Getting fibre from an Internet Service Provider
Discussion
The national roll out of fibre to homes is taking some time in our area of Calderdale, West Yorkshire. Whilst it will be fantastic to enjoy fast Internet, I cannot see how they will get it to homes that are even marginally off of a road.
Can they take fibre over ground between existing telegraph poles or in protective conduit on ground next to structures such as dry stone wall? Or must it go under ground, requiring some excavations?
I made the mistake of moving from EE with a FTC connection speed of 17-20 MPS to a rural 5G Internet Service. Technically speaking, it is a revelation getting 200 MPS, except the Service goes off line for days at a time. It would be OK if the ISP, let's call them Slowline Communications (because they are not Quick at anything) got their backsides into gear with decent, honest, reliable, obtainable service, but they dont. Service was off for 6 days recently, but their messaging was 'it will be fixed any time now'. Working from home and paying £59/month, it is not good enough when losing Internet and VOIP together.
Im not really sure what to do. Are there any other ISPs in West Yorkshire that can offer rural 5G broadband? I dont think Starlink will work as there is a hill behind us and trees surrounding so line of sight to the sky is narrow.
At the moment, I have bought another Smarty SIM to use in a 4G router. Whilst no where near as fast, and unable to provide VOIP without a lot of messing, it seemed more reliable when using it in the past.
Any ideas for who to try as I want to leave Slowline Communications with indecent haste. They were an expensive mistake.
Can they take fibre over ground between existing telegraph poles or in protective conduit on ground next to structures such as dry stone wall? Or must it go under ground, requiring some excavations?
I made the mistake of moving from EE with a FTC connection speed of 17-20 MPS to a rural 5G Internet Service. Technically speaking, it is a revelation getting 200 MPS, except the Service goes off line for days at a time. It would be OK if the ISP, let's call them Slowline Communications (because they are not Quick at anything) got their backsides into gear with decent, honest, reliable, obtainable service, but they dont. Service was off for 6 days recently, but their messaging was 'it will be fixed any time now'. Working from home and paying £59/month, it is not good enough when losing Internet and VOIP together.
Im not really sure what to do. Are there any other ISPs in West Yorkshire that can offer rural 5G broadband? I dont think Starlink will work as there is a hill behind us and trees surrounding so line of sight to the sky is narrow.
At the moment, I have bought another Smarty SIM to use in a 4G router. Whilst no where near as fast, and unable to provide VOIP without a lot of messing, it seemed more reliable when using it in the past.
Any ideas for who to try as I want to leave Slowline Communications with indecent haste. They were an expensive mistake.
AB said:
Starlink might surprise you, it doesn't need a large line of sight to work.
My house is pretty low down, surrounded by trees but we managed to get it an unobstructed view, albeit a small one, and it's been great. You can order the gear and send it back if it doesn't work for you.
Thanks for reply. I downloaded an app from them, albeit a few years ago, that is used to scan the sky. It summised that the 'window' was too small for reliable service with Starlink.My house is pretty low down, surrounded by trees but we managed to get it an unobstructed view, albeit a small one, and it's been great. You can order the gear and send it back if it doesn't work for you.
I should add...there is no 5G mast just down the road. The 5G mast is about 3 miles away and there is a powered Zyxel antenna. Problem is, the mast keeps failing and whoever at Slowline gets sent to fix it, has failed to gain access to the mast. Its like "who has the keys? Bob, have you seen them recently?". Its an absolute farce.
We went FTTP about 2 weeks ago. PITA. Got sorted after a return visit by EE - or was it Openreach? The amusing/infuriating thing was for EE, PlusNet, BT and Openreach all trying to pretend the other company was nothing to do with them!
We finally had an EE bloke on the phone who was excellent. One tends to forget how many bits of kit in your house use an internet connection.
We finally had an EE bloke on the phone who was excellent. One tends to forget how many bits of kit in your house use an internet connection.
You should question whether it's actually reasonable to expect 200Mb/s in the boondocks.
If your work really needs that then maybe you are either in the wrong job or the wrong place.
From my mate's experience I would say Starling is well worth a try. If you can get the dish up on a chimney or similar it will probably work.
The alternative is to work hard at 4G, choose the right SIM, expensive antenna and router on a pole, understand the network a bit. Mates around here have got fairly solid 20+ Mb/s service this way. But another one gave up and went to Starlink last week. The trouble with mobile networks is that they keep changing. Personally I've had great data service in an outdoor location for two years running, then the third year, not workable until I got a second SIM from a different carrier.
If your work really needs that then maybe you are either in the wrong job or the wrong place.
From my mate's experience I would say Starling is well worth a try. If you can get the dish up on a chimney or similar it will probably work.
The alternative is to work hard at 4G, choose the right SIM, expensive antenna and router on a pole, understand the network a bit. Mates around here have got fairly solid 20+ Mb/s service this way. But another one gave up and went to Starlink last week. The trouble with mobile networks is that they keep changing. Personally I've had great data service in an outdoor location for two years running, then the third year, not workable until I got a second SIM from a different carrier.
.:ian:. said:
If your phone line is on a telegraph pole, which is likely if you are rural, then the fibre will too.
Trooli rolled out fibre to my little village last year, it didnt take long from the works to clear then main ducting in to road to the cbt boxes appearing on the telegraph poles.
This. Trooli rolled out fibre to my little village last year, it didnt take long from the works to clear then main ducting in to road to the cbt boxes appearing on the telegraph poles.
My mother recently has fibre installed and they simply replaced the phoneline.
Thanks everyone. As I said, we got 200 Mbps with our 5G provider - but only when we get internet! Its frustrating that the local mast seems to break either due to wind or sun. When it breaks....it takes days to get back online.
We live at the end of a road - a dead end with 3 houses. Our house and a neighbour are served underground. I assume that the old copper cable went from telegraph pole to telegraph pole, and then down underground. I have heard about blowing the fibre through the existing underground conduit, but I can see problems with that - it is probably full of water judging by the crackle on the copper line that is currently redundant.
I am awaiting an update from "Slowline" who have no apologised for the poor service and compensating me for the 4G Smart SIM I have just bought online.
We live at the end of a road - a dead end with 3 houses. Our house and a neighbour are served underground. I assume that the old copper cable went from telegraph pole to telegraph pole, and then down underground. I have heard about blowing the fibre through the existing underground conduit, but I can see problems with that - it is probably full of water judging by the crackle on the copper line that is currently redundant.
I am awaiting an update from "Slowline" who have no apologised for the poor service and compensating me for the 4G Smart SIM I have just bought online.
We re in a similar situation, we used to have a point to point solution from Slowline, which we ditched when a fast BT FTTC product became available a few years ago. Slowline have been promising FTTP for a couple of years and have got as far as putting cable in the to village to the first telegraph pole, then subsequent connections to properties will be made from the existing BT poles, on new cables of course. I ve had nothing but trouble with Slowline though, the first pole in our village is right at the end of our drive, and they came underground into the village, to connect to the pole and that meant they had to dig a fairly big trench right across the drive. They didn t tell us they were doing this, and didn t seem in any rush to fix it. That was a year ago and we still don t have FTTP, so I m about to order Starlink. Out BT FTTC is about 60mbps, so is ok, but both Starlink and Slowline are faster and cheaper, I just don t think I can deal with Slowline again.
Try the Starlink app again, they have a lot more satellites now, so you may be in luck.
Try the Starlink app again, they have a lot more satellites now, so you may be in luck.
Edited by Junglebert on Tuesday 28th April 14:59
Our village is half from poles, half underground. Contactors put the fibe infrastructure in some years ago (actually during lock down, they were apparently chased out of some places so they all came here).
In a few places they had to excavate due to ducts between poles being blocked. There's a cul-de-sac near me and they strung fibre from pole to pole to get down there.
As far as in know in the part of the village where the street cabling is underground it all went OK. In a nearby village our daughter has just had fibre installed. Bit of a drama as they couldn't find where the old cable entered the house, but it turned out the previous owner had plonked a hefty planter on top of it. From there they've put a jointbox (CSP, but much smaller then ours) and then run fibre a considerable distance around the front and down the side of the house (her house is split level bungalow, built gable end to the road).
In a few places they had to excavate due to ducts between poles being blocked. There's a cul-de-sac near me and they strung fibre from pole to pole to get down there.
As far as in know in the part of the village where the street cabling is underground it all went OK. In a nearby village our daughter has just had fibre installed. Bit of a drama as they couldn't find where the old cable entered the house, but it turned out the previous owner had plonked a hefty planter on top of it. From there they've put a jointbox (CSP, but much smaller then ours) and then run fibre a considerable distance around the front and down the side of the house (her house is split level bungalow, built gable end to the road).
Junglebert said:
. Out BT FTTP is about 60mbps, so is ok, .
I don't think you are on FTTP if you are only getting 60Mbps or that's only what you're paying for 
... If you are paying for 1Gbps I suggest you report it as a fault. I think the fastest 4k streaming service only transmits at 50Mbps , so what speed do you need , unless it's kids gaming.
Edited by The Three D Mucketeer on Tuesday 28th April 10:52
Our nearest village is 5 miles away, exchange is a bit further than that. City Fibre ran fibre out to us (three houses in the middle of a farm) late last year and connected it up about 6 weeks ago. It goes through a combination of ducts and overhead poles. Its now connected up to us and we get 900mbps up and down reliably. Nice to be off of 4G with terrible latency. We still have the 4G for failover if we need it as the contract runs until June but its likely we will bin it off completely then.
4G vs Fibre below. Ignore the blip in the fibre I was moving the ONT.
4G vs Fibre below. Ignore the blip in the fibre I was moving the ONT.
The Three D Mucketeer said:
I don't think you are on FTTP if you are only getting 60Mbps or that's only what you're paying for ... If you are paying for 1Gbps I suggest you report it as a fault.
I think the fastest 4k streaming service only transmits at 50Mbps , so what speed do you need , unless it's kids gaming.
I meant FTTC ... If you are paying for 1Gbps I suggest you report it as a fault. I think the fastest 4k streaming service only transmits at 50Mbps , so what speed do you need , unless it's kids gaming.
Edited by The Three D Mucketeer on Tuesday 28th April 10:52
Telewest dug up my area 30 years ago to install broadband and tv, around 3/4 years ago quite a lot more digging started to install more broadband, this time it was just down the path rather than branching off to each house, this means a lot of the properties are then fed via the existing poles and some new poles have been erected, seems a bit of a backward step considering those poles are no longer needed for phones, they should have been coming down not going up.
Little Lofty said:
Telewest dug up my area 30 years ago to install broadband and tv, around 3/4 years ago quite a lot more digging started to install more broadband, this time it was just down the path rather than branching off to each house, this means a lot of the properties are then fed via the existing poles and some new poles have been erected, seems a bit of a backward step considering those poles are no longer needed for phones, they should have been coming down not going up.
I know someone who had Telewest cable installed 30 years ago ... He spiked his lawn and went through the cable .... they had just dropped it in a slit in his lawn 
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