitted to Jack that that the cab on Bailey’s Court Road won’t be done. That’s the only one that serves the non-cabled 0117’ers. Some of us served by this cab are also cabled, but most aren’t. I believe the other 0117 areas are cabled.
I don’t think they will do the non-cabled first, I think they’ll do the cabled first. They want to eat in to Virgin’s numbers and get more customers and more revenue, not just maintain their own.
I just think that there is going to be a chunk of houses in the south that are going to be even more left behind. You can’t even get a 3g signal in some of the area, it’s shocking.
Where did you see them doing this work, was it anywhere near St Mary’s Primary School on Webbs Wood Road? Fifty squid says not.
The development of BT Infinity has clearly shown that BT is NOT interested in providing high speed broadband to more people, but is interetested in competing with Virgin for high speed internet customers.
The roll out in our area appears to be focued on areas of Filton and Winterbourne that already have cable.
If Virgin cannot extend its footprint using BTs ducting, we will have to wait until 2015/16 for BDUK funding to kick in to pay either BT or Virgin to provide high speed broadband for eareas not covered.
Date for Filton go live now pushed back to June 2012
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/SSFLT
Recently, SGC have opened an e-petitions site and I have created an e-petition asking them publicly question BT and Virgin on their plans, and to get these plans into the public domain.
Can you please support this, when it is approved, or create your own e-petitions.
Petition: https://petitions.southglos.gov.uk/consult.ti/system/viewPetition?petitionid=3338&nexturl=%2Fconsult%2Eti%2Fsystem%2FlistPetitions%3Faction%3Dmy%26search%3D%26sort%3D%26dir%3Dasc%26startrow%3D1
The statement about the 0117 cabs is misleading. I know one individual who lives over in the spices who can’t get cable and he is not served by the cabs on Baileys Court road.
I think we shouldn’t be too hasty in our assumptions when it comes to BT we trust Jack, but can we trust BT? Also let’s not rule out the potential of Virgin Media using BT’s ducting. Recent broadband news has seen them announce new plans to cable 100000 properties in the uk. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!!
Matt, your friend is then served by Cab 35 on Webbs Wood Road but this is connected to the Almondsbury exchange which at present isn’t being upgraded for infinity. It isn’t connected to Filton. And your friend will have an 01454 number.
There are no other street cabs in that area.
Neilo – you seem very knowledgeable on cab locations. Do you work for BT Openreach or have access to plans? My research has discovered that BT have never taken the approach of cabling to the nearest cab so it wouldn’t be impossible for someone in the Spices to NOT cable back to the Bailey’s Court cab and still be on 0117. Also a street cab may not itself be enabled for FTTC but could be connected to another that has been enabled. Perhaps they’ll do this to the Bailey’s Court cab?
BTW – Filton FTTC RFS date now 1 March 2012.