Superfast broadband is now available in Witham on the Hill
It’s official. Superfast broadband is now available in Witham on the Hill. This week Witham on the Hill cabinet 2 went live.
If you live in Witham on the Hill check out www.dslchecker.bt.com to see which cabinet you use and what speed likely to get.
We are half way there! How long between cabinet being built to being superfast, please
It’s live now! But most of the village will only get 19.6 Mbps. But still much better than the Up to 7.5 Mbps you got before.. This is due to the cabinet being just outside of the phone exchange, which is a good 1/2 mile from the centre of the village.
Hurrah for nothing (can you tell I’m ******!?).
In my mind this cab just shows how wrong FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) is in a rural setting. Why you ask? Well because this cabinet will deliver the 24mbps (download speed) our government has set as a target for Superfast broadband to less than 10 households. The vast majority of other customers (in Toft, Witham on the Hill and Manthorpe) will achieve less than 24mbps. This is because the line lengths of the copper wire from the cabinet to your home are too long. For some really unlucky customers (including myself) the line length is so long Openreach won’t even allow you to use/buy a VDSL2/Superfast package from an ISP and you are stuck with ADSL2. In other words won’t benefit at all.
Now why should this bother us and why should we expect better? Here are just a few reasons…
1. Our taxes have part-funded this upgrade for Openreach/BT
2. We’ve waited 5+ years for this upgrade and the only one we’ll get from Openreach/BT for the next 10+ years (google G.Fast if you want to know more)
3. The target of 24mbps only just about meets the requirements of your typical family household. Estimates for our future needs (2020+) are much higher than 24mbps, so as a rural community we’ll find ourselves in the slow lane again!
Finally, remember you’ll need to upgrade your package with your ISP to benefit which in some instances will involve paying a penalty to get our of your contract. The FTTC/Superfast packages are also typically twice as expensive as your older/slower ADSL2 based package. For example BT Infinity 1 is £15pm and normal Broadband is £8pm (excl. line rental). Remember there are also deals to be had by changing ISP, so shop around.
(cards on the table, I’ve been following these upgrades for a while and tried to start a project like B4RN in the local area called FibreLincs)