On 21/10/2011 20:04, Gordon Henderson wrote:
On Fri, 21 Oct 2011, Dave Foxcroft wrote:
Sowton is full of cables (or more accurately fibre) the industrial
estate is where the Exeter headend is based! - that is where the
fibre rings that span Exeter terminate and link up with the fibre
rings around Plymouth (Plymouth HE) and Torbay.
There's several carriers though - there isn't just one
fibre network for all. I used fibre from SW Telecom some years
back - had a router/server in the cabinet at the base of the big
tower in Sowton. All good stuff and not a BT in sight... (Ran it
down to Lands end)
SW Telecoms - They lease shed loads of fibre from Telewest -who are
now virginmedia - I've spliced tons of it!! (well it was telewest
then) and funnily diss'd some of it in error due to the terrible
lack of proper documentation - it caused quite a stir - hehehehe
FWIW .. for those that aren't aware
virgin's cable is actually fibre based - making use of Roadside
switches (RSS's)- effectively an 'exchange on the street' to
provide the leap off from fibre to cable (amongst other things
-Mux/DeMux etc) and CC's that distribute the cable side of
things.
Hence why they get much faster speeds!
Well... It's still a contended network... And Virgin has been
fibre to the cabinet for years. (Were they ever cable from the
head-ends? I'm sure it was fibre from Aztec West when I was there
10+ years ago) It's only cable from the cabinet along the street.
Sadly some streets are more contended than others though - e.g.
student accomodations...
There is some cable going in there but only very local - almost all
is fibre --- (Fibre) ->RSS(s)-->CC(s)-->DP(s)-->TE :-)
Did you know that you need to pay a tax to our
governemnt when you light up fibre that runs over (under) a public
space? Of-course the tax is aimed at at OK level for the
incumbent, but higher for others (AIUI). We have lots and lots of
dark fibre, but none of it lit because no-one wants to pay the
tax...
Too damn expensive for anyone other than the big boys
- so Sowton customers with BT are still
on 8Mbps maximum. Afterx
some searching, and reading about corporate takeovers and
failed deals,
it seems basically this means Demon Internet and a few other
reseller
will sell you ADSL 2+ for the exchange.
Woodbury has CN21 RFS set for the end of November, although
I'm still
trying to pin down exactly what that means (I'm presuming it
means there
is probably some way to get ADSL 2+ here, but it isn't clear
what it is).
Perhaps time for some other folks to check if the offering in
their area
has improved?
Even in 2011 BT is miles behind - it is
still reliant on stuff that's been in the ground for decades -
it needs to rip it all out and start again instead of buggering
about trying to bang a rather large square peg into a tiny round
hole.
So who pays for it? BT is a private company with shareholders. I
don't see them putting their hands into their pockets... Do you
want to pay the real cost of ripping up the streets? Isn't that
why all the little cable franchises went bust/amalgamated in the
ealy 90's?
Agreed 100% - They don't want to/won't/can't afford to do it but it
NEEDS to be done - look a the 'modern' countries such as Singapore,
Malaysia, China etc (ok China might be pushing it a bit) - they have
non of the legacy junk - and no way to wring the last bit of profit
of of it - at the expense of the end user - they had to invest
heavily - much the same as the small cable companies in the UK in
the 90's - BT dodged that- it could!!! and has been up until now -
it is having to do it now because the UK is rapidly slipping
backwards compared to most of the developed world. I agree someone
has to pay - it probably going to be the taxpayer.
As for broadband... I don't really care about the top-speed, what
I want is reliability and low contention.... And I've recently
been dabbling in leased lines for my customers. Oh what a joy. Oh
what a price - but for a demanding company with "road warriors"
and a busy VPN, having the upstream speed is so worth it. (and no
data caps, and no congestion to the ISPs edge) If you shop about
you can get good deals though. Fancy 100Mb/sec symetrical, no
contention and no data cap? £800 a month was the best quote I got
for Newton Abbot. Is that a lot for a company of (say) 20+ people?
I don't think so. Compared to everything else, it's peanuts, but
some companies insist of using shite ADSL from shite ISPs and not
even bother with business grade. I know multi-million pount turn
over companies that use a single residential quality ADSL
connection with no backup. It's pathetic.
Is this because it's Newton Abbot? What's it cost to lease dark
fibre from Newton Abbot to Plymouth? Stick your own kit either end?
I might be barking up the wrong tree but I've seen lots of companies
do just that.
Sowton is an odd cause - lots of businesses, but not many
residential - probably why the exchange doesn't get much
attention. It goes out to Pynes hill too with lots of nice offices
but by the time it gets to the nice offices there, it's down to
2-3Mb/sec - and that's the range where ADS2+ stops helping you.
They should get cable.... loads of it there - oh and fibre (and
swamp gas! but that's another story)
Ah well.
Gordon
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