Alternatives to BT for broadband in a rural area.

[13m]

Hi All

We have between 1.3Mbps and 2Mbps download at present, BT has run out of copper pairs and we need faster broadband.

Someone has suggested these guys. Has anyone used them or something similar, sufficient to make comment?

http://www.ineedbroadband.co.uk/

Many thanks

[MarkRSi]

Is there a 3G signal in your area?

[13m]

MarkRSi said:

Is there a 3G signal in your area?

Barely.

[jammy_basturd]

Wow, what an awful website for an ISP!

We have a company called VFast in Kent that provide wireless broadband and the service is fantastic. Other than slightly slower ping times you wouldn't notice it isn't "normal" optical broadband.

[13m]

jammy_basturd said:

Wow, what an awful website for an ISP!

We have a company called VFast in Kent that provide wireless broadband and the service is fantastic. Other than slightly slower ping times you wouldn't notice it isn't "normal" optical broadband.

How do you notice slower ping?

[SlimJ]

jammy_basturd said:

We have a company called VFast in Kent that provide wireless broadband and the service is fantastic. Other than slightly slower ping times you wouldn't notice it isn't "normal" optical broadband.

I was with VFast for a number of years too, in the Thanet area. How do you find the speeds in the evenings? Have they fixed their capacity issues yet? They 'were' great with fast speeds and low latency (10ms) and the future looked promising with faster 50mbit speeds promised. Unfortunately they never delivered, I found the service gradually got worse over the past few years as the network expanded with fast speeds only really achievable during the day or after midnight - erratic latency and sub 5mbps speeds were all you got during peak times! Reported the issues many times but never really got a resolution and they never admitted it was a capacity issue. Many seemed to be having similar issues.

I gave up with VFast after moving house as they didn't seem all that fussed about making an effort to connect me! Pretty disastrous service towards the end even though I was originally hosting a repeater...

Finally got a 23mbit (due to long line length) FTTC connection with Plusnet, absolutely faultless. Can't help thinking the days of these wireless ISPs are pretty numbered now.

Edited by SlimJ on Wednesday 2nd December 14:14

[SlimJ]

13m said:

How do you notice slower ping?

Browsing can 'feel' unresponsive, online gaming can be difficult (lag) and online communications such as Skype video chat can becomes impossible.

[Foliage]

Zen internet

[fatboy b]

13m said:

Hi All

We have between 1.3Mbps and 2Mbps download at present, BT has run out of copper pairs and we need faster broadband.

Someone has suggested these guys. Has anyone used them or something similar, sufficient to make comment?

http://www.ineedbroadband.co.uk/

Many thanks

what area?

[jammy_basturd]

SlimJ said:

jammy_basturd said:

We have a company called VFast in Kent that provide wireless broadband and the service is fantastic. Other than slightly slower ping times you wouldn't notice it isn't "normal" optical broadband.

I was with VFast for a number of years too, in the Thanet area. How do you find the speeds in the evenings? Have they fixed their capacity issues yet? They 'were' great with fast speeds and low latency (10ms) and the future looked promising with faster 50mbit speeds promised. Unfortunately they never delivered, I found the service gradually got worse over the past few years as the network expanded with fast speeds only really achievable during the day or after midnight - erratic latency and sub 5mbps speeds were all you got during peak times! Reported the issues many times but never really got a resolution and they never admitted it was a capacity issue. Many seemed to be having similar issues.

I gave up with VFast after moving house as they didn't seem all that fussed about making an effort to connect me! Pretty disastrous service towards the end even though I was originally hosting a repeater...

Finally got a 23mbit (due to long line length) FTTC connection with Plusnet, absolutely faultless. Can't help thinking the days of these wireless ISPs are pretty numbered now.

Edited by SlimJ on Wednesday 2nd December 14:14

I live a couple of villages away from their "headquarters" in Bekesbourne, so we might get a better service due to that, but I've not had any problems with their internet. I believe we only get their basic 15Mb service, but it's generally fine. Two of us in the house can generally stream video simultaneously no problem. We did enquire about a second "line" and they took quite a while to get back to us.

I imagine it's hard for companies like them due to BT get hand outs from the government to pay for rolling out into the countryside!

[Quickmoose]

Gigaclear are working there way through few rural communities...

[13m]

fatboy b said:

13m said:

Hi All

We have between 1.3Mbps and 2Mbps download at present, BT has run out of copper pairs and we need faster broadband.

Someone has suggested these guys. Has anyone used them or something similar, sufficient to make comment?

http://www.ineedbroadband.co.uk/

Many thanks

what area?

Nottinghamshire near the Vale of Belvoir.

[Dave_ST220]

Rather than look at ISP's have they suggested anything internal? What master socket do you have? Do you have extensions? Is the router in the master socket or an extension?

[13m]

Dave_ST220 said:

Rather than look at ISP's have they suggested anything internal? What master socket do you have? Do you have extensions? Is the router in the master socket or an extension?

Been through all that. It's Chief Execs office complaint at the moment and we had what we used to call an SFO in yesterday. Broke the whole lot down and identified the problem to be in a 200 pair cable which is 25 down. No spare pairs.

BT / Openreach has known about the cable and lack of pairs for at least 5 years.

Even when working at full speed, however, we have only ever got 3Mbps download due to distance from the exchange and BT has made it absolutely clear that they have no intention to provide a faster service. They haven't yet issued a statement saying, "David Cameron can bks" but that is their attitude.

[Dave_ST220]

13m said:

Broke the whole lot down and identified the problem to be in a 200 pair cable which is 25 down. No spare pairs.

I'm confused, you already have BB? Why do you need a spare pair? Are BT saying your existing pair has a fault? Or were you looking to bond two lines?

[fatboy b]

13m said:

fatboy b said:

13m said:

Hi All

We have between 1.3Mbps and 2Mbps download at present, BT has run out of copper pairs and we need faster broadband.

Someone has suggested these guys. Has anyone used them or something similar, sufficient to make comment?

http://www.ineedbroadband.co.uk/

Many thanks

what area?

Nottinghamshire near the Vale of Belvoir.

In North Oxfordshire, there's a small company - Sugarnet - that has deployed microwave broadband to our village and a few surrounding ones. You may want to see if there's similar in your area. I've gone from 6.7Mb/sec down & 0.3Mb/sec up to 20Mb/sec up and down.

It's not cheap, but I've managed to offset some of the cost by ditching the landline, and using VOIP.

[13m]

Dave_ST220 said:

I'm confused, you already have BB? Why do you need a spare pair? Are BT saying your existing pair has a fault? Or were you looking to bond two lines?

Sorry Dave, not being very clear. Our pair is faulty and is delivering 2M maximum. There are no spares as a 200 pair cable is going down and is already 25% faulty.

[Dave_ST220]

13m said:

Dave_ST220 said:

I'm confused, you already have BB? Why do you need a spare pair? Are BT saying your existing pair has a fault? Or were you looking to bond two lines?

Sorry Dave, not being very clear. Our pair is faulty and is delivering 2M maximum. There are no spares as a 200 pair cable is going down and is already 25% faulty.

Arh, I see. That's appalling service by them! basically you need an alternative service that does not rely on the phone network as any ISP will be using the same pair

[Skrambles]

We're having an absolute 'mare trying to get any broadband at all in our house - it's in a rural area. In October, BT agreed to provide basic internet by 13 November, but keep pushing it off - the nightmare is dealing with them to find out when we're actually get it and what the issue is. The house is in a village where there is no mobile coverage at all on any network. So, when I'm at home, I can't get any email at all etc.

BT keep sending texts saying either that broadband has been activated and asking for customer feedback (!) or saying that there has been a delay and that I will get an update in a few days or a couple of weeks.
When the BT people call, they either say that it has been activated and will work in 24 hours, or else fumble around saying there's a problem - either a 'technical fault' on their end, or a data integrity issue (meaning the order appears to have been completed but hasn't) or, the latest, a problem providing any adequate connection. Basically, we don't know where we're at and whether we'll ever get any broadband.

Anyone else experienced this and, if so, was it resolved??

[Who me ?]

Idea to the OP. I've no idea whether this still works,AS I ditched cable/landlines for phone/BB years ago . But, when I had a BT line, and got any sign of delay I always asked for problem to be referred to a LEVEL 1 manager .They hated this, as they had to log a complaint, and bump the fault up the list,as they only had so many days before their boss was asking why a referral to Level 1 had not been sorted.
As for delays in installation- I've always found best way was to get writing and ask why I was still waiting.